The Daily News. SATURDAY, JANUARY 28. CURRENT TOPICS

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 225, 28 January 1911, Page 4

The Daily News. SATURDAY, JANUARY 28. CURRENT TOPICS

THE UNFIT. Theoretically the human race is becoming extinct because the unfit are the most fertile. That is to say, Nature punishes unfitness by increasing the number of unlit who are therefore most easily extinguished. Unassisted Nature eliminates misfits without long hesitation, but science, humanity, modernity, or whatever you will, seeing that there are insufficient fit folk to keep the chariot rolling, make every effort for the survival of the unfit. Dr. Findlay the other day lectured to the Society of Eugenics, and it is liis data that are interesting. He showed that the declining birth-rate was more marked in the cities, that the reduced rate was contributed to most largely by the unfit, and that the population of New Zealand towns was increasing out of all proportion to the increase in rural New Zealand. This is, as has so frequently been pointed out, an extremely serious aspect, and a state of affairs that must ultimately undermine national life. But although a Minister of the Crown suggests that eugenics or extinction must come, and that Reside eugenics the land must be settled to increase the dying vitality of the people, there is no marked disposition to effect what is advised. It is all very well to assert that land must be provided in order that city people • who don't want to leave the cities shall settle on the land and thus by natural means ultimately reduce the proportion of unfit. Theoretically the idea is excellent, but who is at work? Dogma is not deeds, and mere assertion that imbecile persons are producing their kind greatly to the future distress of the country is not eliminating the imbeciles, or making them sterile. There is no promise that if the fertile unfit of the cities were forced out of the cities on to the land that they would be less fertile or more fit when they got there. There is no evidence yet that the infertility of the fit is due to inability or design, or that their productiveness would be increased by ruralism. If applied eugenics is to save the race from extinction, it cannot be left to detached bodies of folk, however enthusiastic and scientific they may be. If eugenics are to save the race, the application of its principles must be undertaken by the State. If the State will not concentrate on the one great problem—depopulation of the countryside —what hope is there that there will be any serious attempt by the State of preventing extinction by eugenics? PRESERVING A RACE. Anthropologists and philologists are keenly interested in the Australian blacks, generally believed to be among the most primitive race of human beings. On a previous occasion we expressed the opinion that the accepted idea that the Australian aborigine was incapable of anything that required more intelligence than that of a brute, was absurd. Australians themselves are the most industrious disseminators of the libel about one of the most picturesque remnants of an interesting race. It is necessary for a man to have lived in contact with the people of any race to have even a crude idea of their intelligence or morals. At the Sydney Science Congress, Archdeiicon Lefroy appeared as the champion of the blacks, appealing strenuously for means of preserving the remnant. He declared that in many respects the despised Australian blacks were one of the most interesting races on the earth. It was utter misrepresentation to accuse them of being degraded in character and feeble in intellect. In character they compared most favorably with the islanders of the South Pacific, as they were known to Captain Cook. Relatively they were gentle and moral beings, and their tribal and family laws and customs were of considerable ethical value. Their intelligence was such that they could certainly acquire European ways of living and thinking with marvellous rapidity. Archdeacon Lefroy ascribed their failure to progress entirely to unfavorable environment, declaring that the glorious Australian climate had encouraged a day-to-day existence and supplied no stimulus to its native inhabitants. The aborigines were ill fitted to withstand the evils that were associated inevitably with the influences of European settlement, which had demoralised them and gone fully three-quarters of the way towards exterminating them. Cruelty, negligence and the communication of disease and moral corruption were the sins he had laid at the door of the white man, but he asserted his belief that the case of the natives was by 110 means hopeless. Although the native race had dwindled almost to nothingness in the most settled parts of all the States, there are very large numbers of them in the north of Queensland and the Northern Territory, as well as in the remote portions of New South Wales and South Australia. No adequate means are taken for arresting the promised extinction of the race, and it is questionable if any means than permitting them to live their own life entirely apart from the contamination of the white man will bo effective.

THE DAIRY INDUSTRY. We published a letter the other clay from a correspondent on the question of centralisation in connection with the dairy industry that should i.oi he allowed to pass without comment. Briefly, his idea is that the dairy companies of the province should combine and establish a huge butter-making plant a* or near the port, having the cream from all the present creameries and factories taken there to be worked up. He pointed out the advantages accruing to the industry were this done. The extension or replacing of machinery to meet the increase output would not be required; a great saving of labor would follow; the fuel bill would show a large decrease; the. incidental expenses attached to the manufacture of butter would decrease; there would be no necessity for factories to rebuild, extend or go to the expense of installing up-to-dat'.- and improved machinery; the best expert obtainable would supervise the making; the whole of the butter manufactured would be of a uniform quality, so ensuring a regular ■ and payable price in the Home market; and the present system of marketing clone away with. Our correspondent also pointed out that there would be a saving effected in the railage of necessities like butter boxes and salt, which could be landed at the doors of the central concern, whilst a co-operative bacon factory could be established in the neighborhood.' What applies to butter-making applies equally to cheese-making. It is a scheme full of possibilities and worthy of the earnest consideration of the leading men of the industry. There are dillicultics, and great difficulties, in the way of its consummation, we know. That the scheme is not impracticable, however, we have but to look at what is being done in the Auckland province, where the Dairy Association conveys cream, by rail, cart, boat, sledge and packhorsa. from its numerous creameries hundreds of miles to the main factory. Our correspondent mentioned the ease of two of the most important dairying centres of America, where cream is collected from over a far greater area than the whole of Taranaki. What is possible in the Auckland

province should also be possible in TarnnaiM, where the transit facilities are much more favorable. It might be argued that the experiment has been tried on this coast before and failed. We allude to the failure of the Waverley scheme. Waverley, it will be recollected, .launched out, starting and taking over creameries south of Wanganui and in the Rangitikci and establishing a big central factory. The failure, however, was not due to any defect or impractibility in the system itself so much as to the management. The Auckland concern is ten times more difficult to operate and manage than was the Waverley proposition, yet the Auckland Association leads the Dominion in the efficiency of the working of its huge business, and the results achieved. It, therefore, resolves itself into a question of management. Vvith the better conditions obtaining in Taranaki, and with the same skill displayed at the head as in the case of Auckland, there is no reason why we should not do equally as well, if not better, than Auckland, and save the producer whatever can be saved in the cost of manufacture and enable him to reap the benefits that undoubtedly would attend the wholesale marketing of a product of a high and regular quality, not to speak of the benefits arising from the establishing of allied industries like that of the bacon-curing industry, which could be conducted on comprehensive lines and an export trade developed. Centralisation, amalgamation and concentration in connection with the dairy industry must come about in the course of time. Already one sees signs of this tendency in >tho amalgamation of small factory companies with neighboring larger ones Hurworth with Mangorei, Hillsborough with Bell Block, are cases in point—and the quicker the process goes on, the better must it prove both to the producer and the community generally, paving the way as it do to the inauguration eventually of a system on the lines referred to by our correspondent.

BLEEDING THE PUBLIC. Four years ago many New Zealand papers, at the instigation of one of them, assailed the Government's unkind behaviour in taxing postal notes. Interest has been revived in the matter by a spirited protest in the North Otago Times, which asserts quite fairly that charges on postal notes are "iniquitous." Our contemporary wants to know why, if any charge is made at all, it should be heavier on a note of lanre denomination than on a note for a trilling amount. If it is fair/to charge more than the face value of a postal note it is also fair for banks to charge more than the face value for bank notes, which cost probably a hundred times more to produce than the plain and cheap notes issued by the Postal Department. The most important point made by our contemporary is that the tax is a class affecting country settlers, who use the Post Office for the payment of monies. New Zealand hanpily has a rate of postage cheaper than any in the world, and a twelve-word telegram for sixpence is reasonable enough, especially as the price per word after twelve words has been lowered. But while these innovations are liberal enough, the tax on the postal note is unkind and unreasonable. When the Government is in a benevolent mood it may remove the tax, and when it does so the banks may rush into the benevolent business and lower their exchange tax on negotiable documents. At the same time it revived the subject of the taxed postal note, our contemporary mentioned that the cost of installing and maintaining telephones was altogether too high, The time is coming, and should come as quickly as the Government can make it, when a telephone will be as common to every dwelling within reasonable distance of an exchange as a bath or u sink. A telephone to most folk is a luxury, but there seems to be no reason why this should be so. The Government sells cheap coal, lends money, supplies smoked trout, insures lives and properties, and is in many rejects a benevolent parental kind of institution. If it added to cheap trout and inexpensive coal, cheap telephones and untaxed postal notes, it would not interfere largely with its surplus and would bring a glad smile on the faces of its children.