TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Press, Volume LXII, Issue 12364, 1 December 1905, Page 6

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Thero is a possibility The Slandered of our having been Moon. unjust to the Moon.

Its feurfaoe has been generally pictured as a lifeless, dreary waste, and the satellite itself as a kind of burnt-out cinder. But Professor William H. Pickering seeks to dispel this gloomy vision with the theory that tho Moon, although not exactly luxuriant, is anything but the lifeless mass wo have supposed. According to a writer in the "Pall Mall Magazine," Professor Pickering's investigations havo led him to assort that the Moon has an atmosphere. The professor goes further, an«* claims tliat the Moon supports organic life. He claims to havo detected what he believes to be vegetation, basing his belief on the presence of > pts that vary in brightnees in a way quite adequately accounted for by tho supposition that they are plants undergoing the processes of growth and decay. But if there is any vegetation, it must spring up and die in a single day, because no plant— a', least no terrestrial plant—could survive the bitter lunar night, with the temperature nearly a hundred below zero. The lunar day is, however, equivalent to about fifteen of our days. Professor Pickering has ako gathered evidence which leads him to believe that somo of the supposedly extinct craters of the Moon are active, and lhat many of the mountains aro covered with ice and snow. The white lining of many of the craters, the whito sheen that oaps the loftier peaks, tho 6trange fading away and reappearance of bright stains as the Sun rises and sets, the silvery threads that radiato from some craters and gradually melt away as they extend into the valleys beyond, have long puzzled astronomers, but the ice and snow theory accounts for tEem most simply end most satisfactorily. The writer of the article warns us to avoid, in the meantime, rashly judging the Moon as a totally inactive planet, devoid of all organic life, and utterly changeless. We havo still, he points out, much to learn about it, and most of the theories oi the Mcon are based on data collected at a time

n-hen objects loss than one or two miles wido could not be seen., The later and more powerful instruthonts enable us to distinguish hillocks five hundred feet in width. An English novelist, who sent his hero and heroine through spaoe on their honey-moon, made them call at the Moon, and introduced them to a world almost cold and doad, but still containing a few miserable* rem .-.ants of 0 lunar race. Perhaps future investigations may show that this gentleroan's imagination was closer to the truth than astronomers' theories of a lifeless world.

Mr Randolph Bedford, who A Copra has reoontly been on* a Coup. cruise to Now Guinea and tho adjoining islands, tells a story of a copra coup, in which moral satisfaction outweighed material gain. As has already been mentioned in these columns, all tho planters in the Bismarck group havo agreed to ship all their copra with the Norddeutschcr Lloyd Company at a rato of freight so low that only the German Government's heavy subsidies make it possible. The agreement camo into force on October Ist. At the end of Septembor tho Moresby, of Burns, Philp and Co.'s fleet, was iv tho vicinity, and sacrificing the freight of a quarter of a million oubio feet of timber for tho Solomons, mado a dash for Herbertshohe on tho chanco of gettiug 250 tons of copra which lay there, and which after September 30th would be freight for tho Norddeutseher Lloyd. Steaming her best and helped by tho south-east monsoon, sho got thero in time, had the cargo on board with a few hours to spare, and sailed away with £250 worth of freight, which would have gone to the Germans on the morrow. Mr Bedford is strongly anti-German in his views, and ho fears there will bo trouble in these parts before very long: "In Australia," ho says, ''the German is a good, thrifty, productive citizen; in the tropics the mere difference of climate gives the Australian the upper hand if he is subjected to fair opposition only." Ho thinks trouble may come from the. miners in New Guineiu. Tho goldfields in British Now Guinea have been traced over the border, and trouble may be looked for as soon as tho British miners invade the Germans 1 territory. The Germans are not developing their own mineral resources, and a miner "on gold" will not give up his chances for tho existence of an imaginary line, and if interrupted he will not abandon his claim except to a vastly superior force. Already there is irritation. "The other day a German steamer bringing to Australia from Hong Kong th© returned crews of two Australian steamers which had been sold to Japan put in at Samarai to land rice, and the Australians marked their, bitter appreciation of the German ship by cheering until they wero hoarse at their first sight of the English flag since leaving Hong Kong and passing through Germany's pos_essions in tho Pacific." The Germans, says Mr Bedford, are constantly finding colonisation more and more difficult. Climate, Nature, the Papuan and the Pacifio Islander, all are fighting unconsciously against them. But there is the fortified' base of Simpsonhaven "to menace peaoeful British and Australian occupation of tho north-eastern Pacific. Considering the long strained relations of Germany and England in the old world, the armament of Germany in the Southern Hemisphere is an event no Australian who loves Jiis country and his race can witness unmoved." , .

# From the point of view of Art in self-interest alone, it b Bondage, not • surprising tliat most

Russian writers, artists and musicians are Liberals, for the censorship restrictions under -which, they chafo aro quite grotesque. At a recent inhering of the literary and artistia circlo of Moscow, some choice instances wero given of tyrannical censorship. The stage, for instance, must not deal with any thomo that concerns the Government, the courts of justice, tho police, the Jewish problem, the condition of higher, education, in efliort, anything that is of social or political interest. Every department of the administration has its soy in the ptoduction of a play. It was thirty years be-, fore Tbktoi obtained permission to produce "Tsar Theodore," and before Gorky'js " Bourgeois " was licensed it won rehearsed before all the members of tlio censorial oommittee and representatives of tho other departments, who insisted on corrections being made. The Church has unlimited authority to : suppress everything tliat it may deem to be detrimental to the spiritual .-welfare of its beloved children. The comio opera, " Poor. Jonathan," was not permitted at Yaroslav because the name happened to be Jonathan! . Every potty official of a provincial town can deal with any dramatic production as he thinks fit. Thus a police inspector of a third-rate town excised the reference to tho Emperor in a. comedy which had been on the stage for twenty-five years, declining to allow tho Emperor's name to be mentioned in 6uch a profane pLaeo as on the stage. Pictures are censored in the same way. Many of the works of Russian masters aro not allowed to be exhibited. Poflenoff was permitted to exhibit his famous picture, " Christ- and the Sinner," on condition that the. cap on Christ's head be taken off. In short, it is the express purpose of the censor to render every artistic work as colourless and meaningless as possible, and banish from the publio gaze any, painting that tends to impress a thoughtful beholder. It is just the same with music. Rubinstein suffered much annoyance from tho "corrections" ond "improvements" made.in one of his operas, because it contained several church-like melodies introduced by tha dhorua in the garb of monks. His religious operas are absolutely prohibited. An opera by another composer was not permitted because in it a student made love to a minister's daughter—conduct highly offensive to tho Church. But perhaps the most amusing instance of bemsorial folly is the prohibition of a translation of Lester Ward's " Dynamic Sociology." Tlie name suggested to tho censor's mind the two things most dreaded by the Russian official — socialism and dynamite.