TOPICAL READING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8346, 31 January 1907, Page 4

TOPICAL READING.

Speaking to a representative of the Christchurch Press, on the subject of State homes for workers, the Hon. J. A. Millar, Minister for Labour, stated that he had now before him a set of plans for four, five, and six-roomed houses of a new, design and cheaper class. The rents of these cottages will range from 6s 6d to 8s 6d each. The house and land will only cost the Government £240, which will enable the cottages to be let at the low rental of 6s 6,d per week. Over one hundred applications have already been received for the twelve cottages now ir; course of construction in Christchurch. Applications for these houses will be invited next week. The rent for the brick buildings will be 10s 8d per week, and the wooden cottages will run from 8s 9d' to 9s 9d. The land at Ellerslie, near Auckland, was secured for £l3O an acre, and that at Windle, Dunedin, at £240 an acre. 'The Minister says it is beyond doubt the scheme is proving successful at Auckland and Christchurch, and he anticipates that it will ultimately work out satisfactorily in the other centres.

Sir Joseph Ward's views in regard to the mail services seem affected in no small degree by the latitude of the place where he is speaking, says a southern contemporary. In Christchurch he frankly admitted the shortcomings of the San Francisco service, and promised to do his best to arrange with Sir Wilfrid Laurjpr an efficient service via Vancouver. In Auckland, pn Saturday, he was full of apologies for the San Francisco service, stated that an intimation had just reached the Post Office that the owners were prepared to build two or three new steamers, and he believed that "for all time this country would find that the mail connection across America was necessary, and that it would always be a valuable connection for this country."

Japanese adoption of Western methods is now about to assume a new and highly competitive aspect. The Rosetta Maru (formerly the P. and .0. s.s. Rosetta, well known in the Australian trade) has been chartered by several leading manufacturers of Dai Nippon for fitting out as a floating exhibition. Merchandise of all kinds will be takingly displayed under glass cases, and so arranged as to afford every facility for inspection by visitors. Textile products, raw materials, manufactured goods, provisions, liquids of all kinds, ores, agricultural and horticultural produce, etc. —in fact, all and everything tha,t Japan could do an export trade in will be on show. The vessel will call at all Chinese, Manchurian, and Korean ports, and no stone will be left unturned to induce the natives to become purchasers of Japanese goods :in preference to those of European and American origin.

Though it is generally understood that the war invention' which Mr Austin, of the Victorian Public Works Department, is now submitting to the Imperial War Department is. a device to enable naval guns to be accurately sighted during heavy seas, this is only one feature of the less important part of the whole invention. A member of the syndicate which is at present behind Mr Austin has indicated the ends it is contended the invention will effect, though ha is naturally disinclined to hint at the apparatus itself. With it, he says, it will be possible to distribute accurately over an area of 100 superficial yards, at a distance of 10 miles, sufficient missiles to strike downward through the deck of any battleship afloat and put it out of action. The apparatus, it is claimed, is worked entirely apart from the guns. It may be used while the present guns are firing the present type of projectiles, and even the very men working the guns may be kept unaware of the reason of their*remarkable marksmanship. Wireless telegraphy is said to play no part in the invention, and the regulation time-fuse now used need not be altered. Absolute accuracy is, however, claimed, and the second part of the invention is said to secure this, no matter how the vessel using it may roll.

Speaking at Auckland, last Saturday, Sir Joseph Ward said that during last year 39,233 persons arrived in the colony, and there left the colony 26,300, an excess of arrivals over departures of .12,000, and the natural increase by births over deaths would exceed 16,000, so that they could reckon on an addition to the population during that period of 29,000 people. This country of ours was -sending; away now some £16,000,000 worth of products annually beyond its own requirements, and we required to have, side by side with that settlement, a constant addition to the population to maintain the rate of progress. The total output of the manufactures,

according to the cenus of 1905, ex- \ ceeded £22,800,000, and that with a I

population of pakehas and Maoris of under a million. In 1895 the output was £9,500,000. In this was included the output of sawmills, freezing works, flaxmills, and butter and cheese factories. That total of £22,800,000 was a record any country in the world would be proud of.