CURRENT TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 204, 7 December 1910, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

From the pauper child who tends his starved geranium to the millionaire who dabbles in priceless orchids almost all human beings love flowers. There is, indeed, some strange lack in the heart of the person who does not delight in the vari-coiored charm of the earth's infinite variety of blossoms: Gorgeous flowerets in the sunlight shining, Blossoms flaunting in the eye of day, Tremulous leaves, m\fy soft and silver lining, ', ( Buds that open only to decay. Eveiyyherf abjout ui;fre Jhijfeltotog),

Some like stars, to tell us spring is ' born; Others, their blue eyes with tears o'erflowing, Stand like Ruth amid the golden corn. And if we cannot, like Longfellow, express our feelings in beautiful language, we can feel the benefit of flowers,, and be thankful that New Plymouth is favored by Nature for their production. The value of horticultural societies in cultivating a love for flowers cannot be overestimated, and the local Society, which is giving its exhibition on Thursday, has aided the flower lover greatly. Flowers respond so remarkably to the care of the grower that all over the world the "flower-breeder" is able to vary Nature's work and help her to produce new surprises. No more remarkable illustration of the genius of flower-breeders can be given than in the ever increasing variety of roses, and we are glad that so many local growers are so successful in the number they are able to show. But although New Zealand is favorable for the growth of flowers, it will not grow all varieties of all of them, and it refuses to have anything to do with some kinds of roses that will not thrive in New Plymouth, and the Society would do a kindness to growers if it supplied a list of the varieties that cannot be grown here. The magnificent blossoms that are benched may mislead growers into purchase of new sorts which may or may not thrive on introduction.

MONEY FOR NEW ZEALAND. Mr. W. Douglas Lysnar, the Mayor of Gisborne, has been in London in connection with the raising of a loan of £175,000 for public works in the East Coast town. He was interviewed by a representative of..the Financial News, a journal which does not always look with a friendly eye at the financial operations of this country, and he was able to lay some valuable facts before the British investors. The newspaper man suggested that the New Zealanders did not invest their own money in local securities, such as the debentures of the Gisborne borough. Mr. Lysnar replied that the securities were taken up in large quantities in the Dominion, not so much perhaps by private individuals as by insurance companies and other institutions having large funds to invest. "The official figures," he said, ''show that in 1008 there were over £7,000,000 raised within the Dominion by local bodies, as compared to something over £5,000,000 raised out of the Dominion. The activity of the private individual is particularly directed to agricultural, pastoral or manufacturing industries. Ours is a young population, which employs its money in the creation of wealth rather than in the purchase of bonds, which yield a safe but limited return. Do not imagine, on the other hand, that capital is not forthcoming locally for loans such as that which Gisborne is now raising. Terms quite as good as those I have arranged here were obtainable in New Zealand itself; but, other things beingequal, we prefer to float our loans on the London market, in order that we may be independent of the fluctuations in local conditions." Mr. Lysnar added that the people of New Zealand fully realised that London was the financial centre of the world. The City had met all the requirements of the colonies in the past and no doubt would continue to lend money whenever good security was offered. "But we think," he said in conclusion, "that London has never failed to do itself justice in the matter of the rate of interest." Gisborne's Mayor was entirely successful in his mission.

SOME BRITISH SHIPS. AH countries love great names and dear traditions. Even new countries which affect to despise convention follow the plan of associating new places or things with great names. It is only necessary to think of the names of our provinces or towns to emphasise the point—Wellington, Auckland, Marlborough*, and so on. Britain will build twenty new destroyers during the coming year, and the name of each is inseparably connected with the storied past. The name Phoenix dates from 1546, when it was borne by one of tlhe earliest of the "wooden walls." The last Phoenix, a twin-screw -°loop, contributed a landing party towards the naval brigade which marched to the relief of Pekin in 1900. The first Acheron was a bomb-vessel of eight guns, which took part in the blockade of Toulon in 1804. In 1805 a 14-gun brig called the Auber captured two French gunboats off Cape Gris Nez, and half a century later the name was borne by a screw ship of fourteen guns, which assisted at the capture of Bonbee, on the Benin river, in 1855. The name Ariel dates from 1777, having been first given to a 20-gun ship, which captured in 1779 the French Amazone, of twenty-six guns, after an action lasting an hour and a-half. A screw ship of the name took part in the war with Russia, and in 1862-4 captured eighteen slavers on the east coast of Africa. There was also a gunboat of this name engaged in the Congo and Niger expeditions in 1575-6. The name Attack is* not so well known, having apparently been borne by only one vessel, a gunboat, which in 1809 assisted in storming the battery at Doelan, in Brittany, in the cutting out of two chassemarees and in the destruction of a signal station. She was afterwards attacked herself by a flotilla of Dutch gunboats and captured in a disabled condition after a strenuous fight. An early Druid took part in the capture of Belle Isle in 1761, and a successor, while on convoy duty in connection with the trade with the Leeward Islands, beat off the attack of the famous American frigate Raleigh. Yet another Druid was with the Crescent and Eurydice in 1794, when those ships engaged the French 50-gun ships Scevola and Brutus, two other 36-gun frigates and a brig. It means something to the men who will man these ships, that their names are associated with the glories of the past.