CURRENT TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 167, 24 October 1910, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

" MILITARY " SIXECITRISTR. In the House of Representatives on Friday, pertinent references were made to the salaries of officers of the Defence Force. Of chief interest were the allusions made to the pay of staff officers who are purely and simply clerks. These gentlemen are not soldiers in any sense of the word and they obtain .£(> 10s a week (or upwards) mainly because they have been able to bring influence to bear to obtain them the positions they occupy. In realitv, many of these officers are not physically fit. 'Their real work is done by civilian clerks, and they simply represent the point that it is a very fine thing indeed to have a friend at court. The officer who holds a non-combatant position should not be allowed to possess military rank. The amazing method of the New Zealand Defence Force is to definitely decide that a certain military department has competent civilian clerks and then to give an unqualified military officer a sinecure signing the papers these clerks prepare. The civilian clerks are expected to implicitly obey the officers, who. on their own initiation, would be absolutely unable to run their sections of the department. During the presidency of Mr. Roosevelt, he created utter consternation by ordering a mounted parade for all the "office'' colonels of the armv. The effect was pitiable. If a military examination of the staff officers ( £■32.')') (of the New Zealand Defence Force was .insisted on, it would bo as pitiable as Mr. Roosevelt's parade. We heartily commend those members of the Legislature who questioned the utility of these staff officers and ask that the Chief of the General Staff, the Adjutant-General, and the others may order a parade of

these sinecurists to find out tlieir fitness for military positions. That not one of I the Council of Defence dare parade theuM staff ollicers is one of tiie this life. On examination in the few of these sinecurists could heavy levy they make 011 the land "taxpayer. ABOUT AX AVIATOR. The attempt of the balloonist Wellman to cross the Atlantic in a dirigible is not only of interest because of the intrepidity of the man and his crew, but because Melvin Vaniman was the engineer on board. Mr. Vaniman is an American citizen of the best kind and after a very thorough tour of New Zealand he went awav without leaving a bad taste in the "mouths of the people he met. He was the "little man with the big camera." This gigantic instrument was. in fact, the largest ever seen in New Zealand, and he was able to produce magnificent panoramic pictures which are still regarded in the Dominion as extraordinary feats of photography. The persistence shown bv this modest American in his photography is of course the same persistence he shows in aviation. He was in the habit of climbing, the tall masts of ships, church steeples, hisrh mountains and so on, with his huge impedimenta on his back to obtain his photographic results. He frequently had to wait for days to obtain a photographic record that would please him. A man who risked his life for a photograph was bound to "have a go" at .aviation. In his photographic adventures Melvin Vaniman had the assistance Oj. his wife, who was a most capable artist, and it is rather appropriate in view of the fact that Vaniman became an aviator that she used to paint in the "cloud effects." Many people who met this happy couple of artistic souls while they were gathering splendid records of New Zealand scenery will be glad that the cheery little American is still alive and Weill and spared for a possible flight to the pole.

POWER EVERYWHERE. Professor Fessenden, the engineering member of the Niagara Power Commission, believes that the world will be independent of coal before many more generations have passed. In the course of a lecture before the British Association last month he gave a detailed description of a power plant which would develop 3000 horse-power from the wind and the rays of the sun. A "solar tank" would produce low-pressure steam, which would be used to work turbine and dynamos. Surrounding the tank there would be a steel framework carrying a number of windmills, which would be specially effectual in producing power at times when the sun was below the horizon. The windmills would pump water from a shaft and pour it down again through turbines connected with dynamos. The combined plant, according to the professor, would produce power at one-third the cost of ordinary steam generation, and would be able to compete even witn water-power in locations where the rivers and falls did not lend themselves to easy use. In Great Britain the power required for all purposes could be procured by windmills erected along the coast on top of the cliffs. 'Some of Professor Fessenden's brother scientists were not disposed to accept his estimates. Sir William White stated that it had bejen found by experience that when the first cost of construction and all the other expenses were taken into account the cheapest way of generating power was not to utilise natural resources, but to have recourse to fuel. Such estimates as had been laid before the Association must be received with caution, because in the case of engineering schemes of an original character the tendency was to frame the estimates on a hopeful basis. He had never known any invention of a novel character where the figures riven did not tend to under-estimate of applying it. Professor Fessenden's retort was that the Niagara power works, which were quite an "original scheme," had cost half a million pounds less than the "hopeful estimate" made for them. Small plants of the kind suggested by him are already in operation in the United States.