TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Press, Volume LXII, Issue 12204, 26 May 1905, Page 4

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

The Tariff CommisCandle Trade sion in Sydney obConfessions. tuined some remarkably candid statements about the candle trade at the end of last week. A member of a firm of candle manufacturers admitted that the statement on a label of his firm that this particular brand had received fourteen different medals at the Calcutta Exhibition, was not correct. Apparently tho witness saw nothing very unusual in this, for ho said to his interrogator, "You don't take seriously ©very medal that appears on a label. do you?" to which the answer was: "Not after hearing your observations. The public, continued witness, liked to see medals on a label, for with such adornment tho package looked more like an imported article. It was necessary to have a pretty label, and all sorts of medals-a shilling, half a crown and sixpence-people did not know what they were. Working men had often a silly prejudice against the locally-made article. He would not dare to put tho name of his firm on a package, for wholesale and retail people wanted an article which could not bo traced, and he was afraid there was * good deal of sharp dealing among business people, and that they often liked to sell a local article as an imported one. His firm once sent a sample of a lino of candles to a merchant in Melbourne, and received th* reply: "I like the label, but you must take your nam© off. Witness admitted that the practice of sending out a nameless label was undesirable, but it was unavoidable in tho face of tho prejudice which existed against any colonial-made article. The manufacturing director of another company declared that Australian candle-makers —owing to the necessity of meeting foreign competition—were ahead of the world, but lamented the prejudice against the local article. Australians were brought up to look upon Australian manufactures with contempt, and i to regard anything with a foreign label as neoessarily very much better than anything produced locally. Foreign manufacturers could not beat the loca'. makers either in quality or price, but the people would-not buy local candles because of their "sentimental prejudices." "I have heard," said witness, "a politician say on the public platform that ho would never knowingly use an article of Australian production." The same witness confessed that bis firm did not acknowledge their low-class candles, because they were ashamed of them. Such prejudices probably exist to a greater or less extent in every colony, but there is something particularly humourous in the Ausi tralian working man raising the cry of Australia for the Australians, and at the same time preferring to buy a foreign candle from his grocer. The transference on A Great April 2nd of the adBritish ministration of Achievement. Uganda, British East

Africa, and British Somaliland, from the Foreign Office to the Colonial Office, has led tho "Daily Mail" to review shortly the history of these territories since they first came under British influence. Events move very swiftly in Africa, und in . these places civilisation has done excellent work in a comparatively 6hort time. The modern history of East Africa dates from 1872, when Sir Bartle Frere induced the Sultan of Zanzibar to prohibit the annual export of 20,000 slaves. When in 1894 and 1895 East Africa and Uganda became Foreign Office Protectorates, they enjoyed "the rudiments of civilisation and the minimum of development," but the Foreign Office set to work steadily and cautiously, and the results of its labours are easily seen to-day. The monumental idea of the Uganda railway ensured us control of the Great Lakes and the head waters of the Nile. To-day the railway actually pays its way, and the taxpayer has the satisfaction of knowing that it not only strengthens our position in the heart of Africa, but by expediting means of transport has made a white man's land possible thero, and has carried civilisation to the remotest tribes. Much blood has been spilt and much money wasted, but the results have been encouraging. There is peace in all three protectorates, and there is not the least friction with the neighbouring countries. The material and moral condition of the native has been vastly improved. "Possibly the Eastern natives never possessed the crude paganism and heathenism of their Western brothers, but in any case the advent of the white man has, under Foreign Office control, proved beneficial. Physically—save, alas, for the dread sleeping sickness which still baffles investigation—the native is able to appreciate many benefits. At any rate, we have kept him from contact with any spirituous liquors of the white man. Many diseases have, too, been lessened, his standard of comfort has been increased, his rights have everywhere been respected, his treatment—judicial end administrative—has been scrupulously fair, and his taxation exceptionally light." While Uganda is a country possessed of great natural wealth, capable of being exploited by European capital working through native labour, East Africa has great potentialities for the white man. There is a steady inrush of colonists of a good class, and " the rise in the standard of local prosperity is indexed in such things ss elec-

trio light, a magnificent steamboat service on the lake, comfort on the trains, rapidity of the mails, extension of roads and telegraphs, abundance of European commodities and even luxuries, and the publication of a bright and energetio paper." All this has been done in ten years, or little more, and we may be pardoned if we doubt whether any other Power could, in the same circumstances, have shown a similar record.