NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20365, 20 September 1929, Page 12

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

MOTORING IN THE ORIENT.

" Few results of the war in the Middle East have been more conspicuous than the development of motor transport," say 6 a correspondent of the Times. " The last years of the war found the land from Egypt to East Persia overrun with army lorries and cheap cars, which British enterprise had imported and found peculiarly suited to the open desert, where only the camel and donkey had been known." Tho reactions have been widespread and intense. "Everywhere there is awakening a passion for travel, even among the poorest folk in the Middle East. Even the wild Mahsud now drives down to tho market towns of the Indus from tho mountain fastnesses of Waziristan in a motor-omnibus. Everywhere tho people are taking to the motor-car as a means of travel, and it is remarkablo that, at any rate in tho more Western countries, a distinct mechanical aptitude is battling manfully with the slipshod irresponsibility of the East. In every town, from Cairo to .Calcutta, American agents are to bo found; in every town are advertisements of American cars. Except for a few British-owned Drivate cars in tho big towns, not a British car or lorry is to bo seen, nor is there any visible attempt being made to respond to the Easterner's special wants or to show tho people that British cars exist. It is sad to think that it was tho British who introduced tho motor-car to the East during tho war—and introduced an American one! The market is not irretrievably lost. It is so vast that, with capital, energy and tho right typo of British representative on the spot, there are still great possibilities. But tho article supplied must meet the requirements of tho country and people in price and design."

REGULATION ,OF WHALING. A report on the Southern whaling season daring the season from January, 1927, to May, 1928, has been issued by the Discovery Investigations Committee, whose' principal function is to make a serious attempt to place the whaling industry on a scientific- basis. " The whaling season 1927-28 proved n momentous one for whaling in the Antarctic," the report states. " Whaling off the South Shetland Islands was more successful than in any previous year. Five thousand five hundred whales wore taken, and the yield of oil was over 66,000 tons, an increase • * • * in output of 47 per cent, on the previous season, itself a Beason only once surpassed for output in the history of South /Shetlands whaling; and the whales were taken by catchers working neither from shore stations nor from inothor ships anchored in tlio shelter of land, but from factory ships operating along the edge of the ico. It is truo that the success attending - the operations very probably may have bcuti duo to climatic conditions, which occur only from time to time, but its magnitude, coupled with the particular character of the whaling, resulted in an enormous expansion of whalinp outerprise. The great increase which will occur in the destruction of whales;—a destruction sufficient to alarm experienced ivhalers, whose immcdiato interest is in in expanded industry—greatly increases tho need for a speedy attainment of lefitiilivo results in tho researches. The facts have to' bo faced that the industry nay be irreparably damaged before the greatest diligence in research can furnish :omplote solutions of all tho problems with Afhicli they deal, and that measures of t tentative and temporary character may lavo to be decided upon by tho Governnonts interested in ordor to avoid a pos,iblo collapse."