CURRENT TOPICS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CV, Issue 12421, 9 February 1901, Page 7

CURRENT TOPICS.

S GKBAT j »DIANOrEB, i\ '■

The acquisition of Mr Carnegie’s great steel ’Works by Mr J. Pierpoint syndicate, as wo learned from

jthe cablegram published yesterday, practically gives him control of |he whole steel (trade of Aperies According to evidence given before the Industrial Commission siting fn Washington a couple of mouths ago, jdr Morgan was commissioned by the Federal Steel Company to secure a controlling Interest in all the steel works in the couniry. The money placed in his hands for the purpose amounted to three hundred million (dollars. In the December number of Munsey’s Magazine,”. Mr, J. P. Bocqck gives a brief character sketch of “ America’s [Foremost Financier,” the head of the banking firm of J. Pierpoint Morgan and Co, V the greatest power in Wall Street.” Mr Morgan is a man distinguished for his unbounded charity, and also for hisunusual jmodesty. ’ His abhorrence of notoriety, we told, is one of the strong factors in his personal equation. Others are his f imperious well” (whatever that may mean), ibis acuteness of thought, and his brevity of speech. Another powerful [factor is his physique. Six feet in height, ■with, the shoulders and chest of an athlete, he is, ‘with all his 200 and more pounds (weight, “$q quick in his movements as to iorce upon all beholders the conclusion that here, indeed, is a man both intellectually ;knd physically in touch with the foremost |orces of his time.” He is one of the most (accessible of men. Any man with business |t» transact can interview ‘him,, but each minute of his working hours is worth at least forty dollars, estimating his actual (gains only. As for his personal appearance, I* is well and quietly dressed, his grey hair Is closely trimmed, and his chin is smooth eitaven, and he evidently takes care of bis Jbody. His methods are simple and straightforward, and the broad low desk at which jiha works is suggestive of business rather I than magnificence. Mr Morgan’s chief rejcreafcion is yachting, and for years he was jeommodore of the New York Yacht Club. Eis new boat, the Corsair, is an ocean-going Steamer of 1136 tons.'.

/ BUSINESS ENGLISH.

With the expansion ol German trade in the colnies, we have all /become more or less familiar with

!lho German-English business circular. “We lihave, to suit your requirements an ink in re- ■ cent years constructed,” opens one of these ' documents, which is rather more lucid than the average composition, and most business houses in the city.could furnish an equally (elegant extract from the correspondence that leach European mail brings them. On the Mother hand, some German firms trading with jthe colony hairs been wise enough to secure English correspondence clerks, and their circulars are models of lucidity. Judging by Eomp examples of correspondence from firms having their ijjead-quarters in Great Britain, however, we cannot afford to laugh at the literary efforts of their German rivals. We have before us, for instance, a circular sent out by a well-known Birmingham firm of tube manufacturers. “ Dear Sirs,” ,it opens, “A many years ago we introduced our Manufacture of Wrot Iron Tubes and Fittings to your notice by a circular through our representative, Mr Tube Seller, of Sydney.”' “A many years” might pass muster in a literary competition, in which the writer aims at obtaining an archaic flavour, but however correct the idiom might have been five centuries ago, ws can hardly admit it into the plain business English of today. “Wrot Iron,” again, might be taken as the name of a special brand of tube, but as the firm advertises wrought iron tubes elsewhere, we can only read it as a curious mistake in spelling. Perhaps we had better quote the remainder of the circular in full:—“We then suggested that if yon were not a user of our goods you might give them a trial, seeing that no equally well finished and Standard Screwed Tubes and Fittings could be'boughfe cheaper. As a result our friends the merchants at once increased their Ordering of our goods, and this steady increase of ordering has . so continued that we are able to proclaim that the year ending June 30, 1900, shows our shipments to Australia to be larger than any previous year - . We thank you for your confidence, and for your steady demand for our goods. We have again increased our works, adding the most modern and improved machinery, and we can promise that our high-class quality, workmanship, and standard screwing, will pot only be maintained, but excelled.” The circular, as a whole, reads very like those curious paragraphs compiled for fourth form boys to “ ra-write in correct English.” In face of such a production, we are inclined to .■"look dubiously on any proposal to reduce the jimoant of time devoted at our public schools to the teaching of the King’s English.

’ ‘A retired naval officer waste 0? With a turn for statistics the navt. recently supplied one of the London, journals with some figures that are of considerable interest in connection with the British Navy. He says that 64 cadets left the Britannia with him in 1860, and that he has since traced their subsequent history as far as possible. His researches are interesting from two points of view, from that of the public, who are anxious to leam how many cadets are necessary to the production of a given lieutenant, and from that of the cadet and his relatives, who want to know the chances of a cadet receiving his promotion to the position of commander, captain or rearadmiral. Of the 64 cadets, that formed the subject of the inquiry, 44 became sublieutenants, and of the 44, 35 reached the rank of lieutenant. . Only eleven, or 17 per cent of the original number, were appointed commanders on the active list, seven eventually attaining to the rank of post-oaptadn. Two of these, with a fair slice of luck, will eventually end with flag rank. It will be, seen that only one cadet in six eventually becomes a commander, and one in nine a captain. But perhaps the most remarkable feature of these results is the large number of cases in which cadets failed to reach even , the rack of sub-lieu-tenant. There are apparently two causes that explain this decrease. Under the arrangement by Mr Childers to reduce the lists the regulations naturally became more stringent. Moreover, sub-lieu-tenants were invited,-and even encouraged, to seek retirement., The retired officer’s figures refer, of course, to a period of long ago, and some of the difficulties that formerly lay in the way of promising lads have .been removed. Bub the regulations are still capable of a good deal of improvement, and it is a question whether they do not at present do more to retard the progress of really qualified officers than to pro J tect the service’ from an inundation of younger sons without any particular ability whose relatives are only anxious to provide them, with a profession that will give them the stamp of gentility.