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Otago Daily Times, Issue 18465, 28 January 1922, Page 9

It is one of the primary purposes of the League of Red Cross Societies to bring about improvement of health, the prevention of disease, and the mitigation of suffering throughout the world. Its Council has in preparaion a programme based upon the mobilisation of the people of all classes, races, and creeds through the agency of the national Red Cross Societies, in the cause of popular health instruction. Some statistical and other information placed fay officials of the League before the International Labour Conference, recently held at Geneva, served to show .very forcibly how defective the world is from the health standpoint. It is no cheerful theme that of of efficient lives in peace time through preventable causes. It is well, however, that the position should be occasionally revealed from fresh angles. Sir Claude Hill, Director-General of the League, directed attention at Geneva to some striking facts. Six million deaths occurred in India alone in a few months la 1918 aa a result of the influenza qgjdegifc Xhq V«toal Health Depart-

ment at Washington estimates at 8,000,000 the number of living Americans who must sooner or later die of tuberculosis. The National Service Department in England discovered that, out of two and a-qnarter million men between the ages of eighteen and forty-two, not more than 900,000, or 36 per cent, were physically fit for active servicp. The Health Insurance statistics for England shows that the. 10,000,000 insured persons lose by disease each more than, eighty million working days, the equivalent of over 250,000 working years. It could be shown conclusively, Sir Claude Hill said, that with the present day expert knowledge the vast majority of this loss was avoidable by ordinary care. The evidence of the wastage of human life cited by Dr Rene Sand, Secre-tary-General of the League, was equally impressive. The results of school medical inspection in England had shown, be said, that of 7,000,000. children of schoolgoing age 1,000,000 were seriously handicapped in their growth and education by physical and mental defects, and a second million were totally deprived of education as a result of disease and disablement, so that one child out of every three was doomed to ignorance, suffering, and sometimes to early death.

Hardihood is not lacking on the part of Mr William Foster Watson, described as of the'North London Unemployed Council. Recently he claimed damages against the Duke of Northumberland and the Morning Post for libel in respect of a series of ! articles entitled “ The Bolshevist Plot in England,” which be averred had injured Ms Socialistic prestige and caused him mental worry and financial loss. The cross-examination of plaintiff was productive of a series of remarkable admissions too long to recapitulate. It was shown, inter alia, that the plaintiff had twice been convicted for seditious utterances, and ho proudly boosted that he had entered the service of Scotland Yard as an informer, taking the job merely to deceive the authorities. In summing up Mr Justice Darling expressed regret that'a man of plaintiff’s unquestionable abilities should have seen fit to misuse them. He proceeded to point out the justification for the statement made by defendants, that plaintiff had an unsavoury reputation and only extreme Bolshevist circles would have anything to do with him. ,How much more, he asked, had defendants. said about the plaintiff than he had said about himself? After reading an extract from plaintiff’s writings about Mr J. H. Thomas, M.P., to whom he applied Whitman’s opinion of politicians as “ dough-faced lice,” Mr Justice Darling continued: “The man who wrote that about another man in the Labour movement who differed from him as to how far strikes arc justified and how far his country is to be reduced to similarity with Russia, the man who wrote (hat about another working man, about another of his own class, that man now comes before you and asks for-damages for defamation.” If the jury thought plaintiff entitled to damages they must ask themselves how much the social prestige of a man like that was injured by the publication of the things defendants had said about him—the man who published what he had about those with whom he disagreed, who published to a dangerous mob in Trafalgar square a violent threat about Mr Churchill, and had published about a member of Parliament of his. own class the words he had applied to Mr Thomas. The jury found that the comments of which plaintiff complained were fair, in good faith, and without malice, on matters of public interest, and awarded no damages.

Thb largest collection of birds, beasts, and fishes ever carried in one ship from Australia to England was that which arrived in London/a few weeks ago under the care of Mr A. S. Le Souef, director of the Taronga Park and Zoological Gardens in Sydney. Tho invasion created considerable interest, as well it might, since for tho time being the Zoological Gardens were called upon to accommodate some 800 new feathered, nnned, or furred guests. Many of the zoological specimens, all of them natives of Australiafand New Guinea, had never been seen in the Old Country before. Among the most uncommon were thj lung-fish found only in two Queensland riven. The fiery wombat has also' been hitherto unfamiliar to visitors to the ‘‘Zoo ” in London. Included in the collection were also parrots, pigeons, birds of , paradise, black swans, Australian cuckoos, emus, opossums, Australian wedge eagles, a cassowary, a Tasmanian devil, and nearly 100 kangaroos and wallabies. These last are destined to hop about in strange zoos far from their native land. Most of them were bespoken by the agents of the principal British and Continental Zoological Societies. Some of them go as far as Antwerp, Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Paris, and, probably, Rome and Madrid. They have been exported under the authority of the United Zoological Societies of Australia, which undertake to see that these animals, like all the others in the collection, shall be sold only to responsible scientific bodies in accordance with the law. The forward part of the liner Medic during the voyage upon which so many unusual and interesting passengers were embarked is described as being comparable only to a Noah’s Ark. Those who speak with authority tell us that the Australian mammals, and some of the birds, are undergoing distinct modifications in consequence of the new conditions introduced by white men. Probably the London Daily Telegraph has apprehensions based on some such circumstance when, in exhorting the British public to study this collection of Australian zoological specimens, it gloomily observed,. “ It may never be granted to onr grandchildren to behold a Tasmanian devil.”