TOPICAL READING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8330, 11 January 1907, Page 4

TOPICAL READING.

A plan of an unprecedented and farreaching nature to rescue the British mercantile service from foreigners has been undertaken by Mr Bruce Ismay, of the White Star line; Sir Alfred Jones, of Messrs Elder, Dempster; and Mr Aubrey Brocklebank. These gentlemen, acting in conjunction with influential shipowners, under the auspices of the Liverpool Shipowners' Association, are about to acquire a fleet of ten sailing ships *on which to give three years' training to 1,000 British apprentices with a view to fitting them for posts as officers of the mercantile marine. Each vessel will be of 3,000 tons and ship-rigged. The annual cost of maintaining the whole of the vessels will be £25,000. several shipping companies concerned will give preference to young officers so trained. It is intended to take only the better class of British youths, but they must be able to become more than navigators, and, unlike the old school, act as commercial pioneers.

America (says a cable message to the London Express from New York) is suffering from too much prosperity. There are not enough men to cope with the enormous volume of business, and a labour famine exists in varying degrees from New York to San Francisco. So great is the industrial boom that newly-arrived immigrants practically command their own prices in the Western States, where the crops are unharvested and railway extensions delayed for lack of skilled labourers and farm hands. The famine has affected New York severely. Employment agencies are inundated with appeals for cooks, porters, carmen, page-boys, and waiters . for hotels,' and high-class mechanics. Many of the big department stores are paying boys men's wages. There is even a dearth of clerks in the Wall Street district. Contracting firms are greatly hampered in executing large improvements.

Some surprise was expressed during last session of Parliament (says the Otago Daily Times) that the Government had done nothing to cheapen that staple item of diet, the potato, which has been made something of a luxury by the ravages of the blight. The surprise is heightened by the information contained in a return just to hand. It shows that in the two years, ending July 31st, 1906, New Zealand has imported 8,089 tons of potatoes, and the Government has received in duty on their account over £IO,OOO. This means that the Government has taxed the potato consumers to the extent of £5,000 per year, an action which is not at all compatible with its alleged policy of freeing the necessaries of life from all burdensome duties.

Professor Osier, the well-known scientist, delivered a lecture at *-he Working Men's College at Campden Town, England, recently, in which he compared the human body to a steam engine. "The engine wants fuel," he said. "So does the human body. But give them the wrong sort, and both cease to worki While the engine has only one furnace, and a large one, the human body consists of myriads of little furnaces —that is, cells. Milk was the original food of man, not meat. Many people get on without meat if they eat porridge, which is just as good, but the trouble is that most people eat 1 too much of both, and so injure the works. Vegetarianism is all right in its way, but vegetarians are not always as robust mentally as physically. The human engine is frequently put out of repair by people who persist in eating improperly-cooked food, added to which they make the mistake of chewing and digesting improperly. Like locomotives, people are made to last a certain time, and, like them, they require repairs. Small repairs can be done inside, but for large repairs they have to go to the doctor. Sometimes this is successful, sometimes not."