TOPICAL READING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8344, 29 January 1907, Page 4

TOPICAL READING.

The statement made by Bishop Neligan at the General Anglican Synod, to the effect that the Maori missionaries were quite certain that the race was decreasing, is one which deserves consideration. For it is not only based upon the reports of reliable men, who have a very natural desire to report an increase, but it corroborates the testimony of a great number of independent witnesses. Indeed, apart from the census returns, says the Auckland Herald, there is no evidence whatever of Maori increase and much evidence of Maori decrease. We must therefore investigate the conditions upon which the census is based before any credence can attach to returns which are opposed to such a mass of expert opinion. When we do so we find that they are compiled in a vei-y different manner to that of the European population, and are presumably swollen by the inveterate Maori tendency to enlarge the numerical strength and consequent importance of the "hapu."

The opening of the new railroad in Mexico is not, at first sight, an incident of more than Mexican interest. But the Tehuantepec interoceanic railway and waterway, to which reference was made in our cable news on Saturday, is no ordinary line, and the fact that it is now opened for traffic is a matter' of great importance, not only to Mexico, but to the United States and the 'East. So well is this recognised that attempts almost without number have been made during the last fifty years to construct the line ; it has been the subject of unsuccessful legislation in Congress on more than one occasion, and of the investigations of at least one American Commission. The value of the railway lies in the fact that it is 600 miles north of the Panama railway, and that it therefore brings New York 1,200 miles nearer to San Francisco and the East than it was by way of Panama. Further, it can handle adequately and rapidly any quantity of ocean freight, which it appears is a great deal more than can be claimed for the Panama line.

Mr H. B. Miller, the American Consul-General at Yokohama, reports to-the Washington Bureau of Manu - facturers on the development of Japanese shipbuilding. The war, he says, has given a great impetus to the shipbuilding and dockyard industry, which has made remarkable progress. The principal shipbuilding yards at Osaka, Kobe, and Ngasaki, are all full up with orders. These yards, although employing 22,000 men, find their capacity inadequate to meet growing requirements, and are steadily extending their works. The factory arrangements have "much improved and torpedo-boat destroyers are being built. Work in the smaller yards has also greatly increased since the war, and the small shipyards on both banks of the Kidzuga, which hitherto devoted their attention to the building of wooden vessels of 200 to 300 tons, are now building iron ships of 800 tons. At the close of 1903 Japan possessed steamers of a total tonnage of 657,000 tons, and sailing vessels of 320,000 tons. In 1905 the steamers had increased to 939,000 tons, and sailing vessels to 336,000 tons, making a total of 1,275,000 tons.

The Petit Parisien.has been calling upon its readers to decide by plebiscite who is the greatest of the Frenchmen who have achieved fame since the Revolution. The voters have come to the poll by hundreds of thousands, and the result of their suffrages is eloquent evidence of the change that is coming over French ideals. A little while ago the soldiers would have carried all before them in such a competition. As it is, Napoleon figures only fourth in the list, and the other military heroes are nowhere; while <the prize is carried off by science, represented by Pasteur, followed, at a little distance, by literature, in the person of Victor Hugo, and statesmanship, in the person of Gambetta. Then, fifth and sixth in order of importance comes Thiers and President Carnot. Perhaps it is not an arrangement which a competent historian would endorse; but it has its significance as an expression of the voice of the people; and shows how appreciation of the victories of peace is growing in a country in which the glories of war so long overshadowed glories of every other kind.