NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 15097, 13 September 1912, Page 6

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

CHINA'S LOAN.

China has now arranged a .£10,000,000 loan instead of the £60,000,000 previously sought. The. .Minister-for- Finance broke off the negotiations for the £60,000,000 largely because the Six-Power Syndicate which offered to find the money insisted on supervisory control of expenditure. A large and powerful party in China was bitI terly opposed to the proposed loan, on the i ground that it might later furnish an excuse for foreign intervention, and thus endanger Chinese independence. The Minister for Commerce and Industry, the Gover-nor-General of the Yangtse Valley, and many other prominent men declared that, if China allowed foreign nations to control her expenditures, she will'occupy a position little, if any, better than that of Korea under the ' protectorate of Japan. They therefore proposed that the Chinese themselves provide funds enough to meet urgent needs by taking up a "national patriotic subscription " and by authorising the Government to issue " fiat" paper money, as - the Japanese Government did immediately after the Restoration; • The supporters of this proposition organised "Patriotic Subscription .Associations " in a number.of the provinces; army officers and .civil officials in many parts of the Empire agreed to subscribe' half their salaries, and "the sum of 3,400,000 taels was promptly raised in two cities—Nanking and Hankow. The President and Minister for Finance, however, pointed to the fact that the Government needs at least 7,000,000 taels a month for current expenses, to say nothing 0 the interest on existing foreign loans, for which " fiat money " would not be available. They did not believe that, the estimated deficit of 270,000,000 taels for the present year could possibly be covered by a "national patriotic subscription," however liberal. The £10,000,000 loan now arranged is free from the supervision proposed by the SixPower Syndicate. CHURCH UNION IN CANADA. . For several years there has been a definite effort toward Protestant Church union in Canada. The plan has been to unite the Congregational, Methodist, and Presbyterian parties in a single cohesive church organisation, and it is very nearly assured. The Presbyterian Assembly, which met recently at Edmonton) Alberts, took action which is almost decisive. Already tho Congregational Church, by a vote of 82 per cent., and tho Methodist Church by a voto of 800 out of 840 official units, had virtually settled the question so far as those two denominations wera concerned. When the Presbyterian Assembly met, its Committee on Church Union, basing its views on statistics which had been submitted to it, reported that tho Presbyterian Church was not prepared to proceed in tho matter. At the, Assembly, however, fuller statistics were demanded; and ' the vote by Session . and•• Presbytery showed almost as largo a percentage in favour of union as was in tho two other denominations: The Committee on Church Union was thereupon enlarged; and its subsequent report was 'so decided and so binding that it appears impossible tkjt Church union in Canada can be much longer delayed. The report was adopted by vote of.the Assembly, under circumstances of solemnity. ;

RUSSIAN" VETERANS OF NAPOLEON'S TIME.

Twenty-five hoary old veterans still grappling with death as bravely as .'they ones struggled with, foreign invaders, link ' and weave tho heroic Russia of 100 years ago with the mighty Slav nation of to-day. Official research has ascertained' tho fact that about 25 survivors of that memorable struggle are-scattered: over the length and breadth of tho. Tsar's dominions. . Ono peasant in the province of Vitebsk,■. who first saw the light 110 years ago, was hiding in a village during a skirmish there,

and' gathered ; bullets on the battlefield when the French troops had withdrawn. Another who was 12 years old then claims to have fought as a. boy against the French •army"; and to have defended Sevastopol 42 years later against the French and British troops. Ho lives bedridden in Bessarabia On the proceeds of his wife's labour. She is 90, and vigorous. In the province of Eknterincslav lives a peasant who was 15 years old when Napoleon invaded Russia, but the oldest survivor of all is a veteran named , Korenerfsky, who fought against the foreigner as a 16 year old .soldier by profession. A i old woman named Zakliarevitch, in the province of Minsk, remembers, the sensational act of her father, who, when 250 French soldiers and officers .entered his bam to s[»nd the night, set firo to the wooden building when they were fast asleep. Not one escaped.

AMERICA'S FOURTH OF JULY.' In many places in the United States this year's Fourth of July celebration included boy scouts' parades and manoeuvres. Under the old dispensation these very youths would instead have probably been engaged in putting themselves and others in terror. " Boys will bo bovrs." Boys ought to bo boys. And that means noiso and general uproariousnesa—a perfectly logical and normal happening. But. noise and general uproariousness do not express the whole boy. . . . He can be noisy and uproarious without necessarily involving arson, mutilation, and death. Besides, he likes other things besides noise. He likes games not necessarily noisy, and, above all, he loves manoeuvres. A decade ago, when Fourth of July came around, there was a sacrifice of several hundred lives throughout the country " to make a Roman holiday. Such a sacrifice finally aroused law-and-order people, who were none the less patriotic and fervent because they wanted law and order. They began a movement to substitute new, rational, and elevating attractions for tho old perilous free-and-easiness, and to check the sale of deathdealing pistols and torpedoes. . By 1909 the number of deaths had been reduced to slightly over 200, though the number of those hurt— 5000— still appalling. !In 1910- the deaths were reduced to 131. Last year.they fell to 57, and. the number of wounded to 1,546. During this year's Fourth of July there were but 19 deaths.. Meanwhile there has'been ■no apparent decline in the. fervour of the general celebrations.