NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19487, 17 November 1926, Page 12

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

THE LUSITANIA'S TREASURE. Forty fathoms deep at the bottom of the Irish Sea lies the liner Lusitania, torpedoed off the Old Head of Kinsale. For over nine years the great tides of the Atlantic have crusted, corroded and crushed her. Deep down, under the twisted girders and jammed cafiin-ways, is a strong-room containing a purser's thirty-ton safe, holding £1,200,000 of bullion and jewellery, says Mr. Harold Wilkins, in his book cn the marvels of modern mechanics. Marine salvors are asking themselves whether the safe can be; brought to the surface. Many dismiss the project as chimerical. At this great depth a diver encased in the ordinary helmet and rubber suit would be tossed aside like an egg-shell or crushed by the tremendous weight of water, which at only half the" depth at which the Lusitania lies would press on the diver's 2160 square inches of surface with a total force of 144,0721b. But an American syndicate of salvors who have purchased the rights in the Lusitania do not believe that this herculean task is too great for modem science. Already an American, Mr. B. B. Leavitt, has descended over' sixty fathoms, twenty fathoms deeper than the Lusitania lies, where he remained for over an hour. AN IMPERIAL FOREIGN SERVICE. "The British Empire has become a world-State, almost without our appreciating the implications of that fact. If the British Empire is td survive, as we are sure it will, the time has come when we should say to the Dominions: 'We want you to help us to manage our worldState,' " says the Spectator. "The conditions of appointment of candidates into the diplomatic, consular and other services have been thoroughly overhauled in the last few years. If there ever was in the past any reason why we should not have sent abroad, as British representatives, Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders or South Africans, there is certainly no obstacle here now.' Competition for entry is free and open. Candidates from the Dominions and Crown Colonies have competed and shown their ability to enter the services and to rise therein by merit. We want them to realise that we should welcome still more. A Can-adian-born Scotsman, Mr. Bonar Law, rose to be Prime Minister of Great Britain, and we can think of no position under the Crown in the diplomatic, consular or colonial services which is not open to the young men from the universities of McGill, Toronto, Melbourne, Sydney or Capetown. The foreign relations of the British Empire are a matter for the whole Empire, and what we need is an Imperial Foreign Service, representative of the whole Empire, if we are to prevent a repetition of Locarno—an Imperial Foreign Office not recruited here alone but from all the chief schools of the Empire. We are too apt to think that methods, hitherto sufficient, will avail in the future. How to modernise the machinery of Imperial co-operation is one of the problems which face the present generation. We might make a good start by calling the young men of the Dominions to our -councils."-