NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18012, 10 February 1922, Page 6

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

ANCIENT ETHIOPIA.

Confirmation that Ethiopia was once a great and strong country, as it is described in the Old Testament, has been furnished by discoveries at Napata, in the Sudan, by the joint expedition undertaken by Harvard University and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Napata was the ancient capital of Ethiopia. The tombs of 24 kings and 29 queens of Ethiopia, buried for over 2000 years, have been brought to light with inscriptions giving a complete dynastic list, and also giving information concerning the remarkable arts and crafts of the period. The Old Testament brackets the Ethiopians with the Libyans; the discoveries show that the Ethiopian royal family sprang from a tribe of Libyan nomads who entered Ethiopia about 1000 years before our era. Among tho discoveries is the burial chamber of Tirhakab, who is mentioned iu the Second Book of Kings and in tho book of Isaiah. Tirhaqa or Tirhakah was a notable king, and one of the five Ethiopian monarchs who also ruled over Egypt. AMERICAN FORESTRY. More than five-sixths of tho original timber area in the United States *has been denuded by file and by cutting out. In his annual report, tho chief forester, Colonel Greeley, discusses tho restoration of denuded lands and tho preservation of tho remaining virgin forests. He lays do\wi two principles which, ho says, are necessary to any legislative proposals. Tho first is that, because of the long-term nature of timber crops, the public has an interest in forest lands not common to mjst forms of private property and more comparablo with its interest in tho operation of recognised public utilities. The second principlo is that timber production is an economic process, governed by economic laws; hence the requirements imposed upon forest owners must bo equitable and practicable from a business standpoint. Timber owners face two facta which militate against their business. Ono is danger from fire. Tho other is taxes. There is still an inveterate disposition to regard forest lands as annually taxablo instead of as taxablo on the cutting of the crop. Readjustment in this direction would certainly encourage the growing of successive timber crops on otherwise useJess lands.

RELIEF IN RUSSIA. An appropriation of 20 million dollars has been voted by the United States Congress to supply com and seed grain for the relief of tho famine in Russia. During tho inquiry into the matter by tho Committee on Foreign Relations, Mr. H. C. Hoover said that Governmental aid on a larger 6cale than the President suggested would be needed. He requested some 22,000,000 bushels of grain and 500,000 cases of preserved milk, and asked for a doubting of the appropriation. Congress consented to this, after a very lively debate in which the Bill was opposed by thoso who thought it violated the spirit of the Constitution and by those who assorted that the appropriation would be additional material for the cause of Bolshevism. The President at once signed tho Bill. The Bill applies to that most sorely stricken region in Russia, the part of tho valley of the Volga River between tho cities of Kazan and Saratov, a region about four hundred miles long. It lies several hundred miles to tho east of Moscow. Ordinarily this region raises more than enough to feed its people. But for three years in they have endured a great drought, which, in addition to the economio cruelty of the Bo'shevik Government, reduced very many millions of people to starvation.

THE WAY TO SUCCESS. In an address on "The Making of a Merchant" before the Incorporated Sales Managers' Association, •in London, Lord Bcaverbrook said:—Some people start life by asking themselves whether the/ would rather bo head of a small business of their own, or tako a much more subordinate position in a big business, with the hope of rising to the top. My answer is that it does not matter. The right sort of man will rise to the top of a big business, but he will olbo make a small business into a big one. All that is necessary is the capaoity and determination to dominate the business, big or small. In either ease success depends on concentration and by thinking and doing what is right. There are sure and certain rules that we should lay down for the guidance of the young men who will follow after us in business. These are: — (1) Never take a job on because it offers a safe salary. Think first whether it will lead to anything. An able man will choose a position that will give free rein to opportunity. (2) Bo loyal to your firm. Speak well of your firm, and you will end by thinking well of it. Otherwise you may damago your firm and ruin yourself. (3) Do not grumble too much. If you do, your master will get tired of your persistent pessimism. Ho will think you are too busy with your grievances to think about business. (4) Never say "It is not my job." If you are wrong, it is inexcusable; if you are right, it is intolerable. (5) Do not do your job only because you fear dismissal. Such a mad should be sacked at once. The only place for him is in the South Sea Isles, where no ono wears clothes and food grows on the trees. These may be hard sayings., continued Lord Beaverbrook, but the road to succcss is hard. In exchanging the role of employee for that of employer, a man only shifts the burden from one fhoulder to the other. Nobody will have a good time till ho retires, and then he will regret his loss of power.

UNEMPLOYMENT RELIEF. "Long-rango planning of .public works'' has been proposed as a solution of the periodical waves of unemployment by the conference recently hold in America at the invitation of the President, and a. Bill to bring the policy into operation has been introduced in Congress by Senator Kenyon. A writer in the Outlook explains that the Kenyon Bill advocates, us a definite policy, the expansion and contraction .of Federal public works to accord with the periods of fall and rise in private industry and employment. In the past the Federal Government has been much, more likely to expand its public works in boom times and to contract them in dull times. This Bill calls upou tho various public works agencies of the Government to be prepared in advance with engineering plans for proposed undertakings, so that when ai) appropriation is made in a time of depression the work can go forward immediately, insteal of waiting months or years until plan,', have been prepared and approved. In a growing country the ojnount ol public works of States and municipal governments is so great that if this policy were followed and the resulting accumulation, plus the normal, executed in a year of depression like the present, the actual w£ges paid in public works would ke equal to a large peroentage of the loss in wages in private industry during tho period of depression. But the wages received in public works are only a small part of the total stimulus to industry. Orders t-c the necessary materials provide an additional wage payment. The wages received by direct workers and workers in production of materials create by* their expenditure a demand for commodities and set new groups of workers to making garments, shoes, and textiles, and bo liquefy the frozen credits in raw and finished materials. A concentrated public Works programme is like dropping a pebble into a pond, the writer adds. The waves oxtend to the farthest shores of industry. But before the pebble is drooped there must be forethought, there must be planning, and these the Kenyon Bill k intended to stimulate