CURRENT TOPICS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCVI, Issue 14503, 15 October 1907, Page 6

CURRENT TOPICS.

*<£- Mr W. G. Fitzgerald. FHA-NCE IN who has been travelling Africa. in North America, declares in the American “ Review of Reviews ” that Morocco ie the world’s richest prize. Given a couple of decades of development by European methods, her trade, he says, should bo worth forty millions sterling a year. The country contains 300,000 square miles of fertile land, lying at Europe’s very door, it has 1300 miles of coaet-line, on the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, “a granary that would feed an Empire, limitless fisheries, copper mines richer than the rich Rio Tinto property just across the Straits, and ten millions of a hardy fighting race that might well yield a superb army of half a million troops for use in Europe should occasion arise. The climate ie the lovely climate of Southern Spain, and the soil will grow anything from wheat and barley to or Singes.” At present, the trade of Morocco is worth four millions sterling a year. The prize, Mr Fitzgerald thinks, is destined to fall to France. The French policy of “pacific penetration” has carried trading and military posts over the Algerian frontier and round the illdefined southern boundary of Morocco, and in a few years the famous and rich oasio of Tafilet will bo in French hands. France is now in possession of the desert from the hinterland of Tripoli to the Atlantic coast, from Algeria to Lake Tchad and Timbuctoo. But Morocco, says Mr Fitzgerald, is the key to the whole French scheme of empire

in North-west Africa. When Morocco falls into her hands, France will- control a coast-line of 3200 miles, and will enjoy a monopoly of African trade worth £100,000,000 a year. Her empire will exceed India in extent and wealth, and she will have it at her own doors. French Guinea and French Congo will be detached, hut Franco will bo anxious to link them with the rest of the African Empire, and then, cays Mr Fitzgerald, there will be trouble for Britain. Every naval station on the Mediterranean route will be overlooked by a French station on the African Coast, and there will be no friendly port between Plymouth and Senegambia.

CO-OPERATIVE MIXING.

Addressing the North of England Mining Institute recently, Mr J. If. . Mr*rivnln fnrmp.rlv

11. . ivienvalOj formerly Professor of Mining at Armstrong College, Newcastle, prophesied that in tho future mines would be developed either by the State or by tho workmen in cooperation. He was not sure that such an application of State Socialism would bo for the good of the country, because, though it was impossible not to sympathise''with tho objects of Socialism, tho methods of actual experiments were often had. • Mr Merivalo said ho believed that the object the Socialist expected to obtain through the State could be obtained more satisfactorily by co-operation. The working man, however, had hardly reached the stage in social evolution that would enable him to conduct successfully colliery enterprises. Ho was ignorant of the elements of political economy as applied to coal mining, commerce, and business generally. Besides being better versed in political economy and commerce, the miners must learn to put more confidence in their leaders, before they could nope to manage a colliery successfully. In their present mind, confidence would he withheld from tho agent of a miners’ co-operative colliery, in bad times at any rate. A difficulty that was sometimes mentioned in connection with co-operative collieries was the inability of the working miners to raise capital. .That, if it existed, said Mr Merivale, was due to the want of a little self-denial on; the part of the young men. If the miner could be persuaded to postpone marriage until twenty-seven or twenty-eight years of age, instead of marrying soon after ho came of age, there would he no difficulty in the matter. It was also evident from the large sums that miners had already saved and invested in various undertakings, such as unions, building societies, savings banks, benefit societies, relief funds, and co-operative stores, that want of capital need be no bar to tho establishment of co-operative collierjes. Mr Merivalo went on to say that the miners of Northumberland and Durham alone had over two millions sterling invested in co-operative distributing societies, and if they could find capital to that extent for trading purposes, they should have no - difficulty in financing their experiments in cooperative production.

A REALISTIC WARNING.

Father Vaughan, when speaking to a large an,d rashionablo audience at the Mansion House 11 - )

4 ue luansion in Dublin some weeks ago, adopted a rather extraordinary method of impressing upon his hearers the enormity of a vice to which ho knew many of them wore addicted. Ho took as his text a story that was going the round of the London clubs to the effect that a well-known gambler who, by some chance, had found - himself in heaven, had taken a return ticket to “tho other place,” and while there had lost tho second half of his ticket at bridge to a 'ady cheat. Th© good pastor related, a dream that h© had bad about the subject, and the “Daily Chronicle” reported his story at some length on the following morning. As he lay awake, tho report runs, he fancied he saw in one of the outer courts of heaven th© well-known gambler pacing to and fro in a fruitless search for a companion. At last, being able to stand the loneliness no longer, he went to St Peter at the golden gate and, confessing that it was by cheating that he had passed through, he begged for a pass-out ticket to see how his old friends were doing down below. There he found an enoi" mous crowd of well-known betting men and women in a low and suffocating room, ail being forced to play bridge with’’ no stakes and in dead silence. For some time ho watched at the various tables the faces of the players, in which rage, despair, and hatred were depicted in. every feature. At length the passion for play awoke in him once more and he drew forth his return ticket to heaven, played for it and lost. The ticket was secured by a -noted and fashionable society woman, who was known to he a confirmed cheat, and she dashed with it from the gambling saloon making for th© iron gates. Thei’e she was met bv Satan,, who, after congratulating her on her luck, pointed to the words “Not transferable.” She screamed, tore to shreds the ticket, and the devil led her hack to the tables to resunle her everlasting play. “ See,” he exclaimed, “ these letters of fire, ‘ All hope abandon ye who enter here.’” The “sermon ought to have been impressive. Gambling is the besetting vice of fashionable society at Home, and no warning can ho too realistic for its votaries.