RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 102, 24 January 1930, Page 10

RANDOM NOTES

SIDELIGHTS ON CURRENT EVENTS LOCAL AND GENERAL (By Cosmos.) Electricity we are told, ie the of life. So it seems we aro nothing but a lot of current events. » » • This Is the time of the year when one realises that a mosquito has twenty-two teeth, all of which can be seen through a microscope or felt through a silk stocking. •* . • At their recent conference, the booksellers of New Zealand pointed out that something like 30,000 new books are produced every year. Most assuredly there can be no question about the ever-increasing avalanche of reading matter; it is becoming a world problem. Authorities have.estimated that in a country like Britain, or the United States the consumption of paper has increased from almost nothing a couple of centuries ago to ,1501 b. of printed paper a head each year. The average man thus just about “reads up” in one year his own weight in paper. Anybody who set out to read even four newspapers from the first to the last word dally would be kept busy on the job for the best part of twenty-four hours. Clearly, the next important invention will be connected with the speeding up of reading. Perhaps we shall revert to the old habit of having things read for us, from a modern high-powered radio station with a continuous programme day and night

Every year as the weather shows obvious signs of becoming more uncertain, someone rediscovers Dr. Stefansson’s views on the warm and hospitable Arctic. Dr. Stefansson has never made any secret of those views —it is not his fault if everybody does i not realise by this time that the socalled frozen North is really a sort of sun-trap. His opinions are rediscovered at this, time of the year merely in order to annoy those who have spent a very miserable vacation. Still, there is usually some fresh touch to be added to the familiar picture—and this time Dr. Stefansson Is reported as assuring a Canadian audience that, "half the Eskimos have never even heard of a snow-house, unless they have been to school” Poor little innocent creatures, running round in their cummerbunds and sun-helmets—how baffled they would be if anyone showed them a snowball! But it certainly illustrates the advantage of booklearning in the back o’ beyond—if it were not for their school-books they would probably want to know if such things grew on trees.

A great fuss and no little publicity seems to have been accorded the United States typists on their' arrival in London for the Naval Conference. All sorts of tests were made to select the very best for the trip. The world grows more and more efficient every year. Not fifteen years ago the selection of a typist was in some cases somewhat haphazard. One Manchester merchant, who, thanks to no education at ail, made a huge fortune, had a standard examination in dictation for a prospective typist. It had to be done without one single mistake. This was the test: “Did you see Hugh sitting under the yew tree, giving a drink to the ewe lamb out of S. pitcher of a peculiar hue, which had been used for holding fuchsias?” -Very few passed this test, for although'the merchant was an admitted stickler for correct spelling, he was a man of firm convictions, and insisted on spelling “fuchsia” “fuschia,” and refused to be corrected. •

Mr. Lloyd George’s “Personal Fund” is again the subject of discussion. Almost three years ago some pertinent questions were put to him by the late Lord Rosebery, and now Lord Grey has taken up the running. Lord Rosebery’s letter put three questions to Mr. Lloyd George: What is this sum? How was it obtained? What is its source? Writing in the London “Times” of February 16, 1927, and describing himself as “an embarrassed old fogy.” Lord Rosebery said: “Scopes, nay hundreds, of honours have been distributed. Have any been sold and helped to produce the sum in question?” ' Receiving no answer, he wrote another letter published in the “Times” of February 28, suggesting that if no voluntary statement came from the persons concerned, it would be necessary 'to appoint a commission of inquiry. “The sight of some 90 peers explaining to a commission the origin of their nobility would be something worth making a sacrifice for.” A reply from Mr. Lloyd George was forthcoming on December 3, 1927, in which he said that the fund had been collect- * ed by the National Liberal Whips in exactly the same way as every other , political fund, that he had never handled one penny of it himself, that during his Premiership the honours lists were settled in the usual way, and that he had no information as to who among the persons put forward had or had not subscribed to the party funds. The position of the Conservative Party fund was explained (August 13, 1927) by the late Lord Younger,' whoXwas trustee of it. “I inherited an invested fund of a substantial amount,” he said." “That was added to from time to time, not by any sale of honours, but by subscriptions collected periodically for general elections, when We generally got a good deal more than we spent and invested the balance.

Thfre was no question of an honour in any of these cases, and no obligation of any kind on these subscribers to pay anything. Lord Younger then went on to say that there was never any fusion of the Lloyd George fund and the Conservative fund during the coalition. “I laid that down” (he went on) “to Bonar Law as an absolute condition, and it was strictly adhered to.” And he proceeded : “I was fully cognisant of the fact that a large proportion of tho Honours granted by Lloyd George were the subject of a bargain, and that considerable sums were paid, and I had more than once to complain seriously of Honours given by hi in to Conservatives co whom we would never have dreamt of giving any. I never knew anything of these till I saw the names in the 'Times.’ and I had often to repudiate to our supporters in various places any responsibility for those grants. Our list and Lloyd George's were . . . published as one. and you can understand how difficult it was for me, when a thoroughly unsuitable Tory’s name appeared on the General List.” It is on record that Mr. Lloyd George said to Sir Charles Hobhouse (disclosed by the latter on January 29, 1927). that it happened he (Mr. Lloyd George) had a fund which was given to him personally, when some of the subscribers had greater confidence in him than they had to-day, to use as he thought best in the interests of the country.