TOPICAL READING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8267, 22 October 1906, Page 4

TOPICAL READING.

The interim report on the Maori census is distinctly encouraging. It is true that the authorities speak of the figures as oonjaotural, implying that previous returns may have teen incomplete and the present returns not entirely reliable, but considering the oare that is taken in the collection of the statistics, we may safely take tha more optimistic view. Moreover, an increase of ton per cent, is too large to be illusory, and the reports of the Maori health officers during the pastyear or two have prepared us for the improvement of the race prospects. It is a hopeful sign that the nnmber of children under fifteen is increasing, because it means that the Maoris are learning, very slowly it is true, to take greater oare with the rearing of their babies. The Maori Gounoils are said to have failed in the main to carry out the dutieaeutrusted to them, but the two Native Health Officers, Dr Pomare and Dv Buck, with the many energetic sani r tary inspectors, are at length making some impression on their people. The young Maori Party, too, that, group of devoted young men from Te Aute College, is labouring everywhere with zeal and knowledge. i

There is pretty complete evidence, aaya the London Globe, that the Congo offioials are resolved to intimidate and ultimately get rid of all inconvenient witnesses of their proceedings; of these, the missionaries are the most formidable olass, and the treatment of Mr Stannard is intended as a lesson and an example. It is impossible that this policy can be tolerated by any civilised nation, and least of all by Great Britain. Worked as it is at present, the Congo Free State has become one of the plague-spols of the world. Competent observers declare that the present hunt for rubber is productive of very nearly as much human misery as the now decaying ivory trade in the palmy days of that industry. And by a strange irony of fate, the present boom iu motor vehicles, which is working such a revolution in the social existence of the world is the cause of untold sufferings to thousands of miserable Afrionnp. We have no wish to interfere with a valuable industry, but the fact that wo are thus rendered morally partakers in the spoils of Congo ought to give ua an increased sense of responsibility as to what goes on there.

The wonderful voice wilh -which Mme. Patti has delightad millions of people in all parts of the world will be heard, says a London paper, for the last time in London |ou December Ist, the famous singer having finally decided lo bid farewell to the coqcert stage. It is *fifty-aix years ago that Mme. Patti, then seven years of age, first sang in -publia in New York. Her next appearance was nine years later, when, after a coarse of study, she played the role of Luoia on November 24th, 1859, and achieved a tremendous success. Two years later she crossed the Atlantic to sing at Civent Garden, beginning a career at London's principal opera bouse which lasted for twenty years. Dnring those twenty years her annual earnings a>'o stated to have ranged,between £.10,000 and £35,00 Q. Tours in North and South America and Argentina have brought her evengreatei- monetary rewards, and it is in no way overstating tne facts when it is said that during the four and a half decades in whioh she has been singing to the world her voice has earned £750,000. For many single engagements in London she has received £BOO, while it is on record that in New York, when playing in opera, Bhe once received the sum of £I,OOO for each representation, paid in her dresßing-room before she went on the stage.

Count von Eevent'ow, the German naval authority, speaking at the annual meeting of the Pan German League, held at. Dresden on September 2nd, said Germans must smile at English disarmament speeches. "As we are building oar fleet solely to bring ourselves out of a position of defenoeleaanes?," said the Count, "we oould at the most only propose to Great Britain that she should reduce her rate of building in order that our fleet might attain to the strength of here. Ab soon as this is the case, we will bind ourselves not to inorease our fleet further. The disarmament question will certainly be brought furward at the next Hague conference, and Germany will probably be described there as the universal disturber of peace. We can, hbwevor, look forward to everything, uot only with calmness, but with equanimity." In the discussion which followed, Lieutenant-General Liebert, formerly Governor of German East Africa, said:—"ln the whole of German history, Bismarck is the only great German diplomatist. A Jack of diplomatists must be replaced by brutal power, by foroe; and this power is the army and navy. When any one asks me whether we should disarm, ) say, 'For heaven's sake keep up your army and build ships, ships, ships.!'" This speech was received by the audience with tumultuous applause.