The Daily News. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 7. PLAGUE IN MANCHURIA.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 233, 7 February 1911, Page 4

The Daily News. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 7. PLAGUE IN MANCHURIA.

"Poverty begets dirt, and dirt is the mother of disease." So spoke the im- 1 mortal Pasteur. We in New Zealand know little of the intolerable crowding, poverty and hunger of the East, nothing of the frightful apathy, hopelessness and superstition of the Mongol races, and, certainly, we are not acquainted with dirt and disease as are to be found in Asia. In writing of a city in India, a great student of Asiatic peoples and customs once said that it was "built on the dirt deposits of three thousand I years." If what one reads is true, the dirt is deeper and the poverty more pronounced in Manchuria than it is in India, where science is fighting day and night to kill the mother of disease. The favored New Zealander must recoil in horror at the thought of the frightful pestilence which is at present sweeping Manchuria, and which ma)', like former pestilences, either eat itself to death in its own territory, or sweep across the world. To understand the horrors of a town which contains thousands of dead and plague-infected dying persons one must necessarily try to picture in the mind's eye a town one knows under the terrifying conditions now existing in Manchurian towns, where dogs and carrion birds feed on human prey in the streets, and where the population is sunk in such abject misery that science is handicapped and frequently unwelcome. But science still fights, and it is largely to science that the less fatalistic nations i must look for weapons with which to | meet the possible invasion from Asia. It | is notable that although the Asiatic of low caste has become almost immune from some diseases, that if unchecked would decimate European countries, is fine food for those epidemics which are fostered by dirt and fatalism. It is reasonable, too, that immunity from Asiatic diseases cannot be absolutely secured considering how vast the present-day system of ocean carriage is and that common animals like the rat, the mouse and the flea may bring the dread scourge to any port. The most remarkable features in regard to plague in countries which arc scientifically well served is that nowadays, although plague may reach a port, it is not allowed to breed, that the whole community is at once up in arms to fight it by sanitary means and to kill it long, before it is mature. At Sydney in the year 1899, plague got ashore and was successfully fought. If Australians had been Mongolian in their reception of plague there is little question that it might have decimated the continent. Medical scientists assert that it is today impossible in Europe for any disease to obtain the virulence that carried off twenty-five million people in the fourteenth century, or that if the great plague visited London, as it did in the seventeenth century, it could not be killed. The great London plague which carried off 150,000 people was in some measure an insurance for the people who came after, for it was seen that insanitation and dirt were the parents of the plague, and that prevention of epidemics was possible. Obviously plague never dies. It may lie dormant for a century, break out violently and die early, or! break out gradually and spread with frightful virulence half across the world. There are records of fearful visitations since the dawn of written history, but no ancient records show that the means at hand for staying its progress were adequate. In fact, it seems to be proved that the ancients earnestly believed that plague visitations were punishments for national sins, and made few efforts to remove the causes, not knowing them. Modern epidemics arc no more interesting than the means that are taken to fight them, and although it seems to be unlikely that science will ever devise means for utterly annihilating plague, science can and does save millions of lives, chiefly because it understands causes. Even though science understands causes, it has to fight prejudice. Although in the great Bombay epidemic there was the keenest scientific diligence, it was impossible to create in the minds of a community that had loved dirt for centuries the . feeling that it should suddenly become clean, and, consequently, the mortality was ninetynine per cent, of the total patients. It has been shown that the mortality among modern white people during a plague visitation is always less, but it could probably be proved that this is not because they are less susceptible, but because they are forced by authoritative science to be cleaner. In the 1809 Hongkong epidemic the percentage of deaths was 05, and Hongkong is far more sanitary than any city wholly controlled and inhabited by Chinese. One authority gives the opinion that the mortality in Hongkong would have been less if the Chinese had possessed the courage of the European. Although in the Sydney epidemic above referred to. the bubonic plague obtained a sufficiently strong hold, the mortality was the lowest in the history of the disease, or at least in the recorded history of such visitations. The fact that but 34 per cent, of the eases were fatal is, one may believe, a tribute to modern sanitary science, the greater optimism of the patients, and the vagaries of a disease which is so irregular in its habits. While modern medical science still equips itself for fighting plague when it appears, it. is still the duty of the authorities of every port to make application of such science unnecessary. No doubt, as before, there will be an Australasian war against rats, fleas and other animals which may convey the disease. The plague in Manchuria will be watched in its waxing and waning by anxious and interested folk of all nations, who must picture the depths of misery into which any country may •be thrown by the onslaughts of the dreadful foe. That it is preventive and even destrovnblc when found is some small comfort to the individual.

CURRENT TOPICS i A PUBLIC INSTRUCTOR. Mr. T. E. Taylor, whose fame as a destructive politician is known throughout the length and breadth of this country, should be very grateful to the Mr. .Sedgwick, whose Englisn lads have supplied the political mortar with a few more bombs to hurl at the enemy in the great light for place. It is evident that m the absence of any great question which Mr. Taylor might decide before breakfast, he has thrown himself into a conflict with a few British boys, who, apparently, threaten the peace and concord of an extraordinarily sensitive cc.Miniur.itj'. Air. Taylor, in an alleged defence of "our own population in Christchurch, endeavors in his usual kind way to prove that these lads are "the failures of the large citjes of the Old Land." It is a nice gentle brand to place upon. the shoulders of folk of our own blood, and will assist in making the boys love the people of a country containing such hospitable politicians. To brand any person who has had no opportunity of proving his worth as "a failure" is the height of meanness, and to suggest —as Mr. Taylor certainly does suggest —that these small drafts of boys are going to injure the native-born is even worse political twaddle than usual. Mr. Taylor argues that as we have our own problems we should have nothing to do with other people's problems, but the gravest problem New Zealand has to solve is to fill an empty country as soon as possible. Mf. Taylor is "confident" that a large percentage of these Sedgwick boys will become "white slaves." That is to say, this gentle politician, without any knowledge whatever of the men who will employ them, accuses them of being slave-drivers. It would be just as reasonable for a person who knew nothing of Mr. Taylor to suggest that he was a brigand —a suggestion that would hurt the feelings of the innumerable folk who know him to be a fair-minded, gentle philanthropist. Mr. Taylor was all polititian when he boasted that his protests led the Government to refrain from financially aiding the Sedgwick enterprise. The outsider is entitled to believe that Air. Taylor, who brands the fanning community as slave-drivers, is less concerned with the future of the native-born or imported boy than in gaining some little advertisement for himself. One is further entitled to hold that Mr. Taylor is capable of doing more harm with his tongue than fifty boys are likely to do with their arms. Politicians who "develop" the country from a party platform are of less real consequence to the country than the navvy who picks his way through the Otira tunnel, or the Sedgwick boy who milks ten cows a day and is not going to be a boy for many years. A photograph of one of these potential "child slaves'' shows him to be a lad about seventeen yoars old, of good physique, and not far short of six feet in height. If he allows himself to become a child slave, he deserves what he gets. Even presuming that the finest specimen was selected for the photograph, there seems to be no reason to weep about the future of these large

children. If these imported youths are going to "beat" the colonial youth for a job, it "will demonstrate the inferiority of t.he boy that is beaten. Politicians who persist in advising strangers to "stand off the grass" are a greater menace than the folk who struggle on to it. We sincerely hope that there will be large and constant supplies of Sedgwick or any other kind of boys, and know that the venomous accusation that a fanner is necessarily a slave-driver is just as untrue as the accusation that Mr. Taylor is half-brother to Ananias.

BROKEN CHINA. We are frequently informed that the gentle Chinese at home is a .peaceful person who docs not want to fight and who is consequently not a menace to the amity of nations. The cables, however, show that at present some sections of the Chinese community are rioting, and rioting means fighting. As a matter of fact, the Chinese riots which have been lately taking place snow that John Chinaman is keeping up his New Year in the fashion common to him during the past few thousand years. China is infested with brigands, and it is a common custom at New Year for the Chinese generally to be pointcdy asked to pay their bills. If the Chinaman does not "square up" at New Year, he is absolutely refused credit for ever after. The average Chinese, therefore, possesses a few hundredweight of "cash" at New Year, and the brigands before mentioned know it. The Chinese official, "elder," magistrate, governor, viceroy, etc., is, according to expert evidence, "approachable," if the bribe is big enough, so that the New Year brigands who descend on a community, having given the authorities their "squeeze," are able to do good business with gun, knife and pack-pony. It is a remarkable phase of the Chinese character that communities do not rise and slay New Year brigands, but in the present riots it seems reasonable to infer that some villagers have resented the interference of the New Year brigands, and even though they have parted with their "pigtails," they have refused for the first time for some thousands of years to part with their cash.

COW - TESTING 1 . The importance of cow-testing is emphasised by a member of the Scottish Agricultural Commission (Mr. James Dunlop) at present visiting the South Island. In the course of an interview with an Otago Daily Times reporter, Mr. Dunlop (who was a member of the Scottish , Agricultural Commission which, visited i Denmark in 1004, Ireland in 1006, and Canada in 1908) said he was very interested in the various co-operative undertakings in the Dominion, and was pleased to see that the movement had extended itself to the cheese factories. The cooperative idea, he considered, had been the salvation of the dairying industry in Denmark and Ireland, countries which he had visited, and it could not have otherwise than the same highly beneficial results in New Zealand. He thought it probable that it could be extended in New Zealand with increased beneficial results. He said he was a little disappointed to find that the dairy farmers had not instituted co-operative milk-testing associations for the testing of dairy cows. There was a great field in New Zealand for it. Through this same system Denmark had reduced the cost of producing lib of butter by over 3d. The productiveness of their cows had been increased, and those, cows which were the best producers were retained and fed accordingly. In Scotland they had half-a-dozen years' experience of the same system, and* with most gratifying results. The method of working in Scotland was generally for IS fanners to eo-operate and obtain the services of a young graduate of the Scottish Dairy School, where milk-testing, butter and cheese-making, etc., are taught. This graduate visited each farmer one day every three weeks and weighed the two daily milbings of each animal in the herd and tested the milk for butter-fat. That was taken as the average yield for three weeks, and was duly noted down in a book, and at the end of the year the farmer could see the exact amount that each cow had yielded, and he was then in a position to breed only from the best stock. The resnjt was that the progeny of heavy milkins I strains made big prices, and instead of keeping cows that were living on lmn the dairy farmer kept only those animals that yielded a handsome profit. Mr. Dunlop added that the introduction of

this same system to New Zealand would make for marvellous results, and would increase the butter yield immensely. To which we say hear, hear.