CURRENT TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 201, 14 January 1913, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

IT DIDN'T PAY. "Advertising doesn't pay!" Thus exclaimed a local business man yesterday. The advertising' man looked at him and said: "Well. I ean tell you the reason il, doesn't pay you. It's because of the appearance of your shop window. Why. 1 noticed' spiders' webs over some of the articles and dust everywhere. And do you expect, to attract people by advertising when you don't back it up by k'.Hjino- your windows clean?" Then the band started to play, ami there was a berried exit. "A DANGEROUS SPOT." Writes Mr. Walter W. Jones, of -Mokau:-- The paragraph in your issue of the 10th instant, headed a "Dangerous Spot," in reference to the late drowning accident. U apt to be misleading. The place where the lads were bathing at the time was on the open beach, some hundreds of yards north of Hie Mokau River, and free from all currents other than are usually found on the beaches of the West Coast, The New Plymouth resident quoted by you must have been under a misapprehension as to where the accident occurred, as he and his companions could ■■■only have been on the river in their boat, and near the mouth at that, an exceedingly dangerous place when the tide is going out. TO THE MOKAU. v

Three motor cars made the trip to Mokau on Sunday.. Over forty cars have gone through this summer, as against only a dozen or so last summer. The visitor spent the day on the river, going as far as the miners in Messrs Jacob and t'o.'s line launch. The operators of the Kmpire Film Company were of the party and took views of the, gorgeous bush scenery, for which the river is famous. These, together with views of other scenic spots, will be shown locally, and subsequently through the Dominion, Australia, America and Europe. The condition of the road to Mokau is just now very fair for motoring, but something should be done to the past between Uruti and Tongaporutu to make it available for traffic in wet as well as in line weather.

THE STAFF OF LIFE. At the present time bread is cheaper in Wellington than in several other centres in New Zealand. Although Wellington master bakers have to pay 10s more per ton for (lour than do the bakers at Dunedin, the price* 1 for a 21b loaf in that city is 4d. as compared with 3%d in. Wellington. In Auckland the 21b loaf is being sold for 4d, and the price hatve been raised at, Wanganui from 3V»d to 4d. The reason for the rise is not only that flour is at present .:£!) 10s per ion delivered in Wellington, but that the* cost of labor has increased all round. Tt js said that the reason why the price has" Jiot been raised in Wellington is on account of the automatic bakery, which is going to dispense with a good deal of labor, and give better bread at a cheaper rate to the publia. Tit iNtw Plymouth the 21b loaf is retailed at 3%d casli and 4d booked, so that' compared with most oilier j}km we Iwy': ; little to growl «J?out, ■■;'■■..' - ..

ADVERTISING NEW PLYMOUTH. Evidence is not wanting from several sources that much of the seed of. tfio advertising sown bv the New P'Vmoiith Expansion and Tourist , eWe Ins "fallen upon good % gr^ nd » /Numerous enquiries by letter * iave been re ceived by the secretary (Mr _ A Humphries) re&ftrcJinß,T'fri scenic resources touched up- °"' h }-\,w. handy little folders issued by : . League, and as to the accommodation available. There have also been a large number of callers from afar at the office of the League in Brougham street, and the secretary haw been aide to supply them with much information concerning routes and the like. In commending the work of the League, many tourists have remarked that it is a pity thatNew Plymouth has hidden its light under a ■bushel for so many years. "Once get outsiders here." commented one <etltlmsiast to a News reporter, " and the manifold charms of your district will speak for themselves. 'They will need no further advertising." Such glowing opinions should hearten the League in its efforts, and induce those townsfolk, who have not already done so, to back it in a practical manner.

MACHINE POLITICS. The Unionist Party has held a groat conference in London, and there is reason to fear that it is modelling itself to some extent upon American lines (writes a correspondent of the Sydney Sun). The elai]iic, or, rather, the art of the clui]iie, has been stolen by the party, and the extreme earnestness and ardent Imperialism of the conference was displayed by a hurricane of cheering, which was laboriously sustained "for 5 quarter of an hour, after each of its leaders had spoken. The Roosevelt and Wilson demonstration may, therefore, soon be reproduced in this country. Politic? are villi on much more organised lines than in the Commonwealth. Almost every one of the delegates was a paid agent of the central organisation. At the head of this ]$ a permanent director, who receives about £2OOO a year. Associated with him are several others who receive £101)0 a year, and so the scale descends until the agent in charge of an electorate is paid £-250 a year. The subscriptions to the Unionist's' funds for the last genera! election totalled £150,000, and" these were exclusive of £34,000 of annual subscriptions, A levy was made upon the peerage, upon the rich, and upon the middle classes. The response made by the peerage is best shown in a table:

-• ' Asked Gave Dukes 23 20 Marquises 26 20 Earls , 153 103 Viscounts ; . : 44 26 Barons ±2l 134 As a Radical paper lnmioroiisly remarked, "There were 100 'wrong-'uns,' from the collector's point of view." BLOODSHED AND BJOGRAPHS. One of the most grimly satirical item s of news from the Balkan war has been the protest of the Bulgarians; against the ibiograph operators (says a contemporary). They complain bitterly that, while they were engaged in a life-and-death struggle, full of passion and agony, the hiograph man followed them round, turning them into pictures for, the curiosity of people in countries far away. It is not the anger of the Bulgarians against the picture-hunters that is most striking in this complaint. The film chaser (to continue the search for a word which is badly needed in the language) can hardly be blamed by any newspaper which tries to provide it* readers with news. When the bio.-man goes to a war he is a news-getter, with the business of ascertaining and purveying the, facts which he can discover. He is in exactly the same position a-. the special correspondent of any newspaper, small or great, and a war-picture is not in itself cruel and unsympathetic, any more than a war story -by a Russell, a Burleigh, a Macdonahl, or a Donohne, But the use of the 'biograph in the field, of war, .with the resentment of the .sufferers against it, 'brings strikingly into the light the wickedly theatrical nature of war between two .modern civilised Powers. Because politicians 1 are incompetent or ambitious, and because Europe

» too much weakened bv purposeless jealousies to he a policeman over the wilder M(ions uitl,i t , her boundaries men go out lo butcher and be butchered and .so provide a thrilling evenings show tor n sixpenny public, all over the world, ino set rules of modern warfare, which turn two nations at death-rips j llto a spectacle lor all the rest, are an amazing paradox.

IVAXfJAXITS llAllliOU. Wanga.nii has been working for vcars oh its river harbor with a view to "makingit available f<u- Home lines and with .consnlcrablciueasure of success. |„ ;."';' th <; «l''l"li "t.the. bar at average jiigb water spring tides was 1] feet It to now 2o feet. The Harbor Hoard is at a depth of 24 feet at low tides :U1 " .\" s '','" n ' ll is "tending moles a' i;:; HS " ;■.'■»»''«■ into the ocean. U,r ))«»P«m" l>«-o|)le. deserve the success that their enterprise, courage, and persistence warrant.

DISAPPKARAXCKS.

Veil upon newspapers are forming the 1 : ' l '' 1 »» »»'k''iK- terrible stories aim,,!. \ n T\ (I, :;:'i , i"' ;!l ' l nvriies |.v„ nk Morton). Ihe other dav we had a wild Htory (~,„„ |. ( . (om . <„„•,.„„• u .."■m who chased a burglar and'can,; back no more. Lint two davs later id,, young man came back, and if was plain that whatever he had d.nscd was ~'ot a burglar. Then wn have an equal]v preposterous yarn about the "strange disappearance" of a girl at Ouehunga. with a unit that the young woman '«,< not quite in her right mind. Just below the message is another to sav that the <drl lias turned up at Mart on, where she had ■gone—doubtless to mind her own business. In view of the second message, the first should never have been published If a girl cannot take {rain without first warning whoever may be in the boardim'hotise where she stops there is even -lew liberty in the Dominion than I hail thought.

KIWIS. Permission (d i-;i]>turi> ;i <-oi!],!c of kiwi." and send them to an institution :it Chicago, U.S.A.. is sought by fl , Clarion resident, formerly a schoolmaster in the United States. ITw request was advanced in a letter which came before tin? Wolhngton Acclimatisation Society recently. Tlw society referred the' applicant to I lie Minister for Internal Affairs. The exportation of the kiwi, which Crows rarer year by year, i* not readilv permitted by the authorities. Xot lono- a g o a person who had obtained a number of kiwis, at a cost of £SO, was successful in conveying them as far as Sydney, but there the birds were seized, on the ground that no permit had been obtained for their exportation. Mr. AY. AY. Smith, tlie curator of the local Pu-Icp-knra ■Park, lus succeeded in breeding and rearing kiwis. He is the only person so ; far that has succeeded in doing so, At present lie lias a fairly large colony of these extraordinary birds, nearly all of which, however, are gifts from settlers in the back districts.' They seem to thrive, too. Mr. Smitli possesses a strange power over the kiwis, which ap- j pear to know hint and entertain a form of regard for him. * "