HALCOMBE.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIV, Issue 9478, 22 June 1909, Page 3

HALCOMBE.

From Our Own Correspondent,

All admit that bo far we have been favoured with a wonderful winter. Many, however, predict that we snau pay for such favours la* 6 **? ll .,- , ln the meantime let ns bo-thankful for the blessings to hand. 1 Only a confirmed grumbler can be for the almost perfect weather tnac we have enjoyed which has produced such ’an abundance of grass. One dairyman told me the other day that some eowfl Jnet oalved. well as the others did in spring. While a sheep farmer assures me that never before at this season of the year has he had so much feed for his stock, and had an exceptional opportunity to prepare the soil for cropping. This week will no doubt be a notable show time for many. Psi* m era ton’s great exhibition, _ the world's show on the Wanganui river, and the Sandon Old Boys’ Social. The Palmerston Show always attracts large numbers from this district ; there is so much to see and to learn, besides there we meet friends that we have not seen for years. Then the sonlling championship to be rowed on the silvered surface of “the most beautiful river in the world” presents an picture, apart from the human interest in the great straggle for supremacy. The Sandon Old Boys’ Association is a great and growing institution, and, though its marshalled force is necessarily limited to the historical 600, and its primary object is to knot np old ties, and weld new |sociai bonds, yet it possesses a more potent power for good than that which distinguished the Immortal Brigade when “charging an army, while all the world wondered.” . ~ Mr T. E, Taylor in his admirable “Commonwealth sketches” says that it is no surprise to learn that the rateable value of the property in Sydney is greater than any other city in the Empiie except London. Having “shipped” for Sydney in the early fifties this statement comes as a great surprise to me. That Sydney should have outgrown in rateable value such places as Liverpool, Manchester, Sheffield and Birmingham, is indeed wonderful, but I have no doubt that Mr Taylor would have less difficulty in proving the oorreotdeas of this pronouncement than some others that he has made. His description of the harbour and the •‘Harbour Lights” is one of the best that I have read. “Just beyond the limits of our own understanding lies the impossible.” Well, that may be so, and I know that I have not far to travel in some directions before I find myself at that “beyond,” bnt then, X do not think X have run against the impossible. It may appear to me impossible to get further, but fortunately there are others travelling the same track, and one moves a step or two forward and what was impossible for me yesterday is as easy to-day as slipping off a wet log. If a man who has lived long and noted the marvellous progression during hie life and remembers how much that was deemed impossible in his youth has since been achieved; if he has seen the application and development of steam and electricity, if he knows that he can be distinctly heard by the man at the “phone” 1800 miles distant, and that he can send his messages a greater distance throngb the wireless and “unfettered” air; if he remembers that he can navigate that ocean of air, with ease and safety and be in instantaneous tonoh with the civilised world. Again if he reflects upon the ills his infant flesh was heir to and how those ills* pronounced impossible of cure, have been driven from home. If—, but why prolong the list of those things Which man has during his life time declared impossible, but which have proved easy of accomplishment. “When you come to think of it”you ate disposed to put that word in the lumber room with broken and disused furniture. It was thus I thought when I read from “Life” of the imaginary method employed by “The man who ended war.” Here is the message this man sends to the great powers:—"l, the man who will stop all war hereby declare that I will destroy one battleship of the United States during the first week of July, 19—,‘ one battleship of England during the second week of July, 19—, one battleship of Franc© in the third week of July, 19—, one battleship of Germany during the fourth week. July, 19—. 1 shall follow that destruction by sinking in regular order one battleship of each of the other great Powers. May the Lord have mercy on the souls of them who suffer for the cause of Peace!” How that message was unheeded and how those ship# “disappeared and left no more trace than an exploded bubble on the sea” would occupy too much space to tell. The question asked “is it possible? . I do not know, bnt my experience will prevent me declaring It to be impossible. The means employed are an airship and a new destructor. A force, of course, that is not yet harnessed, hut when we remember that “Sir Oliver Lodge has taught the world that within every cnbio inch of the soft invisible ether is stored a mechanical energy sufficient to run the biggest power-mill on the planet for unknown years. ” That “in every cubic millimetre is the energy of a thousand tons moving with the velocity of light. When we imagine force under the direction and control of human intelligence, a force that could be directed across seas and strike with the velocity of a :ay of light the greatest battleship afloat. When"! we have thought of these things we may say “it is the wild dream of a scientist,” but we will not say “that it is impossible. ” I have pleasure in acknowledging a parcel of stamps sent for' Mrs Uaaae by Ruby Stent, Sandon Block.