CURRENT TOPICS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CVI, Issue 12696, 30 December 1901, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

Continental critics have some excuse for holding that New Zealand is ran mainly

AUSTRIAN SOCIALISTS.

on Socialistic lines, for European Socialists are striving earnestly to secure many reforms which, have been carried into effect in this country. The Austrian Socialists, who held a great conference in Vienna last month, have revised! the political programme which they adopted thirteen years ago, and, looked at in the light of our own' experiences, we can hardly regard their demands as visionary or absurd. They ask for universal franchise for both sexes, from the age of twenty, triennial parliaments, payment of members, direct representation, the referendum (including the popular right of initiative and the right to veto laws), self-government in, state, province and community, the abolition of all laws restricting the right of free opinion, and full liberty to form societies and hold meetings. They seek the establishment of a free, secular and compulsory system of education. They advocate the separation of Church and State, and claim that religion should be regarded; as a private and personal matter. Civil marriage, they hold, should be compulsory. They would 1 go further than we have gone in the reform of the administration of justice, for they ask for the" provision of counsel free of cost. They advocate the abolition of capital punishment, and they declare that compensation should be granted for wrongful arrest and imprisonment. Their taxation proposals include a progressive income tax, property tax and death duties, in place of indirect taxes. They demand the removal of all civil and legal disabilities attaching to women. For the workers they seek am eight-hour day and a clear rest of thirty-six hours for Sundays. Naturally, they make an old age pensions scheme one of their planks, and they would progress even further, and compel the State to support invalids, widows and orphans. The State, too, they hold, should undertake the care of the public health, providing medical attendance, and medicine free for those people'who are too poor to pay for them. An important plank in this platform is that devoted to the question of defence. It declares for the substitution of a citizen army for a standing army, universal education in the use of arms and universal armament. Dr Adler, the leader of the Socialist Party, admits that the position of the working classes in Austria had improved in recent years, and at the conference expressed the hope that, with the spread of the co-operative spirit, the industrial field would not be left entirely to capitalists.

Tie success of the exv periments on the military railroad from Berlin to Zossen, has been so marked as to instil the utmost v confidence into the engineers and the scientists who hav© been, engaged in watching its working. The preparations were practically completed m September, and the trials had been in pro-' gress over a month when the mail left. The railway is 14.29 miles in length, is of standard gauge, level and nearly straight, there being bub one curve with a radius of 1100 yards. Already, a speed of eighty-five miles an hour has been actually achieved, and an ultimate speed of 125 miles an hour is confidently expected. The significance of the experiments is obvious. If an electric motor-car, taking its current from overhead wires, and running upon an ordinary standard gauge railway track, can carry fifty or sixty passengers with safety at a speed of 125 miles en hour, communication between big centres is destined to be speedily revolutionised. In achieving such a. maximum of speed many problems are involved. Experts) have announced that a speed of even eighty miles an hour, with only, a single-car, involves questions of air resistance, weight, form and balance of vehicle, electrical transmission at high voltage, with easy conversion to lower potentiality, and other equally important points which have not yet been settled in actual practice. All these issues are being worked out on the. German road. The programme provides that, should the experiments justify the step, a speed of from 125 to 135 miles per hour shall be attempted. The aim has been, therefore, to make the electrical apparatus sufficiently strong and heavy to achieve an extreme speed of 150 miles per hour without the danger of over-hea'ting. The passenger, cars have been built with a special view to their running at a very high speed. Each of the four cars carries four motors, which are attached to the front and rear axles of each truck, the middle pair of wheels running free. The conductors are brdinary copper wires, about three-eighths of an inch thick, so hung that the trolley can make full contact from beneath. The ends of the cars are pointed to minimise wind resistance, and the wheels are provided with the most improved pneumatic brakes. The«uccess achieved so far brings the general use of electrical traction something more than into 'the field of "pra* l tical politics."

ELECTRICAL TBACTION.

THE MARQUIS ITO.

Rumour naturally attache* considerable international importance to the European

tour of the Marquis Ito, whc« has just arrived in London. -The eminent Japanese statesman, however, insists thafr he is simply endeavouring to build up hi* health once more. A French, journalist,, assuming that his visit to Paris had some political significance, recently wrote of Mm that, "although he is less known to the French people than was the late Li Hung Chang, the esteem and admiration felt for him are incomparably beyond anything entertained for his famous rival. No state*-

»an could be better qualified ito carry through diplomatio negotiations requiring patience and delicacy. His prudence, tact and consummate ability designate him as the best representative the Emperor of Japan could select to deal with .the Chancellories of Europe." The Marquis Ito hag been a kind of deus ex machina in Japanese politics in recent years. a In 1895 he formed a Government by uniting the Progressives and Liberals, at a time when party differences threatened to weaken the Japanese position on the Korean question. He carpied through the Chinese Avar, and remained jn office until 1897, when Count Matsukata, Succeeded him. But in January, 1898, the Marquis Ito was again called to the Premiership. These* were troublous years in Japanese politics, because a strong endeavour was 'being made to establish the party system of government on European lines. The Liberals and Progressives, with p, following of 'two hundred in. a House of four hundred' members, endeavoured, to*rards the end of 1898, to keep a Ministry In office, but the experiment was a failure,

and the Marquis Yamagata formed a Cabinet on the eld lines, independent of party. It was the Marquis Yamagata who insisted on sending a strong_Japanese force to China in 1900, but it was the Marquis Ito who really maintained,the prestige of Japan so splendidly in the Boxer affair. He was looked upon as the strongest man in- the country, and at such a crisis fcis assistance was naturally sought by the Mikado. He has long been known as a Strong friend to Britain, one of his beliefs being that, the commercial interests of Britain and Japan in the Far East are identical. It was he who proposed, in 1897, a commercial understanding between Japan, America, Germany arid Britain, to secure- equality of trading opportunities for all nations in China.