WITHOUT PREJUDICE

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 125, 24 February 1928, Page 8

WITHOUT PREJUDICE

NOTES AT RANDOM

(By

T.D.H.)

If the Hutt Road pier constitutes s danger the public can, of course, avoid it by travelling by train. In giving the Civil Engineers’ Conference the list of remarkably longspan bridges built, and to be built, in New Zealand, their president seems inadvertently to have omitted mention of that now in course ol erection over the Hutt Road. With the nations busy discussing disarmament at Geneva, it is interesting to reflect that twenty-nine years age they wete hard at work at the same task at The Hague. Then, as now Russia was much to the fore in tin good work—on paper. This time th< Russians have produced a scheme io really disarming everybody. In 189 it was the Tsar of Russia who calle' the conference. The Tsar’s move grea’ ty surprised the world, for Russia ha never been particularly pacific m lie policy. Just a few years before, whil assuring all the world that she had n intention of acquiring any territory i China, she had suddenly grabbed Pot Arthur. When Russia talked universa disarmament everybody naturally bega: to wonder. Mr. Balfour wrote off ii a Foreign Office dispatch to the Britjsl Ambassador in Russia asking for iti formation as to how it was to work “If a country refuses to disarm, are tin other countries to go to war with he: in the interests of peace?” he asked. The British Ambassador in St. Petersburg, as it then was, was Sir Charles Scott, and he duly went and asked Count Mouravieff, the Tsar’s Foreign Minister, just when every nation was to begin sinking its warships and turning i‘s swords into ploughshares. Count Mouravieff at once explained that there was no need for worry on this point. There was no intention to lay any definite scheme to do anything before the conference. All awkward questions like Alsace-Lorraine, Constantinople, or Afghanistan, and other contentious matters would be rigidly excluded from discussion. The conference, Count Mouravieff explained, would not commit anybody to anything, and it would be quite safe and enjoyable.* Before the nations committed themselves to attending the _ Tsar’s peace party they agreed in private just whal they wouid discuss. The Italian ant German diplomats, for example, got to gether in Vienna in September, 189 E and decided that there would be no ot jection to attending a peace conferenc on the following basis: — (1) That the question of (immediate disarmament should remain untouched.(2) That a simple exchange of idea should take place in no way binding th' Powers. (3 That all political questions—past present, or future—should be excepte from discussion. It was on this safe basis that tin Powers assembled at the famous Peace Conference at The Hague in 1899. The only question that remained un solved was why on earth Russia hat wanted to call a peace conference. Hen was the Kaiser’s idea of it all as givei bv him to Sir Frank Lascelles, th' British Ambassador in Berlin: “The pre posal, His Majesty said, no doubt orit inated with the Emperor himself, wb had been reading a book by a Warsa’ banker named Bloch, which was ab< written in a philanthropic and humantarian sense, and which had strongv impressed upon His Alajesty the necisity for him to do something to migate the horrors of war, and to prevet the wholesale destruction of human liiThe proposal was warmly adopted boi bv Count Mouravieff and Al. de Witi (Minister of Finance). The vanity < the former was tickled by presidiH over a conference, and thus having th opportunity of bringing himself inf prominence and getting himself talke about, a consideration which influence most °f Ins actions, and the latter w-s in serious want of money, and thougt that the proclamation of a pacific plicv would open for him the money mrkets of London and Berlin.” * * * The real object the conference ws desired by Russia to attain, accordig to the Kaiser, was an agreement amog the. Powers not to make any fresh wr inventions. Russia had no inventor, and had to buy all her war supplis and guns abroad, and she wanted simje weapons, so that she could keep te money at home and make them herse.. This great conference did not achiee a great deal, but the above facts abot it, and quite a lot more, are to fe found all duly recorded in a series £ British State' documents just recenty published. A correspondent writes: “During tie discussions in India- of the Statutcy Commission charged with the dutyof preparing the next step in self-govm-ment for India one turns naturallyto the history of the Indian Empire, ad there the figure of Warren Hastigs arrests attention The very best of ill the Viceroys of the history, he was npeachcd, as several of his successrs ought rightly to have been. Vvhat nniner of man was this who did so mrh to set the British Indian Empire onits wonderful course ? Some long hoaied and recently published letters of the great Governor-General —they were lot called Viceroys in his dat' —throws sme light on the question. It tells hw, when he sat in the Great Hall of Wstminster, during the impeachment, istening to one of Burke’s thuiiflemg philippics against him, heard titli breathless admiration and' awe by he vast audience, Hastings gave his atention to a manuscript he was scribbhg. This was the finished epigraniatic product of the writing: Oft have I wondered that on Hsh ground No poisonous reptiles ever yet ’ere found. Revealed the secret stands of Natre’s work! She saved her venom to create a Brke. Theodore Roosevelt said a thorugh knowledge of the Bible was worth fore than a college education. A later.age remarks that a thorough knowledg of anything is worth more than a co.ege education. American mother (reading to her diildren).—Now Jack had scarcely hid lint self in the castle before a great viici boomed out, “Fee, fi, fo, fum, I snel the blood of an Englishman,” and wha do you suppose it was ? The kiddie: (in chorus).—The Slayer of Chicago! THE CHIROPRACTOR TO HIS LOVE When first, my love, your spine j thumped As part of my vocation, Ecstatically my fond heart jumped To find no dislocation. Your face was not so very hot, Your mien was sour and solemn, But I was felled when I beheld Your flawless spinal column. For facial beauty, like the rose That fades, my dear, is skin-deep, But spinal beauty nevpr goes, Though hidden dear, within deep. Your vertebrae proclaimed to me You knew what love and trust meant Come, share my life: come, be my wif, And, we'll need no adjustment. A.L.L. in "Judge.”