TOPICAL READING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8159, 13 June 1906, Page 4

TOPICAL READING.

In the Contemporary Review, Mr J. Takegoshi, M.P., eulogises the Marquis Saiouji recently created Premier of Jafan. The appearance of his Cabinet is "the dawn of a new era." The Marquis belongs to an illustrious and aristocratic family. More than half of his 55 years liavo been spent in Earooo. Prom his 18th to his 33rd year he lived in France, chiefly in Paris apparently, and returned to Japan "a pure Parisian." Not unnaturally, therefore, he is a devotee of European civilisation. When b«) returned to his country he found things tending to ba somewhat vaaotiouary: and, low as was the then status of journalism in Japan, he. a nobleman connected by anoestry with the Imperial family, started a Liberal daily in Tofeio, through the medium 0£ which be preached Constitutionalism. He is still, or <vne till he organised the new Cabinet, leader of the Constitutionalist Association in Japan. Already he had served in the Marquis Ito's Cabinet, and even been aoting Premier during ins chief's illness; and his coming into power now, after Count Katsura, is regarded hy the Japanese writer of thiß article as ''the viotory of democracy against bureauoraoy, of the party government against clan government, of European progreasivism against Asiatic conservatism."

, Commenting on the annual report of the South Island National Dairy Association, the Taranakl Herald says:—"Another matter deserving of notice is the inspection of milking yards and premises and milk. This is exceedingly desirable if done and submitted to in the proper spirit. The Jreport says that at t tho Bluff uonferonoe the farmers expressed themselves as willing to be taxed to a certain extent towards this, provided the matter was in the bauds of the Dairy Commissioner and staff. We have frequently advocated something of

this kind, aud still believe thabi* the dairy companies and the department worked together, sharing the cost, much good would result,, to the benefit of the individual farmers and the industry generally. The future of the industry is in. the bands of the farmers, who mast take full advantage of the heljp the Department of Agriculture has given them in putting it on a sound footing. Improvement of herds and pastures, and hence of the milk supply, is tne basis of future extension.

Professor Siivanus P. Thompson, in a letter to the Times, draws attention to the relations between scientific research and industry. Regretting that the industrial development of Dr. Perkins' coal tar discoveries has deserted England to flourish in Germany, he says:—"lt may be too to dream of ing to recover for .this country the lost oolour industry; but it is not too late to learn how to save from like fate two other groups of industries —the electrical industry and the manufacture of steel. We have got to staff our with men scientifically trained, and to keep the torch of research burning brightly, not in technical schools or institutes,,alone, but in the inmost heart 01 their industries themselves. In the land where the dynamo and the arc lamp originated, the land which witnessed the birth of the electro-magnet, of the Swan lamp and of the induction ooil, it ia indeed pitiable to see—for one oaunot close one's eyes to the facts that eleotric pioneering has largely ceased. Pioneering as it ia understood in an electrical factory in the United States or in Germany, is now almost non-existent jin England; and the result on the electrical industry in the next ten years must be simply disastrous. Emphasising the vital nature of scientific research in its .bearing on industrial prosperity, Professor Thompson declares that "even in the scientific departments of the Universities and in the beet of the technical colleges, the men who might be doing pioneering work are loaded with administrative and educational duties and the material facilities or researoh placed at their disposal are not seldom ludicrously inadequate or even non existent."

A pamphlet has been issued by G. Wall and Co., Williamson Street, Liverpool, entitled Butter Manipulation whioh shows the rapid increase in the manipulation of butter in order to swell the profits, It is stated that about two hundred thousand tons a 'week are at present being dealo with at a profit of about sixty thousand pounds a month. The watering nf ordinary butter by mixing with hot brine, which began in Wales and Ireland, has spread to all parts of the kingdom. Good colonial butter is also taken and mixed with a proportion of freth churned butter and loaded in a more or less degree with milk, solid and fluid, giving a 10 to 15 per cent, increase. Solids and mixed fats are also added, with the result that in 25 per cent, of our retail shops we have an article which contains less than 75 per bent, of legitimate butter fat. The elaborate machinery for manipulating the butter is described in detail in the pamphlet, and the author's case is amply proved for the necessity of parliamentary interference, and the passing of a Sale of Butter fSill which will prevent the sale of water-logged butter and butter charged with solidified milk and foreign fats, whereby enormoua profits are earned, to the detriment of the consumer. In reply to a deputation from the Federation of Grocers' Associations, Lord Carrington, President of the Board of Agriculture, promised to appoint a Select Committee of the House of Commons to go thoroughly into the matter.