NOTE AND COMMENT.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVI, Issue 262, 9 November 1904, Page 2

NOTE AND COMMENT.

The Kiusinn Empi«or is said to have declurul that A FIGHT TO THK he intended to DEATH, light to his last soldier and rouble, anil he is urging forward entire «orps d'armee to reinforce General Kuropatkin, who will shortly have three hundred thousand men under his command. The .Japanese War Office is making similar efforts ; and it is calculated that the winter campaign will be fought, between Thieling and Khurbil by unities containing in all eight hundred thousand men. There has been no war involving such forces since Napoleon 1. crossed the Niemen f«r the invasion of Kussia. The Kussiun artillery is now described us splendid, though not always well worked, and all correspondents, even when Hussian, speak with amazement of the neverending showers of shells with which 'the Japanese precede every attack by their troops, and which, if the accounts can be trusted, sometimes blast away whole battalions. The general opinion of impartial observers is that the Japanese are the better soldiers ; but no call to die has yet been disobeyed on cither side, and the future history of the war will be choked with heroic incidents. The special feature of the war, indeed, seems to be that the troops on either side can be stopped only by actual slaughter, amounting in many instances to more than 50 per cent, of their strength. If the war continues, as many observers expect, for three years, both nations will, in Bismarck's phrase, be "bled to pallor." Fortunately, remarks the Spectator, children cann»t be used for a j campaign.

The measure introduced by Mr Carru'Mierß* tjie New A STATE BANK South Wales BILL. Premier, pr oposes to amalgamate tho Advances to Settlers and the two State Savings Banks under a Board of three Commissioners. The ailaiirs of tile present Advances to Settlors Board are to be liquidated by the new institution, the Government guaranteeing to pay all its losses. The object of the amalgamation is to use the Savings Banks' funds to provide cheap money for the farmers. The Commissioners will be given power to lend on freeholds, conditional purchase leases, homestead grants, and settlement leases. Loans are not to be for a less amount than £SO, nor for more than £25,000. Mr Carruthers considers that the bill will do mora to build up a yeomanry than any otlw measure Jliat could be nVivisod. v'Pho trustees of the Savings Bank of New South Wales have protested against the measure, and in a letter to the Premier stated that their 95,000 depositors had 'invested! their five and a quarter millions sterling not to provide cheap money for farmers/, Ibut to be invested to the best advantage to secure a reasonable return of interest. No change in management or method of investment should therefore be countenanced without the depositors' expressed conseit. Both the Sydney Morning Herald and Daily Telegraph opi>ose the meanire. The Savings Banks, they urge, arc neither philanthropic, nor political institutions'. They have no missions to promote settlement or assist landowners in want of cheap

itionvy ; their sole purpose is to enable [loople to .get safe and remunerative (inteiiest icf their savings. ON THE FOURTH PAGE. Commercial. District Court*