TOPICAL READING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8335, 18 January 1907, Page 4

TOPICAL READING.

The Wellington Chamber of Commerce is in receipt of correspondence from the Decimal Association, London, which shows that much progress is being made by the agitation for the introduction of the metric system of weights and measures. The adoption of the scheme by Messrs Kynoch, arms and ammunition company, of Birmingham, /is regarded as a favourable opportunity to awaken fresh interest in the question. \ A letter from Sir Samuel Montagu states that the prospects of early success are brighter than they have ever been. A special effort is now being made to raise a substantial sum for the propaganda, and to promote the passage of a Bill as soon as if"'can' be introduced which, Sir Samuel hopes, will be, next session. A canvass of the House of Commons, showed that 373 members had signed a definite pledge to support the proposal, and 41 were favourable, making a total of 414 in a House of 670. In .1900 there were Only 96 members x*eady to support the movement. ' ,' v The failure of the reciprocity treaty with Australia, negotiated by the late Premier, has not extinguished the hopes entertained by Sir Joseph Ward of an extension of colonial trade promoted by mutual tariff concessions. The preferential tariff just arranged with South Africa will. place our producers once more upon an equality with those of Australia, in exporting meat, butter, grain, cheese > and other pro- ' duets, which, since October Ist last, under a kindred treaty, have beenadmitted into South Africa from Australia at a lower rate of duty than from other places. Under the treaty now negotiated, we offer concessions to South Africa upon sugar, tea, tobacco, wine, dried fruits, and some other tropical and 1 semi-tropical products, which are now partly supplied to New Zealand from Australia. These mutual concessions have attracted attention in Australia, and it is not improbable that a preferential tariff, less objectionable than the one which was so summarily rejected, may yet be devised. The Act passed during the last session of Parliament for the suppression of the habitual criminal' forms one of the most valuable of our statutory laws, says the Auckland Star. Now that at last we have it, the wonder is that .we have not had it for years. Will our judges and magistrates make good use of it. The law lays no injunction on them. It simply gives them a, ( discretion. Whether or not, therefore, the indeterminate sentence becomes a' familiar thing in New Zealand depends entirely upon them. Our judges and magistrates are, upon the whole, an excellent and a reliable body of men. They are, however, already overworked. To add to their discretionary powers necessarily adds to their labours. If a judge has a discretion he is bound to exercise it in a judicial ! manner. To do this he must study the prisoner's circumstances, he must look into his condition; and, often he must contend against many ingenious representations and pleas from his legal'representative. London is still a city of smoke. The annual lamentations on this matter have been sung or said in magazine print since November brought its annual fogs. Kensal Green Cemetery has a tomb, inscribed to a Frenchman by some compatriot, "Suffocated in a London' Fog." The true cockney survives, to boast tiiat his city is the healthiest in the world in proportion to its size, but even he is disposed during .a certain period of the year to think more kindly of Sir W. B. Richmond, and his "Coal Smoke Abatement Society," and less toler-

antly of the six thousand tons of unconsumed fuel which London chimneys send up day by day to mingle with the air that Londoners breathe. Factory chimneys are the greatest offenders; it is estimated that one large shaft emits more smoke than two hundred house chimneys. Next to this in disagreeable quality, comes the black smoke given off by locomotive engines, the railways enhancing their usefulness in carrying you out of town, by making it more unpleasant than ever to live in town. During the last year, says a London correspondent, two hundred and eighty-three prosecutions for smoke nuisance conveyed the public sentiment on this point to delinquent railway companies, and fines amounted to £655 14s.