TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Evening Post, Volume LXXX, Issue 84, 6 October 1910, Page 6

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

■ o At first blush it woulcl appear that the wool market has had a The Wool slight set-back, at any rate Market. so far as New Zealand's specialty, tne crossbred wools, is concerned. Private cables received by local firms and published in The Post yesterday confirm the Press Association report. There does not, however, appear to be any reason for anxiety for merinoes, and fine wools are ! quoted as firm. If the drop of 5 per cent, in crossbreds spread to the finer sorts of wool there might be some excuse for uneasiness. In all probability the crossbreds now being offered are of '< an unattractive character, the remnants of last season, leavened with some highclass lots held over from the July sales m anticipation of Aineric&n buyers again, making the market, but the Boston buyers do not seem to be keen competitors at this sale. Latest cables show that com.peti.tion is good, but only at the end of the series will it be known what the actual strength of the market is for New Zealand's own. particular wool. Ante-post betting (the phrase is used mi. >t c more in a m-taphor-Ine New South ical sense) on the Wales General last Federal election Election. was mainly concerned with the chances of a Labour victory and the probable resultant consequences. To-morrow week, 14th October, the Wade Government in New South Wales will have a very serious proposition put it by a concerted and well-organised attack of the Labour Party, which, in every- electorate where 1 a Government candidate is standing, has i provided an opponent whose policy is generally that of Mr. M'Gowen, the i Labour Leader in the State Parliament. And the election is supplying almost as much food for speculation as did the Federal campaign. People throughout Australasia are anxious to see whether the triumph of Mr. Fisher and his colleagues can and will affect the State elections; whether that wave of democracy that swept Mr. Deakin and Mr. Cook off their feet into Opposition waters has spent itself and is on the slack. Direful and dismal forebodings were raised when the prospect of a Labour Government for the Commonwealth was only suggested, but with the prospect become a reality nothing direful hapj pened. With such a sweeping victory | to its credit Labour turned eager eyes t on the New South Wales Parliament, and Mr. Wade immediately diagnosed ! danger and set about counteracting it. But his belated railway decentralisation policy and reform projects are not likely to sway many, who will be prone to look upon them as sops to Cerberus, and, rightly or wrongly, the case of Peter Bowling, of Newcastle strike fame, will sway a great majority of th© workers to bitterly antagonise the Wade Party. Altogether the signs are ominous for the present Government, which, at the expiration of the outgoing Parliament, held an advantage of 16 seats: 53 to 37. Incidentally it is assured that, however the result goes, the winning side will explain its victory as a distinct reflection of the Federal elections, Labour as a confirmation of that democratic triumph, and Mr. Wade as a revulsion of feeling towards Labour's political domination and policy. In view of the organising movement m the New Zealand Labour ranks, the result of the New South Wales election will be awaited hero with an unusual interest.

All eyes will be turned to-day to the western coast of "Our Mission Europe, where the is to Save." threatening cloud of revolution has at last broken, and men are perturbed as to what portentous developments will follow. In the absorbing interest which a nation convulsed by civil war excites, and the anxieties it arouses regarding the peace of nations, the work of the greatest of human armies is liable to be forgotten. Holmes, in immortal verse, lias depicted the unheralded host that moves "'calm as the patient planet's gleam that walks the clouded skies," of which, he says, "Along its front no sabres shine, no blood-red pennons wave." Long after the new "green-and-blue" standard has passed into oblivion, and the massacrea patriot engaged in the holy war against mental infinity is enrolled in the army of martyrs, the grand campaign against filth and pestilence, epidemic and malaria, will continue, and will'have passed from victory to victory. Two items in our cable columns this week record progress on the part of the advance guard of the new division engaged in the warfare against tiopical diseases. Most newspaper readers have some idea of the areas won from yellow fever since the agency of the _ anqpheles mosquito as the disease-carrier was discovered, and the evil successfully combated by the draining of swamps and the destruction of the larvae by kerosene, but only regular study of the voluminous literature on the subject can keep a reader fully informed as to tho progrgsg ;n tracking out and over-.

coming maladies which, in the past, have almost depopulated wide areas. Lord Kitchener on Tuesday eulogised the Medical Corps in India, which had almost banished enteric from the Hospitals, and was chiefly hampered in its war with malaria by the apathy and inherited prejudices of three hundred millions of insanitary natives; and yesterday we recorded the announcement" by Sir Robert Boyce, Professor of Pathology, at Liverpool University, of important and fruitful discoveries by the scientific men in West Africa engaged in the fight against yellow fever. All honour to the benefactors of every rank in the noble army of healing !