FROM THE WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 309, 21 March 1928, Page 8

FROM THE WATCH TOWER

By “THE LOOK-OUT MAN.”

VIRTUE “J. Scollum batted 106 minutes tor 16 runs, giving a patient display of correct cricket.” —Report of Australia v. Poverty Bay match. But the patience of Scollum was as nothing to the patience of the spectators. The scorer is not expected to recover. A GROWING COMMON-WEALTH Australia gained 124,340 in population during 1927, bringing the total number of Commonwealth citizens up to 6,234,854. Not bad this, for a country once described as “a desert with but a fringe of habitable land.” Later seers laid it down that Australia was a land of primary production, but that it could never become a manufacturing country. A continuous policy of (mostly) effective protection has blown that prophecy to the winds. There is hardly an article needed In her industrial or domestic life that is not produced or cannot he produced by her own workers. But rapid as has been the growth of population in recent years, it needs still greater acceleration. At the present rate of progress Australia will have only 10,000,000 or so inhabitants in another generation; she should have at least double that number to be safe against foreign aggression; and until the League breaks the swords of the nations across its knees, the problem of population must be one of the Commonwealth’s chief concerns.

* * * WILKINS HOPS AGAIN Captain G. H. Wilkins is a brave man, and as consistent a “hopper” as the domestic flea. After two previous failures, in which he endured great hardships and was several times considered to be lost, he has “hopped” again to essay a flight to Spitzbergen, via the polar regions. Here is another Australian blazoning his name across the skies. He hopes to discover new lands in the Arctic to put upon the map, what time another airman, Commander Byrd', of the U.S., is preparing for exploration in the Antarctic. This is an epoch-making era in aerial adventure. Airmen say a third attempt means do or die. In the case of Captain Wilkins, may it be a “do.” SERVING THE STATE Their days of State service are numbered, “three good men and true” —James Hislop, Under-Secretary- of Internal Affairs; James Dunbar Gray, Secretary for External Affairs, and Albert Edward Fowler, Commissioner of Taxes. Mr. Hislop, the soul of courtesy, has the name of a perfect host, and he has successfully steered British Royalties and foreign dignitaries on several Dominion tours. During these tours he was never too busy to give an attentive ear to the requirements of pressmen (thus setting a good example to more officious and less able “understrappers.”) Mr. Gray was a journalist who graduated through “Hansard” to Government administrative office and became an authority on Island affairs. Mr. Fowler has been connected with taxation matters (with one spell of four years, owing to broken health) for 43 years. He is surely the most tactful Collector of Taxes, imaginable. All three were born in New Zealand, and when they have gone into retirement on superannuation, may they be replaced by New Zealanders of equal merit. RICE AND SPAGHETTI The failure or destruction of the rice crops in China reminds one that though East may be East and West may be West, the dictum did not prevent Mussolini from shaking the foundations of tradition by decreeing that henceforth the staple food of the East should become that of the West —at any rate as much of the West as hails him as II Duce. If “fed-up” with Fascism, the poor may find rice a welcome change In their daily menu. The question that is causing considerable anxiety in diplomatic circles at the moment is “Will China adopt spaghetti?”

BLACKBERRY AND STOCKINGS The Mount Roskill Road Board, having most unchivalrously refused to replace the silk stockings of a lady, the said stockings having sustained fatal injuries from blackberry bushes on the Hillsborough Road, ladies are herewith enjoined not to wear silk stockings when walking the thoroughfare named. Obviously it is a hard case for the lady; but if the road board will not replace her stockings for fear that other ladies who injure their stockings in other ways may also blame the Hillsborough Road, and come on the hoard for damages, it may take a tip from the L.O.M. In the On* Tree Hill district large numbers of cattle graze in the streets to keep down the prolific growth of grass' Let the Mount Roskill Road Board secure some herds of goats to deal with the blackberry. The goats may invade and demolish private gardens, but cabbages and things are not nearly so expensive as silk stockings.