CURRENT TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 290, 30 April 1913, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

OUR RAILWAYS.

For years our railways have been managed and controlled by intelligent and capable men, well-fitted by long experience to successfully handle them, but dominating all we And the Minister for Railways, a politician dependent on the strength of his party for his portfolio and on the electors for his seat. The result, inevitable and convincing, demands a change. Now comes the injustice. It can safely be asserted that there are in the railway service of the Dominion to-day at least a dozen men already well acquainted with our local conditions and qualified in every respect to fill this important post. But instead of selecting one of these, and giving hini a free hand, a stranger must be introduced and permitted to conduct the business according to his own ideas (or of the responsible officers of the service) and not, as during the last decade, according to the whim of an amateur railway manager in the person of the Minister for the time being. And why this stigma on New Zealanders and the railway officers in particular? The man in the service with any outstanding ability is already sufficiently handicapped by a classification, the main effect of which is to stifle his ambition; but to now be denied the opportunity of securing the greatest prize the service has to offer, will fill him with unspeakable disgust for a Ministry posing under the name of "'reform." —Tauranga Times.

THE OVERSEAS FORCES. When the Empire Parliamentary Association entertained the Hon. James Allen at lunch early last month, the gathering was afforded a few more glimpses of the policy which the Minister is developing on behalf of New Zealand. Colonel Seely, the Secretary for War, presided, and said that "he was disclosing no secrets when he stated that Mr. Allen, with the approval of his Government and of the people of the country, was making further arrangements, if the necessity arose and the interests of the Empire were at stake, for military co-operation between Britain and New Zealand to V more effective for the purposes for which it was desired." Mr. Allen, who received a very cordial reception when he rose to speak later on, said that "nothing would satisfy New Zealand except that she should do something towards the personnel and manning of British ships." Evidently the Minister has a very clear conception of what he thinks New Zealand wants.

AN IMPORTANT INVENTION. - It is announced that perfect communication by sound by means of linked cable and land telegraph lines between London and San Francisco is now possible. It. is claimed that this invention by Mr. John Gott, an Englishman, ends the search made for years by engineers and cable experts for an appliance which would carry the Morse dots and dashes for several thousand miles, and eliminate the prevailing method of receiving messages in the tinting of a pen on a strip of paper. How great an advance this represents in electrical communication can best be appreciated by the specialists, including Mr. T. A. Edison, who have tried in vain to accomplish this identical object. The instrument was first put into use last July, and until the formal announcement was made a month ago even the closest competitors knew nothing of it. The Commercial Cable Company officials assert that the invention surpasses in importance anything which has been added to the submarine service since Lord Kelvin and Cromwell Varley first made the operation of long ocean cables practical. The apparatus is operated with ordinary telegraph instruments. It links up cables or land lines, or. both, or alternate cables and land lines, and works them from any place of origin to any place of destination between distant parts of the world. Tho American press gives great prominence to the announcement of the invention, which, if the hopes of the Commercial Cable Company are fully realised, will make the cable service as flexible as the land service. . - "

RAILWAY EARNINGS. The Reform newspapers that were so loud in proclaiming what their party was going to do when it got control of the railways are now discreetly silent on the subject. They have good reason for holding their peace. The Massey Government has been in office now for nine months—the best nine months of the financial year—and its management of the lines has produced the most discouraging returns that have been recorded for nenr°ly a decade. There have been smaller earnings during that period, 'of course, but since 1905 the profits have been progressive.—Lyttelton Times.