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Press, Volume LX, Issue 18107, 24 June 1924, Page 6

Tho calamity has come on Everest that all must havo dreaded as soon as the monsoons threatened; though the cables do not yet say how or where. It is, however, a fact that one of the worst anxieties the members of such an expedition have to face is the control of porters and the rescuing of native assistants from impossible situations. At such extremo levels men become hysterical. They either lose their heads and yield to panic, or lose their tempers and begin to fight—and it may turn out that the two precious lives which havo been sacrificed have been given, not to Everest himself, but to the weaker men who live at his feet. At the same time the strain on the white leaders themselves is so great that failure for a second or two would spell disaster. In the 1922 ascent the three men who made the final effort were provided with vest-pocket kodaks, but so great was their exhaustion, and so difficult was it to concentrate tho mental faculties, that one picture only wap taken. And of course if tho monsoon reached the summit first, filling the air with clouds of snow, and dropping thousands of tons of ice into the sheltering valleys, the death of two men only is an almost unbelievable miracle.

An inland city with docks which handle a greater annual tonnage than Liverpool, or than all the ports of Prance combined, has been entertaining the United States Eepublican Convention, which selected Cleveland (Ohio) for its great political skirmish. The city owes its peculiar position to Lake Erie, which it overlooks from a bluff 100 ft above the water. It is the manufacturing centre for the upper lakes iron fields, and its furnaces receive 60 million tons of ore every year from the fleet of 800 steamers that ply on the lake. Cleveland's progress reflects the two features characteristic of American cities—amazing growth and largo foreign-born population. Fifty years ago it was' smaller than Wellington, having a population of 92,829. In 1920 it, had increased to 796,841, of which 239,538 were foreign born. To-day its estimated population is 900,000, end 70 per cent, of the people of America live within ono night's railway journey.

If wisdom were measured in words the British Prime Minister would be as famous as Solomon. Amateur statisticians, with leisure and enquiring minds, set out to discover the oratorical output of the House of Commons from January to Easter. They found that Mr Eamsay Mac Donald talked 31 columns more than his nearest rival, the Secretary to the Treasury (Mr Graham), whom Hansard credited with 95 columns. Mr Lloyd George scored 47 and Mr Baldwin 46, while Mr Amery's arguments in favour of the Singapore base ran to 44 columns. Compared with these the wild Clydesiders were a reticent group, even the notorious Mr Kirkwood failing to reach recordablo figures. Commander Kenworthy retained the question championship by finding 239 queries for Ministers to answer. In a few days our own Parliament will be opened, and these British records may look small.