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Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 26 September 1924, Page 7

i ‘‘Tile improvements to the Queen’s Wharf,’’ said the chairman of the Well - ington Harbour Board (Mr. G. Mitchell) on Wednesday, “have shown in a remarkable way the durable qualities of totara. Some of the totara piles here had been down for 60 years, but though they had been in the ground all that time they showed no. decay.” , Miss Martha Robt., at present in Auckland, who is a grand-daughter of Mr Elihu Root, the well-known American statesman, was the speaker at. the Auckland Lyceum Club recently, and among other interesting things spoke of an ; International Peace Conference held two years ago, at which there was one New Zealander, three Australians, and twenty-nine Chinese. The next conference has been invited to meet in Pekin in .two years’ time, and Migs Root spoke in high terms of tile keen student class that is growing up in China. They have to study two languages beside their own. She had just come from China, and she felt that this great country was going to lhake a big change in tlie matter of the world’s peace, for the student clubs that were growing up in China were bound to have great influence. The speaker explained that a nation that had studied Confucius for of)00 years and now were absorbing or rejecting Western thought, must have a great influence in world matters. Every boy in China had to learn a book of Confucius, which was a book of morals. Till the revolution that produced the Republic, there had not been a note ! given in business, because amongst the Chinese a man’s word was sacred. Miss Root mentioned that in the great library in Pekin she had seen scrolls which were written before Christ and which, upon being opened up, emitted a sweet perfume,, because they had been written with perfumed ink, the secret of which was now lost. When we had scholars who could translate these mysteries our knowledge would be greatly enriched. The great need of the world was an auxiliary language as well as universal education that was the same in all countries in its main facts, to enable the peoples of the world to understand each other. There was none that she loved more than the Chinese, and if the nations knew each other better there would be greater chance of universal peace.