Topics of the Day.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLV, Issue 19, 10 May 1911, Page 45

Topics of the Day.

Bjr Our London Correspondent.

CABINET CHANGES AND BUMOUBS. LONDON, March ’ «• HALDANE made his last 111 speech in the House of ComF mons last night. The War / Minister has accepted a peerage, aad will go to the House of Lords ns Viscount Haldane of Cloanden. This is one of a series of Cabinet changes brought about by the illness of Lord C'rewe. At present Lord Morley is leading the Liberal party in the Upper House, and tarrying on Lord Crewe’s work at the Indian Office; but Lord Morley is now an old man, and unequal to the strain of work at such full pressure, lire “translation" of Mr. Haldane to the Upper House means a sorely-needed acquisition to the fighting strength of the Liberals there, and the new Viscount will play a leading part in the coming fight over the Parliament Bill. Many rumours of further change are in the air. One interesting suggestion is that Mr. Haldane and Mr. John Burns will exchange portfolios. We are apt to forget that Mr. Burns is tremendously interested in the (Army. He spends most of his holidays in marching with the troops down at Aidershot, and he has gone to Germany and France and marched -with the armies of those countries. I have no doubt he would love to find himself War Minister, for John is im-

mensely ambitious and self-confident, and his dreams probably soar far 'beyond the scope of the Local Government Board. But if opinions should be divided as to Mr. Burns’ capacity for the post of War Minister, there will be general agreement with the suggestion that Mr. Haldane is the man to reorganise the Poor Law. What is wanted very badly in England to-day is a great organiser, to straighten out the awful tangle and chaos in which the attempts to deal •with the prevailing poverty have become involved. Mr. Haldane would bring to the English Poor Law that great genius for organisation and readjustment which it requires at the present moment. It is a lasting reproach to the Liberal Government that up to the present there has been no serious effort to carry into legislation the proposals of either of those great reports issued by the Poor Law Commission. We are all agreed that one of the most urgent needs of the present social change is that the Poor Law should be reformed from top to bottom. Why should not Mr. Haldane do for the English poor what he has already done for the Army, and organise a machine for war against the terrible poverty which is England's greatest danger! Lord Crewe is not likely to be fit to resume his control of the India Office for a long time to come. Perhaps Mr. Samuel will be transferred there from the Post Office. A change is also likely at the Board of Agriculture, for the administration of the Small Holdings lAct under Lord Carrington and Sir Edward Straohey has been a profound disappointment to the great class of agricul-

tura! labourers. It baa been left almost entirely in the hands of Tory eounty councils, whose attitude, to aay the least, iiaa not been too sympathetic. The Small Holdings policy is failing to produce any really substantial effect on the land tenure of England. One sensational rumour which was floating about during the week received an authoritative denial yesterday. There is no truth, it is announced, in the report that Mr. Lloyd George will be compelled to resign through ill-health. If it had been true it would have been a staggering Wow for tlie Liberals, for Mr. Lloyd George is the driving power of the whole party, and the most influential politician in this country. INSURING YOUR HOLIDAYS. You car. insure against almost anything nowadays. The very latest is a scheme associated with Lloyd's underwriters, which will enable holidaymakers to insure against bad weather while they are on holiday. Last year an attempt was made to systematize the business of insuring against disappointment through rain, but the scheme has now been elaborated, and placed ‘before the public in a very attractive form. It will apply at first at any rate, to seaside resorts on the south and east coasts of England. Rain falling at any time within the 24 hours

will be measured by the official rain gauges, and the daily reading transmitted to the insurance company. The burden of proof will not rest with the assured. The (prudent holidaymaker who has insured against bad weather at one of these resorts will find himself considerably in pocket at the end of his holiday if it turns out wet. There will be four policies, known as Pluvius Policy A, B, C, and D. Policy A provides for payment for each separate week in which there is rain on more than two days amounting on each to over one-fifth of an inch. That means a fairly severe fall of rain, but a heavy fall would -be more than half an inch. In 1909, a notoriously wet year, onethird of an inch was registered in two minutes, and one inch has been marked in ten minutes. Under this Policy A, the premium represents one-eighth of the compensation to be paid per week. Thus a premium of 15/ per week secures £6 per week in which more than two days occur of the stipulated rainfall, 25/ ■would secure £10; and £3 would secure £24.

Policy B provides for payment for every day on which the rainfall amounts to over one-fifth of an inch, and the premium amounts to one and a-half times the compensation to be paid per day. Thus, 15/ per week secures 10/ per day, and 30/ per week secures £ 1 per day. Under Policy C payment will be made for the second and each additional rainday in every separate week on which the rainfall amounts to over 0.15

inch. The premium per week equals the compensation to be paid per day. As an example, a premium of 15/ pec week secures 15/ per day. In Policy D provision is made for four consecutive days, proliably largely with the idea of catering for the ever growing practice of week end holidays. Payment will lie made for every day on which the rainfall amounts to over 0.20 inch, and the premium for the period equals tiie compensation to be paid per day. Tlius a premium of 15/ for four days secures a compensation of 15/ per day. The company stipulates that proposals must be made for Policies A. B, and C, at least seven days, and for Policy D at least two days before the period commences. In each case the minimum premium is fixed at 5/6. In justice to England’s much maligned climate, it is added that a proposal to insure against sunless weather had to lie abandoned. A close study of the records showed that for a policy to cover the case of no sunshine in the 24 hours, the premium would have to be 90 per cent. But it does not follow that insurance against a minimum of sunshine would be impracticable. No doubt that will come in due course. RICHES AND POVERTY. One of the most striking contributions to the debate on the Navy Estimates was made by Mr. Chiozza Money. He pointed out that a nation with an annual income of close upon 2000 million pounds can well afford to spend 40 or 50 millions on a Navy. The trouble is, of course, that while the national income reaches a magnificent total of close on 2000 millions, only

about one-tenth of it is devoted to national purposes. That is why the Navy Estimates, growing from year to year, threaten to become a crushing burden. The remedy is not to cripple the Navy, which is our all in all, our insurance against defeat and humiliation. Obviously- what is needed is that a larger proportion of the income of the nation should be devoted to national purposes. We allow too much of it to go Into private hands, and worse still, wo allow about 12 per cent of the nation to appropriate about half the 2000 millions of income.

If anyone doubts this statement —it might well seem incredible —let him consult Mr. Chiozza Money’s new work, “Riches and Poverty, 1910" (Methuen). The figures which he quotes, and which may be relied upon for accuracy, reveal the appalling gulf between rich and poor in the United Kingdom. Here are some of them:

The total aggregate income of the U' million people of the United Kindom was in 1908-9 approximately £1,844,000,000. Of this sum 1,400,000 persons took £634,000,000 ; 4,100,000 persons took £275,000,000; and 39,000,000 persons took £935,000,000. About one-half of the entire annual in come of the nation is enjoyed by about 12 per cent of its population. It is probably true that a group of about 120,000 persons who, with their families, form about one-seventieth of the population, owns about two-thirds of the entire accumulated wealth of . the United Kingdom. The gross amount of profits assessed to income-tax was for the year 1908 9,

J-® *0,0X1,000, an increase of over millions in ten years. During the year* 1900 1908 profits have risen 21.2 per eent; in the same period wages have risen by only one per eent. 1 hough nominal wages have risen I per cent real wages have fallen in conse qiienee of the rise in ost of |j v i ng I his rise during 1900 ICO- ~ njl 7 e per cent. Heme real fallen eight per cent. Thus we see that sine* 1900 the rich have trecome richer and the poi» r poorer; the gulf between them has widened. To impose further taxation on the mass of the people for a greater Navy would indeed be to saddle them w.ith a crush-m. burden. Hut if the main source of in” creased expenditure were the excessively rich, could they not well afford to p:iv* THE FETISH OF WASHING “Cleanliness is next to godliness" is a proverb that was dinned into th e heads of most of us in our younger days, when we found frequent applications of soap and water to our cuticles a weariness to the flesh. Ou r youthful revolt against soap, flannel and scrubbing brush was naturally put down to laziness but possibly it was really nature protesting through us against a harmful process. According to Sir Almroth Wright, who is by the way of being a mighty medicine man, most of the rules of hygiene which we follow out to-day are mere superstitions, and miteh washing, one of the worst of them. According to him most of us wash far too much, and our frequent rubbings and scrubbings only pave the way for the admission of evil microties into our bodies. There is. he says, a lie lief that by doing so people wasn off the microbes. We do, he admits, take off r. certain number of microbes, but. at the same time we also destroy the protective skin which is all round our bodies like the tiles of a house. If we rxainine the skin through a powerful microscope, it is seen that the outermost layer con sists of millions of little horny plates, fitting closely together, and so covering the body with a veritable armour, which protects the more delicate tissues under neath, and al the same time helps to keep out the germs of disease. If by washing the skin too frequently th." horny armour-plating is thinned, or rubbed oft the system is thereby rendered more accessible to the microbes which con stantly surround us.

Sir Almroth based a special, objection to the Turkish bath on the ground that this form of washing, more than any other, softens and destroys the skin’s armour plating, and paves the way for the entrance of microbes.

There is apparently no doubt among medical men that microbes can and do, commonly get into the blood through the skin when the outer plating is dam aged, and consequently it is a matter o? importance to preserve the protective covering as much as possible.

On the other hand, if the skill is not periodically cleansed, an accumulation of microbes quickly occurs on the surface, and these, by force of numbers, soon sue ceed in breaking through the outer layers. It is in this way that most of the skin diseases associated with dirty habits are brought about. The rational practice of hygiene requires that we shall wash just often enough to remove super fluous dirt and microbes, and yet not so often as to damage or destroy the horny protecting layer, the importance .of which Sir Almroth Wright. emphasises so strongly. In the course of his lecture on this subject Sir Almroth said: — “When one has a horny hand, no microbe can over get near the skin. If one has a skin like a tortoise, microbes will never get through. To have a Turkish bath is to take away one’s horny protection, and I object to it. A great deal of washing increases the microlies of the skin, so I do not think cleanliness is to bo recommended as a hygienic method. The policy of hygiene has been to kill the microbes outside the body. 1 sug gest that We should kill off the microlies in the interior of the body, and I would like that to be the programme of hygiene. “That could be done if we took the trouble to study. The body lias magnificent machinery for turning out intruder*. Microbes fall into the cracks of our skins every day, but they are usually s-lvort-lived, provision being nmd° for killing them off. WhatT is required if to study how the protection of om bodies- against, microbes enn bo increased, so that when the microbes get into the body the protective mechanism might b’ aided.”