Rangitikei Advocate. MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 1907. SECOND EDITION. EDITORIAL NOTES

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXII, Issue 8910, 2 September 1907, Page 2

Rangitikei Advocate. MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 1907. SECOND EDITION. EDITORIAL NOTES

OUR cable news recently reported the heroic efforts of a diver.to rescue a comrade who was imprisoned under water off “Torbay. Further details are supplied by a contemporary as follows : —Trapnell, a Government diver, descended in twentyfive fathoms in connection with the salvage operations on a sunken torpedo boat. At such a depth a diver is not supposed to remain under water more than twenty minutes, and when Trapnell stayed longer than this time his mate, Levorett, telephoned to him asking what was tlio matter. The reply was that he was fouled in the wreck, and could not got clear. Levorett thcnfwcut down, and found Trapnell in an absolutely helpless position. He was standing on the sea bed with his life line and air line entangled in tiie wreckage above. Leverett .at once started to release him, a most difficult work at that depth. - For three hours he worked at the freeing of the lines, knowing that nothing could save his comrade if he gave up. Once he was obliged to stop working, but pulled himself together and started again. When ho finished blood was pouring from Jus nostrils, and he was completely exhausted. Even then Trapnell could not bo hauled to the surface, but had to bo suspended for another two hours under water near the surface until the air bubbles taken in under high pressure had escaped from his system. If he had beeu raised to the surface at once the chauces were t.'iat air bubbles would have escaped into the heart and ho would have died instantly. As it was Jis died twenty-four hours afterwards because there were three bubbles in his heart. Staff-Surgeon Roes, secretary of the Admiralty Deep Sea Diving Committee, says that it was the only case of a man being detained under water at such a depth "as twenty-live fathoms for several hours aud leaving it alive. There was once a man named Lambert who made twenty or thirty dives to the depth of twenty-live fathoms in search of lose treasures, and he was careful to stay dowu only twenty minutes. When, however, lie stayed below thirty minutes without making in the ascent allowance for the extra time ho had remained at the sea bottom, he suffered paralysis aud never recovered. The annals of .British heroism contain nothing finer than this three hours’ fight for 3 life in the darkness 150 feet below the sea

A LESSON in economics is supplied by the Loudon Times, which remarks What is happening in the South of France may remind us that the difficulties of modern civilisation cannot bo so easily overcome as some ardent reformers imagine, by superficial economic changes.. When employment. becomes scarce in this country, ’ the unemployed call upon the Government to provide them with work and wages. Thou people say the reason is that wo have a very large class living on weekly wages, and proclaim as a remedy the resettlement of the population on the soil. In Franco there is a very large class of

peasant proprietors, and when they fall upon hard times they call upon the Government to find them a market for their produce at good prices. Society does not escape impossible demands in one case any more than in the other. The pinch may come in a different form, buo it conics all the same, and the demand upon the Government is practically identical. The workman sells his labour direct, the peasant sells his labour indirectly—that is, ho soils what his labour produces. So long as labour fetches a good price either way, things go tolerably smoothly; hut, as soon as the market gives way, workmen and proprietors alike clamour for Government iutervouj tion to restore the measure of pros- | perity they are accustomed to. The j workmen may have prepared their ; own misfortunes by driving away j trade at the bidding of trade union j loaders. The "-peasant proprietors j may bare destroyed their market hy | over-production or by mistaken methods, which the Government could not have interfered with except at the risk of incurring their resentment. But in neither case does the suffering class dream of blaming its own conduct, or recoguise that it must take the risks as well as the gains of its own action. Mr Clemeuceau sees clearly enough that this is all wrong, and that, as no Government can conduct all the operations of society, noithcr can it find remedies for fcjie mistakes of those who do conduct them. Ho hopes, as we hope in this country, that increase of knowledge and education will bring home this truth to the people at largo. But that hopo would bo brighter if the truth wore more clearly grasped in both countries by those who load the people politically, yot do not always disdain to play upon their ignorance for ■political cuds instead of labouring to remove it as their highest patriotic duty. -