THE MOTOR-CAR AGE.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 18263, 23 December 1924, Page 16

THE MOTOR-CAR AGE.

We sometimes wonder -what -would have been the appearance and mentality of the England of our day if the motorcar'had not. made so complete a conquest, says the "Morning Post.'' Tnis efficient, and not yet silent, instrument of mechanical progress, has completed the revolution effected by the steam engine. It has enabled man to travel, it has brought the country to the town, the town to the country; it has destroyed many of our illusions and prejudices, it has destroyed also—for every improvement carries with it some misfortune —some fine old customs and beliefs, and has stolen in upon many of the secluded spots of the world, hitherto known only to such charming adventurers as the bees and the poets. On some grounds, a formidable indictment can be made against the motor-car, but, apart altogether from its' advantages, commercial and otherwise, as a means of locomotion, we must not forget the many social and aesthetic benefits it has conferred upon this difficult, worried contemporary England of ours. What would have happened .to those monstrous conglomerations of London, Glasgow, and Manchester if their pentup citizens were dependent upon an escape from their smoke and congestion only on the steam engine and the "push" bicycle! The petrol-driven vehicie, in its way, is one of the supreme moderating "influences in our country. The townsman is able, by its means, to take his family for a Saturday afternoon to the real countryside in a veiy rapid, and, on the whole, cheap way. At the same time it also brings the country into close association with the town, and with all those intellectual and social activities which- animate civic life. The country loses its terrors —and let there be no mistake about it, the country has its terrors —if those who live in it can by touching a starter reach Shaftesbury avenue or Langham place in good time for a theatre or a concert.

According" to a correspondent of the Otorohanga paper, dogs are a great nuisance in the King Country. He states: I noticed the lions seemed to be hungry, and I at once located the proprietor of the circus which-lately visited us, and asked him if he could do with . a dog.- He said be could, and at daylight next morning he was up for my dogj (I had ; been trying to give him away for two years without success.) As he was taking the dog away in the direction of the menagerie, I suggested to him the advisability of securing him in such a manner that he would not return to me. He remarked that there was no fear of him coming back —without having a lion outside of him.

Suspicions have been entertained for some time by the Australian Customs that large quantities of opium axe landed along the Queensland coast, and even further south on the cof-st of New South Wales. Their suspicions have changed to certainty following recent happenings. According to their discoveries they are satisfied that consignments cf opium are being dropped at various points from vessels, and transported ashore by a daring gang of smugglers in a fleet of highspeed motor-launches. The opinion is expressed that until the Commonwealth Government builds a fleet of speedy revenue cutters it will be impossible to suppress the traffic.