NOTES OF THE DAY

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 141, 10 March 1920, Page 6

NOTES OF THE DAY

The figures of national revenue and expenditure for the past eleven months, issued yesterday by Mr.. Massey in his capacity as ActingMinister of Finance, leave the results for the whole year in a measure open to conjecture. A big revenue surplus for the year is plainly assured, however, aud this in spite of the fact that expenditure for the eleven months shows an increase of more than four and a quarter millions as compared with the corresponding period last year. As the figures stand, this incrcMed expenditure is almost balanced hy an increase in revenue, and past experience promises that there will be a much greater addition to revenue than to expenditure in the final month. The figures of revenue and expenditure for the eleven months to February last year, and for the whole year were as follow: — Eleven months. Wholoyear. Revenue 16,318,119 22,352,372 Expenditure.. 15,907,335 18,0/3,599 The final month thus increased the revenue by more than six millions and the expenditure by £2,766,26-1. Similar additions to the revenue of £20,542,661, and the expenditure of £20,197,803 for the eleven months of the current year, would leave a substantial balance to the good, though it would hardly equal the surplus of £3,678,773 realised last year. Permanent appropriations alone during the eleven months- absorbed £9,944,199, so that it is likely that the completed figures for the year wMI show an annual expenditure in this category—chiefly debt charges and war and other pensions—little short of the total national revenue raised annually before the war. • a * # *

A matter of interest to woolgrowers is dealt with in the letter from Mn. G. M. Tolhurst, which wb publish'this morning. Mr._ Tolhurst, who writes from Chicago, has been investigating conditions in the wool trade in America, and was present at a convention at which the question of shoddy in wool was discussed. It is stated that eighty per cent, of the articles sold to the American public as "all wool" contain shoddy. ""This shoddy may be wool—used wool from rags—and the label "all wool" is therefore correct in the literal sense, but in reality most misleading to the purchasers, whose List desire it may be to array themselves in underwear manufactured from the discarded garments of all and sundry. It is true the rags undergo a cleansing process, hut this hardly compensates for the fact that the same lot of wool can be remanufactured six times over, and with a consequential deterioration in quality. A movement is now afoot in America to have it,enacted that all woollen garment's not entirely made from virgin wool shall be stamped as containing so much per cent, of shoddy. Legislation on theM lines would be of value to the public, .and also of distinct advantage tc the wool-grower. The fortunes of this proposed measure should be worth following by farmers. » # x * The air flight from London to Cape Town, though more hotly contested than that to Australia, will be well behind it as a speed record. The distance from London to Gape Town is 8027 miles, and from London .to Darwin 11,294 miles. To have equalled Sir Koss Smith's record the leading machine in the African flight, the "Silver Queen," should have reached Gape Town on February 26. As it js, she now lies badly crashed a mile from Bulawayo, over eleven hundred miles short of her objective, and apparently, if the flight is continued, it will have to be in another machine. Although the route across Africa ds entirely over land, this is not such an advantage as it seems at first sight. Dense jungle covers most of the central portion of the route, and a landing/on the tree tops is as bad for a machine as a landing in a seaway. Landings have been cleared at intervals of 200 miles, ttnd these correspond to the islands over which Sir lloss Smith flew in the Timor Sea. It is stated that in making the landings in Northern Rhodesia 25,000 tons of ant-hills had to be removed from the ground cleared. As an air route the African passage is likely to remain for some time rather more risky than that to Australia.

Another annihilation of space will come when it is possible to telephone to London. Mr. ■ Godfrey Isaacs, head of the Marconi Company, we are told to-dav, states that a regular wireless telephonic service to Australia is likely to be established within a year or so_. If Australia can be thus served, it should presumably be equally possible for New Zealand also to participate. _ The enormous potentialities of wireless communication were well illustrated in somo experiments madp in England in January. A new device has been brought out for use by ships in distress at sea. By its means an "5.0.5." signal will cause alarm bells to ring on all ships _ within wireless radius, and to receive such signals it will no longer be necessary to maintain a continuous wireless watch. Tho principle embodied in this device is also capable of vast extension. The experimental tests were made between Cambridge and Chelmsford, and besides ringim? an alarm bell, the operator at the Cambridge wireless plant pressed a key and fired a small mine of gunpowder at Chelmsford, thirty miles away. It is stated that a man at a wireless instrument in London could have fired all the big guns used in the Passchendaele offensive, or a man in Paris could explode a mine in Berlin. Another itemhas thus to be added to the lengthening list of horrors to be anticipated in the next war. r * * * * A story of how* the Prince of Wales took the bit between his teeth and announced his Australasian tour before it had been approved is told by the London correspondent of the Sydney Sun. We do not know on what 'authority' the story rests, but it deserves to be true. Thcro is alleged to have been somo perturbation about sending the Prince to Australia. Many people wore confidentially consulted. There was no question of the warmth of the welcome to be expected, but some powerful people feared that a display of kinghood in the Commonwealth might not be beneficial to Imperial relations. Tho Queen strongly favoured the visit, but tho doubts

■were still troubling the Eoyal advisers when the Prince "bolted." He went clown to the Australian 01.C.A. at Aldwych Theatre, where Australian soldiers could always be found, and announced to them that he was going to Australia. No amount of oflicial whittling down could get over this bold announcement, and the matter tvas therefore settled. The reason the Prince is so keen to visit Australasia, the correspondent declares, is because of the liking lie developed during the war for the cheerful Digger, the product of an upbringing so entirely different from everything that surrounds Koyalty. Certain it is that wo at this end will like our Royal guest none the, worse for thus ingeniously taking the law into his own hands, and leaving the wiseacres to wag their heads.