TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Press, Volume LXVIII, Issue 14275, 10 February 1912, Page 8

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

According to an English Uses contemporary seaweed is

of establishing a claim to be Seaweed, one of tho greatest friends

of man. It appears that it- is possible for it to be made into an astonishing variety of useful things. From Leeds you can set a suit made from it, and in London you get both boots and golf balls having seaweed for their basis. The Japanese, including the Formosans, employ some 600,000 persons in the seaweed industries. These arc mainly engaged in preparing edible products. China alone consumes £120,000 worth of the gelatinous articles every .year. Already certain sorts of seaweed have won popularity in Great Britain a3 a succulent vegetable. The late Sir James Murray, of Dublin, went further, declaring that it was more than a mere food, being valuable also as a medicine. He recommended that it should bo eaten hot as a euro for rheumatism. Its virtue, he said, lay in the iodine which it contained. lodine, an element of great medicinal value, claims seaweed as its principal source. The production of "kelp" or burned seaweed, which is the first stage in its preparation, is an industry that is rapidly developing in North-Western Eurojje. The hardy kelp-burners of the Hebrides and Irish coast have now strong rivals in Scandinavia, and in one Norwegian province at least the revenue from this- work already exceeds that derived from fishing and agriculture. Apart from this a firm in London employs Devonshire and Japanese seaweed in the manufacture of such diverse objects as policemen's boots, picture frames, marbled floors, and electric switchboards. In Cornwall seaweed is used as a fertiliser for tho land, in Franco it finds utility as a stiffener for mattresses, and a sizo for straw hats. The native fishermen of ! South Australia make ropes and fishing nets from local varieties. Within tho last twelve months there was talk of tho formation in Adelaide of a company for the exploitation of certain great deposits of marine fibre. Tho supply of seaweed is so vast that its use in commerce must extend considerably. Paragraphs appear in Adventures the newspapers from with a time to time about the ! Camera. adventures of cinematograph operators and actors, but these are probably only a tithe of what happen. A writer in an Almerican magazine has collected a number of interesting cases in which people have risked their lives, or have been placed in peril involuntarily, in the course of providing entertainment for the insatiable public. Probably r.o operator has been more daring than an American named Dobbs, who recently fitted out a schooner at Seattle to take pictures of a new island formed off the Alaskan coast by eruption. Where there had previously "been seventy fathoms of water, on island rose hundreds of feet above tea level, and the process of elevation produced one of the most awe-inspiring sights ever beheld. It was dangerous to go within several miles of the scene owing to falling ashes, but Dobbs proposed to get over this difficulty oy covering tho decks of tho vessel with asbestos. Hβ was promised the huge foe of £50,000 if he secured a good film, but there is no word yet of !i's success or failure. Mr Ernest Thompson Seton was in dire peril when he took a moving picturo of a charging musk ox in Canada. When the animal started to charge, Mr Seton' i companion said, "You take tho picture, and I'll do the rest"; so tne naturalist coolly turned the handle as the beast approached. The other man fired, when the animal was twenty yards off. and it fell dead beside the camera. Occasionally a piece of acting has had a tragic sequel, as when an actor flung himself off a

boat in the Seine to obtain a realistic picture of a man committing suicide- The man got cramp, and shouted for help, but the onlookers thought it was all part of the drama, and let him drown. Then there was the case of the signalman who was tied to a railway track by traiawreckers, it being arranged that tha engine should stop just in time to avert a tragedy. The train, however, ran too far, and the actor, was killed. The operator of the camera, unaware that anything was amiss, recorded the whole accident j but of course the Sim was not used. There must be a good daal of comedy in this business cf "faking" dramas, but some of it is perilously near to tragedy. An actor tells of a fat comedian being thrown from a boat to make a picture, + he management not knowing that jie could not swim. He promptly ehouted for help, and the more he shouted the more the manager called to him to keep on shouting, and to the others to leave him alone—the Dicture was "just right. 1. Fortunately the water was shallow, and he . waded to the bank, where he stood for Jive minutes swearing his hardest. All the time the camera was taking him, and in 4 ,he end the manager went ashore and congratulated him on" his exceptionally fine bit of acting! Though men of Bluejackets' the mercantile marine Pay. still quota the saving that "the man who would go to sea for pleasure would go to Tophet for amusement," the lot of the merchant sailor has improved steadily. But, except perhaps in Australasian waters, he is still far behind the shore worker. Slowly ho has improved his condition by collective bargaining. The bluejacket has been unable to do this. He belongs to the "Silont Navy"; he lives and moves and has his being under the shadow of +.he Articles of War, subservient to the King's Regulations by day and by night. By becoming the Kind's m.ia he ceases to enjoy many of the privileges of civilian citizenship held i y others of his class. And because re cannot speak for himself, few have bothereu"To speak for him. Amidst all the talk of labour unrest, and the increasing iteration of demands for higher wages, few people have had the knowledge brought to them that the British bluejacket has received scarcely any advance in his pay for sixty years. It occasions surprise to read that since the present voluntary system rfmanning the fleet was adopted in 18-52, I the average bluejacket has received l'o i actual increase in pay, though certain allowances for extra duty have been introduced. Then the seaman was paid Is 7d per day; now ho gets Is Bd. Considering how the value <f property has changed against him, it

is easy to see that his pockets are i.o Better* lined now than they were the<i. When the first-class boy, with lis sevenpence a day, is rated an ordinary seamen, he is given Is 3d a day, without any prospect of earning gooJconduct nay or badge, and eventually, when he*is rated able seaman, he obtains Is Bd. As a leading seaman his pay ranges from Is 10d to 2s a day — or from £33 9s 2d to £36 10s a year, to put the matter more simply, and outof this he has to keen up and >cplace as need be his kit—for the nation treats the bluejackets less generously in this respect than the soldier —and he has to supplement the official dietary and meet all the inevitable expenses of life when ashore, not forgetting railway fares when on leave. When he is promoted to petty officer, he is a little better off, for his pay rises then to 2s Bd. After six years he may rise to tho riches of £54 os per annum. The naval stoker, too. has his grievance against the paysheet. A second-class stoker receives Is 8d per day, rising to 2s Id when he enters the first-class. Most people will agree with the naval correspondent of the "Evening Standard," who says that there is a claim on tho nation for a reconsideration of the pay of rhe men of the Fleet, and the Board (i Admiralty which meets this claim justly will certainly not sink in the esteem of those whoso existence depends on British supremacy afloat.