A BACKGROUND TO THE NEWS

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 228, 23 June 1936, Page 7

A BACKGROUND TO THE NEWS

Arabian Culture

Mr. W. Ormsby-Gore, Secretary of State for the Colonies, said the Arab people were rightly proud of their historical achievements and their contributions to civilisation. What medieval Europe knew of Greek philosophy, mathematics, astronomy and medicine was learned principally through Latin translations from Arabic treatises which held their places in the schools of Europe down to the sixteenth and even the seventeenth century. In mathematics especially the Arabic masters made an invaluable advance by employing the Indian (or “Arabic”) ciphers—the very word cipher ,is Arabic—for notation, and thus making possible both algebra—another Arabic word —and trigonometry. In the field of astronomy, from ancient times a speeial study of the East, the Arabic names of zenith, nadir, azimuth and those of numerous stars are evidence of the observation of Arabian astrononiers. Wishaw.

Wishaw, where Mr. Stanley Baldwin made an Important speech on the decision of the British Cabinet to support the lifting of sanctions against Italy, stands near the Clyde, 15 miles from Glasgow. It was made a borough in 1855, and in 1920 was united with Motherwell. At Wishaw there are vast coal-mines, blast furnaces, iron and steel engineering and railway wagon works. The population, with Motherwell, exceeds 64,000. Hoarding.

M. Auriol, Minister of Finance in France, has estimated that £78,000,000 in gold and £390,000,000 in notes have been hoarded in the country. Hoarding may arise from commercial panic, from distrust of existing forms of investment, or from a want of any opportunity of investment Or it may arise from misgovernment and the consequent distrust by the people of the holders of power. In England the practice continued until well into the nineteenth century, until the growth of the British banking system. It still continues to be extensively practised in France, partly from the different condition of. banking there, and partly from general distrust The greater part of the war indemnity paid to Germany in 1871 was produced from the hoards, of the French peasantry. The most extensive system of hoarding of which there Is any record is that which exists in India. The Bronx.

The Bronx, where 16 people were killed and 20 injured, when a nearly completed six-story apartment house collapsed, is the northernmost of five boroughs of New York City. It has an area of nearly 40 square miles, contains fine zoological and botanical gardens and has a population exceeding 1,265,000. Capital Levy.

M. Auriol told Communists in France that a capital levy was impossible and would kill the French Treasury. Capital levy is the name given to a tax on the capital of living persons. This form has not been tried in Great Britain, although it has been advocated by the Labour Party, and, during the Great War, was said even, to have the support of Mr. Bonar Law. The capital levy was to be used as a means of liquidating the national debt. One or two countries have iiried it, however. In 1913, to meet the cost of her increased armaments, Germany introduced a tax on capital, varying from 3-20th to li per cent on large fortunes. The levy was paid in two contributions and within three years. In 1920 a capital levy was introduced .in Italy. This was payable by all citizens possessing 20,000 lire and over. The rate began at 5 per cent on small fortunes and rose to 25 per cent, on large ones. It was payable by 30 yearly instalments, and was thus a kind of income tax Foreigners were charged upon the capital they had invested in Italy. Death duties are really taxes on capital. The first recorded demand for a capital levy in Great Britain was made by a private member in the House of Commons in November, 1914, and was put forward as an alternative to a high income tax. The capital levy remained a definite part of the British Labour Party’s programme until 1927. The basis was individual, not corporate. Companies would be exempt, but not the shareholders. Upper Silesia.

Nazis in Poland have been plotting to separate Upper Silesia from Poland and ensure its return to Germany. Silesia is divided into two provinces, Upper Silesia, with an area of 3749 square miles and a population of about 1,400,000, and Lower Silesia, with an area of 10,277 square miles, and a population of 3,132,000. Before the Great War, Silesia was the largest province of Prussia, but by the Treaty of Versailles, a portion was ceded ,to Poland, and a portion to Czechoslovakia; while provision was made to allocate certain districts by plebiscite.' The result of the plebiscite, taken in March, 1921, was in favour of Germany, but in spite of this decision a district of 1241 square miles, with 'a population of nearly 900,000, was transferred to Poland. Mining is far and away the main industry, coal and iron being found in large quantities. Almost all the mineral wealth of Upper Silesia is in the Polish portion. The Ishmaelites.

It was said of the late Sir William Hall-Jones that for a number of sessions after 1893 he became isolated in the thankless role of a political Ishmaelite sitting alone in what was humorously known as the “fourth party.” Ishmael was the son of Abraham .by Hagar, the Egyptian majd of his wife,' Sarah. On account of Sarah’s jealousy, Ishmael, at the age of 15, was, with his mother, expelled from his father’s house and driven into the wilderness, when a guardian angel preserved their lives and directed them to water. The boy grew up into a famous archer and married an Egyptian woman and be-, came the ancestor of a great nation Mohammed claimed descent from Ishmael, and Mohammedans assert that he is buried with his mother in the Kaaba at Mecca. Frisian Islands.

The Frisian Islands, which may become united with Flanders and Holland in a new Netherlands State, are a chain of islands extending from the coast of Schleswig-Holstein, Denmark, to the southern mouth of the Zuyder Zee, in Holland. They are the remains of a former coast-border of Jutland and Holland. The chain is divided inio three groups, North Frisian, East Frisian and Dutch. The Dutch Frisian group, of which the most important islands are Tersehelling, Vlieland and Texel,. screens the mouth of the Zuyder Zee. The inhabitants are chiefly concerned with agriculture and dairyfarming, and though honest and goodnatured, are backward.