NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15550, 6 March 1914, Page 6

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

ACCELERATING THE MAILS. In the early days of colonisation in Australia, mails from London took about tix months to reach Sydney. The period of transit is now one month, and there is a prospect of the time coming down to 26 days. The Oceanic Steamship Company lays claim to the fastest mail time between. Sydney and London, and seldom fails to land mails in England within 29 days. Even this fast time may be cut down, considerably with the advent of the new steamers of the company, which will be capable of .an ocean .speed of 29 knots— making the trip from Sydney to San Francisco in about sixteen and a-half days. The through trip to London should then, be possible in about twenty-six days. In the meantime the time-table of the company has been revised to allow the mails to connect at New York with the fastest steamers on the Atlantic run. The vessels of the Oceanic Company are subsidised for the voyage from San Francisco to Sydney, but need not, even when capable of steaming 20 knots, go to the expense of maintaining that speed between Sydney and San Francisco, as no subvention is made by the Federal Government in Australia. The American service is available only once a month. When it is accelerated mails will be carried at an average speed of 480 miles per day.

ENGLISHMEN IN GERMANY. | Considerable interest has been taken in ' a statement made By Professor H. Brereton Baker in a recent address at London to the Association of Science Masters in Public Schools, that one of his old student* had been put in charge of a large chemical works at Mannheim, in Germany, and was at present controlling a staff of 50 research chemists. From this and other evidence it appears that Ennglish science 6tudents are beginning to find weak spots in the solid phalanx of German industry. Many German science students visit England on the off-chance of finding employment, with or without a salary, and most of them succeed in getting their services accepted. They stay for longer or shorter periods, and then return to the Fatherland with much information valuable to prospective employers in Germany. During the past two or three weeks a score or more of English-born science students have obtained posts in Germany, at Leipzig, Frankfort-on-Main, and elsewhere. The explanation appears to be that whilst the German is an excellent plodder he works on somewhat stereotyped lines, and cannot break new ground or undertake experimental work with the same confidence in his own power of initiative as the English student. Mr. Rawson, the principal of the Battersea Polytechnic, remarked to a press representative that only very brilliant men could break through the barriers erected against foreign science students in Germany. . Dr. Skinner, of the South-Western Polytechnic Institute, said that in his long experience he had known of only two cases ol English-taught students obtaining positions in Germany. The general tendency of his science students was to go to the United States and Canada, where there was a great demand tor science men, but a number, had lecently gone to the large hydraulic works now being erected in Norway. CENSUS OF SCOTLAND. Matters of vital importance to Scotland are revealed in the nnal volume oi the Report on the Twelfth Census of Scotland, which has just been issued. When the census of Scotland was taken in 1911 there were 165,102 persons. of English and Welsh hirtb. among those enumerated; and there were alio 174,715 persons who claimed Ireland as their birthplace. Compared with the corresponding returns of 1.901, those of English and Welsh birth were found to be 31,079, or 23.2 per cent., more; but those of Irish birth were 30,349, or 14.8 per cent., fewer. The males in remunerative occupations, of English or Welsh birthplace, numbered 67,733, or 41.02 per cent.; and the women of a similar description numbered 19,186, or 11-62 per cent. Occupied males of Irish birth numbered 88,809, and females 15,459, the former constituting 50.83 and the latter 8.b5 per cent, of the total. The total number of foreigners—persons born out of British territory, colony, or dependency, and who are neither British subjects by parentage nor naturalised British subjects —was 24,739, 15,709 being males, and 9030 females. Compared with the corresponding figures of 1911, male foreigners number 1263 more, female 851 more,.and the two sexes combined 2114 more. The intercensal rate of increase in the male foreign population is 8.74 per cent., in the leihale' foreign population 10.40 per cent., and in the total foreign population 9.34 per cent. Included in this record of Scotland's foreign population there are.no less than 11,032 Poles, or nearly 45 per cent, of all the foreigners enumerated. The Italians come next,, with 4594 of both sexes, or 543 more than in 1901. There are only 2362 Germans, and 1176 Americans. It should be noted that this analysis of the foreign population of Scotland includes a considerable number of persons on board ship. ARMAMENT OF DREADNOUGHTS. The five battleships of the Royal Sovereign class, belonging to the current British shipbuilding programme, will not be armed with the 15in gun, but will carry the same main armament as the ships of the Iron Duke class, laid down in 151112. This is the first time for 20 years that there has been a reduction in the calibre of the guns forming the main armament of Britain's capital ships. The eight battleships of the old Royal Sovereign class, laid down under the Naval Defence Act of 1889 and launched in 18911892, were armed with four 13.5 in apiece, but in the next large group, the Majesties (1894-5), four 12in were mounted, and this remained the standard calibre of the main armament of battleships until the Orion and Lion were laid down in 1909. In those vessels an advance—and a return—was made to the 13.5 in gun, and in the ships of the following programme, the King George V. class of 1910-11, an improved weapon of this calibre was mounted, firing a shell 10 per cent, heavier. So far, the projectile had increased in weight from the 8501b of the 12in to the 12501b of the 13.5, and the 13751b of the improved 13.5; and the Queen Elizabeths of the 1912 programme are being equipped with 15in weapons firing 19501b shells. Although Germany and Italy are both mounting eight 15in guns in their new ships, there is a general tendency abroad to adhere to a weapon of 14in or thereabouts, and this in spite of comparatively enormous additions to tonnage. France has armed her successive classes of Dreadnoughts with twelve 12in, ten 13.4 in, twelve 13.4 in, and sixteen 13.4 in guns. In the United States the steps have been: Eight 12in, ten I2in, twelve 12in, ten 14in, and twelve Kin; and this calibre is to be retained in the' next vessel, which is to displace 38,600 tons. Russia, Austria, and Japan are all adhering to the Win gun in their newest ships, although it was at one time believed that the Japanese vessels of the Fuso class would carry tan Isin.