TOPICAL READING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXVIII, Issue 7985, 14 March 1906, Page 4

TOPICAL READING.

Noticing tbe latest issue of the "New Zealand Official Year Book" the "British Australasian" has the following remarks on the .vioes of the people:—"The year-boon: naturally throws some light upon the vices of the people. The number of convictions fot drunkenness is exceedingly small, amounting to only 10.70 per 1,000 in the whole population. This compares very favourably with Australia, where the average is something like 15 per 1,000; and Australia in its turn compares very favourably with older countries. It is pleasing to learn that among the New Zealand-born population of European descent there is evidence of leas drunkenness than among persona who have gone to the colony from abroad. Gambling, however, is terribly on the inore«s«, if one may judge from the figures published with regard to the totalisator. In 1895 the total amount passing through tbe miohine was not more than £700,000, ten years later £1,437,431 passed through the betting machine, without auy increase in the number of race meetings held. There is probably no country in the world where one is able to gauge so accurately the amount of gambliug on horse-racing which takes place in the course of a year. The figures, however, are rather depressing, and t point to a very real danger in New Zealand."

That the Maori Land Settlement Act of last session is likely to facilitate settlement of the Native lands of this district, says the Poverty Bay Herald, is evidenced by the large number of Native leases which have been prepared in Gisborne, and are waiting the approval of the Board. It is, the Herald understands, the same in Hawke's Bay, and in other parts of the colony, where sheafs of deeds entered into between Maoris and Europeans are ready to be given the force uf law. The Act is simplicity itself, and where the negotiations have been bona fide, and a fair rental, equal to 5 per cent, on the Valuation Department's value of the properties, is assured the Native owners, there is nothingto prevent the accomplishment of J settlement by Europeans upon leases satisfactory to themselves and to the iNatives. That the system is satisfactory is shown by the eagerness with which land is being snaDped up in all directions under the clauses of the new Act. The Herald oomplains of the delay in appointing the Board for the Uisborne district.

A special military commission is sitting in Berlin, considering tne best means of making cavalry as invisible as possible in warfare. The commission is discussing the advisability of dyeing the horses or screening them with light canvas trappings. An Express reniesentative who made inquiries at the British War Office was told that, several experiments had bean made in this direction during the war in South Africa. One official said: "Alany horses Were dyed, but it was found that the dye souu washed off all except grey horses. Several vegetable dyes and Condy's Fluid, diluted, were used, but the experiments proved of little value. Canvas trappings make the horses perspire and impede their movements,' and besides, when the sun is behind the oavalry the horses' legs can be seen through the canvas. The best soreen for cavalry, used in South Africa, was a combination of various heather-like shrubs, pioked up on the veldt. These plants were in many cases strung upwards and downwards from the trappings, and gave the appearanoe, when oavalry were moving slowly across the skylline, of waving vegetation."

Large available pastures and extensive ranges,' says an American expert, mean nothing in faoe of the inexorable fact that the world's annual consumption of live stock is greater than the yearly increase of its flocks and herds. This relentlesg hunger of mankind gives no chance for an increase of live stock. In the meantime, the population of the human race Is etill further increasing and widening the gap between stock and people, in spite uf the propagation theories and efforts to replenish the loss. Even now Asia and Afrioa kill fully 40,000,000 goats annually, and the pcorer classes of some civilised countries supplement the supply of meat by the slaughter of dog a , horses, asses, aud feline. Tbe supply of hogs and sheep can be increased more rapidly than that of cattle, and high prices for besf will naturally stimulate the production and consumption of pork and mutton, and exercise a regulative influence on the price of beef.

Speaking as a member of a deputation to the Queensland Government on the subject of infant life protection, Dr. Turner declared that "in hia opinion it would be no exaggeration to say that over 50 per cent, of bottle-fed babies died during the summer months in Brisbane." Coming as it does from a recognised specialist, this is a profoundly serious statement. In 19' years up to 1902 inclusive, there were 345,096 deaths of children under five years of age in Australia and New Zealand; of these no less than 303,070 were of infants, placing in that category children under two years of age, and "probably 150,000 of these deaths could have been prevented." Tbe baby, as a politician said recently, is our best immigrant. While every young people needs an infusion of foreign blood, the first law of Nature demands the progressive inorease of tbe native stock. If we aocept Dr. Muskett's calculation that half the infant-deaths could be prevented, it follows that Australia and New Zealand might gain at least 20 additions per day to their population, or nearly three times what the Commonwealth gained last year by excess of oversea arrivals over departures.