CURRENT TOPICS

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 100, 5 August 1910, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS

BLACK, YELLOW AND WHltfE.

There are now no Chinese on the Rand goldfields. In fact, South Africa is beginning to understand that a hot climate is not a fatal Ibar to the white worker. In India white troops can outmarch native troops. In Africa a white laborer of the best type has been proved to be able to do a third more manual work per day than the finest black laborer; in Queensland the cry that the withdrawal of the Kanaka was the death-blow to the sugar trade has heen disproved; and in the hottest part ■ of the Northern Australian State the ori dinary everyday white British navvy works just as long and just as hard as ' the navvy of Invercargill or of the North of'iScotland. The ability of the white man to adapt himself to circumstances is nowhere better exemplified than in the stokehold of a steamship. Companies do not employ Lascars or. Hindoos or negroes because they can stand a temperature of 125 degrees better than a Cockney fireman, but because they are cheaper, even thought it does take two dark men to do the work of one white. The energy of Australians (despite the feeble criticism of Foster 'Fraser) is a direct answer to the assertion that white men cannot succeed in a black man's country. The settlement of the Northern Territory of South Australia is hampered by the people who believe the heat will fizzle all the go out of white settlers. But Israel Zanswill proposes if possible to send one million Jews to the torrid regions of Western Australia. The fact is that the"

white man is very rapidly acclimatised, and there is no doubt that the best white man has extraordinary powers of resistance. The types change in conformity with climatic conditions, and approximate in structure sooner or later to the aborigines. South Africa, when it demonstrates that colored labor is unnecessary in the mines, preaches a vti ■ eloquent sermon to enemies of a "White Australia," and upsets the heresy that the black or yellow man is an absolute commercial necessity in countries where the temperature sometimes registers from llMJdeg. to 120ueg. in the shade. WAR OFFICE LOYALTY. Canada grows meat So does Australia. So does New Zealand, and the other British dominions. The Brrtish War Office, however, when it.wants a million pounds of beef overlooks che fact, and sends to the millionaire packers of far-famed Chicago for it. it is pointed out in a cablegram that the | contract let by the British War Office | to Messrs. Libby, McNeill and Co., of | Chicago, is at the highest rates ever given, so that it seems apparent that .ther colonial firms did not tender, wCre not asked to tender, or, if they tendered, wanted a higher rate than "the highest rate ever given." Britain does not feed her home troops on canned provisions, and in all probability the supply is by way of store for possible war-service. Indeed it may never be used. It is .vithin the bounds of possibility that some time or other the whole or part of the supply will be destroyed. Tens of thousands of pounds worth of provisions were destroyed at the conclusion of the South African war. But whether the beef goes into the stomach of "Tommy," or is destroyed is not the concern of the suppliers, or of the people who might have been the suppliers if the chance had offered. The question of quality is the chief concern, and there is no room for doubt that the Australian, and New Zealand packers entirely outclass the Chicago men in the quality of their products and the cleanliness of their operations. As a proof of the superior quality of Australian and New Zealand tinned provisions, the British soldier on service, where he has the choice, will always reject American meat in favour of colonial, hot because he cares twopence for the colonies, ouv because he knows which is the better and more palatable food. A famous Scottish firm is first in popularity with Tommy, then come the colonial firms and—a long wdy in the rear—the products of the "Jungle." A million pounds ot oeef seems a large quantity, but to an army like the one that was on service in Africa it merely represented four days' meat ration, and it might easily have been necessary then to obtain supplies! from America,' At the moment, however, the requisite stores of canned provisions could be-* as easily supplied by firms within the Empire as outside it. We believe that in the past there has been some difficulty in New Zealand in the way of filling War Office contracts, and no doubt the Chicago millionaires can "speed up" to, a greater extent than either Australian or this dominion. All the same, the War Office should be occasionally reminded, that, the United States of America is not the only country that grows beef and cans it. " COESfCIDENGES OF DISCOVERY. Writing 5a the Forum, Mr. B. C. Gruenberg discusses > the similarity of the channels in which great minds run. He has discovered quite a series of coincidences m the field of research. He begins with the classic: ijnstance of Darwin and Wallace arriving, simultaneously at the doctrine of natural selection. He fol- > lows this with a number of examples of discoveries made practically at the same time by French and English and German scientists.in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but his "modern instances" are inuch more interesting. The envelope machine was invented in England in 1844 by De la Rue, and the same month, before it had time to reach the giant Continent, America had practically the same machine. Guncotton was the subject of two independent origins, Christian' Schonbein being responsible for one and Rudolph Bottger for the other. Bottger was also the inventor of the safety match, but he had not got it on the market before he was anticipated by the independent investigations of Lundstrqp. The electro-plating process, stearic candles, cobalt blue, the Argand burner, the electrolysis of water, and many other discoveries also claim a dual authorship.' Aniline, a substance that has occasioned the establishment of large industries for the manufacture of dyes, drugs and other products, was separated from coal tar by four different chemists working independently. Each gave the substance a different name, but the identity of the four discoveries was established later by a fifth chemist. Jn the field of inventions such coincidences are comparatively frequent. The sewing machine was invented at least three times, and it is probable that the last word will never be heard on the "real original" electric telegraph. "The mind of the great man," writes Mr. Gruenberg, "runs in the channels that have been prepared, not only by his parents, but also by the parents of all his contemporaries." If coincidences of this sort become common the channels will be dangerously overcrowded.