CURRENT TOPICS

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 376, 29 April 1910, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS

A SIGNIFICANT VACT. | British teachers are leaving South Africn. There are only eighty left in the Orange River Colony, and the possibility is that most of these are married and cannot leave. This is most simirncant. Quiet' the new regime—during and immediately subsequent to the war —British teachers poured into South Africa, for it was then erroneously supposed that South Africa had become, and would remain, a British country. Even small New Zealand .sent a comparatively large number of schoolteachers, .who were facetiously called ''the Eleventh Contingent." As the majority of these teachers were ladies, the inevitable followed. They were not teachers after they married. In fact, South Africa at the time offered a unique field for aspiring maidens who desired to become the wives of rich men. The overpowering Dutch element which has its hand on the political plough in three African colonies uses Commandant TTert-zog's Bill as one more lever to gain its end—the ■elimination of all things English. The unexamined finesse of the Dutch in Africa has been developed to a large extent since peace was purchased at a price. As lias been before observed, the 'weapons of peace ate more potent than the weapons of war, and tne achievement of the Dutch ambition seems inevitable. There is no doubt that the Britisher, of whatever grade, is as unpopular in South Africa to-day as he was twelve years ago, and the quiet Dutch method of firing him baclc to the place from whence he came indicates that the doggedness of the Dutchman win in course of time achieve what he spilled much blood for without attainment.

HALLEY'S COMET, Halley's comet is travelling at a startling pace towards the earth, and to the ordinary man it really does not matter whether it is sixty million miles away or five hundred, as long as the earth •is safe. Scientists tell us that the comet which New Plymouth people may see by rising very early and gazing towards the morning star—will not hurt us. The approach of so stupendous a body is useful in showing man that in the cosmic scheme he is as utterly insignificant as a housefly or a leaf on a tree. Formerly men were much afraid of natural phenomena, and believed them to be the precursors of great disturbances or tribulations. To-day feumen would miss a football match to see a comet with a fourteen-milliou-feet tail. The wonders of nature are taken as a matter of course by the average human being, iwho will crowd round a shopwindow to see a wheel vo round. . Illustrating the popular idea of the utilities of stellar investigation (by means of which man now gets from one end of the earth to the other in comfortable steamers), a story of the. late Sir John Bail, Astronomer Royal, may be told. John Ball was a schoolboy in Cornwall, and would lie out on the hills nii-lit after night watching the stars. His parents were alarmed, the schoolmaster was excited, the parson was shocked, and the doctor was calm. The medical man said that John Ball was fit for the asylum. His schoolmates stoned him and jeered at him for "star-gazing," but John continued to gaze. Edmund Halley, another distinguished Astronomer Royal, told us all about this comet, and when it would appear again, but the celebrity (who was born in 1050) became the world's friend by Jiis star-gazing, for his optica] inventions remain unchanged, and his marine charts are still a standard. He travelled round the world to note the variations of the compass, and his chart of these variations is {o-dav's guide to the mariner. You might pay the distinguished staj'-gazer the compliment of turning out in the morning to sec his comet.'

THE MISSING WARATAII. The Blue Anchor liner Warutah left Port Natal, 'bound for Capetown, on July 26, and mysteriously disappeared. Every possible speculation lias (been made in regard to the missing steamer, and most people wonder why no trace of the ship, or of wreckage lias been found. The coasts of Africa are so vast and so inaccessible that it is not at all unlikely that the whole of the wreckage had drifted into a place where no man has ever been. Speculation has produced definite statements that the Waratah was top heavy when she put to sea. Of course if she was top heavy, the owners knew it, and so gambled on her chance of getting to port with her passengers and cargo. New Zealand has had recent examples of tlie negligence of owners, and comment is needless. In regard to the Waratah it seems likely that the report of the Tottenham people that they saw flouting bodies within a day of her departure seems to be feasible. To the ordinary person 011 a snip as big as the Waratah it seems almost impossible that she could have disappeared entirely and forever without leaving a trace that she had ever existed. But the sea is wide, and its mysteries are many. The rockiboiuul coast of New Zealand, and the islands to the south of it are clamant with the stories of mysterious disappearances. To the ocean the struggling scow or the lordly liner is a bagatelle. The loss of a great ship simply teaches man that his plans are trifling and his powers puny. THE YELLOW MAN. The Chinese brings his customs with him when he emigrates. His ways may be good ways for China., but tad ways for a white man's country. It seems t.iat he has a system of vendetta in China, and that he has transplanted it to Philadelphia, U.S.A. In that city two rival Chinese societies have taken to murdering each other's members, in the public streets. Murder is more common in America than elsewhere, hut Americans are opposed to the Chinese and their vendetta. It seems like cutting into an American specialty, lint t.he American people are still more disturbed at the relation of the Chinese to their young womankind, and this is perhaps the result of the finding of a murdered "missionary" girl in a Chinese quarter of Philadelphia. New Zealand deliberately makes revenue out of the Chinese by poll taxing him—£2oo a poll—and that this handicap does not keep him out is every day apparent. His life is not our life; and whatever may be said, he cannot lie'"Christianised." As an example of the Chinese point of view we recall the Lionel Terry incident in Ilaining street, Wellington. A hoardinahotise-keeper found the body of the murdered man under a lamppost. A Chinaman nonchalantly strolled across. The white man asked, "Who is he?" The Chinaman did

I not- know and took little interest. "Rut I lu-'s shot!" said t.he white man. "Good job!" said the Chinaman: "hoe ton old!' • And New Zealand, knowing that she has Asiatic plague spots like Haining street, sends the police to raid them nnee in a while, but does nothing to wipe out the plague spots. You see. Chinamen pay good for snnalid slums.