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Hokitika Guardian, 7 November 1923, Page 2

Ttik upheaval in Melbourne should 1 <• a lesson for alt to take to heart. There have hern many similar lessons in the past, but they seem to 1)0 forgotten all too soon. Tile trouble with the police was foreshadowed over many days. The authorities must have been poorly advised in the matter. The only attitude to the credit of the Government is tile determination now not to reinstate the offenders. That is a pioper stand to take in a ease of this respect. when a solemn oath lias been broken. The action of the police in striking cannot be condoned. It is nil extreme stop which in their ease cannot he justified by an palliation. The polite occupy a responsible position, and in such they are regarded a- upholders of tile law. To break the law as readily as tliev have done, is to show they are not worthy of the confidence placed in them, nor of the trust reposed in them. The police are credited with living levelheaded and educated enough to realise the consequences of their actions, and deliberately taking the step so many of them have, they have jettisoned all claim for reconsideration in any negotiations for a settlement which may be thought of. The Government must now make good its position or it will be covered completely with obloquy. Dp. RrrTF.n who represented the 1 niversity of California and the C'llifornian Academv of Sciences at the Pan-

Pacific Congress, says: “The problem nf Asiatic immigration, which is exercising the mind-5 of American statesmen at the present dav, is but the immediate demonstration of what both Australia and Now Zealand must face in tile future. I now for the first time,” IV. Hitter proceeded, “fully realise the acuteness of the problems of the j'acilie. Indeed. I doubt whether more find one or two people in the old world find it possible to realise the idea that in another century or two the Pacific will he the centre of civilisation on the globe, still less believe it. The Atlantic is u tiny ocean and Europe a tiny continent compared with this vast Pacific area which houses more than half the population of the world within its boundaries. The fact of special significance for Australia and New Zealand is that by far the greater proportion of this half is living oil less than lo per cent, of the Pacific area, so that there is a tremendous pressure against tile harrieis of the less heavily populated section, as of a vast body of water behind a rather lltinsy retaining wall. I look upon the Van-Pacific Science Congress as one of tile methods by which the problem will he most successfully laced. There is no use leaving the matter to he fought out. That method means disaster for everybody. Rather will the question he solved by imelle-t. judgment and patience. fl these science congresses were broadened in scope so as to include the economic and sociological sciences they would do much more to grapple with the greater problems of the Pacific than at present. Tropical Queensland I consider essentially a white man's country and the Australians, have done admiiahle work in promoting settlement m that part of the continent. Tile shells nt the Great Harrier llcef are the Inundation of a tremendous industrial development in the future.”

Si'f.aki.N< ' of cancer research, a "Wellington medico slated last week that “the only tilings we know about earner which are worth knowing are its ago. incidence, its relation to chronic itritation, and the- iac-t that il is ill its beginnings a local disease and plat therefore it can lie cured by early lemoval in those situations where removal is possible. This is practically all we know about cancer. 1 wish to make only two comments. The first, is that this knowledge is licit enough. In an age which has yielded the secrets ol so many diseases it is a point ol honour with the medical profession not t<> rest content till this pressing problem has been solved. ith the public it is out onlv an obligation hut. item the point of view of their own interest and safety. a vital necessity to furnish the financial means of solution, and to see to it that research is not crippled or stinted by any niggardly parsimony. The second comment T make is tins: The most iin|o! taut fact we It now about the disease is that in its beginning it j- local, and that its course is a centrifugal spread from its local point ol origin. Is that knowledge anything like as productive* as it might be? In(hmbtedly il is not. Notwithstanding the fact that cancer has been cured over and over again by modem operation—a fact which in itself proves that it is curable-yet 1 believe patients come no earlier to the doctor with it than they did thiity years ago. though time is the very condition of the only cure we posses for it. Many medical men. and 1 confess 1 am one of them, are of opinion that there is considerable room for improvement in this direction. Without resort to nuv sensationalism some obvious slops votthl he taken to spread the knowledge of i, lew Vl", y simple facts about cancer, ■phi, would give a by no means unwarranted ray of hop.* to the public and would enable some of the victims of tills terrible disease* to apply in time to have, at all events, a chance of cure or freedom from recurrence, whielic*'or \ oil like to i till il-