TOPICAL READING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3131, 6 March 1909, Page 4

TOPICAL READING.

THE CURRENCY QUESTION

What New Zealand would ffloat have to fear in the event of its issuing State currency would be the machinations of the money rin,2;s, remarks the "Eltham Argus." The moneylending magnates of the world have enormous• influence, and if their peiquisites and profits were interfered with by a State issue of notes they would immediately proceed to iniure New Zealand's financial credit in every possible way.

DOMESTIC HELPS

The petition to the Government concerning the encouragement of the immigration of girls from the Mother Country may bp recommended to the sympathetic consideration of Ministers and members of Parliament. The Dominion could provide employment for four or five hundred immigrants during the next twelvemonth without serious difficulty. It would be impossible, however, to bind the girls, either in London or on thenarrival in New Zealand, says the "Lyttelton Times," to attach themselves to particular homes indefinitely, and even if the domestic labour market should be over-supplied each housewife would find the old problem constantly recurring unless she set herself to make the life of her assistant more than tolerable. The Govern • ment might import girls by the shipload, but the labour difficulty would still exist in many homes, and it would exist because of conditions entirely under the control of .Jie individual housewives.

THE VALUE OP HISTORY

It is an interesting question how much great commanders are indebted :'cr their success to the campaigns of other generals. In all efficient armies, the study of military history is imposed on officers, and it should not be difficult to obtain plenty of instances of its value. Lieut. Colonel Jarvis, of the London Yeomanry, supplies one. Addressing his regiment the other day, he told them that the exact date of the relief of Mafeking was fixed by Lord Roberts soon after he landed in Capetown in January, 1900, to take over the command of the army. In February General Plumer told some of his officers that he had received instructions that Mafeking was not to be relieved until May 18th," and that their work meanwhile was to keep the Boers in that vicinity busily employed. As a matter o c fact Mafekirid was relieved on May 171.ii Some years afterwards Colonel Jarvis asked Lord Roberts why it was that May 18th was fixed for the relief, Lord Roberts replied by asking him if he had ever read "Stonewall Jackson." Lord Roberts went on to tell how "Stonewall Jackson" had helped him. Wnen he arrive J in South Africa in January, he found everybody "up against ;?. brick wall," and unable to move, and he thought w u at Jackson would have done under thosa circumstances. "Ha remembered that whpnever operations came to a similar deadlock in the American War, Stonewall Jackson invariably collected what forces he could, slipped in between, two of the columns thus held up, and made a dash at Wash-

ington; that all history pointed to the fact that people of all nations had a sentimental feeling of reverence for their capital, and always fell back to protect it, when threatened, and in the American War this was so much the case that Jackson's strategy invariably had the effect of setting everybody going again. He therefore came to the conclusion that he would collect what forces he could and attack Bloemfontein, for this would have the effect of automatically setting everything going again." It would be early in March before he reached Bloemfontein, and he would have to stay there for some time to make his lines ot communication good, and the Boers round Mafeking, on his left flank, must be kept quiet until he had advanced sufficiently far northwards for their presence to be of small importance. He calculated that this would be some time in May, and informed Baden-Powell that he could not be relieved until the lbth of that month. The plan was carried tut to the letter, with a succ?ss that is a matter of history.