Notes and Comments.

Feilding Star, Volume XII, Issue 3023, 18 August 1916, Page 2

Notes and Comments.

Here's a Good One. At Dunedin a collection of bottles is being made to be sold for patriotic purposes and somo 20,000 are already in hand. Ono boy collector explained that ho had only brought two medicine bottles, which ho had taken from tho scullery shelf, as the other bottles wero all labelled "Not to bo taken I" A Very Cheap Traitor. It appears that it cost a fee of only £5 to hang Roger Casement. A Roclidalo (Lancashire) barber named Ellis shot tho Casement bolt .for that sum. An executioner in New Zealand gets £10 and the rope. Of course, if Ellis got tho hemp that hung Casement, ho could have sold it by tbe yard to morbid sentimentalist collectors of souvenirs. Why Employ Shirkers? Amongst a number of young men recently fined in various parts of the Dominion for refusing to carry out their duties as Territorials were two Civil Servants at Pahiatua. This raises the question: Should not insistence upon carrying out duties to the State begin from within the Public Service. The Civil Service Commissioners should make it an order of the day to find out who among its youths and young mon are shirking their military duties. There should be uo employment by tho State for those who will not serve the State fully aud faithfully in and out of oilice hours. The Pahiatua Election. Considering that the times are politically out of joint and that the party leaders had announced that, there beins a truce in narty warfare, it was a foregone conclusion that Mr Harold Smith would win, the Pahiatua seat yesterday. A Masscyito succeeds a Masseyite, also a lawyer succeeds a lawyer. Mr Ross, the Independent Liberal, put up the big- showing (1438 to 1521 votes) the veteran politician was expected to produce, and Mr McFarlanc, tho Bed Fodder, with a meagre 241, was just where he should be on the poll. Mr Smith had tho support of the Prohibition Party, as ho was reported by its leaders to be "sound on the goose." It was otic of tho "slowest" elections on record, little interest being shown last night in the results. This, of course, because there was no issue involved in the result. , France's Rich Provinces. Quite apart from strong sentimental reasons, French people want to get their lost provinces of Alsace-Lorraine back because of their actual value. In the provinces are some of the greatest potash mines in the world. These mines alone yield £4,000,000 worth of potash every year. Naturally, while the Germans have owned them they have made many millions out of them, supplying the world with potash, and with fertilizers from the rock salt which is mixed un with tho potash beds. Another fact about Lorraine which will surprise most people is that it has half the world's supply of iron ore. as well as huge untapped coal deposits. For the coal alono France would like Lorraine, for she is short of coal, aud has to import 10,000.000 tons a year. Altogether, the return of Alsace-Lorraine will increase France's annual income by some £10,----000.000, so there is a business side as well as a sentimental one to the recapturo of the lost provinces. Libelling the Anzac. Tho Palmerston Times devotes half a column this morning to an editorial article in reply to the protest of two Feilding Anzaes to the uaragraph published in the Times imputing that traitors from our Main Body went over to the Turks in Gallipoli and taunted their late comrades with the cry:' "You're not at Trentham now!" Tlie Times retorts by declaring its second-hand statement as an absurdity —too improbable altogether. The pity is that the writer of the paragraph did not add that suggestion of absurdity at the time, for so many people believe literally what they see in the papers—which makes the responsibility of journalists all the greater. The Times tries to sidetrack the issue raised by tho protesting Anzaes by referring to a serious statement made by Premier Massey yesterday (which we. publish in another column), to the effect that a New Zealander had deserted to the enemy. But Mr Massey does not commit tbe offence of Mr Thomson and the Times by naming the body from which tbe desertion was made. Tbe Main Body men who -were not at Trentham, are" very naturally jealous of thpir reputation. The real point in Mr Massey's statement is that New Zealanders who have in the past protested against the laxity of the Government and the Defence Department towards the enemy in our midst have again been justified.