NOTES AND COMMENTS

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVI, Issue 8187, 31 July 1912, Page 4

NOTES AND COMMENTS

Mr Mills told a New Plymouth audience of teachers a child would learn to read In one-fifth the time it now takes if the inconsistencies and exceptions were removed from tho English language. • • « » •

Speaking to an audience of Taranaki farmers Ur Mills stressed his contention that there was no occupation at all within the reach of any group of men which had greater opportunity for tho man of special training and offered greater reward for the man of special capacity, and demanded more careful and skilful training for the duties which were to be undertaken than tho work of tho modern farmer. • • • • • "This is my message,” said Mr Mills: "The whole trend of modern life is in the direction of making tho farmer either an ignorant, uninformed, unworthy, bitterly exploited producer of raw materials, tied close to the land, and given very little for large services, or else in the direction of the way of the enlargement of a former’s life by greater scientific training in his own class, so that instead of being mastered by the situation he will become master of it.” He added that- this meant wider knowledge, and wider training - meant that the whole educational life must be brought to play upon agricultural industrialism. • • • • •

It was said of Lord Lister that by bis antiseptic surgery he saved more lives in' one year that Napoleon destroyed in all his wars. The same can be said of Mr Marconi. But for the wireless telegraphy there might have been none saved from the awful disaster of the Titanic. Yet Marconi remains plain "Mr.” If he had slain in war as many as he has saved,, he would be an earl at least,' with a .£50.000 gift and a vote of thanks from Parliament. • • • • *

Dr A. T. Eobertson, "brought down tho house” in London at tho meeting of the Baptist World Alliance by saying. "I know tho Bible is inspired, because it has stood so much poor preaching.’ • • • • •

A farmer’s wife who had no very romantic ideas about the opposite sex, and who, hurrying from churn to sink, from sink to shed, and back to tho kitchen stove, was asked if she wanted to vote. "No, I certainly don’t,” she said, "1 say if there’s one little thing that the men folks can do alouo, for goodness sake let ’em do dtl” --'• • m m SEED. • The farmer planted a seed, A little dry, black seed; And off he went to other work; For the farmer was never known to shirk. And cared for what he had need. The night came with its dew. The 000 l and silent dew; Tho dawn came and the day. And the farmer worked away. At labors not a few. Home from his work one day, \ One glowing summer day. His children showed him a perfect flower; It had burst in bloom that very hour. How, I cannot say. But I know If the smallest seed. In the soil of love he cast. Both day and night will do their part; And the sower who works with a trusting heart Will find -the flower at last.

.» . V . • • • ■ • His Honor Judge Eagleson, of, Victoria, recently delivered himself of a very stern but muoh merited rebuke on gambling in general, and of the business of the "bookmaker" in particular. He said,/’The occupation of a bookmaker as rapidly becoming a curse to this country. These men, living on proceeds made by other people, did not themselves produce. To this country men of this class are absolutely worthless. With tho man who gambles with tho bookmaker I have no sympathy, except the sympathy I have for a fool, who, if ho pursues the gambling instinct, will bring ruin and disgrace on all connected with him. Any person who countenances gambling is an opponent of a clean, healthy, and natural life."

• • • • t More money is being spent to-day in Australia —both on public and private objects—than ever before! more, perhaps, than is being spent by any other equal number of people on the planet: but does tho amount spent on religion keep pace with tho expenditure on other objects? Does it keep pace with the amounts spent for pleasure, for dress, for sport of every kind? No one can believe it does; and this is not a wholesome sign. The income tax returns, for example, show that ministers,-as a class, are about the worst paid members of the whole community! The number of clergymen, of lawyers, and of doctors in Victoria is about the same; but 123 lawyers, 141 doctors pay income tax on £IOOO and over; while only four clergymen reach that level. In the same class-—.as having an income of £IOOO and over —are 16 teachers, 25 civil servants, 200 hotelkeepers, 150 clerks, 375 merchants, 190 manufacturers. There are, it is curious to know, 52 carpenters with on income of over £IOOO a year. But in all the States there are only four clergymen with that income. • • • • •

Mr Hughes. Federal Attorney-General, ays: The Australian Labor Party has pinned its faith to settlement of disputes by peaceful means. I do not say that strikes are never justified. On the other hand, they are very frequently justified. What I say is that, broadly, they are garely, if ever, the best way of obtaining redress, and they are certainly not the substitute for political action. My particular references to syndicalism were jin relation to that extraordinary ten-

deucy of factions inside unions to disregard the decision of the majority, that, of course, is a most destructive tendency, and quite subversive of the principle on which unionism is founded, and, indeed, on which democracy itself is based. The "Hastings Tribune" is all in a flutter. It devotes a column and a quarter to slanging Mills. It pretends to imagine Mills wants to steal tho squatters’ broad acres. No, Mills wants everybody who holds land to use it or else get off —that’s all. Mills will be at Hastings for tho week end, and will deal with tho "Tribune” on Sunday afternoon. He speaks at Napier on Sunday night. Subject: "Moses—Land Boformer.”

The delegates to the Municipal Conference are getting a free copy of tho “Dominion.” They are reading the “Times.” • - • • •

"Now Zealand stands in tho Pacific, a temptation to ©very international thief. You say it is military training she needs to protect herself. I say no 1 Give us ten million people. Protect us against the international robbery of foreign monopolies; solve tho land problem. Mills at New Plymouth.