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New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Issue 1471, 4 July 1918, Page 37

A chat with Sir Robert Anderson, who has just returned from New Zealand, where he presided over the sittings of the Roya Commission on defence administration and war expenditure, points clearly to the fact that the people generally of the Dominion, far from being in any mood to listen to pacifist whisperers at this critical juncture, are prosecuting the war with dauntless resolution (says the “Sydney Morning Herald”). “New Zealand’s one aim is the prosecution of the war,” said Sir Robert, in the course of conversation. “To that, everything else is subordinate. This is reflected in the administration. While New Zealand has spent 40 million pounds by way of war expenditure, there has not been a single case of fraud or embezzlement or suchlike arising out of that huge expenditure. As a Commission, we looked for evidence of any such things, but found nothing. That is the temper of the people generally. It is understood that the surplus of production in New Zealand over consumption during the war period is something like 40 million pounds, so, at that rate, the war will finance itself. New Zealand has a large sum invested in British war loans. Confident that Australia will awaken to the full seriousness of the war position, the New Zealand authorities did not hide their gratification, during my visit, at the improvement in the Commonwealth recruiting figures. To display extravagance in New Zealand is considered bad form. Even the richest people as a class live very, very simply. In a sentence, there is a ready sacrifice for the national good. A painful impression was created there by people who, upon their return from visits to Australia spoke of what they regarded as a display of great extravagance here. My retort to people on this point was that, although’ it might not be quite so manifest here as in New Zealand, there was still a good healthy spirit among the people taken as a whole. New Zealand’s war activities are certainly inspiring, and I came away tremendously impressed with all that is being done there.”

In his report to the Eastern Sea Fisheries Board at Spalding, England, Mr. Herbert Donnison, of Boston,

Lincolnshire, says: “Star fish, mostly small in size, and some not the size of a threepenny-piece, have been very abundant, and constant attention on the part of the staff has been necessary to prevent them doing serious damage to the shell-fish beds. In the channels, and on some low-lying ground which seldom bares, they congregated together, devoured every mussel and cockle round them, and gradually worked up the sands for more. A small special trawl obtained about 27 tons of the pest.

One of the most remarkable effects of the war is the change in the character of articles produced by various works in England. Manufacturers of gramophones make shell-fuses, makers of lead pencils turn out shrapnel, a Court jeweller produces optical munitions, and one who made cream separators turns out primers. A firm on the south-east coast, which formerly manufactured piano frames, is now mainly engaged on war work castings, fuse-hole plugs, and tracer shot.

Mr. Ernest Lionel Pyke, who was released from Ruhleben Camp on March 7, during the course of an interesting address in the Queen’s Hall, London, made the following significant remarks: —“When I last saw Berlin the population was starving. Everything had been sacrificed for the Army. Twenty-seven articles of food were supposed to be rationed, but the German housewife could seldom get supplies. I believe the day is not far distant when the internal position of Germany will collapse like a house of cards, the war will end suddenly, and we shall be able to dictate our terms of peace.”

Who is the tallest man in the Brit ish Army? Hitherto that distinction has been claimed by a private in th? Artists Rifles, who is 6ft. 9%in. in height. This record, however, is easily beaten by Private J. J. Lawrence, the tallest man in the Canadian Forces. Private Lawrence, who is 6ft. enlisted at Calgary, Alberta, and has just returned to tha< city from France. Lawrence say.? that if he had stood upright in the trenches he would often have been a foot or so above the parapet. Yet in spite of his being obliged to spend

so much time doubled up, he had, hi declares, actually grown half an inch since he enlisted. * * # *

Labour regarded militarism as the greatest enemy to human progress, said Mr. J. R. Clynes, M.P., in an address to members of the Aldwych Club, London. It was ranged, and would continue to be ranged, in relentless resistance to the Gorman menace.,. As to the future, all classes had shown a splendid spirit of cooperation in the trenches, and it was not too much to hope that the same spirit of co-operation would be shown when the war was over in fighting the slum, disease, and ignorance.