TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Press, Volume LI, Issue 8965, 1 December 1894, Page 6

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

As was mentioned some The time ago this colony has Fertilising been supplying New South of Wales, at the hitter's reRed Clover, quest, with ona or two lots of humble bees, the objeot being of. course the fertilisation by the insects of red clover. In this connection ia Bodalia correspondent of a Sydney paper writes as follows *—.— - " I notice from .New Zealand telegrams,

tha* tho Agricultural Department 0 f ~ ' ; -, colony is supplying the New $„ ni \. ii«J - Department with another cou«i.t ,ti»Jlt -' humble bees for-fertilising red clover' $ most people it is supposed that u'fo p"only insect capable of fertiliaioy h, -"* clover, but such is not the co«. t*s colony. Iv many places on the .South'!' this fodder plant grows luxnriam| nearly every head of bloom produuiVj? J ' In the Moruya district it has extensively for many years, and a cooß** able acreage is retained yearly f or «es i » - have for several years purchased fronv'.), local farmers a quantity of tho seed a have found it, no doubt owing to it h* naturalised, to givo better satisfuctio-i t\ °* tho imported seed. As red clover » n vuf able ingredient in pastures devoted ehu to dairying or fattening, especially jn A \ tricts where there is a good raim«[| v . well for graziers aud farmers to knew v,'! it produces seed abundantly withmu It aid of tho humble bee." " tn °at> The truth is that a good deal more vahiahu been ati ached to tho labours of the hamb'' bee in the direction of fertilising red olov** than is warranted by the circumstances 0 » the case. People have heard so much of the immense benefits conferred by thU fa, bee upon New Zealand farmers, by enahlij them to harvest large quantities of cloy«! seed of excellent quality, that it h a , co to be au understood thing that without their aid it would he impossible to"prodm* the seed. This we are assured by a aw. reliable authority is far from being thaease As a matter of fact good red clover was grown and saved in the NeLon-oistrJci twenty years ago, and was grown and might have been saved, but we believe wna not, i B Sonthbridge at least fifteen years »■«, Probably such instances might ho UrgL added to, but of the truth of the two Cii L mentioned we have indisputable knowledge It was, however, generally believed tbatfei clover would not seed in this colony, therefore apparently no efforts were made to learn whether or not this belief was well grounded. The probabilities are that even at that time had clover paddocks been eitrt up for seed, as they are now a-days, it would have been seen that at least a fair percsat> age of fertilised heads of seed could "have bsen saved. The experiment was not nude, and practically nothing was done until th« humble baa h*i been acclimatised, ft must not be thought that no credit is due to the bee ; on the contrary there is no room for doubt that it has done a great deal to* wards making clover seed growing a pro. Stable adjunct to the farmer's crops. From this point of view we could do with ajgreal many more than we have. We only wish l<r point out that all the credit of trade is not due to it. as so many people suppose. How the clover which Bee'ded before the introduction of the bee was fer. ' tilised we canuot undertake to explain. Certain scientists hold that the legumiftosa are generally self-fer tilised,and the wind, " and other insects than bees, probably had a share iv the work.

Tub announcement that t The new Company has- been Panama formed in Paria to compete CanaL tho Panama. . Canal, 'will m, doubt .nrprise those who renuiiitii<iiiiiiiiDFiiiiiiiMa.i the trial of the Directors of the old COM' pany. The wholesale corruption whijU wa* then proved against the officials would have been enough, one would have thonshfc-fy disgust every Frenchman and effaetaal'j prevent new life being ius tilled into til? ' dry bones of what has been regarded from the very first in many quarters as a ' chimerical Bcheme, According to • a correspondent of the Age t -who writes from Colon, the headquarters of the work on the canal on the Atlantic side, such barehvea 1 thieving was,,never, before or since.' "For iO.OOO cubio metta of ground excavated the fortnightly cUt«., merits credited the contractor with 100.000. Had judicious management, coupled witjiT ~ honest employees, characterised the seven years' actual building of the canal, ths money stolen alone would have been sufficient to have almost completed the work. About 35,000,0b0d01, was spent on tbs - works, excluaire of machinery, and fully that much more'was usod in bribes, *$d swindles, which the investigations in Paris a year or so ago disclosed, bringing the total amount spent in one way and another on one of tbs greatest undertakings of thecen- ' tury up to the fabulous sum of dol. (£16,000,000)." The bond and ihare indebtedness, together with tbe ftocamttlatiou of interest charges is tali to have amounted to the appalling sum of nearly seventy-four millions sterling. And for all this money, not to meritioaJths frightful loss of human life, what is thereto show? The total length of the canal, when, completed, was to bs fifty-four miles,' Oa " the Panama side the canal is said to bs navigable for four miles, and cutting and excavating have been carried on to jtho hill of Culebra, another ten miles. This hill presented one of the great difficulties ia the -. construction of the canal, as a long ravlae 350 ft in depth had to be cut through it, Oil the Atlantic side ships can. traverse the canal for some twelve miles, though"***' , cavatioua have been made in patches for-, another eight miles. Thus out of ft* total length of fifty.four miles'*>«*; sixteen have already been complete Yot the promoters. of tho new Company estimate that the expenditure of aoothet two and a half millioqs sterling will «mM* the canal to be finished., Was ever attch a fatuous scheme put before tbs public?

Brides ' the natural di%ol* Wasted tics in the way q< tittttft*. Work. etruotion of so long water highway, there are otberfof which the old Company bad a bitter «• perience, and from which the new. one *s hardly likely to be free. One of the greatest/ of these is the Chagres River, thaS-****'-,;, of which, owing to its clots proxTrnfty';*? to the line of the canal and Ha uselaWtf*";' for navigation, have to be turned. -,V.fr "It was this river that may have practically caused the . work in 1888. Daring the diy se«ae«# that year great walls of rock and mdsEpi. costing fabulous sums, had bwn x bnUft?||pv were thought sufficiently strong, for-*„t§||-; at all event*, to resist the flood watsw»«, r this stream. Oue of the falls—whioh here on the isthmus seem J* o * like rain anywhere else, but rather «*■•-< if Heaven itself had been colUtolm tha watery forces or years,- ***» then suddenly turned loose its drench' ing cargo over the earth, not n* t showers, but in one mighty aoeet, swamping towns and villages, and &»*£ which, but a few minutes previous; "«?-* N dry creeks, with a raging torrent of roabieS waters—caused tho Chagres to come do* B * ■ sweeping everything in its path. **? destroying the dams, whioh melted, before the onward rush of water as a cube of sugar doea in a cup of tea. The labour oi thousands of men* and the oxpenoiturs *»„- millions of dollars were wiped«ut to***- t time than it takes to record the fact- hsrftVf vl .- r The Company, already on its lasM*W , could not withstand tho new with the bursting of the great Chagt*t,da»w tbe Company burst also!" ■ ---..si. The last six years, during whichi no work. has been done on the canal, have" wrought dreadful havoo on those parts whioh were. - completed. The work on the Colon #«* whioh, when the Company auspeuded,J«< v in good condition, ,hjn fallen uitWt«rJM«' disrepair. The tropical rains have away thebanks and filled up the dredgf -* parts with 3«Wa. _. * - _- „ F p;.: <,* C ••All of the work finished eight, ora^J years ago will have to be gone over ?' ?t a leas degree. The completed fi>led op, and in many initances new

have been cut by the canal. Where in 1888 a steamer with a 25 feet draught could have easily ploughed her way, there is nothing now to indicate that that much water ev«r stood there. Mud, trees—the heterogeneous mass which comes down the ;- Clwgres—has filled up the ditch v the water has run off into creeks and gufties cut by the floods, and instead of 30 meters surface of water —the width of the canal—a steam- ••' ing fe'id ditch of boiling mud lies in its place."

The sides of the canal are in many places lined with costly machinery of every conceivable kind, now lying so much absolutely useless lumber, rusting in the mud and sand and overgrown with the rank tropical vegetation of six years' growth. The > machinery thus wasted is estimated to have cost over half a million, and for all practical purposes, save that of affording a striking object lesson as to the methods pursued by the officials, every piece of it might just as well have been thrown into the sea. It is a tight, as the writer says, which furnishes at once in some part the why and wherefore of the bankruptcy of the Company. Tire number of men emA ployed on the Canal in the Dreadful palmy days of unlimited Death Roll, money will probably never be known. The works were a veritable microcosm of the world's people. West Indians, Chinese, Lascars, African negroes, Italians and Greeks formed the bulk of the rough unskilled labourers, America, England, France and Germany furnishing the skilled labour. The best positions were, of course, held by Frenchmen. For a time it was a perfect Tom Tiddler's ground.

" The wages paid in all branches of the mechanic arts were such as men never received before or since. The diamond fields of Kimberley, South Africa, are often mentioned in conjunction with Panama as being the only two places ever offering such oppoitunities to the mechanic to make a little fortune in a short time by means of his trade, but Kimberley in the heyday of its boom never paid by one-third the princely irnns which were paid on the Panama Canal."

,Bnt there was another side to the picture. Such was the frightful unhealthiness of the -climate and the work that the mortality among ail classes was estimated at nearly 60 per cent, per annum! " Thou- ■- sands died whose corpses were thrown just ; as they were into holes on the right of way. .At Monkey Hill, a couple of miles from Colon, was the headquarter graveyard for the Atlanticend. Here holes scarcely twofeetdeep 'were dug to receive the corpses. They were collected at all points of the works, carried to the nearest station of the railroad, and there thrown into yellow box cars set apart for the hauling of the dead to the ghastly dumping grounds." The process of burial was too horrible to be described, but it may be mentioned that by the use of a sliding bottom the same coffin was used - many times over. It is small wonder that 'undersuch a system of interment the death .rate" reached the extraordinary height Mentioned above.