NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19455, 11 October 1926, Page 10

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

CARBONISATION OF COAL. As every scientist knows, it is one tiling to carry out successful trials of a new invention and quite another to apply that invention to the use of man, says Mr. Archibald Hurd. Every inventor is an optimist, and if he were not an optimist, ho would probably not be an inventor. Long before the Great War, an engineer claimed that he had discovered a sure arid certain method of low-temperature carbonisation of coal, so as to obtain on an economic basis smokeless fuel, gas, sulphate of ammonia, tar and a variety of oils, including motor spirit. Success appeared to be assured, and a company was floated with a capital of £2,000,000 to work the patent. In subsequent years, a dozen and more variations of this process have been tried, and each inventor has asserted that his was a perfect system. In view of the fact that practically all British industries rest their prosperity- ultimately on cheap fuel supplies, and increasingly on gas and oil, successive Governments have interested themselves in the development, and have spent no inconsiderable sums in research. From time to time Ministers have suggested that, at last, success was in sight. Though hope still runs high and reassuring statements appear from time to time, none of the methods of low-temperature carbonisation has yet proved acceptable from the scientific or from the economic point of view. TRAFFIC OX COUNTRY ROADS. The vast development of motor traffic, both for purposes of pleasure and commerco, has brought with it more problems than those connected with the provision of suitable roads and the need of lessening the dangers of road transport, says an observer of English conditions. One inevitable result of this development is that the peace of tho countryside is gone, apparently for ever. Small towns and villages whore once the curfew sounded "the knell of passing day" and silence settled on the scene, have been converted into places where there is never freedom from noise. Motor traffic has become an intolerable nuisance". Sleep has tended to become an almost unattainable luxury. On straight stretches of roads at all hours of the day and half the night the noiso of high-speed traffic is almost continuous, and at the bonds and corners the nuisance is mado worse by the constant sounding of motor-horns. Thore is a babel of noise to which every vehicle contributes, but tho worst offenders are motor-cycles. The inhabitants countryside are driven to many expedients to induce sleep. Windows must perforce be closed to deaden the noise, and in extreme cases people have been driven to camp out in their back gardens. In hundreds ot hotels up and down the country it is not possible to obtain a night's rest in front bedrooms. It is surely within the technical ability of thoso who have mado the motor vehicle so efficient an instrnment of transport to add to its qualities that of comparative silence when in motion. Something, no doubt, can be achieved by the more stringent regulations for preventing riders of motor-cycles from making the air hideous, and by moro care being exercised by drivers of cars and lorries. So far as commercial vehicles are concerned the replacement of solid by air tyres is an improvement which is being brought about. All these things will help, but the main remedy for motor noise must bo found by the designer.

TROOPS ON THE RHINE,

Commenting on the recent decision of tho French Cabinet still further to reduce the French forces on the Rhine, tho Times says that at. Locarno, in the course of tho negotiations which produced the Pact of Guarantee, a verbal promise of reduction in the number of troops was matle to the Gorman representatives. In the Note in which this promise was subsequently confirmed by the Ambassadors' Conference, the language was—perhaps unavoidably—a little vague. The number of troops was to be reduced "considerably," and to a number "approaching the normal." What was the normal ? How much did the word "sensiblement"—to quote from tho original French text,—imply ? Perfectly genuine misconstructions wore made tho more easy by tho curious discrepancies in tho total estimated numbers of their effectives rendered by the. different Governments concerned. The figures for troops stationed in the Rhincland can even now ho given only with reserve. They may be estimated roughly (in August) as 59,000 French, 80GO British mid 7000 Belgian. When the British troops left the Cologne area, tho British force—.-though considerably reduced below the authorised number -merely passed front the northern to the two southern zones of occupation; and thus in the southern area tho total was actually greater, for a while, than before the evacuation of Cologne. Reductions in the- French (in addition to those in tho British) forces were accordingly made, and appeal' to havr been continued by small degrees from time to time. When the evacuation of Cologne tookgplace the Germans themselves estimated (he strength of the French force to be from 75.000 to CO,OOO men. The number is now officially given in Paris as 53,000. Thus even when the 15,000 British and Belgian troops are added, (lie total forces in the remaining occupied area are below tho number stationed there in (he period before, Locarno. The further reduction promised by M. Briand should effectually remove any German grievance on this score.