NOTES OF THE DAY

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 304, 17 September 1921, Page 6

NOTES OF THE DAY

' Another All-Red shipping service is projected, bringing New Zealand within nineteen days of Liverpool, via Vancouver. According to the Londop “Daily Mail,” the Imperial Shipping Committee is considering a'plan which includes 26-kpot steamers across the Atlantic and 25-knot steamers across tho Pacific. Exactly what this means may be gathered from the fact that this year’s “Naval and Shipping Annual” shows no merchant steamer afloat to-day with a speed of 26 knots; one with a speed of 25 knots, the Mauretania; and of nine vessels steaming between 24 and 25 knots only three are ocean liners, tho others being crossChannel steamers. An 18-knot liner of about 20,000 tons, that before the war could be built for half a million sterling, to-day costs about a million and threequarters. The reader can thus imagine for himself whst the proposed eight 26knot vessels or 50,000 tons each for the Atlantic part of the service would cost. It is all very well to say that we must look ahead, and that when there is no vision the people perish, but vision to this extent is little better than day-dreaming. The monster liners to-day are proving white elephants to their owners, and if its labours are to benefit the overseas ■portions of the Empire,/'the Imperial Shipping Committee will have to come down from the clouds and give us something within our moans, but better than we possess to-day.

Australia’s far north is. suffering from a bad attack of the revolutionary fever prevalent throughout the world. Before federation it was a part of South Australia, but for the past twenty years it has been a ward of the Commonwealth, which has talked spasmodically of developing it, but has done little. There used to be a meat works at Darwin, but it has closed down, and population generally has dwindled of recent years. A great crowd of Federal officials, however, is spread over the land, and the expenditure" of-their big salaries puts money id circulation. An aerodrome sitewas cleared recently by chopping down two trees, and for this strenuous piece of work the Govornmant paid between -C.YX) and ,£6OO, Except for spasms of this sort the population as a whole, from the fragmentary reports Glut reach the .south, seems to hare abandoned work as a general thing. Like most places with 'there, time on its. hands than is good for it, Darwin has a formidable list of grievances. Chief among them is the absence of representation in the Federal Parliament, and until it is given that it declares it will pay no taxes. If it were given one member in each House, one

Darwinite would have as much voice in national affairs m the House of Representatives as 19 Victorians, and in the Senate as much power as about 70 New South Wales citizens. Isolated communities, like isolated individuals, have a tendency to beijqnie erratic, and Australia’s northern coast has long been a happy hunting ground for scallawags. Darwin’s ills will probably disappear when the long-promised railway is built to join it up with civilisation and sanity.

Egypt’s demand for independence ig a very old one, and dates back to 1832, when Mehmet Ali led the movement. Fifty years later the flame burst out again under Araby Pasha in 1882, and it was on this occasion that Britain embarked on a temporary occupation of the country, which' Mr. Gladstone eaid in 188-4 would be ended as soon as /‘security and order are established there.” The Egyptians, as all know who have spent any time in the country, are a backward people, and in Cairo is a population comprising the flotsam .and jetsam of. three continents, , The safety of the Suez Canal is a matter of. the utmost importance to the British Empire, and for one reason and another the years have slipped away, and. no evacuation has taken place. In December, 1914, Egypt was declared a British' Protectorate, in order, it -was stated,., "to overcome the influences'that are'seeking to destroy the independence of'Egypt.” After the armistice, Zaghlul Pasha, as eleotire head of fhe Legislature, with some of his colleagues, asked for passports to go to London to interview the British Government oil the subject of Egypt’s independence. Permission to send a. delegation was refused, and Zagblul and other members of the proposed party were' arrested and interned at Malta for. a period. . These acts naturally accentuated the ill-feeling which had been growing up, but an effort to smooth matters over was made by sending out the • Milner Commission, which reported that self-government could not be postponed. Adly Pasha, the present Prime Minister, whom Zaghlul now proposes to support if he obtains a sufficient measure of independence, is of amuch more moderate type than the Nationalist leader. If the problem is acute, and Egyptian opinion inflamed, there is no disguising the fact that it has been contributed to By an unfortunate handling at one or two critical stages. <

A French scientist, after a lengthy sM-iee of experiments, has discovered that death is an unnecessary incident in human existence. A few weeks back' this medical man. Dr. Carrel, explained to the Paris "Matin” that the tissues of. which our bodies are composed are practically immortal.. Taking the fragments of the heart and vessels of chicken embryo eight days old, Dr. Carrol Las kept one piece alive ever since February 1.7, 1912. He began in that year with sixteen fragments. By March only five survived. On September 25, 1912, there was only one alive. Thie was a fragment of connective tissue derived indirectly from the heart of the embryo, and it was still beating vigorously 104 days after the death of the organism from wliich it was derived. In the nine years since then it has continued to grow. Every 48 hours it is divided into four pXrts and put in a fresh culture medium consisting of chicken plasma and chicken's blood. Tho pieces of tissue keep on growing from four to 40 times their original size each 48 hours. This experiment shows, according to Dr. Carrel, that the tissues of an animal away from the animal will live beyond the norriml lifetime of the animal itself. Qld age simply means a failure somewhere causing the rest of the body to be undermined. It is like a battle front, that has been pierced at one point causing all the rest to give way. So long as each part of the body can be protected and prevented, from breaking down there 4s nothing to atop us from living. for ‘ever. Theoretically immortality is thus possible, but the problem is how to achieve it—after which presumably the housing question will have to be abandoned as definitely insoluble.