TOPICS OF THE DAY

Waikato Times, Volume 114, Issue 19076, 14 October 1933, Page 4

TOPICS OF THE DAY

The War Against Ragwort. The Unemployment Board has announced that it will again make labour available to farmers for the eradication of ragwort on similar conditions to those which were in operation last year. That such an offer should be seized upon wherever possible goes without saying, for the prevention of the spread of this weed is work the importance of which cannot be underestimated. An illustration, given at a meeting of a northern local authority, of the cultivation of ragwort in private gardens, serves to emphasize the necessity for a more widely spread campaign against the weed. In the case cited a suburban resident carefully cultivated the w r eed under tho misapprehension that it was a choice flower. If knowledge of the plant could be disseminated in the schools, it would become easily recognised and measures for its eradication could bo promptly and effectively taken. The Reason for Armaments.

“ Against what are our military and naval forces created to protect us?” asks Sir Norman Angell. “In other words, what are armaments for? What is the struggle, the effort and burden and bitterness and paralysis of prosperity and the threat to peace all about? What does each fear? What does each want? Plainly it is the very first question which we must settle. “ Until we reach it' we have not reached the essence of the matter at all, and cannot expect to solve the problem involved. Until those questions are answered we shall stand in danger of being carried away by panic fears just because we never have faced what it is really that we are afraid of. Until we have examined it and weighed it, we are quite unablo to balance the risks and advantages of one course as against another; our feeling will be subject to mood and accident; at the mercy of any vivid suggestion, however preposterous.”

“ The Hump and the Huff.”

“It is said,” stated Canon Briorley in a speech reported in the Liverpool Post, “that the people of England are rejecting religion at the present time. My point is that they are not having religion presented to them. The Church of England is grossly understaffed to-day.

“ There is a tremendous need' for an increase in our clergy, but that can only be done if there is a tremendous increase in income. There should be one clergyman to every 1000 parishioners if the Church is to get into real touch with the people. “ Church people are suffering from one of two forms of a disease which is very common. The milder form is known as ‘ the hump,’ and the worse form is known ns ‘ tho huff,’ and generally results in what our Victorian, ancestors used to call —“removing their hassocks.’ ”