CURRENT TOPICS

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 394, 20 May 1910, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS

TRADE OF THE PORT. It was announced at yesterday's meeting of the Harbor Board that the wharfage returns for the four-weekly period ending 2Gth April constituted a record for the port, exceeding by £29 those of any previous four weeks. It was also stated that the revenue of the port during the first quarter of tins year amounted to £3524, as against £2030 in 1909, and £3600 in 1908—the Board's record year. Again, in the four weeks, just closed the revenue from cargo was' £912, as against £867 for the corresponding four weeks in the previous year. Further, the treasurer announced that the amount of land revenue for the past quarter was the largest for ten years past. These facts are as important as they are significant. They indicate that the port has recovered from the set-back it received by the opening of the main trunk railway <ist year and the consequent diversion of the passenger traffic, that the traue ot the port is growing substantially, that the estimates of revenue submitted by the promoters of the Harbor Bill will be fully realised, that the need for the levying of a rate about which one has heard so much during the past year from prejudiced quarters, does not and will not exist, and that the future of the port may be looked forward to with every confidence. With the arrival of the Board's new dredge in a month or two, and the commencement of the wharf improvements, a new era, and one fraught with the utmost importance to the province as a whole, will be opened. Exactly what the, improvements to the harbor mean to the town, and Taranaki generally, few, we are sure, fully recognise or appreciate. THE PASSENGER TRAFFIC. Mr. Newton King made a rather important statement at yesterday's meeting of the Harbor Board regarding the steamer service between New Plymouth and Onehunga. It will be remembered, only too vividly, that when the main trunk railway was opened last year the Union Company took off its boat and left the field to the Northern Company's Rarawa, which provided a bi-weekly service only. It may not have been the case, but it certainly looked as if the shipping companies were in league with the 'Government to kill the passenger trade of New Plymouth. Nothing could have played into the hands of the Railway Department more than for the company to have cut down the daily steamer service to a bi-weekly one. The inevitable consequence was an almost complete falling away of the steamer passenger traffic, despite the fact that a substantial reduction was made in the fares. With the opening of the summer, however, the Northern Company decided to run the Rarawa tri-weekly, a departure which, as was predicted at time it was urged on the company, has been attended with gratifying results. Mr. King saw the manager of the company at Auckland recently, and that gentleman informed him that the company intended maintaining the present service until the end of the month, and continuing it after then if warranted by the traffic offering. The manager added that the service so far had proved more remunerative than bad been expected. The main trunk railway service is not popular, and never will be. We have yet to meet the person who is prepared to make the trip a second time, particularly in the winter months. The route was popular at first because it was new, -hut-now that the novelty has worn off only those who are forced to do so will use it instead of the old service. Other factors favoring the steamer route have been the increase in the railway passenger rates, the decrease in the shipping charges, and the reversion to the old railway time-table. If the company will keep the present timetable going, even if it means a loss in the winter months, there is not the slightest doubt it will be fully recompensed for its enterprise in the near future. BUBONIC PLAGUE. Bubonic plague is visiting Auckland, two cases, being reported/ The Asiatic disease seems never to have died out in Sydney since its first introduction nine or ten years ago, and the ease with which rats, mice and fleas contracted it made the range of infectivity very wide. Bubonic plague, initially, is a dirt disease, and it is impossible for the dreadful visitor to mature in clean surroundings. In its native state, and among the Asiatics, bubonic plague reaches its greatest virulence, not perhaps because a normal Asiatic is a better subject for the disease, but because Asiatics frequently live in great crowds and in places where the conditions have been 1 insanitary for a thousand years. They are also fatalistic in their belief, and less liable to be skilfully treated. In India the .plague simply sweeps whole villages, and the people are so uninterested in their own lives that they take few steps to kill the conditions that breed the disease. British science fights for them. As with the dreadful "hook-j worm" disease of America, so with the •bubonic plague—the soil is permeated with it—und he who is most susceptible readily becomes a victim. During former visitations of plague, both in Sydney and Auckland, the authorities waged war on rats, mice, fleas and dirt.j and if the two cases now isolated in the northern capital spur people to sanitary endeavor, they will not be wholly useless. One other precaution was taken on the first visitation. Zinc discs were bent on to all lines running from ship to shore, so that rodents could not leave the ships. Bubonic disease is a peculiarly horrible one, the affected glands swelling dreadfully and the whole system being quickly poisoned. Science fights it with more or less success, but the,only preventive is absolute cleanliness. HALLEY'S COMET. "We are 'but children of a larger growth," and the tilings we have no knowledge of frighten us. Halley's Comet has visited us on its eternal round, and we, with vague wonder, hoped its millions of millions of tail would not wipe us into some other part of the cosmos. We do not know why this great body is, what it is, or whither it is going, or why it will come back again. One use it seems to have to us poor ignorant mortals'. It emphasises the point that our world is a tiny atom in the immensity of space, that we are insignificant specks, and that our works, however wonderful, are contemptible in comparison with the least conspicuous work of nature. In reality the daisy of the field, the blade of grass, the wonders of life, the growth of the tree from the •soil, the dawn, the dusk and the night, are as wonderful as Halley's Comet. These things are seen daily, and if familiarity with them brings no contempt it decreases our wonderment. Every inch of this tiny sphere is full of marvels worthy of infinite study and patient research, and when mere man, filled with the contemplation of our own beautiful world, looks into space and views myriads of other worlds, he should be very thankful to be a speck in the immensity.