TOPICAL READING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8240, 19 September 1906, Page 4

TOPICAL READING.

On previous occasions it has been urged that if the Government are intent ou encouraging immigration from England they should take every care that the information laid before prospective settlers leaves them no cause for complaint that they have been misled. Speaking in the House the other night on the Government's i immigration policy, Mr Laurenson quoted the case of a man who had come out from Scotland with tip me capital, under the impression 'that good land oould be bought in Canterbury for £2 an acre, and that the average price of the best land was £8 per acre. He obtained this information from a handbook published last year, and was naturally Indißnaut at its gross inaccuraoy. Mr Laurenson's assertion that the book was issued under the authority of the Government appears to have been erroneous, as, according to Mr Ball-Jones, it was published by the Emigrants' Information Office, es tublished by the Imperial Government. The official or semi-official publications otcbelmpeiiai Government, so far as they concern New Zealand, should ba closelr scanned by the colony's representative in London, who should draw the attention of the Colonial Office authorities to serious mistakes, and should supply accurate information of the present condition of affairs in New Zealand. I

It appears that it is not alone in the oasß of outward mails to New Zealand by the San Francisco route that serious delays take place. The homeward maiis seem, if anything, to far*> even worse. The JNew York correspondent of a Cbristahuroh paper, writes that the mail leaving Auckland on July 11th did not reach New York until August 3rd, and was delivered on August 4th. At one time the inward letters were received in time to reply by the outward mail, whioh, left on the same day, but now, as the correspondent remarks, "when there is only one mail every three weeks and letters do not arrive for a week after the closing of the last outward mail, correspondence is very much delayed." Similar complaints have come from England. The mail from New Zealand was several days late, and arrived in Loudon about an hour before the despatch of thu outward mail so that there was no time to reply to letters then received.

In a letter to the Shipping Gazette Mr T. Baty, D.0.1j., honorary joioti secretary of the International Law Society, says:—-"It is somewhat iuaoourate to say that the reouut Russian oiroular regarding the import of arms means that every vessel engaged in the Baltic trade is liable to intsrferenoe by Russian warships and to arrest if carrying arms, etc., in quantity. The stoppage of nontiaband is purely a war

right, and cannot be exercised on the high eeas in peace times. Any such procedure as is indicated by the circular must take place in Russian territorial waters. This is not a disputable theory, bat an admitted principle. It would be as proper to allow Russia to search Orkney for contraband as a British ship on the high seas in time of peace." This may be excellent international law, but the prcbability is that if it suited the Russians to search Briysb vessels in the Baltic, outside their own waters, they would do so.

Mr Harold Begbie has just been relating afresh the interesting story of the "discovery" of Rudyard Kipling. The discoverer was Mr E. Kay Robinson, noi» widely known as a writer on natural history. When Mr Robinson went out to India to edit the "Oivil and Military Gazette" in Lahore, he was told by those to whose authority he suooeeded that there was a youngster in the office named Kipling who was always wanting to publish verses in the paper, and who lequired to be kept in his plaoe. Mr Robinson listened to their advice, and proceeded to take over bis duties. Bis one English ' assistant was Rudyard Kipling—a very small, very untidy, and very mousey-looking young man, with exceedingly bright eyes shining watchfully behind round spectacles, and with a somewhat annoying habit of tapping with his finger-tips on tables, chairs, and desks. If the editor was displeased with his assistant's appearance he kept his feelings to himself and studied the youna man's work. Some of it was mere journalese, some was in shocking taste, and some of it was "startlingly, wonderfully, splendidly original." Mr Robinson encouraged Mr Kipling to write oiore and more ballads, and, further, pointed out to him how the merest hackwork and padding of the paper might be made bright and entertaining if the young man would only treat it from bis own point of view, and nut struggle to copy the ancient conventions of journalism. The first result of this sagacity was a sudden change in the fortunes of the "Oivio and Military Gazette." It was so full of funny things, so alive with human interest, so bright, so quick, so fresh, so sparkling, that people began to talk about i*-, to quote it, and to declare at clubs and dinner-tables that it was the beat paper in India. Then Mr Robinson began to urge his assistant to try his fortunes in London, telling him that he would live to write the ballads of the Empire. Kipling resisted the idea, deolaring that his heart was in India. But shortly he went, and when "Life's Handicap" was publisher! it was dedicated to "E.K.R."