TOPICAL READING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8279, 5 November 1906, Page 4

TOPICAL READING.

The semi official Commercial and Financial Gazette of St. Petersburg gives the following information concerning Jewish emigration:—-"The Warsaw Inforamtion Bureau for Jewish emigrants has just pablished some interesting facts and figures, which make it evident that the number of Jewish emigrants is constantly increasing. In 1899, for instance, 60,982 Jews emigrated from Russia; in 1900, ,90,787; in 1901, 85,*257; in 1992, 107,000; in 1903, 136,093; in 1904, 115,141; in 1905, 184,622; and in 1906, up to the present, 250,000. The emigrants go principally -to the United States and to England, especially to London, also to PalesUn", South Afriaa, and ether countries. For the moat part they leave suddenly, abandoning their homes, knowing neither the language nor the conditions of the country to which they are going. Therefore, it is not astonnisbing that In very many oases they sink into terrible poverty." Mr Uardie, the leader of . the Socialist party in the House of Commons, has been making quite a lot of work for the cahlegiammer of late. As an anti-militarist, he sees something sinfully sinister in the idea that the young idea should be taught to shoot, and fondly imagines that it the nation oonld be .kept in ignorance of the argument of the rifle there would soon be universal peace. Teaching the children "the horrible doctrine of shooting their -others" is Keir Hardie's idea of taking the most elementary precaution in the matter of national defenoe, and like many another Socialist he soems unable to realize that it is a risky thing to have a mouopoly of these pacific ideals. In time of war it is a question of shooting or oeing shot, and it is just as well to know what the landscape looks like along the barrell of a gun if merely in the interests of sell-preservation. Fortunately the colonial Socialist displays more common sense on the subject *nd Labour in the colonies has never (Shirked the piospeot of universal military training.

The enormous value of a large tourist traffic to a oountry is shown by the statistics just published in Switzerland concerning the financial situation of the oountry within the last fifty-live years. During this period the weal'h of the oountry, not including State property, has risen from £400,000,000 to £680,000,000, and of '.his total no less than two-fifths has been acquired by hotel prorpietors, whose annual recipts, put into plain figures, amount to sums varying from £6,000,000 to £6,400,000. Anyone acquainted with Swiss hotel life, and considering the excellent value whioh the vistiors receives for his money, cannot but ask himself how it is "done," seeing that in almost every other oounttry the outcry of the hotel-owner mingles with the outcry of the traveller that hotel prices ruinous and hotel-life increasingly uncomfortable. The Swiss hotel-keepers aro accustomed to go aud learn in hotek abroad, then return home, introduce what is best, on the oareful economic system whioh enables them to make a good profit, without the visitors ooming aware of anything but the moat generous treatment.

The report on manual technical ißtrnotion presented a "short }ime aao to Parliament inidoates that very real and substantial progress has been made. The system is Btill Jfar from being in good working ordor m all parte of the colony, says the Lyttelten Times, but eaoh school appears to be doing something in manual work, while technical classes are being CHtablibsed wherever there are a few ycung men and women anxious for the training. We are on *;be way now to the creation of a thoroughly effloient system, well organised, taught on uniform lines, and involving periodical examinations by expert inspectors. Some snob system is absolutely necessary, because the apprentice system has practically disappeared, and the colonial workshops are managed for profit and not as Eeduoational Institutions. New Zealand should take a leaf out of the German book in this matter of technioal education. It should be made compulsory for every boy and girl to attend continuation classes or technical classes for a year, at least, after leaving school, and it would be well if the technical education system were organised now, in its infanoy, as part and parcel of the colonial scheme of education. At present the disposition of the authorities is to regard teohnioial education as a thing apart. It ought to be regarded as a division of the scheme at lea&t as important as secondary education is, and it should be possible to qualify from the technical sohoois for the higher or university training in oommeroe and engineering and other technical branohes, just as a boy can proceed from the secondary school to an Arts course at the University.