GENERAL NEWS.

Taranaki Daily News, 16 July 1919, Page 7

GENERAL NEWS.

Speaking of-"peace at any price," the Rev. P. Knight said, in ,the course of his peace sermon at Cbristchurch (reports the Press): "This is the attitude of the pacifist, who stands on the principle,that the exercise of force, even in the establishment of a good cause, is essentially wrong." The answer was: "The use of force is neither right nor wrong in itself, bu,t becomes right or wrong according to the cause to which it is put. It is justifiable to use might in the defence and vindication of right, but not in substitution for it. . . . The pacifists' fallacy is to think that right can be done without a vindicator, or justice be done without someone to enforce it. We shall never establish the reign of justice, honor, and good faith unless we are prepared to insist tha.t those who endanger such good relations by their actions or ambitions shall behave themselves and fall into line with the rest of ,the world. This is the justification of the establishment of the League of Nations for ,the enforcement of international peace."

Auckland seems to have fallen a victim to the fox-trotting craze very badly, and one hears of fox-trotting parties and dances being given in many directions. Undoubtedly the swing of the pendulum from the strain and stress of war time is carrying people far in the direction of anything that promises gaiety and movement, and among the keenest devotees of the new craze are soldiers and F,ailoi'B, some even outvying the girls themselves in their enthusiasm for fox-trotting and two-s.tepping. At "Cargen" (Auckland) it might almost be said that everybody lives for the evening, when fox'-trot.ting begins every nigh,t after dinner, even before it is over. The moment the orchestra, which has been playing all dinner, time, changes into the fox-trot K-K-K-Katie, Beautiful Katie" first two and .then another two steal away to the further end of the dining room, where dances are held, and, regardless of dessert, coffee, or anything else, give themselves up to the extraordinary fascination of the music and dance, till in a little while practically the whole roomful is fox-trotting. Girls in their pretty, fresh dinner frocks, naval ar.d military officers, civilian men of all ages—all arc swept into the throng. The fox-trot, the modern version of the enchantment of the Pied Piper, reigns supreme.

Colonel Robert Bole Morrow, a veteran of the Indian mutiny, died last week at Auckland, at the age of 82. Colonel Morrow was born in the County of Longford, Ireland, in September, 1836. He joined the Westmeath Rifles, militia, as ensign, in 1854, and was subsequently transferred to H.M. 46th Regiment of the Line. The headquarters of this regiment was drafted to the Crimea in the same year, the" regimental reserve in which Colonel Morrow was serving, being sent to the island of Corfu, in the Mediterranean. After the Crimean war Colonel Morrow accompanied the regiment as instructor of musketry, to take part in repressing the mutiny in India, in which he was wounded. He also served with the 2nd. Ghoorkaa in the frontier war against the Mil tribes, for which he received the mutiny and frontier medals. He next served on tho staff of the late General Sir Bohert Garrett at Simla, and was afterward!) temporarily employed on the staff of the then Viceroy, the late Earl of Mayo. Being a marksman of considerable repute, he accounted for. among other big game, 64 tigers, and by request of the Viceroy, arranged the training of eleelephant*, 104 in number, for the big game shooting on the occasion of the visit to India of the late Duke of Edinburgh. The duke had the good fortune to bag several tigers. After a service of 19 years in India, Colonel Morrow came to New Zealand in 1887, and had resided in Auckland ever since.

The housing problem in certain parts of England is quite as acute as in any part of the world. In view of t'no agitation in New Zealand for more and more houses, a few particulars concerning Bethnal Green should be of interest. There are houses standing there and in occupation that wer* condemned as far hack as 1854, under the old Metropolitan Board of Works. One of the ironies of clearance of a big area of mean streets is that worse overcrowding and higher rents will follow upon its - borders. Tfie activties in Bethnal Green of the devoted men of the London City Mission are greatly appreciated by the inhabitants of this slum area. These men come and go in the tenements, and are always welcomed for their kindly advice and assistance, where others world be regarded as interlopers. The houses, if they can be called such, follow one another in a monotonous sequence of squalor, though in many of the homes Hie cleanliness and pathetic efforts at decoration reveal aspirations towards a "real home." There are great expectations as a result of Queen Mary's recent visit to the Bethnal Green area, during which Her Majesty mado a comprehensive tour of inspection. New Zealand is not the only country in which there is a demand for land There is quite as groat, if not a greater, demand in England and Scotland; jind at the same time there is just as keen a desire there on the part c f the present holders to sell as is manifest in New Zealand. The popular cry at Home iB for small holdings, and the reason for this is twofold. One the one hand there is a desire to obtain small farms by those who wish to start farming on their cwn account, and ou the* other hand men who have farms on which hired labor is required fre going in for smaller places in order to be more fr« of the labor problem. This latter feu* ture of the land question is becoming prominent in the United States. Farmers there are selling oil! their land, owing to the labor difficulties, except 80 acres or so, which they can work themselves With the help of their families. The extension of trades unionism into agriculture is becoming stronger in the United Kingdom, and unless, it is pointed out, the system of profit sharing in some form or other is practised giving the worktr a direct interest in the returns from the farm, the day of the large farmer is doomed, and small farms seem to be the ultimate alternative. At the same time most favmers would resent the idea of their returns from the farm becoming the common property of their workers. The tendency, therefore, is in the direction of small holdings, on which the hours of work would be regulated by the weather, and the necessities of the time, and not by hard and fast rules laid down by Wages Boards and Trades Unions.