CURRENT TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 261, 25 March 1911, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

A NOBLE WORK. We heartily welcome the delegates who are attending the Women's Christian Temperance Union Convention being held in New Plymouth.. The devoted women of this noteworthy society have, by persistent application during many years, used their influence to sweeten public opinion on man.\ grave eoeial questions. The persistence of the W.C.T.U. is one of its most worthy characterist:.••=. In the advocacy of reform, the Union do not necessarily achieve all their objects, but, by persistence and in-' finance, both in public and private, they ultimately achieve many of the objects for which they aim. In social reform work the W.C.T.U. probably represents the true feelings of ninety-nine per cent, of the women of New Zealand. If every member of the well-organised and necessarily influential Union is heart and soulin her work, she necessarily makes converts to her opinions, and ultimately sways many winds, whatever opposition there may be among sections of the public in regard to the great reforms advocated by the body, and which they seek to further. The women's "case" is almost invariably sound. In relation to merely one phase of their work—antagonism to alcohol—it must be universally recognised that their fight is for their .sons and daughters, for the safety and comfort of themselves, and the ultimate health and prosperity of the nation. In contemplating the present gathering, the earnestness and whole-heartedness of the delegates is the first impression given. Enthusiasm is "catching," and one hopes that the epidemic of earnestness may spread throughout a country where the virtue can never be overworked.

A WORD ABOUT BUTTER. A perusal of the leading London papers, although it will not disclose an inordinate amount of news about our doings, will disclose very useful advertisements about our butter, which is more to the purpose. The butter pat is at present Taranaki's mightiest weapon in the war of progress. But the British housewife who enters a butterman's shop, say in a London suburb, does not know anything about Txranaki, and there is no reason wliy she should care twopence about it. Butter is just butter to her. She cares not whether it comes from Siberia or Normandy, Denmark or South Australia. This merely preliminary to saying that firing a tongue-twisting Maori name at an English housewife is worse than useless. No' British matron is going into a store to ask for half a pound of Wharckirampoiiga butter or a pound of Kirikiri butter. As far as she is aware, New Zealand is just that and nothing else. The New Zealander knows that there are differences. The British housewife is a very acute buyer. She may find that the butter branded with a certain unpronouncable Maori name is better than the butter branded with a certain other unpronounceable Maori name, but she has no earthly chance of telling the grocer which she desires, and no chance of remembering the name for future reference. Therefore the friend of the butter exporter would say to him in all kindness, "Don't confuse the British matron with names that frighten her. Be kind to her. Let her down gently. Give her names that are simple and easily remembered." Something pastoral is good. Field-flowers always appeal to the person who has never seen any growing, and something bovine is better than all, for even the London shopper has learned by now that butter lias something to do with cows. Just as we often hear that somebody's woolclip brought the top price in the Bradford market, so ought »ve bear that So-and-So's butter is more sought after than all others. We are perfectly certain that the best butter will be handicapped in the British market by a brand diflicult to pronounce and remember. The British housewife does not even know that "Taranaki" is not Red Indian for '•margarine," and she has not a hope of pronouncing even this simple word in a grocer's shop. Even the grocers are not Maori scholars.