TOPICS OF THE DAY.

New Zealand Times, Volume LXX, Issue 3884, 30 October 1899, Page 5

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

AN EXEMPLARY EMPLOYER. Mr W. P. Hartley is reported to have initiated a very interesting experiment at Aintree, near Liverpool. lie has built for the employees at his works sixty-four houses, varying in value from Cis to 12s per week, and these, on the lines of the Act of Parliament passed last session, he has offered to the tenants at cost price. The purchase money is to ho paid in instalments ..spread over eighteen years, plus .<‘l,’ per cent, interest, which, as Mr Hartley very reasonably said, is the least a private individual could afford to take. The result is that the tenants will pay the same amount per week or month as at present, but the amount, instead of rent, will be instalments. To meet obvious contingencies, Mr Hartley has offered to allow those who go in for the scheme to transfer the house they may be paying for to another tenant, the rent still being credited to them as instalments ; and he has also agreed that those who wish to withdraw can have their money back, loss 5 per cent, per annum for the depreciation of tho property. Mr Hartley, it seems, was much impressed during a visit to Philadelphia with the general benefits resulting from working men being their own landlords. COUNTESS OF WARWICK AS A SOCIALIST. A denial of the statement that the Countess of Warwick has declared herself a Socialist is conveyed in the following letter to the “Essex County Standard”: —The statements In the “Essex County Chronicle” are absolutely untrue and unauthorised. I have never given an interview on any personal matter to any newspaper in iny life. It cannot be of the slightest interest to . anyone what my opinions are; but as these statements are causing incalculable harm to the work I am engaged in, I wish it to be understood that I take no interest, and no part whatever in party politics. I learn with surprise, and for the . first time, that “Socialism is allied to Liberalism.” Socialism ; “ A theory of society which advocates a more precise, orderly and harmonious arrangement of xne social relations of mankind than that which has hitherto prevailed.” —Vide “Webstor.’fc I believe this to bo the creed of “ every worker.” Yours faithfully, Frances Evelyn Warwick.

THE LINOTYPE AND “COMPS.” In Australia and New Zealand, where newspaper proprietors hare nearly all generously and appropriately provided for the luckless—and too often elderly—compositors whom the march of progress, as represented by the linotype, has run out of employment, the American method of meeting the difficulty may not seem sumptuous. This is, to set up the men not wanted as agriculturists. The Typographical Union took the* pfoject up, and so far do not seem to regret it. As a . start, a farm at Bound Brook, New Jersey, was leased for five years, and on this fifty “comps.” have laid down their composing sticks and taken up the plough instead. The farm ihydf consists of 160 acres, which are level for the most part, though slightly rolling in places. Of these, 115 acres are woodland, and 41 acres are taken up with pasture and hayfields and orchards-. , There are thus 100 acres under the plough, and of these two acres are a-lotted to each of the fifty ex-comps, who are the farmers. On the farm'itself is a fine old mansion, which dates back to* the times of British possession, and in this tin? forty-five single men live. There are five men with families, and these, live in ns many detached cottages, ■ which are also, on the .farm, and near<hy-theman-sion. So far as cultivation is concerned, each man. is*ab liberty to crop his two acres as he likes, but it was decided, by common sent, in “chape!,” that one of each of the two acres should be put in potatoes. The other one is divided up into smaller plots, and on these such crops as beans, maize, peas, onions, cabbagej radishes and fruit are grown. Each man takes the proceeds from the produce of his two acres at- the end of the season. from the farming point of view the venture has turned out all that could he desired. The entire management of the farm is vested in its own “chapel,” which consists of the fifty members in. council. Everything so far has gone very smoothly and agreeably, and this is probably one of the secrets, which accounts for the good state of the farm. LIQUID AIR AS AN EXPLOSIVE. Any_ improvement in the way of explosives is of great interest to those engaged in mining, and as this is an important industry in New Caledonia., one of the local papers is investigating the probable effects of using liquid air for the V purpose. It says:—“One of the most •f remarkable applications of the use of liquid air, or rather, liquid oxygen, is its use as an explosive. Those liquids, left to themselves, evaporate but slowly, but the result is otherwise if a violent shock is produced amongst JJiem, leaddug to a sudden increase of temperature ; their instant, transformation into gas causes them to detonate powerfully. It has already been proposed to use this property in the preparation of an explosive which ninv abolish dynamite and similar tliimrs. For this purnose it is only necessary to fill cartridges with charcoal or cotton, and to saturate them with liquid air. This may be done without danger, and the cartridges may be exploded in the ordinary way by a capsule of fulminate of mercury. Such an explosive would have the advantage of not producing any deleterious gas, and would do away with the inconvenience caused by the poisonous gases where dy- . namitc is used in underground works.”