RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 228, 23 June 1936, Page 8

RANDOM NOTES

Sidelights on Current

Events

(By Kickshaws.)

Those Georgetown police deserve a pat for the way they got the Girl Pat pat, but who gets the Girl Pat now seems undecided.

Mr, Baldwin is now warning dictators of the consequences of war, but he seems to forget that one dictator got his own warning in first.

We note that a new party has arisen in U.S-A. with 15 planks in its platform, but we are just a little doubtfiil if you could rush through even a tiny ship of state with that little material.

Possibly bottle-scarred veterans may be able to throw light on the following beer-bottle battle in which “Frothblower” has fired the first pop. He says:—

“Being anxious to ‘wet the baby’s head’ I purchased some bottles of beer at the local publichouse. The price per bottle surprised me. However, it was to celebrate an occasion, so a bulky parcel was deposited in the car. Now, when the parcel was opened I found each bottle was inscribed with the following, “This bottle is the property of the Brewery Co.’ But, was it? I paid and paid in plenty for each bottle containing beer. Can they uphold their claim?”

One can understand Arab fears that Palestine may eventually include so many Jews that the Arabs will be in a minority. Statistics, however, seem to indicate that the Arabs have been able to hold their own in population increases in a manner that must give satisfaction to themselves. Whether or not there will ever be a preponderance of Jews in Palestine is still a matter > for conjecture. In 1919 there were just under 60,000 Jews in Palestine. In the next nine years the total increase in- . eluding immigration was 90,000 Jews and 109,000 won-Jews. The natural rate of increase ror the Jewish population is about 244;<er 1000 and 30 per 1000 for the Arabs. The last-named have, therefore, Nature helping them. Efforts to create a homeland for Jews in Palest tine settle down into a mathematical chase in the rear of the natural Arab increases in population. Although Palestine is more Jewish than it has been for centuries, it is even more Arabic than it was under tSe Turkish regime!

If there is an increase during the last year of some ten thousand motorists in a comparatively small country like New Zealand, one may well ask what is going on in other countries. It ism curious fact that no country in the world ever seems to record a diminution in motor vehicles. In England one person in twenty owns a car, in America one in four or five, and in New Zealand about one in six or seven. Despite this, motor-cars are pouring into the world at the rate of eight million or so a year. The United States of America thinks nothing of producing * half that total in a year. At a pinch that country’ could double its production figures. Clearly, then, the only •thing that will stop motor-cars being made is lack of people in the world to buy them. At the moment there are about 37,000,000 cars in the would. There are 2,000,000,000 people in the world. Clearly saturation point has not yet been reached. If one person in ten owned a car in the world there would be required 200,000,000 motors —or a car to every 60 yards of the world’s roads. - '

One other problem that will eventually have to be considered in respect to the world’s motor-cars is how to deal with the old motor-cars. Despite the fact that saturation point does not yet appear to have been reached, a city like New York has to pay £12,000 a year in clearing derelict cars off the streets. Roughly, one car in every fifty minutes is abandoned in this manner in New York. Already there are special plants at work in America tha t compress old - ears into compact parcels, under tremendous pressure, in order to get them out of the way. The life of a car has been set at approximately seven years. This means that even to-day we are confronted with the problem of what to do with 36,000,000 cars in that time or roughly 5,000,000 ears a year. The time may not be so far ahead when an endless chain system will be in vogue. Owners of old cars will put their cars in at one end of a mincing machine and wait at the other end to have the materiai converted into this year’s model, or even next year’s. - * ♦ *, .

The arrival recently at Rongotai iu a hat box of a three-weeks-old ailing baby is but one of many sideline cargoes that aeroplanes are called upon to carry these days. There was a time, in fact, when people talked hopelessly about “if, pigs could fly.” Well pigs do fly these days as well as hippopotami, elephants, snakes, and jelly fish. The elephant that flew did so from the New York Zoo to the Zoo at St. Louis. For the carriage of certain types of marine life there is no better method than the aeroplane. In fact it is about the only way known of bringing sea-horses to the London Zoo without loss of life. Rare fish from the East Indies, valued at £36 an inch, travel by no other route. Farmers may be interested to know that even cows fly these days. In fact in New Guinea a whole herd of dairy cattle took to the air. The trip lasted 40 minutes and they all. arrived safely. A previous effort to transport a similar herd on foot bad failed.

There is very little doubt that the next large scale gold rush will be by air. Stories of hold-ups and the like that made such good reading to a public that did not own the gold are probably things of the past. When the unknown millions of some of the mythical reefs of inland Australia become realities the aeroplane will take on a job that obviously belongs to it. The aeroplane, as a matter of fact, is not only useful for gold rushes, but for rushing gold. Whenever one reads of gold being rushed out of Fiance it is the aeroplane that does the rushing. Time counts where gold is concerned. When it is travelling it is not earning interest. It cosits in lost interest about £l5OO to move a million pounds worth of gold across the North Atlantic. If aeroplanes could bo used the loss from this source would be reduced to about £3OO. About £80,000,000 worth of gold is mined every year. When aeroplanes come into their own it will reach it* destination in a fraction of the time hitherto required.

Here are details about Sir Donald Banks, for which a reader asks: He was born in 1891. He married in 1921 the daughter of the late Dr. Norman Webster, of Guernsey. There is one child, a daughter, of the marriage. Sir Donald was educated at Elizabeth College, Guernsey. He has been private secretary to four Postmaster-Generals. During the War he commanded the Essex Regiment and saw service in France from 1915 to 1918. He gained the D. 5.0., M.C., and Croix de Guerre.