TOPICAL READING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXVIII, Issue 7999, 20 March 1906, Page 4

TOPICAL READING.

Tbe Inspector-General of Polioe in New South Wales has received from the acting-superintendent of police at Deniliquin a return of bush and grass fires which occurred during January in the south-western district. The return shows, among other things, that phosphoribed pnllard laid for rabbits has been effect - ive in more than one instance in producing very serious conflagrations. Through this cause 500 acres of grass were destroyed at Booligal, and two miles of fencing, with 100 aores of grass, at Oarrathool; while other poisoning laid for rabbits id tho Gunbnr district set Are to twenty acres of grass. Mucih was snid at a meeting held in Sydney a few days ago on behalf of the Methodist Foreign Missions, respecting the process of civilising the South Sea Islanders by the aid of the missionary and the Bible. Incidentally Dr George Brown, a veteran missionary in the islands, asked his audience what they thought of a Fijian layman taking out an insurance policy on the lives of his children for £1,000? Could they imagine, also, an ex-cannibal having a, bank account? These things, however, wore bard faots, and he asked them to believ« that the inculcation of the teachings of the Gospel, and of the Bible, and the influence of their foreign missionaries, had a very great deal to do with the accomplishment of these signs of high civilisation.

A very practical view of the discussion regarding the putting to death of hopeless sufferers is taken by the editor of "American Medicine," who suggests that people pay physicians to prolong life, not to Bhortqn it, and that a member of the medical profession who should praotice euthanasia under some future law allowing him to do so would doubtless find his income curtailed, no matter how he might be praised in the abstract by philanthropists. He writes:—"Civilisation depends upon the safety of each life, and it would out away, our very foundations to give anyone the legal right to destroy others. It is this inherited instinct which causes some Statos to abolish capital punishments, though it is generally be lieved that they thereby do not properly guard the lives of the normal citizens. 'lh" medical profession has but one reason for its existence, and that reason is the prolongation of life. To give a physician the legal right to end a life would destroy the foundation of the existence of the profession. As a body, physicians are emphatic against all such propositions. In addition, it is frequently pointed out that it is not always possible to say when a life is surely doomed. Patients not infrequently recover from conditions which had every appearance of being fatal. People want a doctor who will struggle to keep thera alive to the very end, even when appearances are all against ; them.

Mr Swinburne, the Victorian Minister for Agriculture, who recently toured New Zealand, in the course of a speeoh on his return home, said that he had returned from New Zealand determined to encourage the cultivation of New Zea-

land flax. In New Zealand farmers were rilanting it in all directions. Tbe value of the export of this fibre last year amounted to £7d0,000. Five years ago there were ooly 100 mills in the colony; now there were 400, employing 6,000 men, of whom 5,000 are unskilled hands—very little skilled labour being wanted to deal with its production. There were big profits in flax-growing. He heard of one estate of 2,500 acres, on which live mills engaged in working up thp fibre paid a royalty of £9 5s per ao-re for the crop, although it grew naturally on the land, and nothing was done in the way of cultivation by the owners except a little draining. The Americans last year, although they now had the Philippines, where Manila hemp was grown, bought £IIO,OOO worth of flax from New Zealand. New Zealand flax was worth taking up, especially for growing on the waste Crown lands of the State. Industrial trusts controlled by the Standard Oil Company are still increasing. It is now known that Standard Oil interests are in possession of a new glucose combination which in to take over the entire gluoose business of America. The uew trust will be managed on the lines of the Standard Oil Comnany, which is conceded to be the most perfect corporate machinery in the world. With its subsidiary companies ifc will have a net working capital of approximately, £1,000,000, and will aim to dominate the entire domestic and export corn products business of the United States. The industrial trusts now under the control of the Standard Oil concern are roughly, as follow: —Amalgamated Copper Company £31,000,00u, United States Steel Corporation £173,759,860, National Lead Company £6,000,000, American Sugar Refining Company £18,000,000, Central Leather Company £11,400,000, American Tobacco Company £23,786,310, Corn Products Refining Company £16,000,000; total, £279,946,170.

It is not every newspaper reader who appreciates, or who ever things of, the hard toil of those who have provided him with his daily luxury. And it is very rarely that we hear of any special honour being conferred upon a oompositor. The Dublin Corporation, however, have selected a "comp,''to be their Lord Mayor for. the coming l year. Mr J. P. Nannet'ti has worked his way into the position of foreman printer for the "Freeman's Journal." He is also a member of Parliament. In the old Fenian days he was a "physioal force" man, and that circumstance may largely account for his Dublin popularity. Mr Nannetti is of Italian origin, having descended from an Italian artist in plaster of paris, who settled many years ago in Dublin. On the day before the election the Corporation decided to bring the Lord Mayor's salary up to £3,600. Twelve months ago it was reduced by £2,000. The post is, therefore, now worth nearly Swioe the income of the Right Hon. John Burns.