The Stratford Evening Post. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. THURSDAY, MARCH 27, 1913. DEFENCE.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXV, Issue 67, 27 March 1913, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. THURSDAY, MARCH 27, 1913. DEFENCE.

A few weeks ago the House of Lords was again occupied in discussing the problem of Home Defence. The Territorial Force came in for much criticism. Lord Roberts again urged the necessity of universal military training as the only real solution to the problem confronting the country. Lord Herschell, speaking for the Secretary for War, stated that the Territorial Force consisted of 268,000 men, and the War Office believed that in the event of war it would be brought up to its full establishment strength of 313,000 by additions from the National Reserve, which had 190,000 officers and men. The Government, he went on to say, “hold the view that they can now guarantee in any present circumstances that this country can be safeguarded against a blow delivered at its heart. In that opinion all the members of the Array Council concurred, and it was also strongly held by the General Staff. The Government further considered that any large increase in expenditure simply and solely for home defence would be a disastrous policy. The Prime Minister, however, has decided that the time had again arrived when the special consideration of these questions should Ito continued by the Committee of Imperial Defence under his chairmanship.” Lord Crewe does not see any evidence of a national demand for national military training, taking quite the opposite view to that of Lord Roberts. Lord Haldane declares that the case for compulsory service could be put into a nutshell, but it is very difficult to keep it there. Compulsion, he said, is so foreign to the history and sentiment of the people that any Government which proposed it would be swept from office. “We heartily agree,” says the Westminster Gazette, “that something more is needed than a mere negative to the compulsionists, and we look forward with satisfaction to the effort to bring physical and military training into the schemes now maturing for secondary education.”

FUEL FOR THE FUTURE.

The engineering correspondent of the Manchester Guardian, discussing the exhaustion of Britain’s fuel supplies.

remarks that this subject is always an anxious problem for those who take long views into the future, and although coal is the fuel usually considered, the exhaustion of the supplies of natural petroleums is equally certain. In a lecture before the Society of Arts Professor Vivian B. Lewes stated that the two great oil fields of Pennsylvania and Baku district are already showing signs of exhaustion. Ho likened natural oil fields to storage tanks in which have accumulated the

results of ages of natural oil manufacturing processes. With the possibility of exhaustion looming at least sufficiently near to threaten a steady advance in prices in years to come, one naturally turns to means of artificially manufacturing oil fuel. It has been demonstrated that a considerable quantity of oil can be distilled from coal, but coal, too, is being steadily exhausted. Oil can also be distilled from wood, and present indications favour the view that ultimately timber will be grown for solid, liquid, and gaseous fuels. Professor Lewes also indicated another possible source of oil supply, which does not seem to have received any commercial attention, but which interests him because he believes that much natural oil was formed from seaweed and other marine organisms. Mr E. C. Stanford has distilled nearly seven gallons of oil from a ton of common seaweed, and we may yet find a commercial means of obtaining oil from seaweeds. A floating factory in the Sargasso Sea would provide a good start for those who love a speculation with plenty of risk.

DOCTORS IN CHINA.

It was decided, some time ago, by the Chinese military authorities to employ medical students who had either graduated in Europe or America, or had been trained in Western medical science in Hong Kong, and according to the “Hospital,” the trial has been so satisfactory that no native trained doctors will be accepted, and no native drugs are to be purchased. With regard to the drugs, this will be a sweeping change, seeing that the Chinese materia medica is a marvellous thing, consisting of about a thousand various items, classified somewhat as follows: From minerals about 138 kinds of physios are extracted; from grasses, roots, stubs, leaves, flowers, and seeds, 350 kinds, and so forth. Among the remedies obtained from the animal world some will hardly bear description, but the quainter ones consist of deer’s horn pulverised, deer’s glue, sheep’s milk, hoof of a white horse, thigh of a grey horse bones, claws and eyes of the tiger, all converted into nostrums. From these and other strange substances the native doctor compounds enormous boluses and draughts, which the unfortunate patient has to swallow. Some of the methods of Chinese native practice are as peculiar as the remedies they employ. The family practitioner is employed by the year, and his fees cease whenever any member of the family by whom he is retained becomes ill. It will be noted that the Celestial doctor is paid by results, and not for restoration to health. His prescriptions are different on different days for the same ailment. This is due to the Chinese belief that the human system varies from day to day. The Chinese doctors contend that there are 50 to 60 kinds of heart disease, 20 to 30 forms of consumption, and at least 100 varieties of dyspepsia, which is an almost universal complaint in China, due largely to the enormous quantity of tea consumed and to the general practice of eating half-boiled indigestible native cabbage. The adoption of Western medicine and Western trained doctors by the army and by the officials will soon exercise a potent effect on the population provided the cost of medicine shows no material increase. The question of economy is always a great factor with the Chinese, whose wages are small and his ideas of payment in proportion.