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Press, Volume LVIII, Issue 17607, 9 November 1922, Page 8

A Sydney paper calls attention to the fact that within a period of a few weeks threeoorf r the five principal elective Parliaments of the British Empire will be holding their general elections. In Great Britain, Australia, and New Zealand the wordy warfare of an election campaign is in full swing, and three of the most widely known men in the Empire are engaged in the contests—Mr Lloyd George and Mr W. M. Hughes, "littlo Welshmen with some temperamental traits in common," and 1 Mr W. F. Massey, "01 North of Ireland birth and New Zealand upbringing, solid, stolid, and unOeltic." We should not say that " stolid " exactly described Mr Massey. ho may lack the Celtic fire of the ither two, but those who may deplore its absence should remember that it is not without drawbacks. As the Sydney writer says, "Mr Lloyd George and Mr Htighes can magnetise to .themselves personal likes and dislikes in a manner quite foreign to the simpler character of Mr Massey. Wherever a littlo Welshman rules, there seems to be a fight within a fight. It requisess a great deal of leadership talent to cancel personal antipathy and a movement so fissured at its core loses momentum." Mr Massey is probably less -susceptible to impulse than either of the other Prime Ministers but that is not to say that he cannot fight when occasion arises and tenacity may serve one in his position as well as the fiery ardour of the Welshmen.

Within the past two centuries explorers have done a great deal- towards filling up the blank spaces on the map, but even to-day much still remains to be done in this- direction. An expedition which has lately been organised in London is to try to remove the reproach that lies upon us as a people of allowing a great island which is believed to be one of the richest areas in the world, to remain unexplored. When all that is known of Papua is put together, it amounts to comparatively very little, and applies almost entirely to its south-east coastal regions, and those drained by the Ply river, which is navigable for 500 miles. Large parts of tho island have never yet been penetrated, and that in spite of the fact that wherever exploring parties have gone they have found gold, a magnet which usually draws the adventurer. Possibly the existence of a large native population, speaking 'hundreds of different diaWcts, and in Borne cases at least, of a decidedly belligerent oharaoter, has helped Papua to retain its secrets. But a land with many fine harbours, a well distributed, if at times' tropical rainfall, proved to be capable of producing large quantities of copra and rubber, and yielding many and varied minerals, coal; and oil, besides pearls and shell, is apparently an ideal field for such 1 a well- ' equipped expedition as will shortly leave for Australia, in preparation for a descent in the first place on the coast of the ex-enemy fferxitory of which Australia holds the mandate. The expedition will comprise 32 Europeans and about 400 native carriers, and will include representatives of all branches of science. By the time it has spent two and a, half years on its task of exploring a tract, of country 140 miles wide and 600 miles long, fTie leaders should be able to toll the world much about New Guinea that is not known now. !

Potatoes are, it seems, not the only product of English farms and gardens of which there ia a surplus tiiis year. The past English summer, wet and often cold though it was, to have been very favourable lor fruit, a circumstance» due, possibly in some measure, to the long, hot, dry summer of last year. As usual in a good fruit season, the growers have in many cases little to show for. their work, and the newspapers contain numerous reports of soles which were anything but profitable. An Essex market gardener, for instance, who sent 2001b of good cooking apples to the London market received half a crown for the lot, aud as he had to pay packing and transport expenses and sales commission, apart from the cost of growing, the transaction left him in debt. A Bedford farmer sent to Birmingham a ton of marrows which had cost him £9 15s to produce, received a postal note for Gd, all that was left of the proceeds of the sale, after deducting railway and other charges. The of his marrow crop was used aa cattle feed. At one country town a woman was actually paid to take away some 70 or SOlb of fine plums. And while this was going on, fruit was pouring into London from California, South Africa, Holland, and Italy, and some of it was fetching better prices than the Homegrown article, which suggests that possibly English fruit growers need to revise their methods. The public, of course, benefited by the glut, for even in the shops fruit was cheaper than for years past.