CURRENT TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 220, 5 February 1913, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

HOSTAGES TO THE PUBLIC. The man who advertises gives hostages to the public, and proves that it is his intention to succeed by giving value, by living up to that which he has promised. There are, of course, fraudulent advertisers, although they are constantly becoming fewer. And they are becoming fewer, thanks to the power of advertising itself. For the advertising of honest men and of honest goods has made the work of deceitful advertising more and more difficult, less and less remunerative.

THE NORTHERN TERRITORY'. Writes an ex-New Plymouth resident, now in the Northern Territory, to a friend here: —"The bugbear of this country is always and percnially the 'white ant.' He is accused of digging down any and everything; and for feeding on .stuff like billiard balls and galvanised iron. Yet in Essington we found posts 'in the ground put there by the English soldiers of 1841, which have withstood 'a yearly lire and all the ravages of white ants, if there are any there. The ants have got down everything else there, and yet these posts, apparently the same stuff as is still growing there have escaped! Why, has yet to be discovered. Another bogey is that sheep cannot live through out wet season. Yet, at a small settler's place only 30 miles from the coast, we found but a few weeks ago a dozen or so of as healthylooking sheep as you would wish to see. They are progeny of one or two pets taken there five years ago. and there they are running about with goats apparently quite well and happy. Another will tell you that no river is safe from ciocodiles, and yet another that the croc, is much more frightened of man than man can be of him. So you see it is a country of paradoxes, and there has never been any sustained scientific endeavor to grapple with the various problems that are here. Only the Commonwealth, indeed, could be expected to stand up to the bill of costs to develop this country as it should lie. There has been some tine work, and some ghastly work and swindling, in the'past, and there are bound to be some costly mistakes in the future. That it is a country worth settling is absolutely certain. I think everything depends upon the 'bigness' of the efforts—immigration, defence, agriculture, etc., etc. It is no good bringing immigrants here in hundreds; it must be thousands, or you j will break the hearts of the few before vou get the many."

NATURAL KKSOVRCF.S OP THE TERRITORY. The correspondent con tinner:—"Min ing here is very proinising, but here again we arc suflVrinjr for the sins i.: (lie pasl. A goml mine has been fouiif'. It lias been duly Honied. Money-—tin-poor shareholders' money is poured out in 'opening' the mine. Then labor troubles begin. Chinese are taken in to

do the work at a price white. man won't. Returns diminish and diminish until Hio thing p«illrtj>si , <. and is generally bought by a few local man. who usually let the Ckincse scratch out what thev can on the 'tribute' principle. The 'Chow' naturally only piiffcf out what stuff he thinks will pay. and leaves the rest. The consequence, i- that the mining area is full of a lot of so-called mines thai have been poked here and there with as little regard for raining as a rabbit warren. Against that there are undoubtedly some rich deposits waiting for development here. We have land here equal to any in the world for productiveness. 1 have seen sugar cane 12ft bight on land that had never been ploughed since the bush was burnt off. But our needs are great, and the first need is people, and the sec'ind a railway. Only this year hundreds of cattle were dying and died of actual starva tion, whereas within 20i'i to 400 miles were acres and acres and miles and miles of country with feed simply wast- | ing."