DAY BY DAY.

Waikato Times, Volume 102, Issue 17222, 4 October 1927, Page 6

DAY BY DAY.

An experiment is to be made in Germany which will be

Gas Direct From The Stline.

watched with keen interest not only by engineers but by econoniictc onrl lnhrmp Inorl_

mists and labour loaders (says an American paper). Gas generated at the mines of the Ruhr and supplied at high pressure to homes as far distant as 450 miles, a single, colossal battery of gas retorts for all Germany, local gas companies transformed into mere retailers of cen-trally-produced gas—such is the startling undertaking on which a coal utilisation company of Essen is about to embark. The Ruhr cannot utilise the enormous quantities of coke-oven gas which is a by-product in the manufacture of blast-furnace coke. Nothing hurts a chemist more than waste. Hence this single, national gas plant. In this German project we see at last a rational plan for the generation of energy at the mine mouth and its distribution over distances as great as any thus far reached by an electric station. To build enormous power houses at the mine and to send electricity to any point in a whole group of States has been dismissed by engineers as impractical. Where is the huge quantity of necessary condensing water to be found? One Brooklyn electric power house alone pumps 576,000,000 gallons of river water daily into its condensers —more than the combined daily water consumption of the Boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx. In the generation of gas no water is required. There is nothing visionary in this German proposal. Gas-pipe lines several hundred miles long are not novelties. A 450-mile line is soon to be laid from the Texas Panhandle to Kansas City and is to carry 100,000,000 cubic feet of natural gas a day. Two 300-mile lines already supply West Virginia natural gas to communities in Ohio. Manufacturers of gas may bo compelled to adopt the mine-to-city pipe line because of the economic exigencies by which they are faced. In 20 years there has been an increase of 375 per cent, in the consumption of gas. A fivefold increase may be, expected in less than another 20 years. It may be cheaper to build new generators at the mines and lay pipe lines several hundred miles long than to acquire additional costly city real estate and to pay more and more for coal and for freight charges. And the sociological consequences of the experiment are fully as important as the economies to be expected from centralised, large-scale production.

In an address delivered at Victoria University College

Learning the Samoan Mind.

(Wellington) last Wednesday, on “The Government of Native

Races in the Pacific,” Sir Apirana Ngata, M.P., asked if it was reasonable to assume that knowledge of Maori culture in New Zealand and the Cook group would at once enable us to “tune in”, to the Samoan mind or to appreciate a culture that must in its tropical setting have many local variations. “Our policy,” lie said, “is superb in its simplicity; our intentions, their justice and honesty cannot be questioned by any tribunal in the world. Our methods may be seriously questioned by the anthropologist. We have probably over-esti-mated the receptivity of the Samoan mind. We have probably not sufficiently appreciated that the social structure of the Samoan people has not been uprooted as was that of the Maori nearly a century ago. Wc have much to learn of their customs relating io land tenure. We do not thoroughly understand the status and position of their hereditary chiefs. We have not given ourselves sufficient time to learn about the Samoans from themselves before launching at them those reforms which we think would be for their benefit because they have proved beneficial to their relatives here and in Rarotonga^”