CURRENT TOPICS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CIX, Issue 13120, 7 May 1903, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

ALIENS IN MANCHURIA.

Considering' what Russia’s position in Manchuria is, and how aha came to he) there, it is a little amusing. „ . A MV>lni*niv>.n + oIIATI

to find Russians complaining of the adieu evil ” in tha big eastern province. It difficult to understand what lias taken so many “aliens” to’ this part of the ■world,, seeing that the complaints are not directed against traders. ■ Manchuria* we know, is being flooded, with British and Amcricall; goods, but tha official positions, engineering and so forth, are in the hands of Russians,. and there is really nothing left for the casual Autolycus. The Russian accounts of the condition of some of the Manchurian towns remind one forcibly OifJ the stories Of early days in California. Harbin, the town where the Manchurian Railway joins with the trans-Siberian line, is said to be filled! with all kinds of adventurers, who are turning the town into a drinking hell, an international cafe chantant, and a general sink of iniquity. The “Amur Gazette,” which is responsible for this statement, declares that, with the exception of Dalny, which possesses a regular administration and a normal public life, the same deplorable state of things exists throughout Manchuria, ..where foreigners are gradually ousting Russians and Russian undertakings. Moreover, the Chunchuses, are becoming bolder and! bolder in their brigandage. Economic activity also shows a rapid decline in the Transbaikal and Amur Provinces* where the txada returns wawmoM ta.k“-*"'-' 3 iminish

ed by two-thirds since 1900. Legitimate trade is severely handicapped byj smuggling, which is facilitated by the vast* extent of the frontier. Steam navigationl enterprise, the journal ccmplains, is conn pletely ruined by the Mar.churian Railway, There is scarcely any market for corn, while the Cossack settlers have been reduced tft misery. The district is big enough andj populous enough to support a legitimatet trade, but the Far East seems to have been greatly overboomed. Apparently, enter* prising Russians thought that the completion of the Siberian Railway would lead! to an enormous expansion of and) they laid their plans accordingly. Butl sinoe the war Manchuria has been fed andi supplied largely V through southern ports. The result has been a series of heavyj failures in Vladivostock, and trade generally is passing through an acutely critical stage.

\ , DEiTEKDIKO AUSTRALIA.

Mr A. G. Hales ias con* tribute d a characteristic ar-> tide on Australian de* fence to the “Daily News."- . _ <1 ■ £ iiV~

It is mainly ft plea for ; the completion of the Perth-Adelaida rail« ■way. “The line,” he says, “is not only intended to open up a stretch of country some eleven hundred miles ini length, but it is also intended to form the latest link in the great railway which will then practically girdle very nearly the whole of the populated portion of Australia, and complete a scheme of military defence which in so young a country is, simply colossal.” If the Kalgoorlie-Port Augusta line were in existence, thinks Mr Hales, no invading army that any Power in the world'could land could exist in Australia for,any length! of time. He explains that within a few hours news of the landing of the invaders would he known all over Australia, and immediately the great mining towns of Queens* land would begin to send their miners into Brisbane. From Brisbane to Sydney the troop-trains would pick up men from every, wayside station, and already the men from - New South! Wales and Victoria, and South Australia would he concentrating in Sydney and Melbourne and Adelaide for equip* meut. The three or four thousand miles of line around the Australian coast would! ha collecting the citizens, the numbers of tha men transported being limited only by the! capacity of the rolling stock. “ Tins great scheme,” continues Mr Hales, “is now almost complete; it only wants this last link of 1100 miles to make it perfect, and the beauty of it all is that, great factor though it will be In time of invasion, its chief recommendation is that In time of peace it is the chief factor in the young nation’s prosperity. That mighty iron girdle taps the mines that lie inland, it taps the woolsheds of the squatters, the wheat farms of the farmers, and helps the hundred and one industries that are budding into life in that new land. H it were, not for this girdle, the axes ringing in tha Great Western forests would be idle, for the lumbermen would not market the hardwood without it; if it were not for this ring of steel rails the prospectors would not go inland to seek for precious metals, for without it and its branch lines, shooting here, there, and everywhere, the prospectors’ labour would bo vain. That girdle of railway iron,was a mighty conception, both for peace and war.” The chief advocate of the scheme is Sir John Forrest; the chief opponents are those interested in the Port Darwin line.

THE MTSTEET OP BADltni.

1 TOie estoaordin&ry qnaCtiy; o(f tadlum, wfoSdi in unbanfcaineldl at a temperature-2.7 ideg. Fahrenheit above tlhat

of surrounding objects, was jnerifcioneidl in the rablegiratas ai fefw week* ago. Partiaiikrs df M. Curie's <HsdOT«rfj" t are published! (by the London papers. Radium bas excited itfha Keenest interest by its power of fchirowJriig off says, oSr vibrai tions, or "electrons," which/when receivedl upon a .sensitive dcneesa off barium pJatinox cyanide or zinso\iSuiplilde l , cause it to glow, with.a phosphorescent ligiht. ' Sir' 'WalEamj Crookes, who tas invastigaMli tMa sab* jest w'Mi the most biriffiatifc mesults, garaP Q> very iheautrifnl diemoastration at the meet* inig of the Koyal Society recently. Viewed through, a magindfyiag glass,titoe cemsitiY* ecreen was seem to 'ba the object of al veritable bombattSmJant by partiicfeis of in* finite minuteness, themseivea in* visible, imad© known their arrival on tlhfl. screen by flashes of just as a ribell! coming from iihe blue announces itself by, an explosion. R-elmajkablei as tbess pro< perineis of radiuan are, th&j a»a mot inexplicable, but M. Curie's xeYektioins are ol a different! n&ture.' Phtospbloresoeniß© is nothing new; we see it ia the glewwonni ia a kferaayinig fish-hiefaJdL 'But iadstam ia constantly giving off teat oil) a rate sufficient' to melt its own •weigh)!) of toe every fcicw„ amid yet is (maintained! always at a temi pcTatare •bighefii tih'am tblat of its environment. Apparently, therefore,: it tas thai power of igaltthering up/wandering energy" and converting it into beau. Its physiolo* gical action is exceedingly powerful. A small quantity, oontainedl in a test tube„ if kept in contact w& this Mo,,' causes an open sore, and in a few fcouas a grain of it would eat 'fchsrouign a (man's dothing. A' pound of it would! HE everybody- in tha paJmo roomi "with it, or. at least would dieetnoy the sight and! blisfer tihe skin.-' As d pound of it, at (the presant rate, would cost about £250,000, there i| not. much chance of the experiment* being tried: ' If radium 'is producing) new (the theoiyi of the conservation of energy cannot onid scientists, naturally unwilling ;to abandon bo well-gToundle'd looking about for some other explanation.