NOTES OF THE DAY.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 793, 16 April 1910, Page 4

NOTES OF THE DAY.

■Tee question of appointing a curator for the Newtown Museum is raised in another column, and is deserving of attention. The Museum has now attained such dimensions that it is time some steps were taken to classify and arrange the collection, and also to make it useful from an educational point of view. , A gentleman resident in this city for a great many years, and who has a very considerable knowledge of the natural history of the Dominion, is said to have made the City Council an offer in the ! matter, which appears to be well worthy of favourable consideration. He proposes to give a series of lectures upon natural history, but more especially that of this country, to senior pupils of schools in the city. Also to have field days on which those pupils desiring it would be taken on walking trips to such places as are easy of access to examine and collect such specimens as might be of interest. It is proposed, further, to supplement the funds required by means of lectures and entertainments at which a nominal charge .for admission would be made.- The idea has much to commend it, and the qualifications of the gentleman who is willing to carry it out should greatly assist in making it a success. ..

A cable message gives us to-day a far from clear summary of the resolutions which Lord Rosebery will move in pursuance of his plan to set about the reform of the House of Lords. We know nothing, and shall not know anything for a fortnight, when we shall have the reports of the debate on Lord Rosebeey's resolutions affirming the principle that reform is necessary, of what is meant by the phrase "chosen from outside," unless we are to understand that these Lords of Parliament will bo the Vie Peers whom the Rosebeby Committee recommended should be appointed by fours annually until a total of forty was reached. The decision of tho Unionist Peers to consider tho Rosebery resolutions along with the Government's "veto" resolutions is a skilful tactical move, which will have the special merit of a reasonableness that nobody will be able to deny. The necessity that the House of Lords should have some definite reform scheme of its own was well put by Lord Rosebery in his speech on the opening day of the session. The House, he said, had a golden opportunity to put itself right with the public and to resist the attack upon the bi-cameral system: Supposo tho proposals of tho House of Commons or the Government should show a complotely. predominant Houso of Commons and a complotely subordinate House of liOnU, will not tho country say this is a Single Chamber that is proand will they not say, What altornativo is thore to tho proposals of the Government? Will it not then be necessary for tho House of Lords to have some plan which it may show as the approved alternative of this House? Is it not certain [in the event of an appeal to tho country] that wo should bo in a position very unfortunate, very naked, if we had not a suitable plan , of oar own to put forward? Nothings is more likely than that the Upper House's reform proposals

will, so far as the country is concerned, take all the sting out of the Government's appeal for the destruction of a Chamber that,, by rejecting the "veto" resolutions, is determined to cling tenaciously to its power to sit really in judgment on the Commons' enactments. It is worth noting, by the way, that the inaccurate term "veto," the use of which has been of so much service to the Government, will in the long event strike back at the Government's hand. For the public, taught to think in extremes, will have had time to understand that the thing opposite to the "veto" is complete powerlessness in the Second Chamber. Asked to choose between a supreme Upper House and no Upper House at all, Britain will certainly prefer the existing conditions.

The latest , 'use to which "wireless waves" are being put is in communicating with moving trains. Experiments carried out by the Union Pacific Hailroad Company's experts have met with an encouraging amount of success. A signal-box fitted with a glass electric bulb is attached to the cab of the engine, and when the current at the.sending station is thrown on the antennae on the roof of the cab a gong on the signal-box clangs loudly to attract the engineer's attention. At the same time the electric bulb lights up and a semaphore attached to the box assumes the "block," or danger position. The engineer is tfius warned from a distance of' danger ahead. The system has not been perfected yet, but the company has no doubt that it can be developed . to serve' a very useful purpose. i.At present it is being used mainly for yard work, and is regularly operated over a distance of four miles. Curiously enough, experiments in wireless telephony in connection with moving trains have not offered anything like the difficulties anticipated. The details of these experiments have not yet been made public, but it is kno_wn that the message to a person riding in a train to which the wireless apparatus is attache"d is sent to a point along the line of railway nearest to the moving train by the ordinary telephone, and there "plugged" into a wireless telephone switchboard, in order to establish connection with the train. Wo shall probably find less apparatus attached to motorcars directly.. The average car usually chooses the most isolated spot available for its occasional breakdown, and many a weary tramp for assistance might be saved by calling up Jhe~"nearest garage by wireless.