NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19698, 26 July 1927, Page 8

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

INVESTING AND GAMBLING. " A real commercial transaction—say, prospecting for gold within the Arctic Circle —may be very risky; but if it is successful there will be a positive addition of wealth for the community as a whole. A bet, or any other form of mere gamble, may enrich one man, but only to the extent that it impoverishes another," says Canon Peter Green, in an article in the Guardian discussing legitimate investment. Remarking that capital is as necessary as labour in all commerce, he says that when a man looks out for some way of employing his capital, there is no more reason why he should not look out for one which is likely to pay him well than there is why a man anxious to employ his labour should not try to do so to the best advantage. He continues, "A man is not to be regarded as a bad Christian because he seeks to employ what he has, whether capital or powers of body or brain, to the best advantage. Of course, sometimes an investment will, owing to unforseen causes, turn out very profitable; it is not, therefore," a gamble. You cannot eliminate chance altogether. Sometimes it may turn out very ill; again it is not a gamble. The difference between the man who bona r 'de buys shares, and the man who merely pays a deposit on their value, holding on the ' margin ' system, is that the first provides for industry something without which industry would be impossible, while the other simply enters into a transaction in the hope of skimming any profits that may be made, without contributing anything of value. And the fact that the man who enters into such transactions without inside knowledge usually loses heavily, while it proves his action to be silly, does nothing to prove that it is not also morally wrong."

FOOT AND MOUTH DISEASE. The wisdom of the most scrupulous precautions against the introduction of foot and mouth disease gains fresh confirmation from the results of the research work conducted by the committee set up in Britain to seek for means of controlling the disease. The cost of its ravages is not confined to the amount of compensation for the slaughter of infected animals; that represents only a fraction of the loss faced by the whole agricultural community. In Britain, every outbreak is followed by restrictions and cancellations of trade, and serious blows have been dealt to the once flourishing export business. To a country like New Zealand, with its vast herds, including dairy cattle of refined breeds, the risk of the disease being introduced constitutes a menace that will be appreciated by all engaged in animal husbandry. That the. danger is not too remote to be ignored is evident from the second progress report of the British committee which records the work preliminary to an attempt to isolate the virus of the disease. It appears that virus dried on inanimate objects would not survive for long. Yet the virus can exist quite long enough to be transmitted to suitable hosts where the conditions are favourable. Thus it survived on hay at least 15 weeks; on bran, at least 20 weeks; on flour, seven weeks; on cow's hair, four weeks; on sand, two weeks; and mixed with salted butter, two weeks. At the experimental station it was found possible to infect animals by feeding them with dry fodder which had been sprayed with diluted infective saliva a month previously. Another fruitful line of inquiry showed that the tissues from the bodies of guinea pigs killed when the blood is infective remain virulent for considerable periods in cold store. Thus the blood was virulent after 36 days, and the bone marrow up to 96 days. In car-i cases of cattle and pigs, the virus remained active for 40 days in the blood and 76 days in the bone marrow. Even after dry or wet salting the virus was found in the bone marrow after 42 days. Already an embargo has been placed upon the importation into Britain of freshlykilled meat from tne Continent, and a suggestion hns been made that a similar prohibition should be enforced against any fresh or frozen meat from any place known to be infected with the rliaeaaa.