CURRENT TOPICS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXX, Issue 14977, 24 April 1909, Page 8

CURRENT TOPICS.

EXTENDING THE EMPIRE.

The days of conquest seem to havo gono by, and the process of colonisation is now applied by

European nations to parts of tho oarth that havo already been occupied by thorn. And yot tho British Empire is being extended. Of course, a few months ago Lieutenant Sltaokleton came near to "annexing" the South Polo, while Professor David and his party actually hoisted the British fl«g over tho South Magnetic Pole, and the explorers thus added a considerable portion of a great continent to the Empire. But it is not only in the Antarctic region that tho boundaries of the Empire havo been extended.' By a treaty with Britain, signed only last month, Siam renounced her suzerainty over the three States of Kolantin, Tringano and Kcdah, and with these States Britain received also portions of Rahman and Legeh. Hitherto British interests in. these provinces have boon unable to adv-s-nce to tie

absence of offectiv© administration and tho re'motenoss of the region from the central government of NBangkok, and there has in the past been no security for lifo or property. Great Britain is now at liberty to tako over tho States from the Malay Rajahs who rulo them. Tho effect of this will bo to include the affected area in the Malay Federated States, under British protection, and to add some 15,000 miles to British territory. By the arrangement practically tho whole of tho Mohammedan population of the peninsula comes under British rnlo. Provision is also made in tho treaty by which the Federated Malay States will provido tho necessary capital for the construction of southern Siamese railways leading from Bangkok. The amount that will bo guaranteed for this purpose will be approximately four millions sterling. The line will be constructed from Bangkok to a point adjacent to the new boundary which will now bo formed, and provision has been made by which the railway department for the southern railways of Siam will be a new department, which will not bo under tho control of tho present railway department in Bangkok. Siam benefits by getting the necessary capital for railway construction, and also by a gradual abolition of extra-territorial rights.

GEKMAN NAVAL PEFENCH!.

Admiral von Koster, who was for many years Commander-in-Chief of

the German High Sea Fleet, outlined the basis of the German naval policy lately in a speech to tho Baden branch of tho Navy League. " Our naval ports, as constituting our lino of retreat," he said, "must he defended, and our maritime interests cannot bo protected unless our naval supremacy is absolute along our own coasts. It is my personal opinion that Germany should havo pushed forward the construction of submarine boats with more energy, but the course now taken by our naval authorities is probably the right ono, and we may expect to possoss a good, useful type of submarine boat within a short time. I agree that any haste in this direction would bo very risky, because we must remember that it is a case of creating an entirely new weapon, not hitherto used in practical warfare." Admiral von Kostcr spoke of the great sums of money that had been spent on coast fortifications, and argued that these were valueless without a great navy. "Tho weaker our High Sea Fleet is," he said, " tho less any enemy would risk in attacking us, and, therefore, tho resolve to wago war against us would be easier to take. If our High Sea Fleet wero destroyed, every kind of naval supremacy ■would terminate for us. Tho cruisers and torpedo boats ■which would remain -would soon disappear from tho seas, because their line of retreat into the home ports would be cut off, and they would cither be captured or destroyed, or lack of coal would compel them to run into neutral ports and await the end of tho war without activity or glory. There would bo no longer any neoessity to attack our coast fortifications, because our commerce and trade would be paralysed. Tho enemy's object would be attained without attacking our coasts. We should be blockaded and cut off from sea traffic. It -would bo possible for an enemy to land troops anywhere outside the range of forts along the coasts." The Admiral is evidently no enthusiastic admirer of Dreadnoughts. " Good battleships, commanded with skill and energy, will always be useful in lino of battle," he said, and ho added, dryly, that any battleship not efficiently manned "had better be thrown on. the scrap-heap." A •progressive policy of naval construction, he concluded, was necessary, because Germany was now a great industrial uation, and its commerce could only bo protected by a mighty navy.

A writer in a recent xne " scotchi- number of tho " SatFiCATiojf " of urday Review" professes kngland. to view with alar in what he terms the " Scotchification" of England. In nearly every profession in England, he says, a Scotchman now rules the roost. Ho points to " an almost unbroken sequence" of Scotch Prime Ministers 6ince the time of Gladstone, and the active part taken in the present Government by Mr Haldane, Ml* Sinclair, Lord Elgin, Lord Tweedniouth, and Mr Bryce, and complains, more in sorrow than in anger, that tho handful of Englishmen in the present Cabinet mostly sit for Scottish constituencies, and are therefore " tied down to present the whisky and oatmeal ideals of their country of adoption." The ( Scottish domination of tho Bar, with Lord Loreburn on the Woolsack, and of the Anglican Clmrch, with two Scotchmen as Archbishops is also mentioned, and the writer concludes with a prophecy that even as the invading Franks, before their absorption by Gaul, gave the nation their own name, so will England by 1950 be known as " Novissima Scotia." This new prophet becomes serious only when he discusses the reasons for Scottish predominance. The Englishman, he says, feels rather than reasons, and the Scot, thanks to his scholastic training, reasons rather than feels. And so the Englishman, who loathes having to put his thoughts into shape, gladly accepts the Scot as a sort of intellectual acting-manager. The Scot has only one redoubtable failing—he is too often at heart a doctrinaire. But doctrinaire is merely the twentieth century name for the sincere sophist. The unfortunate thing is that though the Englishman in his laziness allows the Scot to explain his English mind to him, the Scot, whatever his abilities as a reasoner, cannot do the Englishman's thinking. He has too much of the bookish mind and is disconcerted by anything which will not pass through the meshes of his rigid mental sieve. Scottish journalists, like the Frenchman who remarked in his diary that all English girls havo red hair, discover only what is already iu their own minds, and tho same defect is characteristic of the whole race.

LIFE ON* MAHS.

Professor P. Lowell, in his recently published book, " Mare, the Abode of Life," marshals tho

whole of the evidence in support of tlio view that Mars is inhabited by highly intelligent beings. He states that it is almost certain that there is water on the surface of Mars, though it seems to bo only about a two hundred thousandth part of the supply in our oceans, and there ia evidence that drought ha§ desolated by far the

greater portion of tho planet's surface. The dry areas are Saharas of roddisb eaud, causing Mars to shine with its characteristic ruddy glow, moro akin to the fires of hell than to heavenly light The relatively small patches of a blue-green colour on the surface of the planet are pronounced by Professor Lowell to bo areas of vegetation, and not ccoans, as was previously supposed. He has noticed a rapid change in the colour of these patches in the Martian autumn, which ho takes to bo- duo to the fading in the green of the plants. Tho presence of water is deduced from the appearance at the poles of the planet of patches of white, one of which annually sjrows while tho other dwindles, just in the same way as tho earth's northern and southern snowcaps increase and decline. Professor Lowell considers that tho canals were artificially constructed to convey water from tho snow-cape to Martian cities, and he puts forward tho theory that their appearance of great broadth, varying from one to ten miles, is really caused by belts of vegetation extending on either side of closed-in conduits, every precaution being taken to prevent the evaporation of moisture in transit. Tho dark, round dots which appear at intervals on tho canals are taken to be largo irrigation settlements, with central cities. Tho professor's investigations open np a wide field for speculation, and no doubt there will bo plenty of other observers ready to test the very interesting theories ho has laid down.