EARTH AND LIFE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 103, 2 May 1936, Page 19

EARTH AND LIFE.

TEN MILES OF SPACE. HOW TO SETTLE DISPUTES. EXISTENCE FROM THE SOIL. (By E. J. HOWARD, M.P.) Listen, Therese: Five miles above the earth, and. five miles below the earth, there is no life. Around the earth there is a thin layer of what is termed soil, wrapped around and tucked in like a a cold night. Man, birds, beasts and insects get their three meals a day from this thin blanket of soil.

If this | old globe on which we live gave an extra shiver or shake it would be possible for the sea to wash most oi this soil into the. deep holes that, ws call tie ocean and leave us high and dry and starving. Now, our old planet rotates on it's axis and gives us day and night and, in addition, it rotates in its orbit in a leaning position, which produces the seasons. The pull of the moon and sun on this 'leaning top causes the axis to rotate conically, and it wants only one of those junks of matter floating about in space to get between us and the sun to settle the whole question of compulsory arbitration and the Factories and the building of the Napier to Gishorne railway. So don't take yourself too seriously, Therese, and imagine Mr. Mussolini is the cause of it all.

It is tie same old Sol that made the green,grass spring up and give this old earth a mantle as dainty as a woman a shawls It is this same old Sol who put a blanket of fur on the bear's back; and feathers in the bird's tail. It ® this same old Sol that makes bananas grow in the Samoan Islands ana kumaras in the winterless North. I am a sun worshipper, Tberese! The Sun's Rays. There are four million people a^' e to-day who will have returned to tue earth before this time next year, ana they are going to die from a disease ealled'tuberculosis. One million of,these live in the British Empire. And m O6 of them will die because they have caused through want of the sun s rays. Be careful, bo careful! Hold your horses, Therese, because an equal number will die with something W®. te J. r ' nicer, and surely "that ' disease is used through want o ftho sun s raysi i 't who knows? Our doctors sp _ irs in a study of these annoying Mtie •illi that cause tuberculosis and til .uiits that cau:-e cancer j aad tnej

are not prepared to says definitely why or wherefor. And bo, perhaps, we, in oyr ignorance, should, tread lightly and return to our soil* with dignity.

f; In the beginning thei'e ■ was no soil. But there were also 110 birds or beasts or insects or men. No Hitlers, no Mussolinie, no Napoleons. But there was a. glacial period of "about a hundred thousand years. In the early stage of this , old . flying ball we Call the earth there were several of these periods, each caused by the same mechanical action ot conical motion termed the procession of the equinoxes. But as ttie sun is now in the centre of the ellipse and it will take thirteen thousand years before we get to the. end of the swing, we need not Our learned men know, then, that the ice cap at the North Pole has reached down and covered Europe, and even England. It is only in our time. at least in the time of our grandfathers, that the ice at the South. Pole has retreated sufficiently to penmt man to go further south than he was able to go two hundred years ago. So then, at first this earth came out „f the Sste »« .olid T1 ? X crumbled this rock and turned it into soil The melting of the ice forme rivers and streams, and distributed the soil and vocation »PP» h 'f t «^ 4 rO S pounM tle roci into soil and insects appeared. " Weathering." , +Ilf> i, ac k of the cathedral th action can be s'een going on to-da^ See the stone ma s°n would term , , fc becQmes will appear breathes and takes something from the sun soil and enriches it. Ont action also goes on, but because the farmer robs the m so\hl air crumbles the stone on the So the ai dl and cru mbles it back of the catneuia at more quickly whe e air we term There is somethin 1 agent carbonic acid g a ®>' stone. On the farm plough and the plant needs to feed on. ;ies Let us start again then in *».»' fl S e "''we nv« within this there is no ?> fe - , is a thin layer ten mile .lnmt. Iheie is e ,. r . Of What is beasts and! face we live on. - » foo(1 on t ] lis "TVSwSllnd we lave ro.igMy °f tii. "native grass... S,oo»'a™ are »44 ?hS»'S a'stber era*.

We live mostly, then, on grass or the products of grass. The animals convert the grass into meat and milk, and cream and butter. We live on grass. We clothe ourselves, in the product of graes. Wo'stand as a wool-producing country fifth in the world and third in the Empire. 'We are little country, and we have more than our share of that thin layer of soil. Everything tliat we need, almost, can he grown from that soil. We are not the lost ten tribes. We are God's chosen or favoured people, and when we get. rid of that demon or devil termed compound interest, it will be God's Own Country.