WITHOUT PREJUDICE

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 124, 23 February 1928, Page 10

WITHOUT PREJUDICE

NOTES AT RANDOM (By T.D.H.) Signor Mussolini is allowing Italy the extravagance of an election—but to preserve harmony, only Government candidates are allowed to stand. “We stand behind every car ve manufacture,” says a motor-car advertisement.—lt is the safest end. The disaster to the whaling ship, C. A. Larsen, at Stewart Island, is by no means the first loss of this kind suffered by the Norwegians since they began operations in the Antarctic with their whale catchers and factory ships sixteen or seventeen years back. Towards the end of 1924, for instance, the mother ship of one section of the i.haling fleet was sunk off Kerguelen Island with a big cargo of oil aboard, end similar cases have occurred with vessels operating from the Falkland Islands, by far the most important Antarctic whaling centre, the whaling grounds in this part of the Southern Ocean producing more whale oil than all the rest of the world put together.

Statistics of the old whaling industry in New Zealand are very incomplete. Vessels of all nationalities were engaged in the trade, as many as 186 of them visiting the Bay of Islands in 18.3(5, and what the total catch amounted to is a matter of conjecture. In 1830, an especially prosperous year, the quantity of whale oil on ten vessels at the Bay of Islands on May 13 was stated to total 14,560 barrel s, as against the 78,000 barrels in the C. A. La 1 sen. The growth of the Norwegian whaling business may be gathered from the fact that in 190 C Norway’s whalers took 47,000 barrels of oil in the Northern Hemisphere, and 4200 barrels in the Southern Hemisphere. whereas five years later the northern catch yielded 38,000 barrels and the southern no fewer than 306 000 barrels. About three-quarters of the world’s simply of whale oil is to-dav provided by the Norwegian companies, and while they ■appear to make big money they have to. take big risks and put up with mighty unp'e.asant conditions to get it.

Apropos of whales it is interesting to note that according to the ancient lawyers the whale when taken in British waters was a Roval fish. The head belonged to the King, the tail to the Queen, and the whalebone had to be handed over to the Queen to supply the Royal wardrobe with whalebone.

The natives in the South Seas, and in Papua in particular, get along very well without the electric telegraph and the radio, according to Miss Beatrice Grimshaw. Miss Grimshaw, who knows the Pacific Islands very thoroughly, tells some curious stories in the “Elks Magazine” about the way the heathen in his darkness gets the news in over long distances. Just how it is done is a matter of mystery, for according to Miss Grimshaw, more gets abroad than can be conveyed by any system of drum-taps and so on, and it gets over longer distances.

“In the latter ’eighties,” she writes, “when Germany’s fourth part of New Guinea was very freshly settled, and under small control, it happened that the greater part of German New Guinea planned together to overthrow the foreign power. Now that, to begin with, was a strange thing, because the tribes of German New Guinea are of varying type and language, have almost nothing to do with one another, and distrust each other almost as much as they distrust the conquering white. Nevertheless, sign went forth, how nobody knows, from all parts of the mainland that had been touched by foreign influence, out to the huge islands of New Ireland, and New Britain, and manv others, far removed up and down the coasts, wherever there was a white missionary or trader. And the sign said ‘Kill.’ It said not only that. It said that the killing was to be done on a certain day of the week, and month, fixed by the quarters of the moon; that it' was to be done at a certain hour of the day, and that every white was to die.”

Here is a more recent instance. In 1923 a large schooner was lost near the settlement of Madang, formerly Friedrich Wilhelmshaven, in German New Guinea. Madang has wireless, but the news of the wreck was not sent off at once; not, in fact, for a day or two. When it reached Rabaul, some hundreds of miles down the coast, the natives knew all about it; their own wireless had already informed them.

The Witu Islands, forty miles out from the mainland of New Guinea, are wild, picturesque, fertile; ideal South Sea islands, with their beaches of blinding white coral, their leaning palms, the marvellous blues and greens, of the surrounding seas. You would think the Witu people the very simplest of savages, if vou knew them ; a naked, primitive folk, devoid of all mystery. Yet when a white man was killed cn the mainland, early this year, the simple Witu Islanders were able to tell the local trader about it long before anv news came by boat. How? They don’t know, or wouldn’t tell. , Miss Grimshaw’s belief is that the natives have primitive powers of communication that civilised races lost long ago, and is nnlv recovering with wireless apparatus. Who knows ?

Havana has a sumptuary law of its own, and the law is strictly enforced, despite protests of visitors who desire to disnlav the glories of silk shirts, or who simple wish to dispense with superfluous garments. Coats must be worn by those who would sit in the Central Park and by those who would drive on the aristocratic Prado. It is amusing to see a motor-cycle policeman dart into the traffic and halt a car containing coatless visitors. The latter seldom understand Spanish, and English-speak-ing officers are seldom detailed for traffic duty. To manage a bicycle and explain by signs that the coatless. ones must be more carefully dressed is no ease matter, and, for a few moments at least, the courteous policeman has. a job on his hands. If visitors are wise thev comply with the coat order at once, for a fine of £1 is the usual penalty for the violation of this municipal ordinance. “Then we’re engaged?” "Of course.” “And am I the first girl you ever loved?” “No, dear, but I’m harder to suit now than I used to be.” PAST. The clocks are chiming in my heart, A cobweb chime; Old murmurings of days that die, The sob of things a-drifting by. le clocks arc chiming in my heart! The stars have twinkled, and died out Fair candles blown! The hot desires burn low., and gone To ash the flames that flamed anon. The stars have twinkled, and died out! Old journeys travel in my head! Mv roaming time— Forgotten smiles of stranger friends, Sweet, weary miles, and sweeter ends Old journeys travel in my head 1 The leaves are dropping from my tree! Dead leaves and flown, The vine-leaf ghosts are round my brow, ’■‘or ever frosts mid winter now. The leaves are dropping from mv tree! —John Galsworthy.