NEWS, VIEWS, and OPINIONS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIV, Issue 303, 20 December 1913, Page 13

NEWS, VIEWS, and OPINIONS.

The most troublesome predatory anijnals of the national forests ot" the United States are wolves, one of which is estimated to destroy £120 worth of stock annually, or £000 for a wolf family. The wild animals that do serious harm are being gradually killed off, and the forest service last year destroyed 306 bears. 3.041 coyotes. 133 mountain lions. <)2 lynx, 533 wild cats, H4 wolves, and 97 wolf pups. A.-ide from the bounties the forest rangers receive on some of these animals, the furs have soniP value—bear skins, for instance, being worth £4 to £30.

Speaking at Innerleithen a few weeks ago, Mr. Harold f.'j.\ urged the necessity of caution in accepting -Mr. Lloyd George's figures and prophecies. The Jd tax on the supposed value of undeveloped land, he reminded his audience, was to pro\ide £040.000 in three years, to go towards the cost of old-age pensions and Dreadnoughts. The actual yield had b- n only £22,1.000. while the ,-ost of adniinistrati n and collection had been £1.303.000—a net loss to the State of £1.170.000. Nor was that all. For the Liberal party, which came into power in lOOti pledged to economy and retrenchment, had in their seven years if office increased the civil expenditure of the country by something like ,£50,000,000 a rear.

"Pouring oil on troubled waters" is ine of lhe many metaphors which we have derived from the life of the sea. tfdly enough, although this device was known to Aristotle and practised by Pliny, it fell into complete disuse for -tiindreds of years. It became 'practical politics' again some thirty years ago. ivh&n the Admiralty prescribed the best means of using oil for calming hhe waves, but, apparently, was forgotten again until Captain B.irr summoned the Narragansett to his a-id, and thus saved the majority of the passengers in the banting Volturno. Professor Ray Lankester, writing in the "Daily Telegraph," -states that so small' a quantity as a pint an hour is sufficient to secure a zone of calm water round a ship— •uffioierit space 'for boats to be launched in with safety.

Less than a halfpenny a head is the Cost of the school children's dinner provided during the winter months by the London Vegetarian Association. Miss Cole, secretary of the c-.aociation, told an "Express" representative that several hundreds of children are fed by the association every year, and only those who can afford it are requested to pay a halfpenny a day. Of course, we could not do it at the price if we were to provide them with a meat dinner, she

stated, "but, giving them a purely vegetarian diet, we are able to provide the % best quality of everything. The halfpenny dinner consists of a thick soup made of pulse and vegetables with plenty of the best wholemeal bread to eat with it, and a current pudding made with nut-butter instead of suet. We

find that the children greatly enjoy the meal, and they do not seem to want meat at all.

Dr Charle3 Goring is the latest criminologist to combat the theories of Lombroso and to assert that there is no such thing as a criminal type. Dr. Goring admits that there are some persons who are naturally criminals, but he denies that their criminality shows itself by physical stigmata. Seeing that criminality is a purely artificial distinction, it is hard to understand why nature should aid in the classification. Our social system has seen fit to select a small number of the almost innumerable ways of being wicked and to label them as criminal. The other ways are not labelled as criminal, although they may actually involve a much greater moral turpitude. It is not the function of society to prevent people from being wicked, but only to prevent them from being wicked in such ways as are particularly prejudicial to the rest of the community. There was a time when it was criminal to read the Bible. It is still criminal to do some things of which the moral sense may highly approve. We can hardly expect nature to give her sanction to our artificial distinctions.

Except in parts of the Continent of Europe, fears of the hatpin peril have not hitherto gone beyond the stage of amiable protest. Now a Court of Law i» London has set a precedent under which unprotected hatpins are officially numbered imong dangerous implements, and render their wearers liable to pay damages. In the case in question *a young lady, whose hatpin inadvertently scratched the face of another lady has been ordered to pay £3. It is a pretty stiff sum to pay for the privilege o"f fastening a hat in the manner that fashion dictates, but the penalty is not more severe than the inconvenience suffered by tbe victim. Women will now understand that if they insist on mingling their millinery with a bristlin" chevaux-de-fri-e, they may be called upon to pay for any damage they may do. Clearly, so long as hats are fixed as at present, there is opportunity for the invention of a satisfactory protector that will avert the pointed danger Xot everyone has the resource of the Continental lady. who. on being challenged promptly affixed a potato to the business end of her hatpin, and thus averted the penalties of the law.

At what point -in the social scale does a m.r-- woman become a lady? This interesting question is raised in a letZ,J° • Lundnn jo,!rnal - whi <*. doubtless in a moment of haste, had casually described a, a woman one Who m dying left £17.000 behind her An indignant relative drew attention to the matter, and urged that the term woman" was an -improper description ot one whose friends had held "-rood positions in Stratford-on-Avon." ft is very -ad. Yet there are mPn and women with good claims to be entitled ladie- and gentlemen, whose bank accounts fall far short of £17.000. Money. however, has nothing to do with the matte-. In all essentials, a man who earns his hread on the footplate of an engine may he a gentleman: a woman whe soruh? floor? for a living may be a lady. The true lady and the true gentleman are they who pessess a fragrance of thought, and habit, and manner which humble circumstances only make the more conspicuous. Thp incideni illt-strates the narrow meaning that ,n- become attached to the word woiiij-i u'-iiea :ioc:s and philosophers have ,--i_- since used to denote all that k highest aad best in humanity.

To make the Panama Oanal zone a free city and (free port like- Hamburg, Copenhagen and Hongkong, without import or export duties, is the suggestion of W. D. Boyce, a Chicago publisher, who has .made a 6tudy of commercial possibilities in Latin-America: The Cnite-d States has on the isthmus about 237,000 acres of land, and- has spent hundreds of millions of dollars in creating the central point of the two Americans, the two -oceans, the Far East and the Far West. Here is the ideal site for a great free city and free port, where the enterprise of all nations would build factories and warehouses. It -would ■be, as Mr. Boye6 says, "a- wotWs department store."

Scotland's last stage coach has made its last run. Recently it made the distance between Campbelltown and Tarbert as usual, and then gave way to the modern motor. For over 40 years the coach has carried the mails and passengers over this wild part of Argyllshire, and it is notable that during that period not a single letter has gone astray. Only once in that time did the driver fail to complete his double journey. On that occasion the coach was snowed up in returning. The passing of this, the last stage coach in the northland, seems like the end of a very ancient institution, but it is by no means so ancient as it seems. At the close of the eighteenth centusr stage coaches were still rare beyond TSdintmrgli. Not until 1806 were they tried between Perth and Inverness, and regular mail coaches between Inverness and Aberdeen were not established before 1811.

Canada seems to be peculiarly successful in her immigration policies. ■ No less than 402,432 persons entered the Dominion during the fiscal year ending March 31. In point of naoionality Canada's new citizens are in marked contrast with those now coming to the United" States. The sources for the last year were: British. 150.542; United States, 139.000; other countries, 112,881. In round figures Canada's total arrivals since the opening of the present century have numbered 2.700.000, of whom 1,000.----000 were British. 750,000 from the United States. 165.000 from Austria-Hungary; 88.000 from Italy, 67.000 from Russia, 61,000 Jewish, and 31,000 from Germany. Canada not only gets a liberal supply of immigrants, but they come from the best parts of the Old World, while the number emigrating from the United States is certainly significant. Perhaps it would be worth while to ascertain why we lose so many people to Canada and also why we fail to get the best classes of people from the Old World. The inquiry should not be a very difficult one.

The man of 60 is under newspaper fire in the United States as a useless member of society, whose presence is one of the most serious obstacles to the progress of civilisation. A New York paper which has opened its columns to the vagaries of the sexagenarian is receiving more letters than it tan publish on the subject, and other newspapers have joined in the discussion. The primary demand is that every man over 60 should be deprived of the vote. It is claimed that when a man has passed the GO. mark he is too cautious and conservative for modern life; he is never open to conviction, and his influence always is cast for perpetuation of the methods of his own youth, regardless of whether they he good, bad, or indifferent. Eliminate from any control over a nation its men who are in or beyond their sixth decade, and progressive, optimistic youth will rule, dominated just sufficiently by intellects between 40 and 00, which, though matured, are not yet stagnant and opposed to change. Any man who is beyond 60. and who is neither obstinate nor averse from being influenced by argument, is said to be an exceptional citizen, and too rare to be considered in the discussion.