CURRENT TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 97, 14 October 1911, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

A LATE REPENTANCE. Mr. (leorge Fowlds. who resigned his seat in the Ministry because his eonscience bade him do so, is certainly an enigma. He has blamed the press for doubling his unselfishness. At least one section of the press suggested that Mr. Fowlds had held the views he now expresses during the whole time of his service as a Minister, and that his conscience tool; many years to awake to the fact that he was drawing a particularly handsome salary for keeping his own thoughts unuttercd and his ideas in curb. Mr. Fowlds may regard himself as a convert who has at last seen the error of his ways, 'but at least he has given no practical demonstration, and has been not wholly kind to the comrades with whom he apparently agreed while agreement wits necessary to his position as a Minister. We believe that Mr. Fowlds believes himself to have a very special mission, but we believe that having this mission antagonistic from many points to the Ministry he worked in so well he, should never have consented to sink his own personal views to suit political requirements. In his valiant desire to eliminate human selfishness which, to put it plainly, is to get as much out of one's fellow as possible, Mr. Fowlds may be quite justified. He would have no time, or the necessary means' to carry on a single-tax crusade if he. had not possessed a perfectly justified sense of acquisitiveness. He has been a very successful 'business man. Although presumably he has no broad acres whereon the tax he fights for can be levied, be is not without line monetary interests. ' If Mr. Fowlds is able to prove that he welcomes any means the State may take fdr rendering hiim personally poorer, he may claim to be as unselfish as he suggests in his fervid utterances and apologies. We believe that Mr. Fowlds is quite in earnest in his desire to make man as unselfish ai himself, but that he over-estimates his own power and under-estimates the size of the task he has set himself. Also, it is because Mr. Fowlds has gained pre minence as a Minister of the Grown that he is able to claim a hearing on subjects foreign to tihe professed political beliefs of his late colleagues. While we do not suggest that he lacks earnestness or conviction, we do suggest that his repentance is a very late one.

BRITAIN'S COAL. The controversy with regard to the length of life of the British coalfields began in 1803, when Professor Jevons announced that the amount of coal "in sight" was 83.000,000,000 tons, and that the supply would be exhausted in 1970. Other scientific men disputed this conelusion at once, and a discussion extending over nearly half a century has left the question still unsettled. At tlic present time, Sir William Ramsay, who believes that Britain has urgent need to conserve her coal, is engaged in debating the question with the president of the. Association of Mining Engineers, a high authority who thinks that the fields will meet the. needs of the nation for six centuries to come. Some ten years ago a Royal Commission was instructed to prepare a report for the Imperial Parliament upon the coal supplies of the United Kingdom, and this body evolved estimates, published in 1005, showing that there were 100,914,000,000 tons of coal available for use within the proved coalfields and probably at least 39,483,000,000 tons in areas that had not been fully prospected. In addition some 0,000.000.000 tons of the mineral lay at inconvenient depths or under the sea close to the coast, Britain's output of coal in 1009 was 203,000,000 tons, and at this rate of consumption the supply known to exist in 1905 in easily accessible positions would suffice for more than 500 years. During the last, five years the discovery of new fields has improved the position materially. The direction in which the scientific men should turn their efforts was indicated very clearly by the Commission. An annual saving of from 40.000,000 tons to 60,000.000 tons could be effected, the experts urged, by simple economies and by the erection of central power stations in manufacturing districts Sir William Ramsay has been unceasing in his efforts' to promote industrial co-operation along these lines.