TOPICAL READING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8201, 3 August 1906, Page 4

TOPICAL READING.

In all probability the Commonwealth Government will plaoe a vote of, perhaps, £5,000 upon the Estimates for the current financial year, in order to establish wireless telegraphy services in Australia. Sir John Forrest, the Federal Treasurer, is strongly of opinion that Papua should be brought into touch with Australia by this means. A cable from Thursday Island to Port Moresby might cost about £BO,OOO to lay. Sir John Forrest considers that a satisfactory service might be obtained by a wireless installation fur, perhaps, a tenth part ot that amount. He has had an informal conversation with Captain Waluer, the Australian representative of the Marconi Company, upon the subjeot, and he is expeoting that gentleman to submit aome definite scheme to the Cabinet.

The acreage of lind under sugercane wb'ob is worked by white labour io Queensland has not increased very materially during the last four years according to figures whioh have jnst been issued by the Queensland Government statist. "Last year," he says, "the produce of 33,170 acres was returned as having been grown without the intervention of coloured alien labour, from whioh 500,910 tons of cane were obtained, or an average yield of 15.10 tonß/io each acre. Thus the proportion of white grown to total oane was 34.5 per cent of the acreage, and 35.4 per cent of the tonnage. The ratios for the two immediately preoeding yearß were:—Acreage, 1903, 28 per cent; 1904, 31 per cent. North of Maokay the employment of coloured labour still greatiy predominates, while in the Moreton division the opposite condition prevails. Between the districts of Ingham and Douglas inclusive, 8 per cent only of the area crushed there was white grown. At Ayr the proportion was 16 per oent. at Bowen 72 per cent, at Maokay 49 per cent, in the Wide Bay-Burnett 44 per oent, and in the Moreton 92 per cent.

The toast of "The Army and Navy" was given at a fire brigade dinner in'.Wansanui last 'week, and response was made by Lieutenant-Colonel Somerville, who, in course of his remarks, said that the authorities were not doing so well as they might do towards the encouragement of volunteering in the colony. There were too many exactions, and the Volunteers were bound down with red tape. He declared that we wanted less of the cooked hat and more of the private in New Zealand. Some people argued that we should adopt'a form of conscription, and this idea he had se?n „advanoed in a looal paper, but the writer oould not know muoh of the matter. Conscription would never bo allowed in New Zealand, and was not necessary. The colony could, if necessity arose, get together IC,OOO of the finest men in the world. But we were spending far too much on the defences of the oolony; if we had any money to spare we should spend it on the Navy, which was the great strength of the Empire, and to which we should have to look for defence. The Government should help the Volunteers more, and above all, make them good shots.

A new anaesthetic called stovaine has recently been userl in Melbourne, both in hospital cases and in private praotioe, with most satisfactory re suits, says the Argus. The drug, which was introduced in Europe in 1904, is superseding both cocaine and eucaine in oases where the production oi! spinal anaoathesia is necessary, and usful in the treatment of oases in which nncration is confined to the lower part of the body. The stovaine is injected into the lower lumbar region of the spine, by meaiip of a hollow needle, which introduces the drug into the spinal canal, below the termination of the spinal cord, after a certain quantity of cerebro spinal fluid has been withdrawn by a syringe. As a result of the injection the legs become numb, and, with the lower portion of the abdomen, are rendered insensible to pain, although the patient does not lose consciousness. A Melbourne medical practitioner, whose experience as an anaethetist is considerable, stated that stovaine was useful in cases where a general anaesthetic would be dangerous, and where the operation was to be oouflned to the lower portion of the tody. It wouli be useless in oases where the upper part of the body was to be operated upon, and even in ap pendicitis it might not bo altogether suitable, inasmuch bs the operation might have to be extended beyond the portion of the body atleoted by the auaeethetio.