HOME NEWS SUMMARY

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1749, 13 September 1905, Page 11

HOME NEWS SUMMARY

MAWKISHNESS ABOUT RICHES.

A rich, man bewailing the hardships of great wealth is about the most illgraced of imaginable public instructors, but President Roosevelt ran him a close second recently in lauding Mr Hay and Mr Root for preferring the public service to the accumulation of money. There has been something too much of this in the general mouth, but Mr Roosevelt, as usual caught up the commonplace and gave it out with, redoubled emphasis. Consider the facts. The speaker himself inherited a competence, and has never had to think anxiously of the morrow. Secretary Hay was the possessor of sev-. eral millions. Mr Root is a wealthy man. To talk, in such circumstances', as if there were a question of taking vows of poverty in order to serve the State, is absurd. It is just as easy to be mawkish about riches as about poverty, though laments over a beggarly two millions or so are more disgusting than exaggerated outcries about the lot of the poor.—“Nation,’’KNew York. There, will be inequalities of wealth just as long as there are differing industrial capacities in men. it would be as futile to attempt to regulate accumulations of wealth as to legislate on the weather. The extreme bitterness against wealth is in large part made up of envy. It is like the “yawp” of a dog running alongside an express train, indignant that it cannot run as fast, or make as big a noise, as the train. —Professor J. Laurence Laughliii, in the “Atlantic Monthly.” JAPANESE IN CALIFORNIA. Statistics gathered in San Francisco in regard to the Japanese engaged in business show rfhat they have entered into lively competition with Americans in a large number of occupations which the Chinese do not invade. There are eighty-five Japanese hotels in San F'rancisco, sixty restaurants, sixteen intelligence offices, nine shooting galleries, eleven bathing establishments, eleven billiard-rooms, and seventy-five housecleaning offices. These are all licensed, and there, is a large number of unlicensed cobbk|s, butchers, janitors, porters and domestic servants. Fruit-packing is practically controlled by Japanese, who are sent out from here in large parties to all fruitgrowing districts. Chinatown will soon have a big morning newspaper that will give its Celestial readers all the news of the world. Type and other appliances are being imported from China. Rich merchants of the quarter are backing the enterprise, But the active heads of the paper are men prominent in the Japanese colony. The newspaper’s motto will be “Everything for the Oriental,” and it will advocate the rescinding of the present exclusion laws and a fair field to the Asiatic in competition with white labour. Chinatown has now four Chinese afternoon dailies and two Japanese papers, hut none of them is large or has much influence.’ THE “HORRORS OF WAR” MUSEUM Johann, von Bloch has offered 20,000 dollars and his entire collection showing “The Horrors of War” to the Town Council of Lucerne, in order to establish a Museum of War and Peace which should ho far more eloquent and impressive than the written or spoken word. Johann von Bloch is a Russian Pole, horn at Radom in 1836, and he amassed an enormous fortune as a banker at Warsaw. He was constantly engaged in great undertakings, and it was he who organised the transport by rail of the Russian troops during the war with Turkey in 1877-78. “'Practically all my life,” Herr von Bloch told me, “I have had this museum in mind ; I wanted to establish it in some advantageous point of Central Europe, where tourists of all nations flock in their thousands, including American®. And for thi3 reason I decided upon Lucerne. The Swiss Government has accepted my offer, and the Lucerne people have foi’med a company to establish the museum on a sound financial basis.” Asked about his object in establishing the museum, Herr von Bloch replied: “I wanted to show, first, the evolution of warfare from prehistoric ages, and then the continuous improvement through ancient and mediaeval times in modern weapons, warships, fortifications, etc., which must eventually make warfare so disastrous that battle will become impossible as a means of settling international disputes. Thus my museum wiil preach international peace to the people, who will be appealed to by extraordinary souvenirs, pictures, diagrams, statistics, models, and relics, all of them either actually from the field of battle or else very closely connected with it.”—W. G. Fitz Gerald in “The World To-day.” LAND OF BLACK DIAMONDS. The black diamond is an important article of cdnsifceroe, not because it is destined to embellish, the head of feminine grace, but because of the fact that it has been widely applied in industry, where it is almost as valuable as its white fellow. The home of the black diamond is Brazil, the classical land of the diamond, the richest beds of the minerals having been found in the bed of the Sao Jose River. The stone, which

and if the magical word diamond had never been applied to the substance there is no doubt that to this day the black diamond would be a thing unknown. However, the favour which this mineral enjoys is of recent date, for ago its properties were unknown and the trade in the stone was practically nothing. The. constantly increasing perfection of boring instruments brought out the value of the black diamond, the use of diamond point drills now having become so general that the price of the material has in consequence rapidly increased. To-day the diamond has become of prime necessity in working tempered metals, sawing marbles, piercing tunnels and galleries and lin mines. At the time of the inauguration' of the Laboratory of Arts and Trades, on July 1, 1903, a circular saw provided with diamond points produced surprising results, cutting into thin slices the hardest of materials. On the hanks of the Sao Jose are found traces of the first exploitation of the mines by the natives, the Garimpercs. The black diamond, however, hav'ng nocommercial value, did not attract these people, and they were apparently ignorant of the real character of the-mineral. From the report of an engineer who explored the region in 1853, it is learned that one day the diamond diggers discovered a black stone in the Sao Jose. They took the stone to- one of their huts and sc\iglit to discover its nature by attempting to crack it. All their efforts were fruitless, the stone resisting the most powerful hammers. The stone weighed about 10,000 carats, and at the price of 40 dollars a carat, represents a loss of 400,000 dollars. The exploitation of theJßrazilian diamond mines by the Garimperos, it is unnecessary to say, was not scientific. The crevices of the rocks are explored with the hand, the gravel being taken away in little barrels which are carried on the head. Attempts have been made to lessen the time of the work by diving for the mineral, but the violence of the stream is such during tse rainy season that this plan has been but little adopted. The only method ivhich will produce results, and the one which will .shortly be put in operation, is that- of draining. Dams will be erected 300 feet apart and centrifugal pumps will he installed for the purpose of drawing cff the water. The results of the work cannot be a question of doubt, judging from the past performances of these diamond mines. The question naturally arises, Why have the diamonds been found in the San Jcse? The answer to this is not difficult, and is given when it is said that the original rock which formerly occupied the high plateau has been gradually disintegrated, the debris of the rock being carried by rain into tlie Sao Jose. Because of their density, the black and white diamonds were concealed under the sand, together with the mineral accessories which surround them and which are the indications of precious stones. Thus in the course of years these teds have been formed, beds the richness of which is incalculable. —“Chicago Chronicle.” WHY JAPAN SUCCEEDS. We cannot forbear quoting from an interview which Baron Komura gave recently to an American journalist- while travelling through Minnesota. The views of the Japanese themselves on the nature of their successes and on the conditions of national life and spirit that rendered^-them possible are so rarely given to the world a® to make an authoritative pronouncement doubly interesting. B’aron Komura. raid:—“The Japanese people could never have won a victory had ib not been for three things. In the first place they were thrice armed by having their quarrel just; secondly, their entire public service is absolutely free from corrupt practices; and, lastly, their mode of life has ever been one of such extreme simplicity that their soldiers thus gained equipment for the stress of war. They never could have gained it had they like too many other nations, abandoned themselves to lives of luxury and sloth, and been unwilling, if not unable, to put their hands to strenuous tasks. « . The importance of the simple life has in Japan been demonstrated by the whole body of the people.” Modesty could say no less, the highest eulogy could say no more, than is contained in this unvarnished statement. We could wish the sentence we have quoted might, with its unescapable moral, he turned into the consciousness of every Englishman. That European nation which first earns the right to be called “the Japanese of . the West” ia the nation to whom the future will belong.—“ The Outlook.” BRITAIN’S PAUPER PROBLEM. The face of poverty wears many different aspects. Mr Balfour and Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman were made to see one of these the other day when they received a deputation of unemployed workmen’s wives in their private rooms at the House of Commons. Another, and possibly a graver, Aspect—because freer from sentiment—is presented in the pauperism i-eturns for England and Wales. These show that 1904 must have brought more haidships and suffering to to the poor than any previous year in quite recent times. The total number of paupers, not including casuals and the

insane, amounted on January 1, . 1905, to just lees than 809,000. representing an increase of 7£ per cent, on the year, though the population is estimated to have increased by 1 per cent. only. Indoor paupers numbered 238,300 and outdoor paupers 571,000, the number in each case being greater than in any previous year. Jfhe indoor paupers show an increase of 12,000 on the year, the outdoor paupers an increase of 47,000. While 1 in of the population was in receipt of relief on January 1, 1904, the proportion was lin 36 a year later. In London the proportion is appreciably higher than for the rest of the country. The number in receipt of relief in London Unions was 1 in 31 at the beginning of the present year as compared with 1 in 34 a year earlier. It is, perhaps, significant that in each year since 1892 the proportion of London pauperism is consistently higher than for the whole of the' country, and that the difference is increasing each year.—“ The Outlook.” A POLITICAL PREDICTION. “NIGHT COMETH”—AND A ' LONG ONE. Were Liberals disposed to be revengeful for the wrongs and humiliations, inflicted on them during a long course of years by the present Government, they would have had ample opportunity for gratifying their feeling during the present week. Never surely has a body of administrators offered a more pitiable spectacle!. It is that of a bankrupt at his last shift. . . One of the amusing features of the situation is the reason drawn from foreign policy which the Government and its supporters in the press have been adducing as in itself all sufficient for their continuance in office. Affairs abroad, it appears, are in such a threatening condition as to render it imperative that the present Ministry should remain at the helm. . . That the Empire has survived them is proof of an inherent! toughness of fibre which keeps it intact, though a Bute, a Liverpool, or a Balfour be at its head. Everybody knows why the Government, spite of every consideration of personal dignity and of constitutional ethics, still holds on. Mr LlqydGeorge supplies the reason in his caustic remark that no saint ini the calendar was ever more petitioned by his devotees than the chief Tory Whip last -week by the Unionist members, “to save them from their constituents.” “Give us a long day, your honour,” used to be the petition of condemned prisoners at the Old Bailey. Their doom was sealed, but they Avished the operation of hanging to be deferred to the last possible moment. The Tory Party clings to* Life. It has no satisfaction in contemplating the Day cf Judgment. It has had its good things: doles, prerogatives, domination, plunder. But “the night cometh,” and it promises to be a long one.—The ‘‘Christian World.”