CURRENT TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 98, 3 August 1910, Page 5

CURRENT TOPICS.

THE TREE PROBLEM.

Locking the stable after the horse has! gone is a futile proceeding, and it is more necessary to search for the lost beast. Bewailing the murdered forest when it has gone up in smoke is .-unilarly futile. It is cheering to notice tha. . eome people are beginning to understand J the irreparable damage which wholesale and unnecrs-ary destruction of forests jis causing in New Zealand. The incom- | parable forests can never be reinstated, I but at least something may be done to j prevent towns being washed away and thousands of acres of land driven into the sea. The people of Manawatu, not so many years ago, boasted that more and. more bush was falling to the axe. The successors of those people do no; •boast now, for by river erosion and floods the very existence of ,tlie town of Palmerston is threatened. What happens is ancient history. Denudation of hillsides, scouring of the earth, and the washing off of topsoil; waterways are overtaxed, there being no trees to hold back the moisture. Overcharged rivers must find a way. They cut into the banks, and year by year do greater damage. Man, who has caused the damage, tries to stop it at the river bank by planting willows, but by the time the wallows have to be planted the real damage has been done. Indeed, the damage has been done on the hills and slopes. No measure of any kind will be effective except the reclothing of the hillsides. Disaster is minimised in Switzerland by forest conservation on the hills, and forestry is a payable pursuit. Taranaki people remember the proposal to deforest part of the E-gmont National Park for settlement. The bush on the great mountain is a safeguard to the low-lying lands, and were it removed the results would be similar to those experienced in 'Manawatu. The subject is one of great gravity, and of infinitely more importance to the future of the country than vandals suppose. Aggressive action on the part of all public bodies, and, particularly of the Government, is necessary to prevent further river encroachments, which spread ruin and threaten loss of life.

"UNIVERSAL" -MILITARY TRAIN. ING.

Mr. James Allen, M.P., is himself a vol' unteer officer of high rank, and is unfavorable to universal compulsory military training for New Zealand men. 'He thinks that 50 per, cent, of the men available as citizen soldiers should be exempted from service. It is, of course, better to have a small efficient army than a large inefficient one, but there is no justice in exempting one ablebodied person if another able-bodied person is conscripted. The reason for an army seems never to strike the theorists who are wrangling on the defence question. An army is recruited solely •for fighting purposes. If 30,000 men are compulsorily enlisted and, took the field to settle the hash of the invader, are the 30,000 exempted able-bodied men to sit by and twirl their thumbs? Are 30,000 abled-bodied men to accept the protection in time of war of 30,000 conscripts? Of course not. As the territorial force is a force embodied for war, and for no other purpose, it follows that the ableIbodied men who are not of it when it is to be of use are cowards. It would be impossible to prevent the whole of the country from fighting if there was anything to fight. Therefore it is unjust to suggest that only half the available material shall be made efficient. Unquestionably, Lortl Kitchener and Col. Kilpatrick believed, when they suggested a scheme, that the country would go heartily into the matter, and that there would be no 50 per cent/ exemption. Mr. Allen's system is one of penalty. Conscripts who could not obtain exemption would envy the men who were not called on to serve, and would serve unwillingly. The heavy exemption idea would give us an army that would be in no sense a "national" one. The only fair system is the one that insists on universal service without any exemptions of any kind. If New Zealand ever has to shoulder a gun, she wants it used adequately by the many. At present there seems a chance of great feebleness in our sleeted .territorial force. THE RAILWAY TOLL. America proudly iboasts that she is a •land of big things, and she specialises in railway accidents. It is generally understood that the pace is so hot in the United States that accidents are thus caused, but it is only where thedemand for pace is great that the States are rapid. Thousands of miles of track in America carry painfully sl«p trains, and speed and luxury are only| to be observed where there is competition. England is much more closely railroaded than the United States, and although, as in America, the railways are in the hands of private people, the death toll 19 exceedingly light. Last year there were killed on American lines 5722 passengers, and 95,626 were injured. In England in 1008 no passenger lost a life, the 1043 people killed being represented by foot passengers and railway servants, and the 7954 persons injured were of the same classes. Unquestionably the great ■power of railway magnates in America has much to do with the pitiable death roll. Construction is faulty, roads are not fenced, crossings not guarded, and the permanent, ways frequently lead through thickly-populated places, the engines travelling at top speed. On electric railways in many, parts of America it is possible to be electrocuted by merely passing over the track, and fatalities from this cause are frequent. Whether American railroad men are less humane than British, or whether the British are better controlled by the authorities is not known, but the fact that shoddy work of any kind is anathema in the Oldi Country may have something to do with the small total of I fatal accidents, as compared witTi America's dreadful list. BEET SUGAR. The beet sugar industry, which the Government believes offers prospects of profit to the farmers of New Zealand, has not been introduced into Great Britain on a large scale, but strenuous efforts are 'being made to secure the erection of factories in several counties. The sugar crop of the world is showing a shortage, as a result of the abolition of the bounties in the Continental countries, and as the British people depend very largely for their supply of sugar on the beet production, there seems no reason why they should continue to import enormous quantities at increased, prices. Experiments have proved abundantly that the sugar beet may be grown successfully in the southern counties, 1 and already some English farmers are sending the raw material across to Hoi-, land to be treated in the Dutch mills.! Recently a large company has been! floated'in London under the name of the Beet Sugar Founders, Ltd., with a Capi-; tal of between £400,000 and £500,000, and' some factories for the treatment of the| roots will be opened shortly in Cheshire ■ and (Herefordshire. Mr. Sigmond Stein,! who is the moving spirit in the venture, has been making experiments in ibeet culture in England for several years past, and he is convinced that the soil and climate are admirably suited to the production of sugar. Thirty plots were

planted under his direction last Year at Winsford, in Cheshire, and the analysis of the roots showed 17.10 per cent, of sugar in the juice and 15.4 per cent, of sugar in the roots. The latter figures compare with 15.1 per cent, of sugar in roots crrown in Germany, at present the nremier beet country in the world. Four factories, each capable of producing 300 tons of sugar a day, are to be built at once. The most important factor in the profitable growth of the sugar beet is transportation. The roots are bulky and heavy, and they must be taken to the factories in very large quantities at regular intervals in order to secure success. It is evident, therefore, in the absence of cheap rail or 'water carriage, the fields must be close around the factory, unless the cost of conveying the beet is to become prohibitive. The English company proposes to place its factories in the centres of the growing areas.