NOTES AND COMMENTS

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXV, Issue 16568, 4 June 1914, Page 6

NOTES AND COMMENTS

The report that " relations between the United States and Japan are drifting into dangerous waters" probably had its origin in the columns of ono of the more sensational American newspapers. Tho Japanese Government and people resent the Californian anti-Asiatic laws keenly, but Japan is in no condition to contemplate war with any Power. The country is bearing a crushing burden of taxation, and is very nearly bankrupt. " British oflicers who have been on the China station," wrote a well-informed correspondent recently, "are not at all surprised at tho recent revelations of corruption and jobbery in tho Japanese navy. They state that tho warships built in tho Japanese Government yards are- both scamped and skimped. Now construction ia almost at a standstill. It is desirable that people in this country as well as in Australia and New Zealand should understand what a great chango has come over Japanese sea-power since tho "Russian war. Japan is now only able to koep nine armoured ships in full commission out of twenty-nine." Tho Japanese Navy is larfj;e and powerful, but the authorities at Tokio woul.B involve their country in financial disaster if they attempted to send the

fleet to sea under war conditions. A decade of peace, the experts state, is essential to the restoration of Japanese financial stability.

Count Zeppelin, in a speech at Berlin, seems to have come near to confessing the failure of the dirigible balloons which have occupied his attention during the best years of his life. He said, according to a cablegram, that " the truly staggering progress of aeroplanes forced serious consideration of the question whether or not they had deprivod dirigiblo balloons of their excuse for existence." He added that personally he did not believe airships were superfluous, but his earlier words may be regarded as confirmation of what other experts havo boon saying during the last year or two. The dirigible balloon has been developed to a certain point of efficiency, but its defects are ineradicaVe. It must have enormous bulk in order to "secure lifting power, and its size and lightness make it the sport of every vagrant breeze, while its lack of structural strength is an invitation to disaster, Tho aeroplane has been boating the airship practically at every point. If the contest ends finally in favour of the heavier-than-air machine during the next year or two, the British Admiralty will havo scored off its critics again.

In this nipping wintry weather, with its hint of worse to come, some people's thoughts will turn perhaps to the men who have to face tho bitter winds and sleet and snow of the Southern Ocean, carrying New Zealand's meat and wool and butter and cheese to the Old Land. The Panama route no doubt will take, much of the traffic which now makes the Cape Horn passage, and for this the sailorman will be duly thankful. A winter voyage round the uttermost corner of South America is robbed of some of its ancient terrors in these days of steam, but although the navigator now goes straight ahead, adverse wind or fair, the nightmare of ice is ever before him. The Magellan Strait passage is not favoured by all steamship commanders', who like to keep the land at a respectful distance, and so, as of old, the Cape of Storms is rounded by many a New Zealand passenger. During recent years there has been a happy immunity from accident flirough icebergs on the run across the Southern Ocean, but the history of New Zealand shipping abounds with instances of disaster from these perils of the high latitudes, and numbers of fine vessels from these shores have come to grief on the bergs or the floating field ice off the Horn.

An old Shaw-Savill commander now spending his leisured days in Christchurch attributes most of the cases of "Posted Missing" as far as concerns New Zealand vessels Homeward bound, to collision with ice in the Southern Ocean. He himself saw more of tho ice islands than was agreeable. On one occasion ho was embayed for eleven days in an archipelago of bergs, some half a mile in length and higher than his mastheads, and it was only by the most careful manoeuvring of his vessel, a sailing ship, that he got clear undamaged. On another voyage he all but ran right on to a huge expanse of field ice, lying flat and low, and therefore all the more dangerous, and he sailed for forty miles along its edge before he was able to continue his passage eastward. Not many years ago tho ship "Wellington, of the Shaw-Savill fleet, struck an iceberg, and it was only by the greatest toil and sailorly skill that sho was brought into a South American port. Of course, the steamship mariner has a much greater degree of command over his vessel in such dangerous seas, but such accidents as that which befel the liner Royal Edward in the North Atlantic the other day are reminders that the most careful navigation in the most modern ship does not always avert contact With the dreaded iceberg.

The Belfast correspondent of the "Toronto Gloho" has been offending some of the British Unionists by his outspoken scepticism regarding the reality of Sir Edward Carson's preparations for war. "After attending the military evolutions in Ulster," he wrote recently, "I am convinced that enthusiasm in the Volunteer ranks is evaporating, despite large expenditures of Tory funds on free trains and rations. A semblance of military strength is still kept up by a body of paid ex-soldiers, who are drafted from place to place. Every device is employed to magnify the preparations in the eyes of newspaper correspondents." The correspondent said that the majority of the militant Ulstermen would recoil from actual civil war, not because they were afraid but because they had common-sense. " There is gome danger' of rioting in the rural districts after the passing of the Bill," ha added, "but nothing approaching armed resistance is ct-ntemplated except by a few extremists. Tho small proportion of enrolled Volunteers who attended the Easter reviews is the subject of much comment. Many men are dropping out, seeing that the Carson gamo of bluff is ineffectual to prevent Home Rule, and because they know that they are not expected to fight." Statements of this kind are rank heresy in tho eyes of Sir Edward Carson's political friends, but they seem at this distance from the scene of tho agitation to express the cold truth.

A parliamentary paper issued in London last month revea's tho existence of a remarkable misunderstanding regarding the proposed Imperial Conference to discuss naval defence. Last August the Australian Government told the Colonial Secretary in. a cablegram that it would like to know exactly the intentions of the Imperial authorities with regard to the problem of Pacific defence. The message added that tho Federal Ministry was willing to "arrange for representation at a conference, should his Majesty's Government consider this necessary. ' No immediate reply seems to have been despatched by Mr Harcourt, and a little later Mr Cook announced m the Federal Parliament that he had asked the Homo authorities to summon an Imperial Conference. Then Mr Harcourt wrote asking why Mr Cook, had made this statement, since no such request could be traoed. That was in November of last year, and it was not until Fobruary that the Federal Government replied by cablegram that tho message sent in the previous August had been regarded as a request for a conference. Mr Harcourt, who had some right to feel aggrieved, waited five weeks, and then asked the Austral-

ian and New Zealand Governments if they wanted a conference. Mi- Massey replied that New Zealand would like to see one called, but could not arrange for adequate representation "unless time and-place wero convenient." Mr Cook said he also wanted a conference, but could not send a Minister to London during 1914. Mr Harcourt closed the correspondence with a brief cablegram stating that the matter must " stand over for the present." Perhaps he thought Mr Cook and Mr Massey needed time to discover just what they did want.

Mr George Dowo, formerly of Christchurch, who is now settled in Edmonton, ono of tho most progressive towns in Western Canada, has constituted himself a sort of honorary trade commissioner for New Zealand in the great dominion and writing to the editor of the "Lyttelton Times" ho again urges that a systematic effort should bo made to "boost" tho resources of this country all through the American continent. "Many Now Zealanders," he says, " have an idea that their dominion is well and favourably known abroad, since tho tour of the famous All Blacks to the Mother Country a few years ago, Sir Joseph "Ward's gift of a Dreadnought, and the sending of several contingents of New Zealanders to the Boer War. I freely confess to sharing that opinion when I resided in Christchurch, but I have to say now that it is truly astonishing how little one hears of the island dominion in thi3 country. As I wrote you before rarely do we ever got a New Zealand item in any of the Canadian papers, and frequently I meet and talk with people, otherwise well-informed, who are totally ignorant of the fact that for years New Zealand has been shipping big quantities of frozen the finest of butter and other products, to their own country." Mr Dewe goes on to explain that in all the big Canadian cities there are "boosting associations" and "advertising clubs," composed of citizens of all shades of political opinion, who devote themselves to singing the praises of the country and making its attractions known to th? outside world. "Christchurch citizens," he concludes, "should take the hint and noise abroad the many attractions of their beautiful city, in many respects ono of the most desirable places of residence the heart of man can desire." Christchurch might do a good deal in this direction, but the larger task of " boosting" New Zealand is one for the Government to take in hand and Mr Massey very well might spend a few hundred pounds in bringing under the notice of tho Canadians facts which their own newspapers omit to supply.

In contrast to New Zealand's sloth in this matter America is displaying the greatest activity in making itself known. Every mail from New York end San Francisco brings to the newspapers bundles of "literature" dealing with the producing and manufacturing activities of the United States. Not only the Federal and Stato Governments, but also the shipping companies and the business houses spend thousands of dollars upon advertising of this sort. The Oceanic Steaniehip Company, for instance, is ready *o supply the papers, free of charge, with special articles on any conceivable subject and with "our correspondents''' letters and take its chance of being able to 6lip in an advertisement for its country and itself now and again. A news letter received in this office by yesterday's mail is quite a readable production and contains many paragraphs of interest to New- Zealanders. " Under the provisions of the Underwood tariff law, now in effect in tho United States," ono of theso runs, " most of the principal products of the Commonwealth of Australia and of New Zealand aro admitted into, the United States free of duty. Tin always was free, but the Underwood law added meat and meat products, coal, wool, hides, lumber and reduced tho duty on butter from 6 cents (3d) to 2 J cents (ljd) per pound." This is rather old news, of course, but items of the kind are carefully interlarded with paragraphs advertising the country and the company and altogether a very interesting letter is made up. Here, is another hint for Mr Massey which he might hand over to the Advertising Department with a suggestion that it should break fresh ground and Americanise some of its publicity methods.