NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XL, Issue 12268, 12 May 1903, Page 4

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

THE ENGLISH PRESS.

Ms. I.F.brGT/D EoTirscrriT-D, presiding at the 40th anniversary dinner of the newspaper press fund in London, said the change which -had taken place in newspapers during the past quarter of a. century was wonderful. He recalled the time when in the City they were dependent for their foreign news on a mysterious paper which arrived every dav. Les Petits Papiers, written by M. Tansky and copied by hia clerk. He believed that The Times and one or two other newspapers used to receive the same sheet, and from that little letter the foreign news was elaborated in the greatest journals of the day. He contrasted that with present-day journalism, when there was hardly a single daily newspaper which had not its own correspondents in most of the great cities of the world. The City man looked upon the newspaper almost as his stock-in-trade, and his profits were dependent upon the accuracy of the information which he derived from the press. He kn#w how difficult it was to obtain accurate information. In the early davs his firm obtained it in curious ways. They received the news of the siege of Paris by pigeon post, and knew a fortnight before that Paris was about to capitulate. In America their agent was a clever old man, who, on various occasions before the cable was laid between that country and this, sent a sealed letter to his correspondent at Queen&town with instructions for the matter to be telegraphed to the firm in London, so that they might be informed beforehand of what was going on. His grandfather received the news of the battle of Waterloo through the medium of a small Dutch newspaper, brought to him by the captain of one of his vessels from Amsterdam. But in the present day the press beat the City man, and it was impossible for him or anyone to be informed beforehand of what was going on. The high tone of the English press was something to be proud of. It had great and noble traditions, and it would be a pity if English journalists were ever to descend to those reprehensible* practices which were a disgrace to some papers in other countries. This high tone of the English press was all the more to be praised as in England there was no censorship except that of justice and of the British public.

DIRECTOR OF NAVAL EDUCATION. Professor James Alfred Ewing, LL.D., F.R.S., who, as recently announced by Lord Selborne, becomes at this important juncture the Director of Naval Education, is 48 years of age. He was bora at Dundee, his father being the Rev. James Ewing. He was educated at the Dundee High School, and afterwards at the University of Edinburgh. He qualified as an engineer and practised that profession till ho started to teach it in 1878 0,3 Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the Imperial University, Tokjo, one result of his residence in Japan being a special study of earthquake measurement. In 1883 lie returned to Dundee as Professor of Engineering at University College. In 1900 he came into further prominence on his appointment to succeed Professor James Stuart in the Chair of Mechanism and Applied Mechanics at Cambridge. The professorship had been established in 1875, with Mr. Stuart as its first occupant and he had given a start to the mechanical workshops. But under Professor Ewing they were much further developed. He raised among those who were interested in the matter in the country a sum of £5000, with the result that the engineering laboratory in Free School Lane was opened in 1894. A further £5000 was given to enlarge the laboratory by the family of the late Dr. John Hopkinsou. .Along with this work of equipment Professor Ewing had to assist .in laying down the lines, for the Mechanical Sciences Triposes, which started in 1894, and have been a great success. The school has attracted a large number of students, and the professor has had able assistants, such as Professor W. E. Dalby, now of the City, and Guilds Technical College.

Professor Ewing, wlio married in 1879 Anne, daughter of the late Mr. T. B. Washington, of Clayt, West Virginia, United States America, will be much missed in Cambridge. He has undeniable qualifications for the work on which he now enters. As a teacher he has exemplified the right relation between the theoretical and the practical. He has experience of other countries and their navies. He also has exhibited a savoir faire which ought to stand him in gcod stead in a Government department. DEATH OF A GERMAN' JOURNALIST. The Berlin correspondent of the Loudon Times, in recording the death of HenSiegfried Kobner, the editor of the Na-tional-Zeitung, writes as follows; with regard to his career .and position:—"Herr Kobiier, who ranked among the first of contemporary German journalists, was born at Breslau in 18-14, and. had to struggle with the greatest difficulties in order to acquire the excellent education which afterwards fitted him to become an eminent member of the profession he had adopted at an unusually early age. In a succinct autobiography which be left at the office of the National-Zeitun 10 days ago, when he was about to undergo an operation, he stated that lie had mainly taught himself by constant reading in the University Library of Breslau, where he devoted himself especially to the> study of history. At the age of 22 he was appointed to the editorship of the Hildesheimer Allgemeine Zeitung, and in 1872, through the influence of Herr von Beanigsen, with whom ho maintained a- Jlfe-long personal and political friendship, he became editor of the Hanover Courier. He joined the staff of the Berlin NationalZeitung, the leading organ of the National Liberal party, in 1881, and was chiefly responsible for the department of home politics until lie became editor in 1890. Herr Kobner was highly respected, both by his journalistic colleagues and by the,leaders of the political party with which he was to the end associated, notwithstanding the strong independence of judgment which he ! frequently manifested, particularly in op- i posing the recent co-operation of the National Liberals with the Agrarians in the debates and divisions on the Tariff Bill. He was convinced that in the agrarian conflict the party was exhibiting a weakness and a want of principle which were likely to exercise a disastrous effect upon its political future. In foreign politics Herr Kobner endeavoured to maintain an attitude of sobriety and moderation; and although at the outbreak of the South African war the National-Zeitung, like most of its German contemporaries, was deceived by the false information, disseminated by bogus news agencies and proBoer influences, it was one of the first German newspapers to correct its erroneous estimate of the situation, and to do justice alike to the policy of Great Britain and to the true interests of Germany. It was probably due to the personal temperament of Herr Kobner, as reflected In the judicial spirit of his leading articles, that the National-Zeitung had recently been employed by the German Government for the publication of important semi-official communiques, dealing with foreign policy; since there was a presumption that information of that nature would not be used in its columns as a basis for the elaboration of extreme theories or of inconvenient polemics. Herr Kobner, as I happen to know, condemned in the strongest terms that employment of personalities in newspaper controversy which tends to degrade so large a section of the German press,"