NEWS AND VIEWS
Maoriland Worker, Volume 6, Issue 217, 7 April 1915, Page 1
About this newspaper
NEWS AND VIEWS
Tho maiden speech of W. C. Anderson, a new Labour member of tho House of Commons, in the recent debate on food prices, was co ofr'ectivo that the Parliamentary correfpondent of tho "Times" paid him the compliment of saying that "he is clearly marked out for the future lo idcrship of tho (British) Labour party."
The yellow and red Spanish flag is the oldest of any used by the European Powers, as it was first flown in 1755. says "Stray Stories." The French tricolor was first used in 179o; the red English ensign, with tho present Union Jnck in the upper secticm, in 1801; the present Italian flag in 1848;
tho present Austro-Hungarian flag in ISO"; and the German flag in 1871. Tho Stars and Stripes of the United States is older than any of these, as it was adopted in 1777, and the only alteration it has undergone lias been the addition of a new star whenever a new State has been added to the Union. a * * ■:'-'*■'■ Some interesting comparisons between the conditions of the present war and those of the Napoleonic campaigns are made in the official organ of tho British Acetylene Association. There is exhibited at Malmaisoh, near Paris, a travelling desk that Napoleon always carried with him in the field. Part of the equipment is a, small reflector candlestick, in which still remains the unused portion of a tallow candle just as Napoleon left it; its dim light served as an illuminant for his despatch writing. To-day, thousands of acetylene apparatus are being sent to the front to be utilised in various ways — with lamps in innumerable tents, with headlights on transport vehicles, with searchlights to guard against surprise attacks by night, with cooking ranges on kitchen cars, where gas is supplied from a portable apparatus on the footboard; and, moreover, for surgical operations. * * * According to official statements given out in Berlin. 1279 German jurists have been killed in the present war. This total is made up of six professors, 275 judges, 240 lawyers, 334 assessors, and 424 barristers. * # * Exclusive of seamen, the number of work people in tlio United Kingdom reported as killed in the course of their employment during December, 1914, was 291. * * * Tho Kiel Canal, which is renlly called the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal, is Gl miles long—a littlo longer than the Panama Canal. It originally cost £7.500.000, but was recently reconstructed at a cost of £11.000,000. It is canablo of flouting the largest j Dreadnought in existence.
Items of Interest for the Working Class
In Britain to-day there are tens of thousands of soldiere' wives and dependents who are only receiving the same allotments and allowances as they received a month ago, and women whoso husbands went down on the Aboukir, Cressy and other ships of war are receiving a paltry eight shillings a week as compensation for the loss of their breadwinners, while thousands of women exist on less than seven shillings a week. * * * At a meeting of the Seismological Association at The Hague, Prof. Weichert asserted that his studies of the varying velocity of earthquake tremors passing through the Interior of the
globo lead to tho conclusion that the earth consists of a central core of iron or steel, about 6580 miles in diameter, surrounded with a stony shell 930 miles in thickness. Between the outer solid rind and tho inner layer pi rock, covering tho metallic core, he thinks there is a layer of liquid or plastic material lying a little less than 20 miles below the surface of the earth. . . v .• * * * Aii exciting light-weight competition took place in Adelaide recently. Several bakers competed.—Ex. * * * As a result of eight years of work in licensing reduction in Victoria, the board has closed 800 hotels, at a cost of £400,000 provided by tho liquor traffic itself. : ~, ~* * " After ha.ving been killed several times, in addition to being sent to the rear by his cranky dad, the German Crown Prince is now credited with a nervous breakdown. •"- •* * "Working Man" writes in "Lyttolton Times": —"At tho beginning of the war there was a great wave of patriotism from ono end of New Zealand to the other. All classes united in finding money to equip the men who volunteered for the front, and 1 say that tho working man gave as much, if not more, according to his income, than tho wealthy man. Every union decided not to bring any cases before the Arbitration Court for higher wages while the war lasted, hut to do their share to the best of their ability to fight the Germans. But I don't think they over dreamt of beine; taken in tho rear by iho flour trust and sugar trust and all other trusts that have the control of foodstuffs. If the extra nionev being charged for commodities, especially flour, was going to help tho men in the trenches in France, or the Belgians, or even the Government here, it would bo all right; but I contend it is going into the pockets of a. few individuals who make tho war an exouse for tho rise in prices. Thero is one food there is no monopoly of, and that is the food for thought. The working man has plenty of that to go on with."
