NEWS AND NOTES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 2208, 27 November 1920, Page 4

NEWS AND NOTES.

“There is a tremendous market for wool if the people —particularly the people of Europe—had the money to buy,” stated Mr J. C. Cooper, of Masterton, who has just returned from England. “I don’t think there is enough wool in the world to supply the requirements, ff only the world could buy it. But the money is not available." Vienna, formerly one of the gayest cities of Europe, is now one of the most miserable. In Vienna things are so bad that in a serious periodical it is advocated in earnest that the Stale should no longer punish people for, or prevent them from committing suicide; on the contrary, in consideration 'of the mental and bodily agonies of the Viennese, chiefly caused by underfeeding. the State should assist them in ■ permitting the doctors to help their patients who ask for it into another world. Suicide under such circumstances is the good right of every citizen —so the periodical asserts. In' countries of the British Empire the people are concerned about a right to live comfortably. In Vienna it seems to be a case of the “right to die.”

character lias been passing over New Zealand in recent years. At the present- time three persons arc under arrest on charges of murder, while shoe ling and similar tragedies are almost of weekly .occurrence. Whether Ibis is merely a cycle, or a passing phase, in no way connected wi'h the war or economic conditions, is for criminologists to determine. Some people aver that the experiences in tin war have had the effect of lowering the respect for human life. Others consider .that the sirennousness of the fight for existence is not unconnected with the development of homicidal tendencies. ft’is not clear, however, that either of these agencies is responsible for the d r ave of crime that has .recently passed over the Dominion. The materialistic element that permeates society may lie more directly responsible. An American visitor, Professor H. H. Wing, of the Cornell Agricultural Universil'- at Ithaca, New York, gave to a Christchurch Press reporter some interesting views of the pastoral and dairy activities as they appeared to him. He was taken with much of the country he passed over in the North Island, and a point that impressed him was the manner in which pastures grew all the year round. The pastoral qualities of some of the country behind Gisborne appealed to him, as dio the dairy land of Taranaki and Some of the mixed farm lands in the Waikato. He had a good run through laranaki. Questioned as to what he thought of land values in the dairying districts he non-committingly remarked that it appeared to him that some of the dairy land was unduly inllaled; hut on the other hand he had heard of £2-1 being taken from an acre in a year. Up in Taranaki the farmers were taking kindly to the idea that they will have to cultivate if they want to carry their slock thr ( ugh, and tiie production of turnips, lucerne, maize, and mangels was being gone in for.