CURRENT TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVI, Issue 21, 25 June 1913, Page 8

CURRENT TOPICS.

CHECKING OUR PRODUCTION. It is not realised that an artificial check upon production is being imposed by our governments, and that the financial position of the colonies is being depreciated simply because our laws prevent men from working and producing instead of encouraging them to do so. In New Zealand, for instance, millions of the best acres in the North Island are deliberately and wilfully locked against settlement. Many of these rich acres arc in vthe immediate vicinity, .of-fail-' ways—as any traveller through the '(Country may sec for himself—and much | native land isso situated that it prevents blbcks which would otherwise be available from being reached.—Auckland Herald. NAVY BUILDING. Some of the German newspapers have stated lately that after the close of the Balkan war the British Government will make a definite proposal to Germany to drop the naval building programmes for 1914-15. Mr Winston Churchill suggested when' presenting his estimates to the House of Commons that Britain and Germany could save money without affecting their relative positions in the naval contest by agreeing to lay new warships for a year. The German Chancellor mentioned the matter in the Reichstag, but said that Britain had made no precise overture. A section of the German Press is busy already showing why Germany ought to decline to reduce the pace at any point, and naturally it gives a great deal of attention to the Dominion warships, which apparently would not be governed by an Anglo-German agreement. AN INTERESTING EXPERIMENT. A successful experiment in the produc- J tion of paper pulp from Tasmanian hardwood sawdust, which compared favorably I with high-grade material, produced in j Sweden, has been made;by Mr. C. H. ] Slaytor, a chemist associated with the Launceston Tcchnicnl School. The raw material and small plant were provided by the Sawmillers' Association, who, with Mr. Slaytor, will endeavor to prove whether the pulp is sufficiently long in fibre to render it commercially as valuable as they anticipate. Mr. Slaytor says the value of the pulp he obtained would be £l2 to £ls per ton. The iost of treatment of 100 tons of sawlust in chemicals would be £32, and this :aw material would produce 55 tons of pulp. It is likely that the Government will lend assistance in the experimental •vork. A GREAT WORK. The Panama Canal, contrary to the general belief, is not the greatest undertaking of its kind in the world. The Erie Canal, which is now being built, will Se nine times as long as the "big ditch" tt Panama when it is completed. Fiftyleven locks are being made in this canal, and the one at Little Falls will be forty feet higher than the great lock at the Gatun section of the Panama, waterway. The engineering problems in connection l with the Erie Canal are more difficult than those confronting the engineers at Panama. At one spot the route crosses a gorge ninety feet deep and five hundred feet wide by means of an enormous -.onerete aqueduct. The Erie Canal Till enable good's to be taken from the middle of the United States direct by vater to New York. A PRETTY STORY SPOILED. A pretty story has been spoiled by the scientific men. A few weeks ago an American newspaper announced with a great wealth of detail and appropriate drawings and photographs, that the mvstery of the Sphinx had been unravelled. J be famous colossus, ran the story, had been discovered by Dr. E. Reissner, to have a temple 100 feet long within its body and a smaller temple 60 feet long and 14 feet wide in its head, the two chambers being connected by a passage. The larger temple was the tomb of Menes, the first of the Pharaohs, whose memorial tablet had been found. But Dr. Reissner refused to father the tale Mid the Egyptologists declare that no lew information at all has been secured concerning the Sphinx. They refuse to admit, indeed, that there is any mystery to be unravelled. The huge limestone rock from which the figure has been hewn is the eastern termination of the ♦ulge on which the pyramids stanu, anu Us natural resemblance to a human head •vas improved by early Egyptian craftsmen.