TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 104, 29 October 1909, Page 6

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Yesterday, 28th October, was Millennium Day for the Labour ConA Local ference. It was re&olvMillennium. Ed to order a Golden Age straightaway — a State iron industry, a State flour-mill, a State boot factory, State clothing factories, State ferry service, a State over seas mail-carrying service. Somebody also proposed State butter and bacon factories and State egg-culture on a commercial seale — possibly to constitute this country the "Happy Land" of the children's song, "Where they Jiave ham and eggs, three times a day" — but delegates, after cheerfully swallowing the camels, inconsistently excluded those gnats. It j was understood last year that the shrewd- | er heads in the Labour Party were to discourage the waste of energy on discussions about wholesale nationalisation, on the "non-borrowing principle," but faith in the panacea of the "Government job" is not easily shaken. The State ferry service, as even the Premier is pre pared to admit, will come in time, and the Government brand may he pu6 upon other enterprises by-and-bye, but not for the present. Those ideals so dear to the Labour delegates are not obtainable just now, for reasons which would be obvious to them if they would 'spend more time in studying the finances and general conditions of the country, and less_ time in day-dreaming and stargazing. It is, perhaps, only human to be attracted by the romance of the unattainable—at least, comparatively unattainable—and to be more interested in trying to strike up a friendship with the Man in the Moon than with the man next door. The moonshine of fancy is ever more seductive than the sunshine of fact. But will these delegates who so pleasantly let their imaginations roam in the distant El Dorado, be earning the gratitude of the great army of workers ? Does the average worker take more joy in the offer of a rare feast a generation hence than m the gift of nourishing bread and meat now » The millenniuinmakers appear to have more joy in the things which they cannot reach than in the work winch lies to their hands. A remarkable advance in the methods of t- t. .„. scie ntific research is Live Bacilli recorded -in to-day's on the Screen, cable news. A French inv entor has, by an ingenious adaptation of microscopic and Cinematographic apparatus, thrown upon the screen "living pictures" of the organisms at work in the human blood— exhibiting on a grand scale the Waterloo contests between disease germs and the protective cells. ■ Microbes of sleeping sickness— wide enough awake themselves in their devastating work— have been projected upon the screen "as large as eels." Individual observers have seen these combats through the microscope: but such, a scene should produce a tremendous effect upon an audience whose imagination had never enabled them to realise the "inwardness" of disease burely the sight of tuberculosis germs actually at work should stimulate even the most ignorant and thoughtless to realise the importance of precaution and prev«ntion. When JSacilli are manifested to the vision as ugly and apparently as big as rattlesnakes— when they are seen actually exhausting the blood of its vital constituents — then, far more vividly than by the hectic flush and the fever temperature, will young and old realise what disease really is. And apart from its inestimable value in popular education, M. Commandon's invention will be a boon to biological science and a valuable instrument of research. Is it "go slow" still at Addington? What reforms have been Back to effected by the very frank Addington. report of the expert com missioners? The Hon. J. E. Jenkinson, in the Legislative Council yesterday, pulled the commissioners' report out of the Government cupboard, in which it has heen snugly reposing ever since its brief dance on the public stage at the close of the "W.eek Parliament" four months ago. One feature of the report, a recommendation that, railway employees who invented useful devices should be reasonably encouraged, led Mr Jenkinson to ask for dear information concerning bonuses given by the department since the year 1900. Possibly the full answering of the queries might produce some desirable details about some aspects of the railway management, but the questioner was fobbed off _by the Attorney-General, with a reply' which should induce members of Parliament to put further interrogatories. The Minister said "the preparation of the return would involve considerable expenditure of time and money in searching the records for ten years back." What records? Is there no separate, readily-accessible register of bonus matters? The Government is frequently willing to expend time and money in answering questions of no public importance, but seems loth to promptly answer one now on which the public should have a keen interest, deferring generally to the Addington commission's recommendations, Mr. Jenkinson said it was his opinion that tho Minister (the Hon. J. A. Millar) should give effect to many of them, and that is an opinion which has been widely voiced in New Zealand. "The troui ble," added Mr. Jenkinson, "was as to who was going to advise Mr. Millar as to how the alterations should be effected. Would another board have to be set up apart from the railways to settle how the shops should be remodelled?" Obviously, the Addington affair cannot be allowed to remain in the corner to which the Railway Department appears eager to relegate it. The time has come ior some of the people's representatives in the Lower House to take the trouble to read the evidence and the commissioners' comments, which have been "laid on the table," and begin to press the Minister for his inten- . tions. Socrates had his familiar daemon — a wise and beneficent "Ringing up" adviser. Tasso had tho Departed, his, invisible counsellor, with whom he discussed high philosophic themes — his friends, being neither "clairvoyant" nor "clairaudient," saw and heard Tasso only. Mr. Stead, of late years, has been in daily converse with a I.idy familiar known as "Julia," who controls his hand, and through that passive medium writes instructions which ho implicitly obeys. What Virgil was to Dante in that doleful region which he entered by way of the dark wood, Julia is to Mr. Stead in the limbo which he calls "Borderland." But the weird lady "control" seems to lack the practical wisdom of the Greek philosopher's guide and the exalted spiritual insight of the Italian poet's interlocutor, pertainly her communications have fallen very short of the wisdom displayed by

the average man or woman in the flesh, restricted by all the limitations of time and space ; and if she is really acquainted with after-life conditions, she served her disciple a shabby trick when she failed to warn him against a disreputable couple of "occult" impostors, whose claims he endorsed until they fell into deep disgrace. But the istead-Julia partnership has lately struck out a new line. A few weeks ago a "bureau of communication" between the living and the departed was opened with a flourish of trumpets. Air- Stead undertook the terrestrial department, and Julia managed the Hades office. Our cnble news to-day shows that the concern is a success, nnd "remarkable conversations" are recorded. No longer able to send postcards, the Eight Hon. Mr. Gladstone avails himself of the Bureau to give the country his matured vie\/s on the political situation. Beaconsfield, cynical as N ever, is "cryptic," indifferent as to whether his sentiments are reported or not, but warns Mr. Stead that "people" — presumably on both sides of the Border — will think him a fool. There is a painful as well as an absurd side to this puerility. Able journalist as Mr. Stead still is, he has manifestly deteriorated in judgment since he came under thft "Julia" spell. His good-faith is undoubted, and one token is that he refuses (by Julia's instructions) to accept any fee, so that the "Bureau" is a serious tax upon him in money as well as in time and energy. But the saddest aspect of the affair is the exploiting of the deep longing of the bereaved for the "vanished hand and the voice that, is still" ; and the futility of the alleged responses, which, Spiritualists themselves declare, proceed in many cases from deceitful and personating intelligences. No more — if the Shipping and Seamen Act Amendment Bill Trouble goes through in its foj^the present shape — -will Sea-Cook. the ocean-going ship's coffee, by any mischance, taste like that Melbourne railway station coffee described by Mark Twain as a compost of sheep-dip and Stockholm tar. No more will the deepsea _ steamer be afflicted with a galley genius "unable to boil a pot of water without burning the liquid." If seacooks read the papers some of them may be filled with consternation at one formidable „ clause, designed to adequately protect the hardy digestive systems of sailors. The "certificate of competency," suitably hedged around with such barb-wire entanglements as "Board of Trade," "the Marine Department," "the Minister," is flourished at the sea-cook. The sea-cook, on some ocean "tramps," has been held in some execration, but if he survives the fires lighted for him by the Government, he may emerge glorified and radiant. With his certificate, nicely- . framed, hung beside him in the galley, and a vellum book of recipes on a handy shelf, a noble figure on an imitation of wh.ite samite, he may command reverence even among the hitherto disrespectful firemen. We dare say many sea-cooks will revile the clause, and even members of the House of Representatives may scoff at it, but sailors will pray for its passing. These men, who cheerfully brave the perils of the deep, may occasionally need sufficient protection against the perils of the galley. Their life in the clean open air and then- -work keep them well supplied with that best sauce of hunger, which can even make boot-tops palatable upon occasion, but these occasions should be kept at a minimum, if the Legislature is able to so ordain. Some' picturesque figures — whom sentimental versifiers may lament — may disappear from the galleys, but a ruined digestion is too big a price to pay even for sentiment.