TOPICAL READING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8323, 3 January 1907, Page 4

TOPICAL READING.

Nothing very definite has transpired since the elections as to the relative positions of the three political parties in Australia. It will be remembered that the results of the polls gave Mr Reid 32 followers, Mr Watson £6, and Mr Deakin onlylT in the House of Representatives. Not only have the other two parties gained, at the expense of Mr Deakin, but the Liberal-Protectionist section of the House is much the smallest of the three. Under ordinary circumstances, under a constitutional system this would mean the inevitable resignation of/the Ministry. But as matters stand in the Federal House, this is not in the least probable. Australia has already received proof that it is possible for a weak government to hold it's own against a strong opposition, through the support of a third party; and though Mr DeaUin's wing Jof the House is smaller and weaker than ever, various indications point to the probability that it will be bolstered up as before by Mr Watson.

iThs year 1906 has been a fairly good one from . the workers' point of view. The reports received by the Labour Department from almost every part.of the colony go to show that there has been a demand for tradesmen, farm hands and experienced navvies particularly, which it has frequently been difficult to fill, while the many hundreds of immigrants who have arrived by every direct steamer seem to have been merged into the general body of-the colony's workers without difficulty. Even now, the authorities report, farm hands and milkers are hard to find, [while in some parts of the, colony, particularly in Poverty Bay, contractors are fearful of tendering for road construction works on account of the scarcity of men capable of carrying out the work.

Some interesting particulars of the cost of living in the olden days are given in a London paper. If a man had a shilling in his pockets in the days of the Plantagenets, for instance, he could keep his family well supplied for a week. A sheep cost only a shilling* A cow was more ex pensive—six shillings would buy the best to be found in the market. In the 14th century pasture and arable lands- were ridiculously ' cheap—a penny an acre for the former and sixpence an acre for the latter being considered a fair annual rental. Draught horses were a : drug on the market at 3s each, and oxen at 4s 6d. In .the days of the second Henry £lO would have equipped a farm with three draught horses, half-a-dozen oxen, twenty cows, 200 sheep, leaving a balance of 8s towards the payment of the rent. As for labour, ljd a day was deemed good wages for an ordinary labourer, and even at harvest time 2d a day was the highest sum expected.

The first anniversary of the granting of the so-called "Constitution" has given occasion for a form of commemoration very characteristic of Russian circumstances. Some of the daily newspapers have endeavoured to put the fruits of the year into figures. The Tovarisch prints three sets of figures showing for each month of the period October, 1905 September, 1906, (1) the number of persons who suffered in "pogroms," punitive expeditions, insurrections,

conflicts with the police, troops etc., and the number of persons executed by courts of law or by military officers; (2) the number of persons, according to information given to the press, condemned to penal servitude for various crimes, agrarian not included, and the total number of years of such sentences; and (3) the number of papers and reviews stopped, and of prosecutions of editors. These figures may be thus summarised:—October, 1905—September, 1906.—Victims of riots, etc., 22,721; executions, 1,518; politicals condemned to penal servitude, 851; years of such sentences', 7,138; papers and reviews stopped, 523; prosecutions of editors, 647.