TOPICAL READING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8251, 4 October 1906, Page 4

TOPICAL READING.

The aldermen of New York city have passed a sweeping prohibition against all theatrical posters "tonding to represent the doing of any criminal act," or to "deprave the morals of individual or shocking to the sense of decency, or tending to incite the mind to acts of im morality and crime." It is pointed out in the newspapers that the Police Department will have a most difficult task in eni'oroing this ordinance. In some of the New tlngland towns similiar ordinances have been paseed, and the acta of the police in enforcing tbeiu have aroused great ridicule.

Pending the emergeuca of the Land Bill from the Committee room, members seem quife incapable of serious work, says tho Cbristchurch Truth. Them ia a spirit of unrest in the political atmosphere, and day after day the House meets to trifle away it 3 own and the country's time over some legislative absuunlity such aa Mr Major's Farriers' Bill, which waa mangled to make amusement for his fellow legislators. Id the meantime, tho Government is holding back more important measures, and allowing Parliament tc have its flints. Laxity quickly begets license, and any reputation the House earned for serious attention to business in the early part of the session is being rapidly dissipated. This week, however, there will be a great ohange, and the advent of the Land Bill will see a strenuous fight dwarfing the interest in else to the vanishing point.

Judged by the average of accidents, railway travelling would appear to be the safest mode of spending one's existence and railway companies to be the chief guardians of human life. A Board of Trade Blue book just" 1 issued, says the London Dafly Mail, shows that in the tliii'ty-one years ending with 1904 only one passenger was killed on the average in every 36,461,892 journeys made, and only one injured in every 1,127,461 journeys. Last year, when thirtynine passengers were killed—the highest number since 1889—the average of killed to passenger journeys was only one in 30,744,156, and the average of persons injured one in 3,027,831. This infinitesimal risic is really less than these flguroa indicates since'they take no account ot the journeys made by season ticket-holderß. Four collisions and derailments were responsible for tbircy-eight out of the thirty-nine passengers killed last year.. In 1904 only three passengers were killed, but the number injured was 138 greater than in 1905. Altogether 1,099 persons were killed and G,459 injured in railway accidents —figures which are below the average for the previous nine years.

In the course of his annual address at the Yorkshire United Independent College, Bradford, Dr. Henry Jamea, who ia professor of moral philosophy a& Glasgow tJniveisity, dealt with the attacks of Agnostics upon religion, and the halt-heartod manner in whuih they were met. It was extraordinary, he said, how the truths of religion were compromised by methods that were iiitellectually dishonest. It was one of th'e signs of the growth of Agnoticism in the Churches. No longer were the paws filled with men of thought, and among laymen the creeds of the Churches had very few defenders. Agnostic doubt had crept into tho spirit of the times, and if the devout and learned laymen of td-day were to tneot in conference and record those religious convictions upon which they were all agreed he feared the result would sonrcely correspond with the creeps of the Churches. In his opinion belief of the Churches in tho power of religious faith had sunk very low. The Protestant Church seemel to him to depend upon everything rather than upon the truths and the doctrines professed by it. He believed religion should apply to every

sense and every art. Why was bo much said about the creation of an atmosphere and bo ilttte emphasis placed upon the doctrines and truths which were the substance? We seemed to he in a realm of twilight and ambiguity and compromise. Everything demanded that we should face the issue. It was better to have a strong faith and one or two views held tenaciously by the soul than a long creed. The defenders of religion must fight all along the line for the claims of religion. Religion had no peculiar province. Either it found its object everywhere, or else there was no God, and religion was a mere illusion of man's childhood.

A despatoh frora Loudon dated August 28th says:—-The Daily Chronicle, in forecasting the Government's proposed representation scheme for Ireland, says th« legislative union will not be touched, and Irish representation at Westtninister and the powers of the Imperial Parliament will not be changed. The chief feature will be the establishment of an Irish Council at Dublin, direotly selected, eon sisting uf 103 members, the same as' the Irish representation in the House of Commons, with addition of fortyeight Councillors direotly selected from large areas by electors having a rateable value exceeding £2O, peers and olergymen being eligible. This t is almost the same as the Legislative Counoill and Legislative Assembly \of the Gladstone Bill, only they form one body and not two. The Nationalist Party, as now organised, would not easily gain a majority in the Council. The Chief Secretary would, under the new sobeme, be ex-otficio Chairman of tbe Irish Council and, aa representing the Lord Lieutenant, would consult with the leader of the majority in the Council regarding the appointment of the chief heads of the departments, the head of the Finance Department occupying a position analogous to that of the Premier, who, with his colleagues, would hold the posts dependent upon the vote of the Council. The scheme includes the reorganisation ol the Irish Government into well defined departments, such as finance, land, education, etc. The judiciary will not be molested. The Chief Secretary will be spokesman for the Council and its Ministers to Parliament. All Irish legiaation would still come b»fore the House of Commons, the Bills being sent there by the Counoil.