TOPICAL READING.

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

TOPICAL READING.

An interesting disoussion took plßce recently at the Mackenzie County Council, on tfcie growth of laroh. Mr Matthews, the ohief forester, had said that the block of laroh at Horseshoe Bend was the finest in the colony. The engineer said the plantation was now worth £3O an acre if half the trees were thinned out. It would be better not to thin them at present, as the trees were planted Bft apart. Several different opinions were expressed as to the proper system of growing larch, whether thin or thick. One member said American forestry favoured thick planting,, and systematic thinning, and another that the Norwegian system was to plant very thickly and not to thin at all. It was said that oloae growing makes the trees run up free from knots, and of finer and tougher fibre. It was stated that the Council is carrying on planting now, chiefly with a view to beautifying the country, but the next generation would reap a valuable harvest from the plantations. Even now, if the Counoil did any thinning, the treeß would sell in the Maokenize Country for fuel, posts and droppers. The Premier is by no means favourably disposed to Colonel Kitchener's suggestion that compul sory training as oadets should be imposed on the New Zealand schoolboy. To a Christchuroh interviewer he thus expressed himself: "I have always set my face strongly against anything savouring of conscription or oompuleory service. There is no necessity whatever for it in this colony. There are now about 10,000 oadets in our publio

schools, and, grouping oadets, volunteers, and riflemen, New Zealand has a military force of some 20,000. In proportion to our population that is larger than it is in any country I know of. The volunteering spirit stands out in bold relief in New Zealand, and 1 do not want to see anything done that will cause a revulsion of feeling and quenoh that spirit to whioh I have alluded. There is no necessity for compulsory training of oadets; there is quite sufficient in the present Education Aot to provide all the authority that is required, and it only needs a little encouragement to get all the boys we want for oadet corps. As a rule most boys are eager to join before they reaoh the necessary age."

How dangerous it is to trust to conciliation unless there is an adequate backing of force may be learned from the recent history of France. Her great interest is peace. Indeed, so averse are her people to war, that it is a menaoe to the maintenance of her present position in the world. The sacrifices she has made to prevent a rupture with Germany are therefore many, says Broad Arrow. But had we not come to her assistance last year there would have been war. Are we to be brought to the same pass? Nothing is more certain if we make peace an end instead of a means to an end. Again, Japan's attitude to the aggression of Russia was conciliatory to the point of surrender. Had she depended on it to any extent,. she would now he little more than a vassal of the Czar. Peace, like every other «ood, must be worked for, must be sacrificed for, mush be fought for. But so cteaply do its self-appointed champions hold it, that they use it to save them from the performance of their duties as citizens. So did the Carthaginians when Hannibal demanded reinforcements in Italy. The consequence was the Romans in due course swept them from the earth. The Frankfort Gazette publishes an account of the Kaiaerin's visit to the Exhibition of Home Industries in Berlin, an it notes the fact thac she spoke for the first time with those who belong to a movement whioh is certainly not courtly. The Kaiserin also did something else for the first time. She learnt the exact meaning of the (arm sweating; and it filled her with almost incredulous pity. She was told that the wage for making a boy's suit, regardless of size, with Avaißtooat, trousers and eoat, was 7d; that dolls, often made by children for other children, were paid for at the rate of %d per hour, anil she wondered bow people oould exist on %d per hour. So, for the first time the' Kaiser in understood how nnmbers of her people were working at starvation wages. Several times with Imperial helplessness she asked, 'What can be done?' on whicih the lady-in-waiting, with" characteristic German feeling, suggested that th« Kaiser should intervene 'with iron hand.'

A London correspondent states that a single flowering plant was sold by auction in the City of London for the agreeable little sum of £1,207. Of course it was a orchid—Odontoglossum crispum Pittianum. The price given was a record one, the Drevious highest • having been £843 15a, whioh was given last year for an Odontogloesurc crispum Roger Sander. The record-breaking plant had three bulbs—two with leaves, and a young break. It bad won two guld medals for the* size, substance, and beauty of its flower. Some time ago its owner was offered several hundred pounds for , half the plant. Its flowers are white, slightly tinted with rose, the sepals and petals being heavily blotched with red brown, and the reverse side being heavily tinged with purple. The labellum has a yellow orest, marked with reddish lines, in front of which are brown spots on a white ground. Five other Odontoglossum urispums realikea enormous prices, viz.,.£840, £493, £420, £315, £304. Various other plants made from £7O to £l2O apiece,' and ths entire collection realised £5,342.