CURRENT TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 292, 2 May 1913, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

UTILITY OF FORESTS. To the early New Zealander the timber resources of the country must hav.appeared immeasurable. In his timv and place he necessarily regarded the burning of the forest as an inevitable prelude to the cultivation of the land. The settler of, to-day has been taught to put a comparatively high value on standing timber, but at no time have our farmers as a class had any adequate appreciation of the indirect utility of forests. It is as popular an error to over-estimate the influence of trees on the fertility of the soil as it is to overestimate their influence on the rainfall. —Auckland Herald.

THE BIG DITCH. Mr. E. Foiuli Wright, a son of the late Mr. E. G. Wright, who was associated with his father in several important engineering works when the Canterbury railways were being constructed, writing from San Francisco last month to the editor of the Lyttelton Times, does not take an optimistic view of the ability of the American engineers to overcome the difficulties that are confronting them at the Culebra Cut in the Panama Canal. Perhaps a portion of his letter may be quoted without bringing down on his head the wrath which the American people reserve for those sceptics who venture to .suggest that the great waterway may not be open for traffic by the end of next year:—"Yok may remember that some four or five years ago I pointed out that this slide would become a very serious problem, and I do not see now how they are going to cope with it. Supposing the canal was completed and steamers going through, there is nothing to prevent a slide taking place at any time, and so traffic may be suspended for months or years, as these slides may take place faster than they can be cleaned out. The Culebra Cut is 45ft deep and the Chagres river is simply a mountain torrent, so that you can be sure it rises at least 50ft to the mile, and that the bed of the river one mile from the ditch is. in round numbers, 100 ft above the bottom of the cut. Now everyone knows that when you dig a ditcli the adjacent water drains into it, and when water can fall IflOft in one mile it is going to make things move. Further, from the start it lias been recognised that these hills were a moving mass and that they were not on solid rock. Then in the rainy season they have torrential rains, and as the river, say, three miles away, will be'2ooft at least above the ditch, and as water will invariably find the shortest way down, it appears to me as if these hills will always be coming down. It looks as if it would be about as practical to build a ditch across one of the shingle slides of one of your mountains as it will be to build one here."

[ OUR JACK TARS. f ' Whatever may have been lacking in the official reception of the battle-cruiser j New Zealand to Wellington, there was 110 lack of cordiality in the relations between the crew of the great vessel and the people of the capital city (remarks the Lyttelton Times). The bluejackets, ' particularly, made friends everywhere, and many stories are told of their warmhearted hospitality to the visitors to the ship. "We are all having a very good time with the New Zealand," a member of the civil service writes to a relative in Christchurch, "and though she keeps our offices open fourteen or fifteen hours a day, I shall be very sorry when she leaves us. It would do your heart good to see the children who arrive in Wellington each day by the thousand to see the vessel. The sailor% are real white men, and the trouble they take to see that the smallest and shyest of youngsters lias an enjoyable time is a lesson in gentlemanly courtesy to all ol us. I have seen a spick-and-span sailo; devoting the whole of his energies in getting a smear of paint off a little chap T s best pants, and another darning with the neatness and gentleness of a woman the whole of a very big 'Jacob's ladder in a tiny girl's stocking. . . At five o'clock all the visitors have to leave the ship, and then the men cheerfully spend the greater part of the evening in cleaning up and putting things straight for the next invasion of inquis; tive, rollicking boys and girls. Yes; the British sailor is a real gentleman."

MOSQUITO v. ELEPHANTS. A characteristic bit of Sydney Bulletinese: —Montenegro, the little public mosquito which is fighting a horse with one hand and defying the threatening rear attack of three elephants with the other, is the most interesting place in Europe just now. It is about oneseventh the size of Tasmania, yet it held its own, in a sort of way. against the Turk even when he was the terror of Europe, and owned most of Austria and all Southern Russia, and almost all Northern Africa, and was sending his gay armies into Italy with the threat that lie would knock the Pope's head against the wall of St. Peter's. It is So mountainous that enemies and vegetables fall off it and break their necks on the plains below. It is barren, and as poor as two beggars. For some centuries there wasn't a single road leading into it; roads were handy for invaders, and Montenegro couldn't afford to take chances. The first piano which ever reached this indomitable speck of rock was hauled up precipices by ropes, and carefuly investigated at the top of the precipice to make sure that no Turks were hidden inside it. The population

is—or was, till it was killed while trying to take Scutari with its teeth—about 250,000, or (i 4 to the square mile, .and the craving of the people for a fight is about 010 to the square inch, which is equal to CO knots an hour. A quaint, infuriated, honorable survival of the Middle Ages is Montenegro. It may be getting near its end now, for even the most lonesome and embittered rock can't hold out against modern science, but it has made a great spl.tsli in history for its size.

" FIXING " SUFFRAGETTES. ' A writer in the New York Times suggests that the militant suffragettes at Home should be punished for their crimes by the good old homely method of administering a thorough spanking. "In these cases," he says, ''the object of the punishment is not to effect a moral reform of the criminals, nor primarily to protect society by their segregation, but to deter them and others from following their evil course. . This prime object has been lost sight of hy those in authority. Rough handling by the police they glory in, lines are paid by friends, and imprisonment is nullified by hunger strikes. Obviously something of a, different character must be tried—something which shall strike terror and yet not involve an opportunity for martyrdom, nor inflict physical in jury nor stir up any large degree of sympathy. T feel sure that a spanking as practised in the home would fill all requirements." The advocate of spanking further declares that it is not probable that the task would have to be undertaken more than once in a single case. ''Besides." he concludes, "it would invoke the god of humor as an ally, and he is invincible. Convert tho Pankhurst movement into The Spankhurst, and it is strangled for ever."