A NATIONAL EMBLEM.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 147, 30 September 1910, Page 4

A NATIONAL EMBLEM.

Now that Victoria has been permitted to adopt heraldic devices, the election of a national emblem for this Dominion may occupy the attention desired by a member of Parliament. Suggestions of all sorts, from the facetious one of "three spheres pendant" to the kowhai blossom have been made. By general consent and usage, the fern seems to be the national emblem selected iby the people, and this Mr.. Russell, M.P., says with pride has been carried by New Zealanders on many a field of athletic endeavor. He forgot to mention one other matter connected with the New Zealand emblem. Said one of, the most.distinguished generals in the British Army: "I have used many troops. British/ and colonial. They have all been good, but if there are any that are better .than the rest, they are the men who wear the fernleaf on the collars of their jackets." But although the people may have unanimously decided in their own hearts that the fern is the national emblem, it seems necessary that the people should have very little to do with tne ireal decision", and the member of Parliament desires that a committee of members of (both Houses of Parljaiment shall solemnly sit and choose both an emblem and a national flag. In the view of many people the British ensign with the Southern Cross looking out of it is a fairly representative piece of bunting, but the possibility is that it should have a kiwi or .a moa, or something more distinctive than stars. A characteristic New Zealand flag carried on intercolonial vessels would worry mariners for quite a while and foreigners would hardly "dip" to the kiwi or its extinct relative. All the enthusiasm desirable can be obtained at the present moment by the variations of the Union Jack. As for the kowhai and the fern- it will probably be a race between the two to get to the extinct class first, but someone may, of course, preserve some specimens for botanical gardens, and after all the native bush has been replaced with Oregon pine and macrocapa.

CHINESE IN MANCHURIA. The rapid settlement of Northern Manchuria by the .Chinese is causing some anxiety to the Russian authorities, and a report on the subject has been prepared recently by the officials of the Zemstvo organisation, which is arranging for Russian, peasants to move eastward. Until the Czar's advisers built .the Chinese Eastern railway, Northern Manchuria was very thinly.inhabited, owing to the lack of means of communication. They believed .that with the advent of trains the province would: soon be filled with Russian settlers, but the scheme has miscarried. No Russians are going to-Man-churia,, and. hardly any of the adjoining Russian territories, while Chinese colonists are using the railway to an enoTmoua extent in order to settle their unoccupied (territory and even the land On* the other .side of the frontier. If the movement continues, it seems probable that in .time all Eastern Siberia will be yellow instead of white. The Chinese are splendid colonists* from their own point of view, and they can grow crops and live in luxury where a Russian peasant would starve. When the railway was built the Russian statesmen expected that they would be as powerful in Manchuria as they were in Moscow, and that a word from their representative at Pekin would cause the abandonment of any Chinese plan for the colonisation of the northern territories. They had reason to believe that within a decade Man : churia would be brought undeor the Russian flag. The wo* with Japan upset these calculations. St. Petersburg is now.pledged to observe all its agreements with Pekin and to maintain the status quo in the Far East. No aggression is possible, and the Russians cannot prevent Chinese settlers using the facilities that were provided for quite another purpose. The failure of tiie attempt to establish a Russian population in Eastern Siberia has been complete, apparently because the peasants have an exaggerated idea of the perils and hardships of the country. As a matter of fact, 'the soil is productive and the climate quite bearable.