TOPICAL READING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8317, 21 December 1906, Page 4

TOPICAL READING.

The result of the Australian elections is that for all practical purposes the political situation remains very much as it was before. Mr Reid commands a small majority in the Senate, but in the House of Representatives the support of the Labour party will still give to Mr Deakin a working majority. The, capture of the Senatorial delegation of Queensland by the Anti-Socialists is the most noticeable feature of the elections, for this has given to Mr Reid his senatorial majority and has blocked the Labour party frop obtaining its anticipated majority in that Chamber. In other respects the anticipation that both the AntiSocialists and the Labour party would gain seats at the expense of the Ministerialists has been fulfilled; and although the three-party system iremains it is evident that two or three more elections of the same character would bring back the old two-party system.

The terrible famine in SouthEastern Russia, of which we received word last week, was predicted by more than one investigator. Writing early in October, the special correspondent of the New York Evening Post drew a harrowing picture of the famine-stricken country in the valley of the Volga. The harvests' had been the smallest in the memory of the living. From rt March till June there was a drought, and the seeds withered in' the parched, earth. Many of the peasants in Samara were already starving; the happiest had only enough food to last them till mid-November. The contemplation of the winter was appalling, for nearly 30,000,000 people were doomed to terrible suffering. The peasants were taking thatches off their houses to feed their animals, or selling them to the Tartars for ridiculous prices. At one sale colts were sold for less than two shillings, and a horse able to work, for a pound.

The story which, according to a recent cable message, is current in Melbourne as to Germany's attempt to secure a footing in the New Hebrides may or may not be true, but it is certainly probable. It accords well with German aims and German methods, and it accounts for the haste with which in the end Great Britain agreed to the convention with France to which Mr Deakin and Mr Seddon were so much opposed. The convention was submitted to the Federal Government before it was signed, and the Australian and New Zealand Premiers communicated at length with the Colonial Office, recommending numerous radical alterations in the provisions. ' Mr Deakin, however, lately complained that tbeir representations, except perhaps in a few minor details, had been set aside, and the Governments of Australia and New Zealand, therefore, cabled to the Briish Government throwing upon them the responsibility for compleing the convention, as they regarded it as favouring French claims.

Events are getting more interesting in connection with the English, Education * t Bill. In the first place, the House of Lords, in its capacity , as final Court of Appeal, has reversed ! the decision of the Appeal Court in what is known as the West Riding case. The Appeal Court, it will be remembered, decided that a local authority need not pay the cost of religious education in the schools. Had this been upheld as good law it would have given very effective "local control" of the religious teaching in the schools, and ought to have gone a long way towards satisfying the Nonconformist demand. It may be taken for granted, says the Christchurch Press, that if the present Bill had been dropped and the decision of the Appeal Court upheld, the Government would next session have brought down a very different Bill from that at ' present before the House. Now, however, everything and everybody are "as you were." It is now a question of the present Act being continued in full force if no amending Bill is carried, whereas its denominational teeth would have been drawn, if we may use the expression, if the decision of the Court of Appeal had been upheld.