NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXV, Issue 16666, 26 September 1914, Page 8

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Mr Winston Churchill’s observations on the position of Italy in the European war in ay appear to indicate ratlicr a modification of the policy of the Allies, who havb been credited hitherto with being anxious to drag Italy into the conflict. The attempts to obtain active support from Italy, however, have been made entirely by the newspapers. There may have been confidential inquiries in Rome, of course, but no responsible statesman on the Allies’ side has publicly suggested that Italy should abandon her perfectly correct attitude of neutrality. Mr Churchill’s statement indicates that the most the Allies ask is Italian neutrality, and actually that is .the most they could expect, unless, of course, the people took the bit in their teeth. It is really a great gain to the Allies to have Italy neutral, since it relieves them of all anxiety regarding the Mediterranean. Germany and Austria probably do not look on the position with equanimity, but the Italian Government is, after all, the only interpreter of its obligations. Mr Churchill hints plainly that Italian neutrality may bo rewarded, and perhaps wo shall not be wrong if we read into his statement a suggestion that Italian sympathy might, if the opportunity occurred, take a more helpful shape. We should all like to see Italy joining hands with her true friends, of course, but there should bo no failure to recognise the enormous service that Italy is rendering to tho cause of righteousness by standing apart from her political, allies.

Everybody will be pleased at tho decision arrived at yesterday by the conference of delegates from local bodies in regard to tho question of unemployment. Subject to ratification by tlie local bodies represented, it was resolved to concentrate activities on the important Lyttclton-Sumner Road. Tho Government will bo asked to find half of the £2500 required to complete the work, and in view of its national importance, flic application ought to bo promptly complied with Tho conference. acted reasonably in side-track-ing the Dyer’s Pass proposition in order to secure unanimity in favour of tho Inr ger work. All that is needed now, with the Government’s help taken for granted, is an early and unanimous approval by tho authorities concerned of the basis of contributions proposed. If this scheme materialises—-and it appears to have every prospect of success —there will bo some compensation for tho waiting that has been endured in the last few weeks.

The shelling of Madras by tho Emden was doubtless really an attempt to shell Fort St Georgo, but the cruiser would have to lie a long way off shore, and probably the shooting was ill-di-rected. Madras city is really not defended. It stretches along the low shore for about nine miles, and reaches inland at one point about four miles. It is just a long, narrow settlement on the coast, with well over half a million of population. This must be about its first experience of war for well over a hundred years- The French once occupied Blacktown—the name of which, by the way, was changed to Georgetown in 1906 in honour of the present King—and laid siege to tho fort, but that was in 1758. Tho arrival of the British fleet relieved the fort after it had held out for two months. That was tho last actual experience of fighting in Madras .City, though Hyder Ali’s horsemen threatened it in 1790, when, of course, there were warlike operations in tlie Presidency.

A northern sawmills manager in a big way, according to a telegram from Taihape published in this issue, sees prospects of “a tremendous export trade” to Australia in New Zealand timber as the result of the present war and the stoppage of supplies of Baltic deals and the restriction of the Oregon pine imporations. The timber man, who oontrols some forty mills, believes that the next twelve months will britig exceptional opportunities for the export of rod and white pine. This will come as good news' to the millers and the owners of largo tracts of timber,!and no doubt the summer will see many new sawmills opened in the North Island and in Westland, and the spurt in the trade will also bring grist to the mills of the shipowners. But to those who have an eye to New Zealand’s future the prospect of a . boom in timber milling and timber exporting will not be altogether as pleasant as it is to the bush-owner and the sawyer syndicates. At the present rate of consumption there will be scarcely any indigenous timber of milling value left in New Zealand in two decades from now, and next year’s “tremendous” export will materially shorten that estimate of the life of our forests. The one endeavour is to get the forests down and converted into cash as quickly as possible, and lie points to the number of men he employs, but there are more vital national interests to be considered. It is time that the State made definite provision for the supervision and regulation of timber milling and timber exporting. We have had Timber Commissions and tomes of evidence and recommendations or. the problem, but that is as far as the business , has got so far as the State is concerned. Unlike our wool and our meat and other staples, our timber resources have but a limited life, and “ booms ” are undesirable, or at any rate to be regarded with a cautious eye!

New Zealand’s young soldiers who are off to the wars are being much more generously treated in the matter of pay than were the old-time troops sent here by the British Government to fight the colony’s battles against internal foes. Just fifty years ago this week a northern newspaper voiced in vigorous language the disgust of the regular soldier with “ the parsimonious miserable amount of pay eked out to him by the British Government.” All that remained to the “ Tommy ” of the sixties called up to fight the Maoris, after he had paid for his rations, was threepence per day. The Waikato militia-man who fought by his side was more fortunate, for lie received tho full pay of half-a-crown per day free from all deductions. The colonial Government was not to blame for the Imperial mail’s very poor wage, for it paid to the British authorities £5 per head per annum, or 2s per week, for each man serving in New Zealand. This money, it seemed, the Imperial Government olaced towards its general army expenditure, instead of giving it as extra pay to the poor soldier, who was unaware of all this, and imagined that the New Zealand Government, did nothing for him. There must have been some extremely commercial-mind-ed persons at the head of the War Office in those (lays. Fortunately the British soldier’s lot has vastly changed for the better during the last half-cen-tury, in general treatment ns well as in pay. For trifling offences he was tied up and flogged, and the triangles at which the private of the 18th or 67th or the 65th took his. two dozen lashes .were familiar institutions in every military camp in the Waikato and Taranaki. Tommy Atkins’s status has improved considerably since those “ good old days ” of the cat and the threepence a day.