TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 12852, 10 July 1907, Page 6

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

A late Government InspocThe tor of Mince in tho TransUand vaal (supplies some interestiStriko. ing information to th-> "Daily Mail'" about the strike of white miners on tho Rand, of which, we have heard so much lately by cable. These miners, as a rule, are simply petty contractors of Chinese and Kaffir labour, men who are sufficiently skilled to bo allowed to set up and tako charge of drills. Much of their time three whito overseers can spend sitting <:bwn and emoking their pipes; anJ watching the Kaffirs or coolies work Ono of the causes of the strike was tho wish of the companies that thi> men should superintend three drills at a time instead of two, tho men declining on the ground that their health would be endangered by tho greater amount of dust. Tho writer, however, thinks it an absurd objection, Oo it 15 the native or coolio miner who stands up to tlio machino. Tho ordinary skilled la'ourer is paid £1 a clay, and it' he is tin-married ho can live- simply for about £10 or £12 a month. if ho is married and has i small family, the amount is nearly k'oubled. that there is not much or a i...irt;in. Hut if he 16 working on contract in i liarge of drills, he may earn from £40 to £100 a month. As a matter of fact, the Kaffirs and the coolk« arc in a bett-er position with

their £3 to £4 a month and keep, than tho white miners not on contract. The Kaffir's clothing bill is naturally loir. This ex-official has no sympathy with the grievances of the white miners working on contract. He eayis that while nearly the whole -white population of Johannesburg has euffered by the depression, tho white man in the mine- has actually profited, for his wages have remained constant and th« price of living has gone dmvn. He declares that if many of the Ran] mines are to pay dividends, either the oost of living will have to be reduced to as to allow of a reduction in wa"e.« to white miners, or more work will have to l»o got out of them. The latest figures show that while some 15.000 skilled labourers absorbed £G,500.C00 in one year, the labour of nearly nine times as many unskilled workmen, Kaffirs and coolies, cost only £4,000 ..QUO. Tho Mr Lowell whoso exCanals pedition to tho Andes has on photographed canals on Mars. Mars, is a wealthy American who has made a hobby of this particular planet. It us a little more than thirty yeans since the great Italian Schiaparelli startled tho world with tho news that he had ue tected on Mars regular markings whL-h he called canals. Tho announcement was received with incredulity. In tho early nineties, after the ol*ervations of iSrhiaparelli had been confirmed by two American observatories, Mr Lowell founded, for tho express purpose o) watching Mars, a splendidly equipped observatory in Arizona. His incessant observation of the planet confirmed him in hio belief that the canals were there, ami in 18! Jo ho published his first great work deal ing with them, but only to encounter incredulity. Ho worked for another twelve years, and then, in the present year, published a eecond work on tho subject. In the interval the greatest of his triumphs had boen achioved. In 1905 the canals were photographed, and thirty-eight distinct canals, one of them double, could counted on tho 700 exposures. " SchiaparelLi was vindicated at last," says an English reviewer, " and the certainty was reached that not only Iβ there life on Mare, but also life guided by intelligence, aaid that this intelligence has reached a higher point of development than ours on earth, sinco it is capable of engineering achievements of tho most stupendous nature." Tho oases mentioned in our caido message as having been photograpliied are the round black spots on tho planet at the intersection of tho canals. The canals run straight, with a singular directness maintained for thousands of mile*, generally proceeding from tho ico-cap of the pole to tho equatorial region. Tho explanation of the use of the canals is that water is disappearing on tho planet, and that they are ueod to bring tho meltod ico from the poles to tho warmer regions. The water must bo forced along these enormous %vorks by some unknown for it cannot flow as on tho oarth, owing to tho level surface of tho planet. It is suggested that as tho canals run everywhere, interdependontly, over thn whole surface, the inhabitant must have readied a stage whoro war is unknown, and where all have combined in a etrugglo for life with the elements. We are afraid that the Some Census Blue Book containing Figures. tho tabulated results of the census of the colony for 190G will not compete seriously with the "Strand," or Mario Corelli's latest, for fireside reading theeo winter evenings. But formidable as it looks, it contains much that is interesting and instructive, even if we cannot say that tho instruction is blended with amusement. The returns of the sexes and tho conjugal condition of > the peoplo should appeal to the largest number. Ihcy show that whilo the proportion of unmarried persons in 1874 was 66.95 por hundred, it is 63.72 to-day. While the proportion of males to females about fifty years ago was two to one, there are now 100 males to about 88 females. Tho provincial distribution of the sexes is remarkable. Auckland has 3383 more bachelors than spinsters, Wellington 4389, and Nelson 1550, whilo Canterbury has 2117 moro unmarried women than unmarried men, and Otago 954. Altogether thero would have been 9633 men left to mourn or celebrate their fato, &s the case might have been, if the population had been paired off last year, but if the pairing had been done in 1901, 3572 spinsters would havo been left unmated. "No doubt," asays tho statistician, "the preponderance of bachelors in 1906 has been to a great extent brought about by the increased arrivals of male population from abroad." Last year nearly twice as many males as females arrived in tho colony. Tho table of the ages of married women shows that the ages between 25 and 30 furnish tho largest group—24,o3o. There were last year one wife under 15, 10 under 17, 71 under 18, 249 under 19, and 597 under 20. Tho largest group of married men—22,l9l —is that between 35 and 40. There were two husbands under 17, 4 under 18, 18 under 19, 44 under 20, and 122 under 21. In Christchurch there is a difference of only 34 (in favour of the females) between the unmarried persons of all ages of tho two sexes. The figures for the married of all ages do not show n great difference, but there is a considerable difference in tho widowed. There are 672 widowers and no less than 1704 widows. Wellington brats us by four in widows, but we are a good way ahead of both Auckland and Dunedin.