THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. TUESDAY, MAY 22, 1906.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXVIX, Issue 8145, 22 May 1906, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. TUESDAY, MAY 22, 1906.

la an elaborate symposium upon "War and Peace," recently published, Professor R. A. Bray disousses the subject from the point of view of suoh a tribunal as the Hague Council. The author loobs forward to seeing at no distant date an international agreement which will reduoe armaments to the lowest point compatible "with the maintenance of internal peace," and with the contribution of a small contingent to the international army. His hopes are based upon the fact that the duel and private fighting have disappeared under the condemnation of national opinion. "Why, therefore," he asks, "oannot international opinion put down war." The importance of the Hague Conference, he considers, lay not in what it achieved, but in the fact that it ever came together at all. The more thoughtful of the world's peoples, Professor Bray holds, are coming to realise the illpgical insanity of war, and to grow doubtful of the reasoning that induces them to assist trade by slaying thousands of possible oustomers, and by the destruction of their

resources. As to the cure of war, the author does not think that the engines of modern warfare are so terrible that men will ever hesitate to use them, but they are growing so effective that he foresees a time when their tendency to keep men further and further apart will be accentuated to suoh a degree that armies will be separated by suoh distances and so carefully eutrenohed that they will be unable to injure one another, and thas war will die of inanition. The suggestion that ultimately the gradual federation of different nations will vastly decrease the chances of war is not favoured by the professor, who, probably rightly enough, regards the disinclination of nations to lose their individuality as a serious stumbling-block to any such federation. But he has a greater faith in the possibilities of arbitration. The International Court, he thinks, may yet play the same part in the quarrels of nations as the law Courts of to-day do iu the quarrels of individuals. To the objection often raised as to what, shall be gone as to a recalcitrant country that repudiates the award, the author wisely suggests that suoh a situation may be safely left till it arises, for so far the history of arbitration has never shown a case where the decision given has not been carried out. The whole symposium is a thoughtful contribution to the literature upon [the subject.

The fact that Mr Arthur Balfour was recently ordered to take the "rest cure" has led the London papers to devote considerable spaoe to the discussion of this method of restoring worn-out nerves. Most of the notes are personal. Mr Lucy, for example, tells us that "Mr Arthur Balfour is strictly a prisoner in his awn house iu Carlton House Terrace, forbidden to hold intercourse with anyone save his doctor and his valet. Even his sister ia not permitted to see him. He is permitted to read boQks, but may not write. It is well - known that his appeiite for newspaper reading was never exorbitant. He has not seen one for ten days, and has no more knowledge of what takes place in publio life at home or abroad than if he were in a prison cell* The rest cure was prescribed as the only panacea for the acutely strained condition, mental and physical, in which the even's of the last three months have left the ex-, Premier." If an expert contributor to the "Hospital" may be trusted, the "rest cure" Is essentially a food cure. Apart from the isolation and the resting, the day is spent mainly in feeding. "1 believe," says the writer, "that milk and eggs are by far the best forms in which to give nourishment, combined with an average . amount of naeat, some fish and plenty of fruit and vegetables." A patient can usually be given three pints of milk and two raw eggs'per day, besides ordinary meals, from the first day of the treatment, unless the digestion be in an abnormally bad condition. This quantity can be increased daily by ounces until, at the fourth week the patient is taking daily from five to nine pints of milk, and from f^>ur ? to seven eggs, besides porridge, fish or bacon, with bread and ■ butter for breakfast; , meat, vegetables and pudding and fruit ;foi' lunch; bread and butter, for tea; flsh, meat and vegetables and puddiug, for dinner. The weekly weight will be a tiuide as to the neoessary amount of food, some patients requiring more than others. And the food must be taken. It is better, we are told, that the nurse should "stand, over the patient for two hours if necessary" to see that the' food iB swallowed than that the patient should be allowed ttj win the battle.