The Week in Review.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLIII, Issue 11, 15 September 1909, Page 1

The Week in Review.

NOTICE.

The Editor will be pleased to re* ceive for consideration Short Stories and Descriptive Articles illustrated with photos, or suggestions from contributors. Bright terse contributions are wanted dealing with Dominion life and quos* Hons. Unless stamps are sent, the Editor cannot guarantee the return of unauitable MSS. The Valne of Polar Exploration. the average man wants all know in regard to Polar 111 expeditions is what is actuallygained by anyone reaching eithr er the North or the South Pole. Many people, indeed, seem to have found cause for regret that the tragic mystery of the Polar solitudes has at last been dissipated. The Pole is no longer one of the unattainable things of the world, andi the stimulus to endeavour has been removed. What, then, has 'been gained by the discovery? Scientists say they know of no problem likely to be solved. There is no astronomical observation that can be taken at the Pole, which cannot be taken just as well at many other points in the Northern Hemisphere. Geological knowledge may be enlarged, but any geological investigation of a useful character requires a large and well-equipped party. The same holds good of biological discoveries. An explorer travelling alone could only hope at best to collect a few photographic records. The chief scientific value of Polar exploration, and discovery lies in the extension of the iron, tiers of meteorological and oceanographical research. But the dominant motive of Polar explorers has been to achieve the unachieved. The conquest •f the Pole will be a standing witness

to the indomitable courage, pluck, and perseverance of the human race. J* -At Arts and Crafts. The exhibition of handicrafts and arts in connection with St. Matthews Church, Hastings, was most successful, and the vicar, Mr. Hobbs, has every reason to feel gratified at the result of his venture. Sir William Russell, in declaring the exhibition open, made some pertinent remarks on the value of manual training. He said that the education system of New Zealand was excellent, and everyone, no matter how poor, provided ho had the capability, could rise from the lowest rung to university honours, but the system lacked attention to the practical side, and the present exhibition set an example in the encouragement of handicrafts and arts. Sir William deprecated the assumption that handiwork was not intellectual. No person, no matter what his mental attainments, could be happy unless he could do something with his fingers. Beginners should not be discouraged by small failures; they should persevere, and the more they tried the more success would attend their efforts. These exhibitions of handicrafts should undoubtedly prove of great value in encouraging manual training. For some reason or other technical education in New Zealand does not seem to make as much headway as it ought. Complaints are frequent as to the lack of pupils for technical classes. We claim to be a practical people, yet we neglect the most practical of all forms of education. J* J» The Influence of Home. Dr. Findlay’s lecture on “Casual Labour—lts Waste and the Remedy ” was conceived in his best vein. He began by referring, to the efforts being made at Home to improve social conditions, and declared that New Zealand must at all costs prevent the continued existence

of a class of willing, but unemployed, workers. He had ascertained that the number of waterside workers in the Dominion amounted to 3,486, and the average earnings of many of them only amounted to 10/ per week. That meant that many of these workers were really unemployed. He proposed as a remedy that some scheme should be devisedi whereby the waterside worker could be provided with a house and sufficient land upon which he might employ his spare hours, days, or weeks in producing food for his household consumption, and, if he desired it, for sale. He reviewed at some length experiments that had been conducted elsewhere in this direction, especially those made in the United States. He said that carefully prepared accounts showed that many workers who had been placed on quite small sections had been able to make up to £5O clear profit in good years. All real improvement, he maintained, must begin in the home, and nothing could be hoped for whilst whole families wore living in poverty and squalor. dt Regulating the Speed of Motor Cars. Hardly a week passes without some fatal accident being reco-rded in connection with motor cars, and hitherto the police have been practically powerless to check excessive speed. If a motorist was summoned, such different estimation of the pace at which the car was travelling would be given that bewildered magistrates hesitated to convict. It would seem, however, that at last the police have managed to get ahead of the man who always disputes the charge of furious driving. An extraordinary device has been invented, by which the moment a motor car exceeds the speed limit a bell starts ringing, and continues to ring until the speed has dropped to one allowed by the regulations. And that device the Chief Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police has informed all proprietors of motor ’buses and taxicabs that he will require them to adopt. The effect of the change will be that in London—with public vehicles at any rate —a policeman need not worry about their speed unless he hears a bell ringing in the car. If he hears the belt it is absolute evidence that the car is exceeding the limit. If he hears no bell it is certain that the car is going at a proper pace. The instrument, which is a small cylinder and bell, and is fixed on to the step or side of the car near the driver, is sealed by the police authorities before it is fixed. After being sealed it cannot be interfered with in any way without breaking the seal. A fraud is easily discovered, and would be punishable. The invention, which is an English one, consists of a spindle inside the bell, running on ball bearings, and driven in such a way that the pace of the spindle alters exactly with the speed of the car. Before issuing his notice the Commissioner of Police had one of the alarms fixed on to a taxi-cab, which was driven at different paces along the street. When the limit was exceeded the bell rang. It is said that the enforcing of this order does not amount to a tax on London

proprietors, as the cost of it is only a pound or two. The only way to check excessive speed in the past has been by stop-watches. Prosperous Australia. If any reliance is to be placed on travellers’ tales Australia would seem to be exceptionally prosperous just now. Money, we are told, is plentiful, and another thirty millions are expected to come into the country from this season’s wool clip. The Lord Mayor of Sydney declares that already there are ample funds for all projects, public and private, and he has been offered large sums at very low rates of interest. What they will do with the extra thirty millions he doesn’t know. Mr. Booth, of Christchurch, thinks that most progress is being made in Queensland. A North Canterbury farmer, who had bought land on the confines of the Darling Downs at 4/6 per acre, assured him that the land was equal in quality to that of Willow Bridge, which is considered worth from £35 to £45 an acre. Australia has had a succession of good seasons, and this year abundant rains have fallen over nearly all ‘the continent. The uncertainty of the rainfall constitutes the great drawback to Australian prosperity, and in good seasons the wise man makes provision, not for the proverbial “rainy day,” but against the days when rain will not come. Baptist Missions. In opening a large bazaar in Ponsonby, held' in aid of the Baptist Church in the neighbourhood, and of the Indian Mission fund, Mr T. W. Leys made reference to Baptist missions. He said that a militant missionary spirit testified to the vitality of a congregation, and contributed materially to its success. He believed that the Ponsonby Baptist congregation had done more, in proportion to its numbers, for missionary work than any other congregation in Auckland, and it was very evident that they recognised their duty to the starving, ignorant, and helpless people in the sphere of missionary labour. In this connection, it is interesting to note that tbe work of modern missions began in the obscure shop of William Carey, a Baptist shoemaker at Kettering. The strongest and most fruitful impulse to mission work came neither from bishops nor from ministers, but from a Baptist and a cobbler. Teaching a poor school, brooding over the map of the world which he pasted up for his geography lessons, and seeing how vast a part of the globe was covered by waste plaoes, fertile in sorrow, he read at a meeting of ministers a paper on the duty of attempting to spread the gospel among the heathen. At first he met with little support, and the first sum subscribed for him was only £l3 2s. 6d., but he planted t.ie grain of seed which has since grown into a mighty tree. The Threatened Lords. They say that threatened men live long, and that remark certainly seems to apply to the House of Lords. The Lords have been threatened with extinction, and threatened with various

ehemes of reform, but they still pursue their way undeterred by threats, and as yet unreformed. Mr Winston Churchill has boldly challenged them to ordeal by combat and a fight to a finish. Mr John Redmond threatens to rouse up the Irish party against them, and to himself lead the campaign, and now the “British Weekly” urges the formation of a Free Church League against the Upper House. Dr. Clifford, like a modern Peter the Hermit, has volunteered to lead this new crusade to rescue radical legislation from the infidels. It is likely to be a warm time, take it altogether, for 7>ur hereditary legislators. J* Why They Live Foreigners are apt to look with wondering eyes both at the House of Lords itself and at the perpetual threatenings that apparently are as ineffectual as the cursing of the Jackdaw of Rheims. The truth is that Englishmen are the most conservative of people. They dislike doing away with anything that is ancient and long-established. Partly this, and partly they recognise in the Lords, strangely enough, a medium for enabling expression to be given to the real will of the people. For it often happens that a British Government continues in power long after it has lost the confidence of the nation. It is by no means certain that the people are with Mr. Asquith. In eighteen months ■ there were 28 bye-elec-tions. In 27 of these there was a substantial increase in the votes cast for Mr. Balfour’s party. There was an increase of 31,325 in the Unionist vote, and a decrease of 27,163 in the Liberal. The Lords reject all legislation involving radical changes in order that the matter may go to the people. The people thus regard them as a bulwark against changes that may not be in harmony with national sentiment. Street Hawkers. Economic problems are more puzzling and more perverse than the celebrated “Pigs in clover” per 331 b. When one little pig gets into the coveted position another little pig seems to roll out of his. This applies to the question of Street hawkers. The ordinary person likes to get cheap fruit, and to him the hawkers come like the Waverley pen as a boon and a blessing. Were it not for them he would often be unable to buy fruit at all. The grower, also, likes to sell as much fruit as possible, and he finds the hawkers good and profitable customers.* The hawkers themselves also make a tolerably good living out of their calling. But against this must be set the loss inflicted on the retail shopkeepers. These people pay big rents and large sums in rates and taxes, and they affirm that they cannot compete on equal terms with men who pay no rent and no rates or taxes beyond a small license fee. If hawkers continue the consumer benefits at the expense of the shopkeeper, if hawkers are abolished the shopkeeper benefits at the expense of the consumer. The game of life seems to be a perpetual effort to shift burdens on to somebody else. This is seen in the case of the British Budget, where everybody is trying to shift the burden of taxation on to other people’s shoulders, from the yacht and motorcar millionaire down to the humble and modest consumer of beer.