CURRENT TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 297, 8 May 1913, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

THE "SLIM" BULGARS. A remarkable fact in connection with the Bulgarian.! i campaign is reevaled by Mr. Frederick Palmer, a well-known war correspondent. Mr. Palmer says that Adrianople was not invested until a month after the battle of Lulah Burgas, and was drawing supplies from a large area of farming country at the time when its garrison was reported to be starving. The Bulgarians were able to conceal the truth by means of their complete control of the news service. "When the armistice was signed," states Mr. Palmer, "Adrianople still had pasturage within the lines of defence for ilocks of sheep and herds of cattle. The problem for the Bulgars was to keep thi3 fact masked, to check the savage sorties and to spare all the guns and men they could for the main army." The real siege of Adrianople began when the Turks had been penned behind the lines of Tchataldja, some weeks after the world had been told that the garrison of the town was hard pressed and in desperate straits. The Bulgarian generals subordinated the news service completely to strategical considerations. MILITARISM RUN MAD. Thus the Napier Telegraph:—"There are grounds for fearing that unless the Government promptly alters its tactics, it will raise such opposition to even the Territorial defence provisions of the Act as to make it impossible of administration and perhaps bring about its repeal. The original framers of the Act contemplated interfering as little as possible with the ordinary rights of the country's young men. As tilings are going now, one might be tempted to ask whether the Government is really in earnest in seeking to maintain an efficient Territorial force, or is trying to wreck the Act by creating universal disgust in connection with its administration. As an example, we may ask what reasonable people will think of ordering out a company for twenty-two compulsory parades in the present month of May? That is what is being done in regard to the F Battery of Artillery. Compulsory parades are ordered for every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday this month. It is not to be suggested,.with any show of sense that an expected international ouk break calls for such 'zeal-run-mad' as this. If that were the case the Government would have to consider not only calling twenty-two parades in one month for Territorials, but putting into force the law which permits the_ Government to enrol a militia consisting of practically every able-bodied man in the country. "But, of course, nobody is likely to suggest that.the calling of twenty-two parades in May is .prompted bv affairs abroad. The result is more likely to be due to a form of wooden unintelligence. If necessity did prompt such a step, we should not be finding fault with it. We should be, on the contrary, urging the requisite step-) for nutting the Militia" Act in force. But it is rather like farce to suggest any such crisis as near. • The more moderate and the more sensible is to claim that official ineptitude is at the bottom of such an incongruity as an order for twenty-two parades in thirty-one days." THE COMMAND OF THE SEA. Not a boy or girl who treads wonderingly the hospitable decks of the Dreadnought that bears their country's name and was bought by their parents' money would know the, life that is theirs and the happiness that is theirs were it not for the sailors who have fought and died to make the sea-roads free. In Drake's time, the Spaniard arrogated to himself the right to sail and trade; in 'Blake's time the Moor enslaved all Christians caught at sea; before Nelson it was still doubtful whether the British would inherit and possess the far corners of the earth. While Britain lived securely, guarded by her seamen, the oversea Britains grew. The colonising' of New Zealand would have been absolutely impossible had not the Imperial naval power been strong enough to maintain the free passage of the oceans won by sailors in past centuries; our possession of the Dominion would be short were it not for the great Imperial battleships of which the gift Dreadnought is a type. These historical and political truths can be, and should be, impressed upon every New Zealand child; for onlv by understanding our debt to the British i'Navy and our duty to the Empire can they become intelligent and loyal citizens of a Dominion which owes not merely its freedom and its liberties but its very existence to the Navy and to the Mother Country—Auckland Herald. MINERALS IN ANTARCTICA. Traces of at least three metals of "economic value" have been discovered by the Mawson Expedition in Antarctica. The details are beins set out with almost as much particularity as if tl|e report were being drawn up by the promoters of a "no liability" mining company. Pebbles of the glacial moraine were found, coated with green and blue carbonates of copper. Small seams of antimony sulphide, commonly called stibnite, were found in a loose block of quartz in the same moraine. But what is described as the most interesting discovery of all was that of numerous small "plaques" of molybdenite, under conditions which joint to a more'abundant supply in the vicinity. Molybdenite, which is used in the manufacture of the highest qualities of steel, is one of the comparatively rare minerals, and is worth over £2OO per ton. It is also affirmed that the existence of coal has been demonstrated, and this,, of course, tends to relieve anv anxiety that may be felt as to the ultimate exhaustion of tho coal measures of Australia. But so far the magic yellow metal does not appear to have been found in payable quantities. Tt was easy to.get up a rush to Alaska and the Yukon, countries which are almost as inhospitable as Antarctica. But "the stuff" was there, in a portable and easily recoverable form. As for the "economic" metals, what better prospects chuld be wished than those which are offered in Australia's Northern Territory. But there is no rush to exploit them. Still less likely does it seem that there will be any general movement to the icy South, "Economic"'

value means that, generally speaking, a atari will earn all he gets. He can do that under more genial conditions. Why, then, should he go to the frostbitten South! £6350 FOR LOVE LETTERS. It is reported that the love letters of Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning were sold by auction in London the other day for £6550. The announcement that the letters were to be sold by auction by the legal representative of their son, the late Mr. Robert Wiedemann Barrett Browning, has created a great deal of controversy in England lately. It brought down a heavy storm of invectives upon the seller, who was alleged to be guilty of ''infamy" and of "a gross violation of the primary decencies of life," and much more to the same effect. Many people considered it to he utterly detestable that any man's love letters to his wife should be sold by public auction after his death, and that they should be purchased to adorn the collection of some cold-blooded connoisseur in literary curiosities. The objectors belabored the legal representative of the deceased son of the gifted poet and poetess with much fury and persistence in the columns of the Times, till at last the long-suffering legal gentleman made his reply. He pointed out that the love letters were published in book form by instructions of the son of the gifted pair many years ago, the son stating that his father had authorised publication of them after he was dead. In the second place, the son had died intestate and very considerably in debt, so that it was urged it was Incumbent on his legal personal representative to realise the assets in the estate to the best advantage in order tosatisy the claims of creditors. Robert Browning died in 1889 and his wife in 1861.