CURRENT TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 299, 10 May 1913, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

LAND AGGREGATION. Apparently nothing short of imprisonment will suppress the desire of human nature to possess a "bit of land," and some people want more than one "bit," and go on adding block to block. There is not a great deal of this, but what there is the law is supposed to have made provision to meet. Whatever the law may have done the aggregation settler has undone. He has climbed over the stone wall with all its agglomeration of broken bottles on the top; but it is not true to say that the stone wall has only been surmounted during the last six months. The climbing has been going on for years, and has been spoken of in the House and out of it.—Oamaru Times.

THE WAR CORRESPONDENT. "The day of the war correspondent has passed," says Mr. Frederick Palmer. "No modern general can afford to allow correspondents to see what he is doing, and so the story of the battles must go untold except for tha official despatches." A generation or so ago things were very different. During Hie period of the French Commune in 1871. Archibald Forbes, one of the greatest of the famous war correspondents, represented the. London Daily News in Paris. One morning the Versailles troops were fighting their way into the city through the barricades of the Communards. Forbes crossed a side street, and found himself, to his dismay, hehind one of the untaken barricades. He was detained hy the Communard officer, and ordered into the firing line. In vain

he explained his profession, and protested his nationality. A chassepot was pushed into his hand, but he refused to use it. He was then ordered to bo shot. At that instant the regular troops carried the barricade. The officer in charge saw Forbes with the chassepot still in his hand, and he was once more ordered to be shot, this time as a combatant. The much-bewildered Forbes again protested, and after deliberation the officer asked to see his hands, as a chassepot always threw back a spit of black powder after every shot. Forbes' hands were clean, and he was set free. If he had fired one shot to save his life on the first occasion, he would have been a dead man a few minutes later.

THE WONDER OF THE AGE. Little England, one of the smallest spots on the map, yet the most important country in the whole world, continues to make nations marvel that she can invite all rivals to come right into her own markets—and thrive on such free trading. The latest return from the British Board of Trade shows some wonderful figures, even though it demonstrates that Great Britain has not benefited to the same extent in the world\v <le trade boom as some of her rivals. The following table shows the increase of the exports of Great Britain, Germany, the United States and France from 1911 to 1912: ?',■:*; Great Britain £33,315,000 Germanv ....: 38,474,000 United States 63,492,000 France '. 22,380,000 Although the figures of France are » nailer than those of Great Britain, the. proportionate increase is much greater because the total volume of French, exports is only about half that of Great Britain. Great Britain is the only one of the four countries that still adheres to free-trade.

THE KING COUNTRY. "The outlook for the King Country, both from the point of view of the settler and from the point of view of the Dominion, is, in my opinion, particularly «;ood," states the Prime Minister. "There is no doubt that the settlers have had to contend with very serious 'hardships, but generally they have applied themselves energetically and persistently to the work of breaking in the new country, and I am quite confident that a satisfactory reward will be the result of'their energy and perseverance. There are still the difficulties of native land and unsatisfactory tenure to be overcome, but I think that by the careful administration of legislative remedies they will rapidly disappear. It would be too much to say that there is no inferior land in the King Country, for there is much broken country, but the average quality of the land is high, and it is safe to predict that in years to come the King Country will be one of the most populous and one of the most important wealth-producing districts in New Zealand."

RAILWAY IMPROVEMENTS. A correspondent in the Manawatu Standard throws out several suggestions by giving effect to which railway travelling could be made more pleasant and a railway journey in, New Zealand made less a thing to dread than it is. The writer points out that on express trains and especially the Main Trunk express, passengers getting in at wayside stations frequently experience a difficulty in finding seats. . Travellers from the terminus have, as a rule, taken all the best seats and monopolised the others with their luggage or for sleeping purposes. On long-distance journeys, at least, there should be plenty of carriage, and it should be the duty of the guard to see that travellers do not occupy so many seats with luggage that passengers joining the train later are inconvenienced. The correspondent touches upon another disturbing feature of railway travelling—the frequency with which tickets are examined. Seven times between Auckland and Palmerston, and four or five times between Palmerston and Wellington, tickets have to be produced. Surely an alteration could be made in this direction?, On Australian and English railways it is possible to travel hundreds of miles without the necessity of continually having the tickets checked. This is done prior to the train starting and by the stationmasters en route in the case of passengers joining or leaving the train between the termini. We agree with our contemporary that it should not be hard to deviso some similar method in New Zealand and so remove a practice that is irritating to all travellers and amusing to visitors from other countries where they are more used to having their comfort and convenience consulted. In manywwars3 r s there is room for small improvements that would be greatly appreciated by the travelling public, and the new ideas and experience that will shortly be added to the administrative branch of the Department should result in changed conditions more in accordance with the railway development of modern times. With the advent of its new chief the Department has the opportunity of getting out of the rut into which it appears to have been travelling, and the most should be made of the chance of forsaking old and obsolete methods.