The Star.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXXI, Issue LXVIII, 21 June 1912, Page 4

The Star.

Delivered every evening by 6 o'olook in Hawera, Manaia, Not-manh}, Okaiawa, fcltbam, Mangratoki, Kapoucca. Awatuna, Opunake. Otakeho. Manaiahi, Alton, Hurley ville. Patea. and Waverley. FRIDAY, JUNE 21, 1912. 'IHEWEEK.

The main current of the week's international news shows that there is a distinct understanding between Britain and France with resnect to cnoir navai dispositions in the event of war. This has, in fact, been clear for a good while, but the recent conference of British Ministers and officers at Malta left no doubt about it, and this week's news makes it, if possible, clearer still, for French naval rearrangements show that, in the event of war, the French battle fleet will be concentrated in the Mediterranean. But Lord Charles Beresford views this proposition with extreme disfavor. In his opinion, the naval defence of the Mediterranean is the main link in the defence of the Empire, and he objects to this being left exposed to Italy and Austria, with a French instead of a British fleet in charge of the situation. Of course, the British and French arrangement leaves the British fleets free to deal with Germany in the North Sea and the Channel; but if France should prove unequal to the contest with Italy and Austria in the Mediterranean--what then? The whole position is almost excitingly suggestive of an imminent naval Armageddon. It is certainly a time for watchful outlooks, and for readiness .to quit ourselves like men in case of emergency.

A noteworthy step in Pan-Britannic development has been taken by the Congress of the Chambers of Commerce in London, and to people in this part of the Empire it is all the more interesting because taken at the instance of Australia and New Zealand. It is this: that law with respect to all manner of financial or trading companies should be uniform throughout the whole of the British dominions. To make this change will take time, but a definite beginning has now been made, and the great end in view will be reached in clue course. The result will be to Imperialise investments—enlarge their scope and make them as secure everywhere throughout the Empire as they now are in the Motherland or in this or that particular colony or dominion. A prospect like this compensates for much that, in other spheres, perplexes or vexes students of the world's affairs.

Philosophers and men of science have long maintained that climate affects character, and, roughly, the fact is obvious to everybody. Contrast the Samoans with the Norwegians and the Hindoos with the natives of Canada, and it will be as plain as the proverbial pikestaff. Might a consideration of the principle hot help the outer world to see how natural it is that political party -warfare in the United States should be Titanic, volcanic, and all the rest of it, in the matter of passionate violence and nnmeasured personalities, such as Mr Roosevelt and Mr Taft and their followers now exhibit in the Presidential election? America is a country of devastating floods, fires, tornadoes and blizzards, and the pandemoniau antagonisms in the country's politics are merely on a par with those distressing climatic characteristics. Are they incidentally contingent Tipon them ? If so, human nature will hardly be able to last long in America. Perhaps, if they still continue to exist th^re. men, in a few thousands of years, will have ceased to be men, and have become demons. The appalling violence of the Taft-Roosevelt contest seems to justify this speculation.

So far, Italy has achieved little for herself by the war in Tripoli*; indeed, there has been absolutely no substantial gain, but much grievous loss in men and money. She has, however, proved that effective warfare may be waged from the air. Hitherto this has been mainly a matter of belief and conjecture, but a message received during the week from Rome states that "an officer, with two pilots, in a dirigible, hovered at a distance of a thousand yards and dropped bombs ■with great effect among the Turkish and Arab tents at Sidimufta, near Benghazi. The Turks fired musketry and shells without effect. The dirigible dropped other bombs, reconnoitred, and took photographs, and brought back a perfect plan of the enemy's position." This demonstration, so to speak, completes a revolution which has been in progress for many years, and constitutes the test of a powerful new factor in the science of war. Yet, only a few years ago, one <of the Maxims stood to the conviction that what has thus happened would never happen.

Tales of the failure of the dual control at the New Hebrides still flow into Axistralia, and large numbers of people in New Zealand will hope that the Commonwealth Government may succeed in its representations to the Mother Country as to Britain's buying out the French interests or securing predominance by an exchange of territory. This is, apparently, the only way whereby the control of the Islands can be placed on a satisfactory footing, and the present cordial entente or mutual understanding between France and Britain should prove invaluable as a factor in securing the desired settlement.

There is one point on which all men of sense, as well as all men with sympathy, are agreed; namely, that the minimum wage of every worker should be sufficient to enable him or her to live in civilised comfort, and at the same time put something by for the proverbial rainy day. The Sydney City Council has just done the right thing in this connection by raising the minimum wage of its adult male employees to 9s a day. This increase will add £35,000 to the city's yearly expenditure, but this is morally, iind even economically, a small matter, in view of the fact that the men .->;•■> entitled to it, because they give i 1 lispensable service to the city, and non with families could not well live ('■ 1 less and have anything to spare. Covernments and all public bodies-o.-erywhere should act up to the same ■iiinciple of justice.

\ IG. V^ 6. incident connected with the Waihi strike tells as much as -volumes f ould concerning the effect which strikes have upon human nature, and how unjust and heartless they may make men. There is a picture show at Waihij and the pianist was the

daughter of a non-unionist. There was no suggestion that the girl or woman was ,no£ doing her work satisfactorily, but it is said that, because her father was a non-unionist, the unionists went to the manager and declared that unless the pianist were dismissed, -obey would boycott the pictures. It is a pity the manager did not laugh at this contemptible threat, and defy those who made it. He, however, wrote to his principal, and that person decided to oismiss (.tie. pianist.. What a sorry exhibition of human nature the whole thing is, on the part of those who made the threat and on that of him who pandered to them. An inoffensive, capable girl deniived of her livelihood, because her fatner was a non-unionist! In a general way, everybody knows that strikes on a large scale in the Old Word entail the" starvation of women and children, but this little concrete instance at our own doors illustrates how human nature may. in other ways, be lowered in the pio'eess of prosecuting them.

There are Labor leaders and Labor leaders. Some of tiiem are able and public-spirited men, and some of them are so passionate and narrow that they are, in practice, the worst of all possible counsellors for the workers. There was a time when Mr Keir Hardie was persistently placed in this category; but if this ever was done with justice, it could not be so done nowadays. Anyway, we are' told that during the week, at the Forest of Dean, he said "that if the workers in a particular industry desired co-opera-tion with the rest of the workers, they must consult all before venturing v'o precipitate a crisis. He was convinced that legislative action would produce more permanent results than could be hoped for by strikes, as with these as agencies, the results gained in good times were liable to be lost in bad times." Surely this was sound advice to give—advice based on what might be termed a true industrial philosophy, seeking realisation through reason and legislation. What a pity this kind of thing cannot be straightway Imperialised: even New Zealand might gain considerably in consequence.

Some of the evidence which is, being given before the Education Commis° sion is of quite exceptional interest and value. In many instances the speakers are highly educated, men of large experience, and their testimony, when published, is likely to be of service for many years to come, in connection with the all-important subject of education. The other day, in Dunedin, the headmaster' of the training College told the Commission that no girl of fourteen or under should be allowed to sit for scholarship examinations, as the accompanying strain and pressure did much physical harm to girls of that age. This has been said before, and is well known to many people privately, but insisting on it before a body like the Education Commission will give it a prominence not likely to be secured for it in any other way. The fact is that, already in this small country, there have been hundreds of domestic tragedies or family failures through what girls have had to undergo by overstrain in connection with school and college work. Nerves have been demoralised, and general health undermined in the girls or young women themselves, and when they have married and become mothers, the children, too, have borne, witness to the evil effects of over-pressure. There is room for wise change in this connection, and it will have to be made, or New Zealand as a nation will become a serious sufferer; and then, of course, there are the hapless individuals, who, directly or indirectly, become victims through the pernicious processes of cram and over-study.