NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Pahiatua Herald, Volume VI, Issue 708, 12 October 1898, Page 2

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

A Chicago journal, tho TimosIlerald, in calling attention to tho political significance of itussia’s action in going to America for battleships, says :—“ It is plainly evident that she looks upon a struggle with Groat Britain over conflicting interests in Chipa as inevitable. But England does not only regard such a conflict as inevitable but necessary. The Empire is boing crowdod and pushed and jostled at every point. Meddlesome and persistent aggressors in distant possessions are taxing the patience of tile people and the diplomacy of the Government to the utmost. Her commerce is slipping away. England is ready for a fight. She was never in a hotter fighting humor, and never was better prepared for a figliL than slio 1h now. How long this inevitable conflict can bo deferred is one of tho most interesting international problems now engaging tho thought of Europe. It is believed that tho two nations would have gone to war a year ago if Qneon J'iptoria had not declared that sho‘ would never sign another declaration of war while dhe l'eignod. But the tompeg of the English people is such that it would require only tho smallest act of hostility on tho part of liii3sia to talto the question beyond tho Queen's control and pricipitate a struggle which would result in tho partition of Chinn, and would, beyond all question, leave tho British in inastoriul supremacy in the East,”

It is one of tho delusions of the human race, that it occupies a somowhat important- space in creation. Tho writer of an ingenious series of artli metical articles, which are still appearing in tho f-jtraud Magazine, set himself to work to provo that, to use a familiar vulgarism. “ Man is Tory small potatoes indood.” Thoro are 1,480,000,000 human beings on this planet, and tho whole lot could bo tucked away in a remarkably small compass. For example, every living person could he contained in

a small common less than 22 miles each way; each person having a square yard to stand on. Or the 1480 million persons each could ocoupy a square yard of standing room in Bedfordshire and then fill up only two-thirds of that county. They could be tucked away down in Badnorsliire, by a little squeezing, and leave all the rest of the world empty. Even the Isle of Man would hold nearly one half of the world’s population at one person to the square yard. This fighting, struggling, white and red, black and tan, good and bad, very much mixed population of 1480 millions could be packed in a cubic box measuring 1140 yards in heights, each person being allowed 27 cubic feet of room inside such box, and the box itself could be deposited when full in Battorsea Park with ample room to spare, or in Hyde Park and not occupy much more than one third of the ground space of that park.

Some truly remarkable figures are given by Mr C. de Thierry in the United States Magazine and republished in the Hawke's Bay Herald, showing that in the last 60 years the United States have spent more on wars than Great Britain and that it actually costs more to maintain its land forces than all the Imperial army. This is his statement :

The secret of the bloated expenditure in America is of course the £28,000,000 annually spent on pensions. Mr Charles Sumner reckons that in addition the militia of the separate States cost yearly not less that 50,000,000 dol, a cost much greater than that jof the British Colonial and Indian forces. The actual cost of American wars since 1815 is put at more than 8226 million dollars, while the cost of British wars during the same period has been less than 206 millions sterling, or about one-eiglith of the American total. But of that the Civil war is responsible for 8,000,000,000 dollars. The Indian wars waged within the States lead the writer to insist that America aas a war record longer and bigger than England.

Cost of tub British Army and Navy since 1838. Cost ok the Unitbd States Army and Navy since 1838. Date. Army. Navy. Army. Nuvy. £ £ Dollars. Dollars. 1838 7,800,019 4,811,990 4,538,000,00 0,197,541,00 18-18 9,723,408 7,922,287 15,711,158,00 10.500 000,00 1858 14,406,850 10,590,000 24,329,056,00 14,954,974,00 1808 15,418,682 11,108,949 140,129,717,00 25,775,503,00 1878 14,281,982 10,785,147 71,231,403,90 19,959,837,99 1888 18,483,330 12,325,467 119,000.000,00 10,000,000,00 1897 18,270,000 21,170,000 178,185,083,00 34,952,479,00