TOPICAL READING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8164, 22 June 1906, Page 4

TOPICAL READING.

The question of sharing profits by an employer end an employee was mentioned at the Arbitration Court at Auckland last week when the Court was asked what position a man would occupy if he agreed to drive a horse and cart for an employer but instead of receiving wages he agreed to take half the money earned during the week as reward fur his labour. This amount might be more or even less than the award provided for as wages. Mr Justice Chapman said such a man was not an employee, but a partner in the work, although actually not in the ownership of the vehicles. Mr R. P. Way: But the original owner can discharge that man at a moment's notice. Bis Honour: You can dissolve partnership at a moment's notice. It is like the fruit people in Wellington. They tried to regulate their hours under the Shops and Factories Act, but the excuse, when they came before the Magistrate, was always "me and my partner." (Laughter). Mr Way: We will have to bring some of these men up for a breach, sooner or later. His Honor: Then the matter will be tested. We do not know exactly what the position is.

The fire at San Francisco was overdue. "In faot, San Francisco had

violated all underwriting tradition* and precedent by not burning np." Tbiß sentence is an extraot from a report of the National Board of Underwriters, published six months before the great disaster and now recalled by a New York paper. After a careful investigation it was de- x olared that in the "congested value district" the potential conflagration hazard was '.'very severe" while the probability hazard was "alarmingly' severe." These risks were largely caused by the large areas, the great heights, the numerous unprotected openings, the highly combustible nature of the buildings, the almost total lack of sprinklers and absence of modern protective devtoes, and the comraratively narrow etreets. They were'angmentedby the existence of "a compact surrounding greatheight, large area frame residence district" which was itself unmanageable from a fire-Agoing staadpoinr, owing to its topography."

Giving evidence before the Australian Tariff Commission, J. Leigh Jones, of the Austral Timber Oompany, said that a gduty on New Zealand timber would be detrimental to the users of butter, wine, whisky, meat, and fruit oases, inasmuch as there was iio Australian timber so suitable, so easily cut, or procurable in the quantities necessary for manufacture. White pine was absolutely inodorous, light, and woiked up well into boxes of all kinds; and to put a duty on it would be a calamity to the producers in the Uommonwealth, inasmuch as the duty would be passed on tc the man of the land. The bogey of soavoity of white pine had been brougt forward/ but recently he bad had an interview with Mr Seddou, the Premier of New Zealand, who stated that the supply at the present rate would last another 100 years at least. It appeared to him that Australia was trjing to build a wall round herself to exclude New Zealand produce. The cost of colonial pine in the logs*was muoh too.high to enable the local sawmiller to successfully cut oases at a price that the user could afford to pay, quite apart from the undoubted suitability of New Zealand white pine for boxes iu general. The evident idea of the Queensland millers was to raise the cost of New Zealand pine by doty, in order to capture the locbl market, although he doubted, if they did get it, whether they could supply the demand in the busy Beason. Both kauri and white pine made excellent lining; aud kauri flooring was used in most oases where procurable, and in hiß opinion should be let in free if undressed.

Moss has not hitherto figured on thh table of an epicure. Indeed, it has only just been discovered aa aa excellent food, at once toothsome anrt nourishing. Dr JUansteen, the chief lecturer at the Agricultural School of A as, Norway, has, says the Stockholm Aftonbladet, madn the discovery. At a lecture last week in Christiana he declared bis firm belief that moss was destined to become the great popular food for the masses on aocount of its cheapness and nutritious value. The greenish-white moss to be found almost everywhere is first dried and then oarefully ground to very flue, white meal, which, when mixed with ordinary meal, can, we are told, be made into excellent bread, particularly shortbread and biscuits. Moss is, however, even mora suita ble to be eaten as a vegetable than as bread. For this ourpose white mosa is cleaned, subjected to a certain ohemical process, and pressed and cooked. The result is a dish which delights the most blase epicure, and as regards nutritive value is the equal or superior of many vegetables now in use. Experiments which have been conducted by the lecturer show that about nine ounces of white moss suffices for a dinner of six persons. The cost is one penny.

The valley of the Salt River in Arizona is at present one of the most barren stretches in America, but when the works now under construction are completed it is bulieved that this desolate place will become one of the most fertile in the world, for from experiments already undertaken it has been ascertained that water alone is needed to make it an ideal spot for grain ana fruit-grow-ing, Sotne portions of the district are already watered by small systems, and in a few of these instances three and four crops are gathered in a year. It is hoped to spread these conditions to the large area embraced in the new sohepae. A dam, measuring from foundation to orest two hundred and fifty feet in height, is to be built at a spot about sixty-five miles north-east of Phoenix, Arizona, where the natural canon formation offers a suitable site. As yet only tho preliminary details have been carried out, but these embraoe the construction of several roadways for the haulage of materials and a power canal nearly twenty-miles in length to provide electrio current for operating the necessary plant and illuminating the oement works, etc This oana alone involved the piercing ofl mountains and the building of elaborate culverts. A suitable deposit fur the base of the Portland oement has been found about seven miles from the site of the dam and all the cement required in this h?«e undertaking will be made { in the vicinity. It is estimated that when the Tonto reservoir is completed it will contain sufficient water to flood over a million acres to an average depth of one foot. The irrigation systems at present in operation serve only bout 75.0U0 aores; but the area reached by the new reservoir will be about 275,000 acres, and that without possibility of failure.