A NEW TARGET.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3148, 27 March 1909, Page 4

A NEW TARGET.

Is the bull's-eye doomed? A heavy blow has certainly beer, struck at it by the War Office's adoption of the Solano target The Sol.ano. system ..begins by discarding the circular bull'seye. Targets are either triangular or rectanguar. Experience shows that if a rifleman wants to hit an advancing infantry-man, he should practise at a triangular target, the elementary target in the system is a triangle of blurred lines on a background of grey-brown. To represent a battery of artillery crossing the line of fire, a long narrow target is used. Put the most interesting part of the system is s >methirig much more elaborate. It is a target consisting of four tiers, plated with sheet iron. Over these tiers are laid strips ot canvas representing different types of landscape, and behind is canvas (backed with iron plating) representing the sky. Along each of the tiers runs a groove, and in the groove runs a carrier in which can be set targets representing any arm of the service. The grooves are calculated to be set certain distances from the firing point, twenty-five feet away, ranging frotii four hundred to two thousand yards. That is to say, tha targets are exactly the size which a real infantyman, or artillery-man, or cavalry-man would be like to a man four hundred, or a thousand, or two thousand yards away. From the firing point the figures are made to cross the firing line at just the pace they would move at in real life. There are three sizes of target for each tier, so that the rifleman is afforded fine practice in judging distance. Both the miniature rifle and the service weapon can be used with this ingenioua contrivance. "Match-rifle conditions and bull's-eye shooting are directly opposed to service-rile shooting and training for war," says a British expert in musketry. "If Bisley shooting is to be in the future, as it used to be forty years ago, a valuable form of training for shooting in war,*' says the "Spectator," "clearly the bull's—eye target must disappear from Bisley as well as from the Regular Army course of musketry instruction. Its place must be taken by targets approximating in colour, size, and character to marks actually shot at in battle."

THE FLAX INDUSTRY. Mr A. Seifert writes to the Palmer - aton "Standard" contradicting the statement of the Seccretary of the Flaxmill Employees' Union that the Maranui Mill has closed down three strippers, in order to give the leaf an opportunity to mature. Mr Seifert states that the strippers have been stopped because it pays bettsr to preserve the flax than mill under existing conditions. "Apparently," says Mr Seifert, "the Union is quite ignorant of the true position of the industry; that practically all mills in the Wairarapa and Hawke's Bay are closed because it does not pay to work, and that there are millers on this side working at a loss in hopes that either the price vill improve or something will happen to cheapen the cost of production; that the quantity of Manila and sisal is larger than ever, while the quantity exported of New Zealand hemp is falling less every month. If they are aware of the real state of the industry, thejn they show as little consideration for the interests and welfare of other j people as any body of men that I '

have ever heard about. The sort of feeling 'hang the industry and those whose interests are in it. We will get what we can for the present. Never mind the future.' As I arn inclined to think their attitude is taken up through not being acquainted with the true state of affairs, for this reason I approve of a Ltoyal Commission being appointed to inquire into: —The cost of growing flax; lowest royalty flax could be cultivated for; what must the average royalty be to induce farmers to cultivate flax?; the cost of milling; the effect of the arbitration award on the flsx industry, both directly and indirectly. Before such a Koyal Commission I \yould willingly place all records at my disposal. Such information should be of immense value to the Dominion, and would give them an opportunity to retreat from the uncompromising position which they have taken up at a time when all reasonable men should have been willing to help tide over the present trouble."