The Star Delivered every evening' by 5 o'clock in Hawera, Manaia, Normanby, Okaiawa, Eltham, Mangatoki, Kaponga, Awatuna, Opunake, Otakeho, Manutahi, Alton, Hurleyville, Patea. Waverley. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 1913. THE WEEK,

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXV, Issue LXV, 5 September 1913, Page 4

The Star Delivered every evening' by 5 o'clock in Hawera, Manaia, Normanby, Okaiawa, Eltham, Mangatoki, Kaponga, Awatuna, Opunake, Otakeho, Manutahi, Alton, Hurleyville, Patea. Waverley. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 1913. THE WEEK,

Contention still prevails in connection with the Balkans, though actual bloodshed has ceased for the time. The fuller accounts that still keep coming to hand concerning the horrifying atrocities committed by the Bulgarians, even on helpless women and children, are, however, too circumstantial to be gainsaid, and men like Pierre Loti and Commander Cardale are not to be doubted as witnesses of what they have heard with their own ears and seen with their own eyes. The tales which these gentlemen, and others like them, tell cover the Bulgarians withinfamy and disgrace human nature. No wonder that sensitive people, on reading them, should come to the conclusion that the world is rotten-ripe for destruction, and that its end must surely be at hand. And yet, unfortunately for the credit of humanity, there is nothing new in all those horrors. History records many such instances of "hell broke loose," and Shakespeare indicates the prevailing elemental factors when he make's Henry V. say : The gates of mercy shall be all shut up, And the fleshed soldier, rough and hard of heart, In liberty of bloody hand shall range AVith conscience wide as he'll, mowing like grass The fresh-fair virgin and the flowering infant. * * «• * "What rein can hold licentious wickedness. "When down the hill he holds his fierce career." There is no need to print here the details given by the great dramatist, but they are singularly like those of the recent Balkan horrors. Then there is a philosophy to account for even the perfidies' of the Balkan Powers; and in this connection the London Spectator thus states the case : "After, all, Bulgaria has aimed at nothing more than Prussia aimed at— successfully—in 1866. Indeed, when we look at, the animating motives of all the Balkan States, we cannot fail to see that the pet weaknesses of all nations are merely reproduced in South-Eastern Europe. Have Servia and Greece demanded 'compensation' from Bulgaria? So did Germany demand 'compensation' from France in Morocco, and France, in her turn, from Spain. It is not to be expected that young, ambitious, and comparatively irrational nations should behave differently from ourselves. It is futile to lasK them with opprobrious words. The only thing now is to counsel them not to open their mouths too wide, but to remember that they will not be allowed to swallow, any one of them, more than their just share." This sounds like the voice of wisdom,, and perhaps—while still abhorring and reprehending all that has been greviously inhuman—we should listen to-.it even in these far off parts of the worldIt may or may not matter much to the essential happiness of mankind—because nothing matters much in that connection except what affects character and conduct—but. it is obvious that the development of air-craft as an exact science is likely to lead to astonishing results in the spheres of war and trade and travel. Navies and standing armies as we now know them may, in less than fifty years, be mere matters of history and antiquity, and the carriage of goods, and travelling from place to place, may be carried on chiefly if not entirely by airships. Pegoud's extraordinary feats in twice looping the loop this week remove the character of fancy or exaggeration from these expectations, more especially when an experienced scientific airman like Bleriot declares that looping the loop—turning in the air and recovering tlie normal position in the manner of tlie tumbler pigeon—is not merely a bit of acrobatic daring and good luck, but an achievement of the highest scientific significance. If, as he says he can, Bleriot can build a non- | capsizable monoplane which will be as j safe as a li'febdat, it is clear that aircraft is in the straightway of very remarkable developments, likely to have correspondingly .remarkable effects on, the ways and'means and usages of mankind. The tragic results of the collision of the Glasgow and Aberdeen express railway trains will be felt in the right spirit by all people of sympathy throughout the Empire. Yet the story of the collision carries an anecdote which is grim, not through horror, hut the callousness which it chronicles. ' 'An uninjured lady survivor from the coach wherein others were dying, rushed aboutasking: ' Where are my golf sticks?' This is the tale as told by the cablenews agent, and perhaps it is true, and a proof that human nature is a motley affair, everywhere pretty much the same. Once upon a time, on a burning passenger ship, amongst gen- • eral confusion, danger, and horror (actital and apprehended), two young women concentrated all they felt for themselves and others at the moment into thte mutual exclamation: "Oh, dear, oh, dear! And we shall lose all our pretty dresses!" He who recalls the incident, heard the words. So that the callous' yet grotesque want of heart recorded in connection with the Glasgow-Aberdeen express collision is not a new thing under the sun. Swimming the Channel is one of those things which certain types of people hanker after, somewhat as. certain other types in the past were wont to

| hanker after perpetual motion and the philosopher's stone. Still the thing may have its uses, and at least the hobby is never likely to be vulgarised by too much imitation, because the undertaking requires exceptional strength, skill, courage, and endurance. Both time and tide have, quite literally, to be contended with, as the distance has never been done in less than 21 hours, and the tide in the Channel is so swift that, though the direct distance is only 22 miles, the actual swimming distance is much more. Montague Holbein' has just made his third or fourth unsuccessful attempt to swim over from.the English to the French shore, and, on this occasion, has had to give up affe/. swimming fora couple of hours.. Hence, for the present, the honors remain as before with Captain Webb, who crossed from Dover to Calais in' 21hr 45min on August 2-4 and 25, 1875; and with T. W. Burgess, who accomplished the same task on September 5 and 6, 1911, in 22hr 35min. Many people are apt to claim credit for things which can be traced to other men, other times, and places. Instances of this have been somewhat frequent of late in connection with the naval defence of the Pacific, but the other day a message from Cape Town 'concerning the visit of the Australia has revived an incident which should help to place facts in their right relations. Tennyson's poem from "The Fle.et" was quoted by one of the Cape Town speakers, and that poem was inspired long before politicians of the present generation were heard of. It was written in 1886, in consequence of the sentiments expressed in a speech delivered at the Colonial Institute in London by the late Sir Graham Berry, who was then Agent-General for Victoria. In the speech in question Sir Graham Berry declared that "the keystone of defence was the necessity for an overwhelmingly powerful fleet and efficient defence for all necessary coaling stations. This was the one condition for the continuance of the em-' pire. It was to strengthen the fleet that colonists would first readily tax themselves." It was these words that inspired Tennyson's poem, beginning— You, you; if you shall fail to understand i What England is, and what her all-in-all, On you will come the curse of all the land, Should this old England fall Which Nelson left so great. There were also in New Zealand public men who felt and acted to this tune, so that the question of the naval defence of the Pacific and of the Empire, on the modern Imperialistic scale, has not just recently come to the front, but, happily, this also is historically true—that the men of to-day have fairly well thought and acted up to the policy of their farsighted: predecessors. There would. seem to be with some ships, as with some people, such a thing as fatalistic ill-luck. .Anyway,, the'week's news concerning the fire on the great German liner, the Imperator,. will suggest this to those who see things just as they appear to be on the surface. When the Imperator was launched the Kaiser was nearly killed by a falling block,, and, Tiefore the fire tlxe__other day, eight of her men had lost their lives by explosions. Originally she was to have sailed from Hamburg for New York, via Southampton, at the end of April, but it was then stated that she could not be completed in time. Then she was to have sailed in the first week in May, but this, too, was found impossible. Next she \ was put in the sailing list for May 25, and for the third time the plan was upset. It was said-at the time that the cause on that occasion was an accident on board. It is a fact that she grounded in tl € Elbe, that she afterwards had serious trouble with her crew, and now there has been the destructive fire (accompanied with loss'of life) at New York. Not an-encourag-ing record, certainly, As a ship, the Imperator has been described as an eleven-storeyed floating palace. Her displacement is 50,000 tons, and she can accommodate 5000 passengers. She has a winter garden, summer houses, a theatre, a gymnasium, a restaurant, a ballroom, telephones, and swimming rmd Turkish baths. -But all this luxury hardly makes up for so much ill-luck. All will hope, however, that her subsequent career s may belie her inauspicious beginnings.