TOPICAL READING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXVIII, Issue 7951, 29 January 1906, Page 4

TOPICAL READING.

The Westminster Gazette, referring to the result of the New Zealand elections, says:—"The Right lion. Riohard John Seddon, Premier of New Zealand, who has once more been confirmed in power by an enormous majority of electors, has had a' career that is parallel to Mr Chamberlain's in several respects. Like the latter, Mr Seddon went from trade into municipal politics, developed into a Mayor, made that office a stepping-stone to a seat in Pailia ment, in a few years was a Minister of the Crown, and—there the parallel ends for the present. Mr Chamberlain is not yet Prime Minister." In the exoitement following the announcement that the United States would out the Panama Canal, the fact that Mexico was building a railroad to connect the Pacific with the Gulf of Mexico was forgotten. And now that excitement has quite subsided, comes an announcement that the Tebuantepec National Railway is oompleted. Piers for the harbour terminals at Sarlina Cruz and Coatzaooaloos, where great oaean freighters will load and unload, have not yet been completed. The great cask has been finished, however, and all Mexico is rejoicing. The road is only 180 miles long, and ther,e seems no reasou to question that the desire of, Mexico to work up an enormous freight tiaffio long before the Panama Canal has been out through' will be gratified. Steps are being taken, says the Sydney Daily Telegraph, by the Resident Commissioner at the Gilbert -aad—JElJoa—jQrouPjdn -thaPaoiflo, to stook the ijlands with raobits. The Commissioner, Mr W. Telfer Campbell, has aDproached the State Lands Department, with a view to relieving New South Wales of a few of the nimble little quadrupeds that constitute such a pest there. The Gilbert Group is situated nearly 3000 miles from Sydney in a north-easterly direotion, and not far from the Equator, and the coooanut thrives there. One of the drawbacks of life there is the ab-/ sence *of a good fresh meat supply, and the feound rabbit is no doubt wanted to euppjy the need. If the bunnies transported from New South Wales live on the islands—and Australian experiences show that the hot weather does not prevent their numbers from multiplying—there should always be plenty of material for a dainty meal, the flesh of rabbit being undoubtedly a delicacy. A recent cable stated (that the first shipment had been made. The wealth prodaoed on the farms of the United States in 1905 reaohed the highest amount ever attained, writes the Melbourne Age's JjSan Francisco correspondent, in this or any other country, (£1,283,000,000) according to the annual report of. Secretary of Agriculture Wilson. Besides the enormous production of wealth he estimates that the farms of the country have increased in value during the past five years an aggregate of £1,220,000,000. Futting that statement in another form, he says:—"Every sunset during the past five years has registered an increase of 3,400,000d01. in the value of the farms of the country." Other statements in the report bring out very forcibly the beneficent relation existing between agriculture and the proteoted manufacturing interests.. He shows that industries utilising agricultural products as materials produce 36.3 per cent, of all manu faotured products turned out in the country, and use 42 per cent, of all material employed in manufacturing. These figures are convincing evidence of the real benefits which the farmers derive from the conditions prod uoed by nrpsperity amongst the manufacturers caused by protection. A laugh of incredulity was raised by many two years back when certain marks on a block of sandstone found near Warrnambool, a flourishing minor port of the State of Victoria, were identified as the footprints of a prehistoric man. However, the sending of a plastei oast of the block to Germany excited keen discussion, and led to the arrival in Australia last year of Dr Hermann Kiaatsch, of Heidelberg University, and to the an-

nounoement by that savant recently that, in his opinion, the marks ware genuine hi] man footprints. This decision, ooupled with tbe doctor's investigations concerning tbe human skulls in»the Warrnambool.Museum, revived the old notion that in Australia will be found the tracps of the very closest approximations of the ape-man, the link, according to many scientists, between humanity and the ape. Further discoveries by Dr Klnptsoh in the way of footprints iu sandstone of soaie sort of groat bird analogous to the emu species have added fuel to tbe speculations. A telegram from Warruambool published in the Australian press, sates that Dr Klaatsoh considers that an exteosive* sandatoue formation under that town thousands of years ago formed level, sandy beaches, which were the camping ground of the ore-historic races then existing. Ac that time Australia and Tasmania formed part of a great Antarctic continent, which extended up into Indian Asia and Africa.