TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Waikato Times, Volume 118, Issue 19662, 23 August 1935, Page 6

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Barbarism in War It is a terrible thing that the civilian population of every country in the world should have to be instructed as to precautions and defences against air raids and gas attacks. The Ethiopians in their mountains, safe for the last two thousand years against all attacks, will be bombed and gassed from the air in tho campaign that is scheduled to commence in September. If they are defeated it will he by these “forces of civilisation.” In Continental countries gas drill and anti-air raid drill are part of the routine training of tlie nations. Great Britain, tardily, is following this example, and has just issued to all householders a handbook of defensive and protective instructions.. The handbook, however, has no efficacy by itself and it is plain that a complete defensive organisation will have lo be created, with gas-proof shelters in all the centres, and the v\ hole civilian’population will have to be given anti-gas drill at fairly frequent intervals. Even in this remote country it is necessary that the population should be instructed as to the character of gas attacks and the precautions to lie taken against tlicnp because in the event of the Empire becoming involved in war New Zealand might have its first experience of gas bombs. War always was a mad business and it is becoming madder, so mad, indeed, that tlicic is beginning to bo a hope that the civilised nations will at last remember their civilisation and ban at least the ghastly methods of air raid and gas attack. —Sun-Star.

A Word for the Reporters . „ „ T . 0 « Reporters are by no means infhllible, said Mr 11. k. Sumpter in a newspaper talk lo the young farmers at Taranaki. " Their chief misfortune is that Hie mistakes they make appear in print before there is a chance (o rectify them. A bank clerk in the privacy of his office burns tlie midnight oil searching for mistakes in the ledger until he obtains a balance; a studnuisler surreptitiously sends his mistakes to (he saleyards: a doctor lmrics his. But a reporter's error bears the cold light of day. “When it is realised that he has perhaps in tlie space of 24 hours to report an expert dissertation on '-lie curryeombing of Berkshires. an address on the care and feeding of infants and a poultry allow, it should not cause surprise that he may be guilty of a terminological inexactitude. “ But (here are occasions when a journalist is unjustly accused of misreporting. Familiar to all of you is that type of speaker who, when lie gets to his feet has no idea what he is going lo say, who, having commenced, does not know when to sit down, and who, when lie has finished, lias only a faint recollection of what he had said. He is just the sort of man who, after reading his speech in the paper next day, rushes to his desk and writes to the editor to say he has been misreuorteiA.*