CURRENT TOPICS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCIII, Issue 10599, 7 March 1895, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

Wo are informed.by cable that tha special correspondent of tha Daily Telegraph in Armenia is confirming tha accounts previously published of the outrages

THE ATROCITIES IN ARMENIA.

committed by the Turks on the Christian population of that country. This conviction was forced upon the correspondent of Tha Speaker at Constantinople over a month ago, when ha wrote?— I ‘*l fear that there can be no doubt about the essential facts. We have already the official reports of the Consuls at Van, Eraeroum, Sivas and Diarbekir, which have not yet been published, but which, we know, confirm the most horrible statements made in the papers. We have she reports of the Armenian refugees who were eye-witnesses. Wo have the reports sent to the Armenian Patriarchate hero, and the reports of Catholic and Protestant missionaries in the vicinity of Sassoun. Beyond this, and most horrible of all, we have tha testimony of the Turkish soldiers who took part in the massacres. These soldiers were of the regular army, and were drawn from Erzeroum, Erzingau, Van, Bitlis, Eharpoot and Sivao. They have since returned to their respective posts afcer having been publicly thanked, in the name of the Sultan, for what they did. And they have talked with the greatest freedom in public places, and to all who would listen, boasting of their deeds. Wa have full reports from all these places of the statements made by hundreds of these soldiers, and they agree in all essential points. No doubt, they exaggerate. One soldier, for instance, boasted that, with his own hands, he had ripped up twenty pregnant women. Another, that he took part in a massacre in a church, where the blood ran in a large stream from the door. It is not necessary to accept such stories as literal statements of fact; but they do prove that such things wore done, and also that the soldiers believed that they were done by order of the Sultan and with his full approval.” It does not by any means follow that the Commission will be able to obtain such evidence, for the soldiers will deny their former statements, and the authorities are reported to be getting rid of impartial witnesses by means of threats or by having them imprisoned- on false charges.

THE TERRIBLE TUBE,

The problem. of : how to protect the Armenians from Turkish misrule can apparently only be solved by granting some form of self-

government to those people who have for the past six hundred years Buffered " one long martyrdom” at the hands of an inferior race. Lieutenant-General Tyrrell, in a letter to the London Daily News , maintains that the Turk is not bo much unwilling as unable to govern wisely. Ho says the Turk is mentally and constitutionally unable to govern by any method other than brute force, though Providence, in its inscrutable wisdom, has entrusted him with the government of many races superior to himself in mental qualities. The Turk is a good servant, but a bad master; yet he rules in almost all the lands of Islam simply by virtue of his physical strength and brute courage. His Mongolian stupidity makes him ths'butt of the Aryan Persian, as well as of the Semitic Arab. The latter has. a bitter, and most truthful 1 - proverbial saying* -that,

“the grass never grows in the footsteps! of a Turk.” The Persian expresses higj contempt by the following fable; The Asa; once complained to God, saying, “Lord,? why hast Thou created me, seeing Thou! badst already created the Turk?" Andl God answered the Ass, saying, “Teiilyj We have created the Turk, in order chab the excellence of thy understanding mightbecome apparent.” That a nation thalj has proved itself so unfit to rule should by maintained in power at the instance oC Christian capitalists who have lent the Turk money wherewith tocarry on his iniquities is a state of things humiliating to con 4 template. If ever an empire had Men»g mens, tekcl, upharsin written up against itU it is Turkey. Partition would be easy og accomplishment but for the financial diffiV oulty. It is sometimes asserted “sentiment rules the world.” Turkey is! a standing reminder that money is still more powerful than sentiment.

THE PASTOBALIBTS’ DEPRESSION.

The full significance o£ the fall in the price of wool; is not shown by the recital of the fluctuations of the! market, though that alone

is grievous enough. What the fall itx wool really means is that after a season the most favourable, and with a clip the largest and best yet known in Australasia, the pastoralist is poorer than ever. The explanation of this anomaly is to be found in the following figures, which, down to the season 1893-4, represent actual results, and for the current season are the estimates formed by the Australasian Insurance and Banking Record. The figures represent the selling value in London of the Australasian wool clip, year by year-

The above estimate of £20,666,000 for the 1894-5 clip allows, saya the Record, for an increase in quantity of about 100,000 bales, and is based upon the actual selling value of wool at the close of the NovemberDecember sales in London. To arrive at the net proceeds in the shipping ports of Australasia there must he deducted freight, insurance, and selling charges. These deductions would probably make the net proceeds of growers’ account sales for the present 1894-95 clip about £18,000,000. The present estimated London value is, in round numbers, just about one-half the amount that the clip would have realised if sold at the average prices ruling for wool during the eleven years 1866-18!??. In other words, so long as our present scale of production and oar present prices continue we shall realise on our wool clip about £20,000,000 a year less than we should realise if the average wool prices for the eleven years 1866 to 1877 had been maintained. But what makes the fall seem more serious is the fact that about one-half of it has taken place during the last six years. The 1888*91 clip of 1,395,000 bales, at an average of about £ls 10s per bale, realised about £21,622,500, The clip for the present year,; estimated at, say 2,000,000 hales, can only be put as now worth £lO 6s Sd per bale, on £20,666,000. If we compare the net pro*, ceeds in each case, we find that while the 1,395,000 bales netted about £19,500,000,' the 2,000,000 hales can only be put at £1,500,000 less, or £18,000,000. In othen words, we have increased the quantity of wool produced by 600,000 bales, ,or 43 pen cent, and yet we obtain £1,500,000 leasfon it. And this extra quantity of wool hag only been * produced cost.

AUSTRALASIAN WOOL CLIP. Loudon Sbdhitg Value. Clip of Season. Bales. Value per Bale. Total Value, 1880-81 952,000 £174 £16,422,000 1881-82 997,000 174 17,447,500 1882-83 1,040,000 16| 17,420,006 1883-81 1.111,000 16 17,766,000 1884-85 1,104,000 14 15.456,000 1885-86 1,155,000 134 15,592,500 1880-87 1,181,000 14 16,534,000 1887-88 1,285,080 184 17,347,500 1888-89 1,895,000 154. 21,622,500 1889-90 1,484,000 14f 21,889,000 1890-91 ,1,628,000 134 31,978,000 1891-92 1,794,000 12 21.528.000 1892-93 1,808,000 124 22,600,000 1893-94 1,904,000 114 21,896,000 1894-95 2,000,000 104 20,666,000