TOPICAL READING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXVIII, Issue 7956, 3 February 1906, Page 4

TOPICAL READING.

Mr K. Takahashi, the special financial commissioner of Japan, before leaving England for Tokio, stated that his Government has established ( a new bureau in the department of finance for the control of a separate fund to pay the principal and interest of .the national debt. The department will be known as the Loan Cosrlidation Bureau, he informed Router's representative. Every year the Government will set aside £14,000,000 out of the revenue for the service of the national debt, and by the employment of this sum Mr Takahashi says all Japan's indebtedness will be extinguished in about thirty years. "The general policy of the Government for the moment," he said, "is one (of retrenchment. But at the same f .ime it will be necessary to continue a policy of preparedness, both from a naval and military standpoint. To make

oar alliance with Great 3ritiin effective we must be always prepared."

Writing from Durban to a prominent Wellington merchant, a gentleman connected with the meat industry in Now Zealand says:—"The meat business here has entered upon a new stage within the last month or six weeks. There has been moat excessive cutting going ou for some time in the various towns, and now the companies are pretty tired of the game. The Sansinnina Company, of Buenos Ayres, came into the field iu Capetown, and took up 100,009 ft of space from one of the cold storage works here. 1 think this frightened the existing companies; at any rate, they have made a sort of combination, and have leased all available storage in Durban and Johannesburg, and reckon that there is no possibility of outsiders coming in now to oppose them. The price of meat has been raised very considerably, as well as the price of ice. How the thing will work out 1 don't know, as none of the companies were doing much good lately."

Details have been arranged, writes the London correspondent of a North Island paper, of a scheme of motor transport for agricultural produce the object of which is to render the Essex farmers independent of railways and various middlemen, and enable them to oome into direct touch with retail buyers on the. London market. Collecting depots for the produce are to bo established at Chelmsford, Duumow, Braintree, and Ongar, the latter being made the main base. A big motor waggon will make a round of these places every morning, bringing the produce to Ongar, whence it will be swiftly conveyed by other motors to London. Tne sales will be made in a special market at Westminster and perhaps to some extent also iu the general markets. The experiment will be started with tne modest oapital of £20,000, which will be inoreased as soon as it gives signs of success.

A discovery that is likely to prove somewhat startling to householders has been made in connection with a local surgical case, says the Albury correspondent of the Sydney Daily Telegraph. Dr Kennedy lately had occasion to operate on a person in Albury for appendicitis, and be found that the trouble had been caused apparently by the taking into the system of a number of small nieces of enamel. The enamel was of a kind that is used extensively now for the lining of kitchen pots and pans. It is oommon experience that this enamel ohips, and the presumption h that in tho case under notice some of the pieces had passed into the patient's body with the food cooked in vessels lined in this way. The medical opinion is that the matter is of great publio importance, in view of the general use of enamelware in the kitchen.

The "Sheung Po" Chinese news paper contains g'owing accounts of the march of reform in China. It states that the various branches of the Reform Association are receiving numerous enquiries regarding the educational facilities of various countries. The Imperial Court of Pekin is also interesting itself in this direction, and has sent a special commissioner across to Japan for the purpose of selecting a number of Chinese young men, who have passed their examinatipns, for positions in the Chinese Civil Service, which is now assuming gigantic proportions, and is, as far as possible, being conducted on Western ideas. The Government has also made ar rangements for several hundred Chinese men to enter the Japanese navy, with the object of being thoroughly trained in naval matters.

Great results are expected from the process known as "soil culture" or "dry farming" on account of the success which has attended systematic experiment in some of the vast arid regions of the United States, where the average annual rainfall is from 12 to 24 inches, and irrigation is impossible. The method is to store water in the soil by deep ploughing, through pulverising and packing the soil at the bottom. For the last-named operation a speoiai implement, callea a "sub-soil packer," is used. Thus the rainfall is absorbed, and does not soak awayi To prevent evaporation, heavy summer culture is adopted, protecting the soil from the sun's rays. In Denver magnificent crops of grain are now under this system. A report on the subject has been prepared for the Victorian Department of Agriculture.

The Lyttelton Times, disoussiug probable - changes in the Cabinet, says that Mr Millar's claim for promotion is so obvious that it is tolerably safe to write of him as a certainty for Ministerial rank, bat whether his opportunity will oome in the near future is a question whioh only the Premier can arswer. Mr Millar's promotion would make it difficult for Mr Seddon, with the present clamour for provincial representation in the Cabinet, to select another colleague from Otago, but in Canterbury the only objection to Mr McNab would be found in his views on the land tenure question. The preference for the freehold, whioh is counted as a virtue in Mr Jennings by the "Raiders" in the north would be condemned as a political vice in the member for Mataura by the radicals in the south. .