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Hokitika Guardian, 30 August 1922, Page 2

In matters of national defence, aircraft, is is clear, will piny a very prominent part in the future. There has been a critical controversy at Home on the subject, with the result that the Government is being forced to expand its proposals in respect to aerial defence. The subject is of vital interest .too ,to an insular country such as New Zealand. It would cost many millions to safeguard our coasts with an adequate naval force, and it is imperative for the Dominion to pay some practical attention to aerial defence, if reasonable safeguards are to be at band hi time of peril. New Zealand is very backward in aircraft. What development has taken plaoe, has been due mainly to private enterprise, but for defence purposes the question cannot be left there. Experts have p 'opounded schemes for

the aerial defence of New Zealand, and the matter requires to he taken up seriously. Just as active training is going on for crews to man ships for war service, so something should be done to train crews for aerial tasks. The Dominion might well seek to dove, lop machines and mechanists for an overseas flight to and from Australia. There is a good den I known now about the capacities of various aircraft, and there should be an applied test to ascertain what will best serve for a cross Tasman sea flight. Aircraft' > s very much beniiid in this country, perhaps nowhere is it more backward. This is a reproach which should not stand, and particularly n.s New Zealand is so isolated. Undefended, as we are from the air. an enemy attack from that quarter could work sad havoc in a very brief interval, and the Dominion should not he aho ved to to main in that perilous plight.

The “mystery of Mars’’ is still unsolved. In June last an English astronomer, Mr P. M. Ryvivs, made a special study of our most adjacent planet in very favourable circumstances at a very opportune time 'as far as jixta position is concerned, in the clear air of Tenerilfe. He reported that the so-called “seas” on the planet are remarkably well defined and that the southern regions apponr “dark and distinctly greenish. Dm white caps at the poles, which are supposed by many to be ice ami by others to he solid carbonic acid gas congealed by the intense cold, have been plainly- made out. But no key to m mystery of Mars has yet been lound. ’There is still no proof that life in any form ,such as we know, exists in Mnrs and the supposed signals, which "ere observed on wireless receivers two years ago have not boon recently heard. Twenty years have passed since the late Professor Lowell, after long observation with-a specially powerful telescope at Flagstaff, Arizona, sprang on mankind his romance that in Mars a dying race existed in a desert world. No further evidence that this romance is true has yet been.obtained, though it now seems certain that there is an atmosphere in Mars, and the presence of water vapour has been detected by the spectroscope. A that wo can say it that some nTodern astronomers believe that life is p - sible there; indeed the American 1 rofessor Pickering has even gone so lar as to suggest that there be vegetation and life, not only in Mars but in the moon, which for centuries has been regarded as a dead world. Dm is so wonderful that its mysteries can never be exhausted, and curious man will go on his pursuit of knowledge of tlm infinite till time itself shall be no more, and there "ill remain still undiscovered mysteries.