The Stratford Evening Post. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 1912 STRATFORD SHOW.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIV, Issue 80, 27 November 1912, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 1912 STRATFORD SHOW.

rile heavy downpour of rain which contained unceasingly in central Taranaki for the past few days has been a severe handicap to the Stratford A. and P. Association, and has undoubtedly prevented some entries from being sent forward. But at time of writing the downpour Ims ceased, and the floodgates of heaven are no longer wide open. The prospects for to-morrow— People’s Day—are really bright, and as the town is already unusually full of visitors when to-morrow’s crowd flocks in, there should be just about a record gathering. In the matter of weather, we are quite at the mercy of the gods, and no amount of care or foresight could possibly provide against a loss by storm and rain. In these parts, however, the weather changes very quickly, and the ground underfoot dries up with surprising quickness. There will, at least be no dust blowing on the Show Ground to-mor-row, nor in the streets of Stratford. With the splendid entries received this year, and the excellent condition in which the stock is shown, the third Show' of the Association is nothing behind its two previous exhibitions, and in some respects it is ahead of-them. The year lias been a busy one for the Association, and the President, Mr W. P. Kirkwood, has been untiring in Ills efforts and ungrudging in the time he has devoted to the work - of the Association. Many improvements to the grounds have been effected, and undoubtedly the Association has advanced as an educational factor which must have an important bearing on the propress of this great fanning district. We sincerely hope that People’s Day may prove weather perfect—that is all now needed to crown success.

DAIRYING SN AUSTRALASIA

Mr M. A. O’Callaghan, Chief of the Dairy Department of New South Wales has just published a book on dairying in Australasia. The author dwells on the fact that while the industry is a greyt one, more education and more people are necessary before it can 1)0 developed to its fullest extent. He deals at length with dairy work in Denmark, Sweden, Holland, and Germany, and he remarks with regard to Holland alone that she produces butter and cheese to the value of ]();} millions a year. As in this country the importance of testing dairy

herds is recognised in Australia, whore associations Juive already been formed for the purpose, although the movement is yet in its infancy. But there is doubt the value of testing is impressing itself on thinking farmers, and such a comparison as that which we were able to publish in our columns yesterday ought to do good in this direction. The milking machine is ■discussed at considerable length, and after Jong experiments in Australia it appears that on almost all points the machine is now proved to be equal or superior to Land milking, and that it is cheaper. The descriptions of butter and cheese making are supplemented by full details of the system of dairying in Argentina, a country which of late years lias made great strides in the industry.

DECLARATIONS OF WAR.

Discussing the Balkan war a writer in the “Manchester Guardian” expresses the view that the most polite of the combatants arrayed against Turkey is Montenegro, since she alone formally declared war. The same authority further tells ns that formal declarations of war are going more and more out of fashion, the commoner practice being simply to deliver an attack and confront the enemy with an “accomplished fact.” England seems to have been the first to employ these tactics. On April 2, 1801, her navy under Nelson attacked Copenhagen, captured six Danish warships and many smaller vessels, blew up the Danish flagship Danborg, and inflicted on the Danes a loss of 1800 killed and wounded—-all without a formal declaration of war and merely on the strength of Denmark’s refusal to accede to Britain’s demands. Six years later, because Denmark had refused to break away from the Continental blockade, the British navy without any previous declaration of war bombarded Copenhagen, destroyed three hundred houses killed and wounded many thousands, captured Copenhagen, and seized the entire Danish navy. After that it is recorded that Britain had, without previous declaration of war, fought the famous battle of Navarino, October 20, 1827, when the whole Turkish navy was destroyed. Then similarly came the bombardment of Alexandria on July 11th, 1882; the campaign of Fomosa in 1884; the Chino-Japauese War of 1894; and the famous attack by the Japanese on Port Arthur in the night of February 9, 1904—a1l without any previous declaration of war. When the Russian Government professed to be indignant at this last act, a Professor of International Law promptly set forth in a learned treatise the numerous precedents for Japan’s act, and showed that there had been more wars in modern times without a declaration of war than with. This practice of an unheralded attack was mm v . criticised at the Second Peace Conference at the Hague, and the Powers there agreed that there ought always to be a previous declaration of war, either direct or in the form of an ultimatum combined with a conditional declaration. Tile Conference, however, overlooked fixing the time that must elapse between the delivery of notice and the opening of hostilities so that the two acts may take place simultaneously, without, apparently any serious breach of war etiquette.

LORD R08E.4 <l/ BIRTHDAY.

Lord Roberts celebrated his eightieth birthday last month. “It seems more than a lifetime since the name of Roberts first came up as a star in India,” writes a correspondent of a London journal. There are not many men now alive who read those despatches which told of the little gunner, transferred from the Bengal Artillery to the immortal “Field Force,” who was one of the first through the gate at Delhi, who marched with the column to Cawnpore, and who planted our flag on the roof of the Mess House at. Lucknow under a shower of Indicts. His superior officers at tin's time marked out the young lieutenant because of a courage which defied all risks, and seemed guarded by a charmed life. It was only one link in a long chain of daring deeds which won him the Victoria Cross, when, on January 2, 1858,- be chased - two Sepoys who were carrying off one of our standards, and recaptured the colours in spite of their musket shots at close range. In the Abyssinian expedition of 1868, Roberts did sturdy w r ork as Assistant Quartermaster-General, and at the outbreak of the Afghan war he commanded a division and drove the natives from the famous peak of Peiwar Kotul. Then came bis famous expedition to Kabul to avenge the slaughter of the British mission. The Afghans in many good lights came to know the little British officer who pounced on them so swiftly and so terribly, and they knew' him better when the garrison of Khandahar was closely 7 besieged after the defeat at Maiwand.