ODDMENTS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18612, 21 July 1922, Page 8

ODDMENTS

At a girls’ school in Halifax, Bishop Frodsham, now vicar of that important Yorkshire city, gave a short address upon the British Empire regarded as a trust for the peace and welfare of the world. The British Empire, he said, was a stupendous fact, and it was unique in character. The Empire was not an empire in the sense that Rome wan an empire or Germany was an empire. It was not a state under the domination of one man or one race.. It was a system of states and empires of undeveloped races and free dominions trying to work their own development, and yet united together in common interests and common loyalty to the King. England was called the predominating partner in a groat political concern. It was more than that now. It was the connecting link of the whole Empire. As General Smuts said during tho war, “We are not one state, or nation, or empire, but a whole world by ourselves consisting of many nations, of many states, and. of all sorts of communities under one flag.” Sane men were beginning to see that, with all its troubles to-day, tho British Empire was a great practical method of promoting the peace and welfare of tho world. If the Leajgue of Nations was to succeed in a still bigger fashion, the best tool the League had was the strong nno united confederation of races called the British Empire. The British Empire was essential also to the development of the backward races of Africa, and to the peace of India—a country where tho vast majority of tho peoples now governed in peace and justice would be otherwise helpless against the fierce, virile, relentless tribes of the mountains dominating the plains of toe Central Provinces. Tho British Empire, further, was essential to the safety of the dominions. Canada, sheltering by the side of tire United States, might affect to disregard questions of defence. To Australians and New Zealanders defence was the dominating thought. “United we stand; divided we fall.” The questions of defence and government in the Empire wore big ones, and must be looked at in a big fashion and in a generous fashion, duly considering the causes for which the existence of nations was ordained. The Bishop advised tho girls to take big views of the British Empire and of the duty the Emnire owed, not only within the Empire, but to the bigger world outside. They could best do this by remembering that they themselves were entrusted with various talents of cliaracter, of power, and of influence, which they had to expend in the market-place of the world’s good. They might seem to have little to do with imperial destinies, but the girls of to-day would bo tho wives and mothers of tomorrow. And the best eons of the Empire were always those who had a high standard of ideals and service set before them by God-fearing good women.

Dr Martha A. Whiteley was the joint inventor with Professor Thorpe of Ihe very effective “S.K.” tear gas that proved to be the British Army’s greatest; chemical oounterblaet to the German gas attacks m tho war. It is remarked by the Daily Express that the only public reference to this woman scientists epic achievement was made casually the other day during the unveiling of a war memorial in Smith Kensington. She is ono of the greatest women scientist© tlus age has produced, and she labours in the quiet obscurity of South Kensington, within a stone’s throw of the Science Museum. Dr Whiteley is described as being ono of tho most self-effacing as well ns one of the greatest living chemists. It was caily with a great deal of persuasion that she could be induced to tell how she and Professor Thorpe, tho joint heads of the organic chemistry department of the Imperial College of Science, rescued the Admiralty and War Office from their ghastly plight during the early days of tho war, when all means of procuring drugs from Germany were absolutely shut off. “We worked day and night and every day of the week, and produced SO pounds of synthetic drugs for the Admiralty in throe months.” she said. “We had not only to compound the drugs, but also devise our own methods of compounding them—methods that are used by English chemists today for compounding phenaeetin and eucaiiie. In 1915 we invented the ‘S.K.’ gas for the use of the Allied troops all oyer the world. Then wo turned our attention to ophorite, by means of which chemical lionibs are burst. Next wo invented an enti-Zoppelln flare; and for the rest de-

voted our leisure to devising new, and improving on the old, methods of local ames the tics. ” The editorial comment runs: “So it was a woman who invented tear-gas! Our prejudices or, at any rate, our preconceived opinions are still strong enough to compel a gasp of surprise. A woman responsible for one of the most noxious and potent destructive agencies ever known in the world ! It is a symbol of the changed conditions of warfare. A woman sitting m a Kensington laboratory could annihilate whole armies, not only of Crusaders and Saracens, but of the legionaries of. Napoleon and Wellington. The day of physical strength in war is nearly over. The battle goes no more to the strong, but to the ingenious. The determining factors in the future will be not the muscles of arms and legs, but the convolutions of the brain.” On good authority it is stated that the woman film censor at Home is to be Airs G. A Bedford (widow of the late president of the British Board of Film Censors, and former Examiner of Plays). The pos_ sibility of another woman joining the board is not excluded. Mrs Bedford has been in attendance at the Censor’s office in Wardour street, receiving instructions in the five-and-seventy rules which the board has drawn up for the good government of films She is most versatile, as well as a ''harming woman. Tt has been said of her that she is “artistic to her finger-tips,” and her interests extend to literature, painting, music, the stage, art objects, languages, and science. The people of New Zealand are being urged to eat beef instead of other meat foods, and thus assist an industry -which has teen seriously feeling the result of the failure of the market's* abroad. This is a matter in which housewives can take an interest. To utilise beef as a food involves no sacrifice for a national good.