TOPICAL READING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8293, 23 November 1906, Page 4

TOPICAL READING.

Iu regard to the loss of populalion iu Otago, the Hon E. AljNab says:—"l tbiuk this is due in come measure to the tailing off of the dredging industry, and the-flax industry has also token away a lot of man to Southland, where flax mills are very numerous., With reference to the great increase of population in the North lslund I believe it is due largely to climatic conditions being mora favourable, as people prefer a mifd&r nliinnte to the more strenuous clioiute of the Sou*b. Numbers of ouf people, having acquired a competency, leave tho South and take up their residence in the North Island. I think that the tendency is growing. The last census showed an increase of 86,000 people in the North, and only 26,000 in the South, cr an increase of 60,000 in favour of the North. A cablegram last Mouday stated tbut Mr Borden, the Canadian Minister for Def noe, had announced that iu one largo section of the Domiu'on, military training is ba r ing carried out so thoroughly that iu a short time all the boys above thirteen years of age will be acoustomed to the use of the ritle. This information proves that Canada has no intention of sacrificing her na tional interests by giving way to the peace-at-any-price sentimentalists. It is ludicrous to imagiue that these boys will be any more anxious to fight: the Americana or the English because they have been instructed is what Mr Keir Hardie terms "the hellißh praotice of shooting their brothers." Hut it is equally absurd to ignore the fact that if an emergency should nrisa they will be infinitely better able to defend their homes and those dear to them agains; foreign aggression or crim inal violence than if tbey had never received any military training. The Canadians are to bo congratulated upon their spirited resolve to fit themselves for playing a icanly part if ever tho Dominion or the Empire should need their aid. The high frioe thnt is now ruling for hemp has naturally had theuffect of directing attention to the desirability of enoouraging the cultivation of New Zealand flax. Among other suggestions which, with this objeot in view, were made in Parliament last session was a somewhat singular one that emanated from Mr Stallworthv, the member for Kaipara. it was none other than that immediate steps should b8 taken to have the enormous areas of suitahle country in the possession of the Grown and now lying waste planted Jn tlax by prison and other labour. The Minister of Lands expressei the opinion, which will receive fairly general endorsement, that it was not advisable, to employ prison labour for any suoh purpose as this. He mentioned, however, that the Auckland Lund Board, besides granting liaenses to cut; flax growing on Crown lands, was, he understood, prepared to issue licenses over all areas of these lands, suitable for tlax growing, that might he applied for. But while flax from the North of Auckland has a very good reputation and the systematic practice

of flux crowing there is to ba recommended on that ground, the question arises whether it would not be d'siiable to tuke measures for a more thorough development of the industry than it has yet received in other Farts of-the colony. An epidemic of influenza has been afflicting Wellington and other parts of the colony during the past two or three months. It is apparently one of the periodical visitations to which all parts of the world' have been liable since the great recrudescence of the disease in 1889-90 gave it a fresh start on its destructive course. i<or epidemics of influenza are no new thing; they are probably as old as history, and in some degree the disease is sporadic, claiming a plaoa every year among tin ills that vex us. Now and then, however, it seama to Gather greater strength, aui sautes all and snndry—high find lo*\ the healthy no Itss vigorously tiiau eiokly, the ploughman and the faotnry band or clerk. The present generation first experiencd it in any intensity some fifteen cr sixteen years ago, when, after having been practically dormant for nearly a generation, it awoke, as of old, to fresh life in Asia, and spread all over the world in little more than a year. In virulence this epidemic j was comparable only with one which ooourred in the middle of the last century, when some eight thousand deaths resulted from ita ravages in Hingiand and Wales alone. This number was, however, doubled iu 1891, and was exceeded again seven years later. The outbreak seems to run in cycles, and generally speaking, the earlier vi4itations are more 88vere than those which follow them.