FROM THE WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 125, 17 August 1927, Page 8

FROM THE WATCH TOWER

By “THE LOOK-OUT MAN”

| PERSECUTION ! | They are always persecuting these ! poor, clown-trodden Parliamentarian representatives of the proletariat. Mr. Ben Spoor, an English Labour M.P., lias been lined £2 for having been drunk and disorderly -while driving a motor-car. He ought to have known that such recreation is the prerogative of lords and such-like. This example should be a warning to other ordinary M.P.’s not to follow the spoor of Mr. Spoor. PUBLICITY AND ELECTRICITY Mr. J. A. C. Allum considers there should be more publicity concerning Auckland’s public services, including transport and lighting. In America, he points out, cheap electric power is freely advertised. In reply to this, it may' be pointed out that Auckland has no cheap electric power to advertise (its charges are more than double those of Christchurch); and that if the Auckland City Council wants any more publicity concerning its trams than it has had in the past year it is a glutton. DEATH UNDER .4 N A K .S' TIf K/,I C Evidence given at the inquest on a man who died under anaesthetic showed that the heart of the deceased was imbedded in fat, and there was fatty degeneration of the heart muscle. It was interesting to learn, also, that “this condition of the heart would not be observable in an examination before death occurred.” Medical science does not seem to have advanced very far if it cannot determine, excepting by a post-mortem examination, that a patient’s heart is a fatty and degenerated organ, liable to fail under anaesthetic. One hesitates to accept the medical evidence at this inquest as the final word on the limits of medical knowledge. The B.M.A. might touch upon this in one of its public lectures. A USEFUL HINT Rear-Admiral Hilary Jones is hilariously sardonic. He was a United States representative on the Arms Limitation Conference at Geneva, and he says he does not believe any tangible result cau come of such parleys. If the admiral had expressed his conviction before thfe conference the American attitude could have been foreseen —and the conference could well have been abandoned as useless. Rear-Admiral Jones, further stated that when pacifists clamour for disarmament, the munition-makers immediately received large orders and made a lot of money. Enterprising manufacturers of arms will take the hint and have representatives on the spot at the next disarmament conference to book orders. GEOGRAPHY AND HUMOUR An American delegate to the International Rotary Conference asked an Australian delegate whether Australia wasn’t a little island off the coast of New Zealand. Passing through Auckland on his way back to the Commonwealth, the Australian quoted this seriously, as an instance of the amazing ignorance of Americans concerning geography. The newspaper man wasn’t heartless enough to inform the traveller that he had been having his leg pulled. Happily, all Australians do not lack a sense of humour.

BOLIVIA Bolivia, where they are now holding the annual revolution, is the third ■largest country in South America, occupying almost 600,000 sq. miles. Cut off from direct access to the sea, among towering mountains and remote interior forests, possessing no large towns, and sparsely populated, largely by Indians, the country retains in great part a primitive, simple character, and presents, perhaps more than any other part of South America, a picture of life as it was in the early days of the Spaniards. Bolivia produces one-fourth of the world’s supply of tin. Half of. the population of 3,000,000 consists of illiterate Indians, who refuse to learn Spanish, the official language. The people fought the Spaniards for independence from ISIO to 1824, Spanish dominion being finally ended by the battle of Ayacucho, and the newly-constituted republic took the name of Bolivia after Bolivar, its liberator. Since then the Bolivians have been awakening t. share the economic development of the neighbouring republics. Bolivian revolutions are generally minor affairs, ending with the shooting of a few hundred Incas, who are the most warlike and troublesome of the Indians