TOPICAL READING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8334, 17 January 1907, Page 4

TOPICAL READING.

"We did not," said the Hon. Mr Millar to a Press, representative at Christchurch. "deal with the Workers Compensation for Accidents Act last session, as I intend to deal with the subject in a consolidating measure next session, which Bill I will have ready when Parliament meets. I may state that the Workers Compensation for Accidents Act, which has just been passed in England, makes employers liable for diseases contracted by employees in certain trades which are scheduled dangerous i trades, which, of course, goes a great deal further than our Act, which only holds employers responsible for accidents." "Do you think you will follow the Home Act in that respect" asked not know," replied the Hon. Mr Millar, "because I am not aware whether these industries are carried on in the colony. But lam making enquiries, and the Kesult of these enquiries will decide whether I will include the provision in our law or not." The Board of Trade returns, for the United Kingdom, just published, show that the* Home Country is enjoying a period of unexampled prosperity. The total value of the imports and exports in 1906 represented the enormous sum of £983,660,806, constituting a record. Compared with 1905, these figures show an increase of £45,856,299 in the imports, and £42,967,976 in the exports. Twenty years go, 1886, the total trade of ,the United Kingdom amounted' to only £618,822,935. That, however, was an exceptionally bad' year, the lowest 'since 1871. Taking a fair average for the period ,at £650;000,000, we in the figures for 1906 an increase of more than three hundred and thirty millions in twenty years, and nearly two hundred and fifty millions sterling over the total trade of ten'years ago; the value of imports and exports in 1896 was £,738,188,188. The trade of the country has grown steadily during the past ten years, until has' reached the vast volume now re- - corded. What gives these figures greater significance is the fact that there were no exceptional circumstances, such as were created by the South African War, to account for an abnormal expansion in the exports, the returns were the result, so. it appears, of ordinary grading operations. ' Senator Tillman, who has been inflaming race , hatred in k the United States, does not often figure in our cable messages, but he is a prominent personality in Federal politics. "Uncouth, with uncurbed tongue," a biographer wrote of him some years ago, "a fierce hater of conventionalism and shams, he at once repels by his extravagance of speech and fierceness of malediction, and attracts by his evident 'sincerity and singleness of purpose." Senator Tillman comes of a slave-holding family in South Carolina, and had it not been first of all for his age, and then for ah accident, he would certainly have car-. 1 ried arms against the North. After the war, when the whites'united as one man against the blacks,"'he was chosen captain of a volunteer cavalry troop, took part in an anti-negro ( riot, and was tried for insurrection. When he entered politics,- he placed himself at the head of the "mean whites,'' or poorer classes, who were greatly dissatisfied with the rule of the South Carolina Senate. In 1890 he conducted an extraordinary campaign for the Governorship. The farmers worshipped him, and made him Governor, and afterwards a United States Senator. The total value of landed estates in the colony at the "end of last year, as shown by the Government valuation roll, was £218,000,000.' Of this £81,000,000 represented the value of improvements. During 1906 one hundred and ninety-five local district sub-divisions, throughout the -colony; were re-valued, and the total increase in capital values in these districts amounted to £21,000,000. During the current year an equal number (roughly) of local districts will be revised throughout che colony. They will include the following counties and boroughs in 1 the Wellington and Taranaki provin- ' cial districts: — Counties: Taranaki (portion), Hawera, Rangitikei (including Marton and Hawera boroughs), Manawatu (portion), Kairanga, Horowhenua, Pahiatua, Akitio, : Castlepoint, . Eketahuna, Mauriceville, and Hutt (portion). Boroughs: Levin Lower Hutt, and Masterton. These re-valuations are in hand, and should be completed by , the Valuation Department" about April next.