NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVIII, Issue 17966, 16 December 1921, Page 6

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

CHRISTMAS PARE. j; Advice that is both reassuring and admonitory for those anticipating the gastronomic pleasures of the Christmas .season is contained in a discussion of the subject by an English medical, writer. He declares that the dinner of beef, turkey, or goose, and plum pudding or mincepiesU not an indigestible feast at all, given, of course, that no one wants to eat all the five alternatives at the same meal, or to consume an unreasonable quantity of any one of them. Turkey and plum pudding, the classical Christmas dinner, represent in plain terms the constituents of a complete diet, in which will be found proper proportions of the proteins, fats, carbohydrates, and mineral salts, of which healthy tissue is composed. Taken in due quantity Buch a meal is valuable, and should not be indigestible. In too many families Christmas is regarded as a time when all rules of feeding, as well as of economy, are suspended; tho housekeeper having bought more than the family income can afford, the family proceeds to consume moro than its stomach can deal with. But the important medical point is that it is not the most youthful who suffer —the schoolboys who over-eats himself seldom needs any assistance beyond that which nature affords him, and his flexible organisation can deal with an unexpected strain. Tho man or woman beyond middle-ago is in a different position, and such people undoubtedly run risks when, in response to the stimulus of a joyous occasion, they commit physio-' logical indiscretions. Unexpected calls upon the digestive processes try every system of the body, and when those systems, after many years of work, are in conditions of stable intor-adjustment, it is unsafe to upset the machinery. For the compensating arrangements may have been delicate, when their restoration to balance, after an upset, is certain to be todious and may be impossible

OOALOWNERS' LOSSES. A statemont of the difficulties imposed on tho coalmining industry by the terms of settlement drawn up at the conclusion of the last dispute was issued a few weeks ago by the Mining Association of Great Britain. It declares that tho settlement was drafted in great haste and, as Sir William Plender, the independent chairman of the board, stated in giving his ruling on the regulation of wages for October, "without that full and detailed consideration which the complexity of the problem required." Tho result, so far as some collieries are concerned, is that owners are no longer able to pay the rates provided for in the settlement without incurring a heavy loss, now that the unexpended balance of the Government's subvention of £10,000,000 has ceased to be payable to tho industry. It thus follows that such collieries are faced with three alternatives, viz.:—(1) Engaging in their business for an undefined period at a certain loss; (2) closing down their pits; and (3) seeking to secure the co-operation of their workpeople in keeping the pits open by an economic adjustment of wages. The owners have shown their good faith by their willingness to surrender their profits during the present unsettled period. There is. however, a distinct -difference between that and tho sacrifice that would bo involved by conducting their operations at a dead loss. Referring to a hint of the possibility of another stoppage, the association adds that the owners are striving by all means in their power to avert such a catastrophe, but they cannot accept the implied suggestion that they should run their business at a loss to maintain wages at an artificial' level. That is neither fair play nor common sense.

AMERICAN COALMINING. fiirect comparison betweon methods and results of coalmining in America and Britain is not possible because the conditions vary greatly. Most of the thick seams in Britain are practically exhausted, while those in the United States are so numerous that only the best and thickest need be worked. Even in these, about half of the coal is left in place to support the roof, so that liftle timbering is required, whereas in most British mines the extraction amounts to about 80 per cent., and the cost of timbering, in several instances, is over 3s per ton of coal raised. Very few mines in America, exceed a depth of SOOft., while some of the British mines are 3000 ft. deep. This obviously increases the cost of winning the coal and the difficulty of pumping and ventilating the mine; the higher temperatures encountered in deeper mines also tend to reduce output. In addition to these natural advantages, machinery is used to a much larger extent in American than in British mines. Many coalfields are worked by the open-cut method and are simply quarries, the covering material being removed by large excavating machines and the exposed coal dug and loaded by smaller machines of the same class. Where coal mined underground, large undercutting, ripping, and shearing machines are employed, some of which undercut the coal to a depth of 12ft, In some cases machines are used to break down the coal with mechanical picks, collect it and deliver it directly into tubs. With such machines operated by two men an average output of 21 tons an hour can bo obtained for a whole week's working.

HELIGOLAND RAZED. Heligoland, once tho haven of the German submarine and light cruiser forces in the North Sea, is a fortress no more. The Inter-Allied Commission, of which Admiral Sir Edward Charlton is the head, began its work about two years ago, and it is now estimated that the whole of the work will be completed by the German contractors by next April—that is to say, in a total of about two and a-half years. ; When tho last .job has been completed a final inspection is to take place. In all, the Nayal Commission has supervised the destruction of about 2400 guns. Naval officers have seen the great guns cut into pieces, witnessing a process of steel cutting by oxygen under high pressure that was new to them. In the destruction of cartridge cases, fuses, and so forth they have always insisted on the production of the scrap metal, while in the destruction of the vast stores of explosives whero there is no residue to produce as evidence they have personally watched tho burnings. The main work of demolition has been concerned not with guns alone, though they were a large item, but with gun emplacement* and harbour works. These were oh a big scale, many of the guns being others 2lcm., others 15cm., and less. There were also batteries of howitzers and anti-aircraft guns. Tho larger guns, mounted mainly in pairs, needed massive emplacements of concrete and steelwork, with complicated machinery for revolving and elevating them. Some of the cupolas were solid steel 1 3ft. thick. The German oxygen drill easily penetrated them. Charges were inserted, and they were smashed to drop with all their weight on the machinery below. A great amount of labour has been expended in destroying the harbour, which the Germans built up so carefully for their submarine and light cruiser warfare. Certain buildings, which in the opinion of the naval experts may bo safely left to the islanders for civil use, have been spared, together with certain emplacements and a section of tho railway track, and « barrack building has been left to be used as a children's sanatorium. The commission is satisfied that whatever may be attempted at Heligoland in the future, it will bo impossible to build a harbour for warships on the present ike,