TOPICAL READING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3140, 18 March 1909, Page 4

TOPICAL READING.

THE LICENSING ELECTION.. The result of the election of a Licensing Committee in the City of Auckland is an unmistakable pronouncement on the pr»rt of the electors that Reduction shall be applied in a judicial spirit, without vindictiveness, says the "New Zealand Herald." . . . . This will disappoint many enthusiastic reformers, who, in the sincere belief that the closing of as many hotels as possible is to the pubHe advantage, strove to secure the enforcement ot the maximum reduction, but it has been made plain that this is not supported by the majority of our citizens.

AN ELECTIVE UPPER HOUSE. Until Parliament at the behest of the electors alters the law the same class of member as of old will be nominated tc the Council. The man who, slavishly follows his party, who is ready to come when he is called and to go when he is bidden, will take the place of independent and broadminded statesmen, and, says the "Mataura Ensign," such can be selected by no other means than the will of the people as expressed under a sys'em of proportional representation over wide electorates. TOO MANY FIRES. There is something very suspicious about the extraordinary prevalence of fire in New Zealand at the present remarks the Christchurch "News." The amount of property that is going up in smoke is really alarming, and certainly suggests that a number of people are solving the financial stringency, as far cs they are concerned, at the expense cf the insurance companies. Last year the companies operating in Australasia paid out .£220,00,0 in respsct to c vellinghouse risks, and £210,000 on general stores and hotels. In each instance about half the total was disbursed in New Zealand. It looks as if the companies themselves have been partly to blame for not taking greater precautions to see that their clients were shouldering some of the risk themselves.

DEALING WITH "BUNNY."

It is no exaggeration to say that the cost of the long campaign against the rabbits hi Australia runs into millions of pounds sterling, and, notwithstanding the vast numbers of the animals that have been poisoned, suffocated, trapped or shot, their footing in the country is still secure and permanent. But in the hard school of experience the rabbit fighters have learned a good deal, and they can now hold the pest fairly in hand at a much cheaper co3t than formerly, as was shown at the meeting of the Squatting Investment Company held in Melbourne recently. The company owns extensive properties in Southern Queensland, and the Chairman, Senator Fraser, said that some years ago the rabbits on the property were causing great anxiety, ami considerable difficulty had been found in coping with them. Some twenty carts for distributing poisoned pollard, each costing £IOO, were kept busy all the year round without any appreciable diminution in the number ot the rodents, until it was decided to conduct the campaign on other lines. All the permanent water was then at certain times securely fenced and special poison tanks, not accessible to the sheep, were distributed over the area. To these the rabbits resorted in large numbers, with the consequence that at present the property was almost free of the pest.