THE PELORUS GUARDIAN and Miners’ Advocate. FRIDAY, 19th JANUARY, 1912. CURRENT TOPICS.

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 23, Issue 5, 19 January 1912, Page 4

THE PELORUS GUARDIAN and Miners’ Advocate. FRIDAY, 19th JANUARY, 1912. CURRENT TOPICS.

Interest in the race for the South Pole has recently been revived in England by an appeal for a further sum of £15,000 in support of Captain Scott’s expedition, but as usual there has not been evident a very strong disposition on the part of the public to assist. The man in the street raises queries as to the possible and probable advantages to .be derived from the expenditure of money on Polar exploration, to say nothing of the risking of men’s lives. So far as the explorers ate concerned undoubt“ edly a good deal of personal ambition is mixed with their desire to benefit mankind, but the fact should not be lost sight of that a great amount of good must accrue from the attacks made on Arctic and Antarctic solitudes. One man at least expects important results to the industrial world. He is Abbe Moreaux, director of the Bourges Observatory, and he recently declared “ that the systematic attack on the South Pole has hardly begun. Fifty years will not pass before the industrial world tarns to profitable account the riches of the Antarctic soil.” As regards some of the probable scientific fruits of the expedition, a correspondent of the London Post suggests that (C the careful surveying of Antarctic regions, or failing this the precise measurements of the force and gravityjby means of a pendulum,” will assist us to determine whether the earth is an elipsoid idactened at the poles, “ somewhat like an orange/’ as the school primers taught ,us —or what is mathematically known as a tetrahedon—a pear-shaped njasa moulded so that itts narrow end is a point, its broad ecid a fiat base and rounded surface three planes. The determination of this problem is of great importance, for astronomical distances are measured in terms of the earth’s diametejc. The Post writer indicates also th at valuable magnetic, geological and 'meteorological results should accrue. He points out that the earth’s magnet) ic poles move with time and do mot even remain fixed at the opposite ends of a shifting diameter. It wi ill only be by repeated Antarctic expeditions that the exact position of the magnetic pole can be determined, and that it will be possible to discover with certainty what is the cause of the aurora, and with what other phenomena i, such as the electric condition of the. sun, it is connected.

The petition against the election of Mr McOallum as Member for Wairau has further complicated the political situation. The Government olaim to have a majority on a vote of no confidence, but it is impossible to concede any justification for the claim, and it is certain that they cannot afford to lose the help of any one member. But in connection with the petition it is contended that until the inquiry into the alleged illegal and corrupt practices the Member is held the Member for Wairau would be ineligible to take his seat in the House, and this would of course mean that his vote in support of the Government would be lost. As fourteen days’ notice of the date of the trial have to be given to the parties concerned, the inquiry will have to be arranged very soon so that if the charges are disproved the electorate shall not be unrepresented at the opening of Parliament. And if another election is rendered necessary a most interesting position will arise. Mr Wiffen will almost certainly be a candidate, it is not improbable that a very near relative of the present Member will also stand, and Mr Duncan will doubtless again offer his services. The latter suggestion can by no means be taken for granted, but no one else in the electorate has as good a claim as Mr Duncan to be asked to contest the election. It is a matter of common knowledge that there were two prime causes of Mr D unpan’s recent defeat. The first of these was the influx of men to work on Government contracts at Picton and Mirza, and the second was Mr Duncan’s adoption of an independent political attitude. It is 1 tolerably certain that the voting in a second election would be much on the same lines as in the first, the same conditions existing then as now; but if Mr Duncan would, without the sacrifice of political principles, elect to stand as an out-and-out supporter of the Reform party he would assuredly receive the support of many who, under our present political conditions consider an “independent” member as altogether anomalous.