NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18180, 28 August 1922, Page 6

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

THE EASTERN TELEGBAPH. .The jubilee of the incorporation of the Eastern Telegraph Company was celebrated this month. This great service exists to-day as an enduring monument to a man of great faith, inexhaustible courage, and acute business ability—the late Sir John Pender, whoso third son, Sir John Dienison-Pender, now reigns in his stead as chairman and managing director of the Eastern and associated cable companies. When in 1857 it was suggested that a cable should be laid across the Atlantic Mr. John Ponder, as he then was— a successful merchant in textile fabrics—was one of the 346 contributors who put up £1000 each. When the 1865 cable was lost, the Atlantic Company was brought to ruin. Undismayed by this experience, Mr. Pender formed another cable company, but it was not until this merchant gave his personal guarantee for a quarter of a million pounds that the manufacturers would make the cable. In 1872 he rendered another great service to the commercial world. He was foremost in amalgamating a number of small companies with lines running through tho Mediterranean, and thus the present organisation came to birth. At this date the company owned 8000 miles of cable, whereas to-day it and its associates have in use about 325,000 miles of cable. It may be said that this company has never looked back in subsequent years. COURAGE AND INITIATIVE. Reviewing the history of this great cable system, the London Daily Telegraph said it wpuld be difficult to exaggerate the services which the Eastern Company's cables have rendered, not only to Britain in the political, commercial, and social spheres, but to business men throughout the world. Tho company has done much to promote international trade, and has drawn the nations closer together, tbns cementing the bonds of peace. Not a' little of it* success has probably been due to the family tradition. Though it now has a staff of about BCOO men, representing 53 nationalities, it oludlnjj numerous African an<| Asiatic tribes, and its tenlaoles stretch far afield the tradition still persists. The jubilee celebration carries its own moral lesson at a moment when it is suggested that tne Stage should exercise exclusive control over communications. What, it may be asked, would have been the mileage of the cables owned by Britain if the personal initiative of men* like Sir John Pender had been absent? They exhibited. counge when the State was tim|d, risking their fortunes and reputations ih ventures whicn were rogarded with distrust by bureauoracy. What Government dared have risked a quarter of a million pounds in a cable across the Atlantic half a century or so ago? Electors of little faith would have denounced it in no measured terms. The story of tho development of the cable, as of most other developments which have built up our prosperity, is to be read in, tho records not of Parliament or of Government departments, but of the lives of men of outstanding ability, courage, and vision. The dealer in textile fabrics and his associates, who adventured so boldly in the effort to !ink up the world, were thus instrumental in creating the gossamer threads on which our prosperity, in great measure, depends, for civilisation may be said to consist, in no slight degree, in quick and cheap communications. THE MANCHESTER GUARANTEE.. New premises have recently been occupied by the testing-house and laboratory of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, which was established in 1895, and is still the only institution of its kind in Britain. The only ones resembling it, but on much more restricted lines, consist of a house in Belfcst for the linen trade, one in the Nottingham College chiefly for instructional purposes, and one in Bradford for conditioning samples of wool and tops. It was the original intention to provide means whereby local firms might obtain independent tests of cotton yarn, but the work has expanded so considerably that cotton yarn testing now constitutes only a. small section of the activities. Not only other textiles have been brought in but an apparently endless variety of other things—wood pulp, oils, spirits, paper, metals, stones, alloys, polishes, varnishes, and such foodstuffs as butter, margarine, milk, and chocolate, and even toffee. It may be taken as a tribute to the care and accuracy with which the tests are made that it is common for courts of law to accept their results as correct, without question, and frequently litigation in trade disputes lias been avoided by the parties .concerned agreeing to accept the testing-house's findings. Last year, altogether. 773 disputes were referred to the testing-house for " expert opinions " on the causes of defects in yarns and fabrics alone. Where only samples are submitted the certificates issued refer only to such samples, but in recent years there has been an increasing demand for "bulk" testa. which involve a visit to the place of storage by a member of the staff to select representative samples for testing; and in such cases the certificate given covers the entire corisignment. The advantage of an independent assurance ofthis kind to the seller, as well as to the buyer, is obvious. Foreign Governments and syndicates have made constant use of the institution in this connection in inspecting supplies of yarn and cloth for both military and civilian uses. In these cases contracts with the British manufacturers and merchants have been made dependent on inspection and approval in the bulk by the Manchester testinghouse.

ROMANCE OF MUSEUMS. , Speaking at Leicester at the annual conference of the Museums Association, Mr. E. E Lowe, director of the Leicester Museum, said the chief aim of museams and art galleries should be instructional. The specimens which formed their characteristic and distinguishing feature should not be regarded as illustrations of some general idea, but as each tho embodiment of some special element of wonder, beauty, and romance. It was to the element of romance that he specially called attention. " For instance," ho continued, " when a certain Leicester citizen wishes in a moment of temporary aberration to speak slightingly of tho museum he refers to it as the mummy house —a mummy evidently appealing to him as the last word in futility and dryness, and I feel we must have failed to bring the romantic aspect home to him. We cannot have stirred our citizen to realise that the shrivelled talon-fingered spectre he gazes upon was once the bright and animated daughter of a household whose environment was dominated by the most romantic religion the world has ever seen. Again, an able friend once told me that geology in museums was of no interest except to confirmed geologists. Yet we learn from the specimens of that science that this very ground on which we meet was once the surface of an arid and almost lifeless desert, and later was the bottom of a teeming sea, in which dwelt monsters of extraordinary form and mysterious habits; and, more exciting still, an examination of our local rock specimens shows us that we are at this very moment sitting at the base of an old volcano, whose cone once poured forth devastating clouds of , steam, noxious gases, dust, and ashes." He lamented the lack of real interest on the part of young people in the animals and plants which surrounded them, and regretted that they were not brought up to realise the myriad delights presented by the living pageant which was ever moving across the face of the earth. They must strive more and more to invest their institutions with the atmosphere of romance and depend upon the arousing of latent imagination, as well as upon the colder appeal to the intellect, ; I V