TOPICAL READING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3164, 15 April 1909, Page 4

TOPICAL READING.

THE LIMI'I REACHED.

In New Zealand we have been increasing our expenditure on education, and particularly technical education, at a very rapid rate indeed. Pointing out the expenditure on secondary education, the Hon. G. Fowlds, the Minister of Education, when speaking at the opening of the Auckland Girls' High School, said that in 1903-4 the amount was £25,003, but by 1907-8 it had increased to £74,109. This, commented the Minister, was a very large increase indeed, and he thought that they must recognise that in providing additional facilities they had for the present reached the limit they wotlJ be justified in going to. They had been conferring additional facilities, and the amount was now a big one, and before they increased it further they must wait and see what the results were from what they had already spent. True, a great deal of the'expenditure had been on new buildings in various parts of the Dominion. The inaUpr'jitlGn of the free' place system had largely increased attendances. He thought that the expenditure had nearly reached its maximum.

INDIAN REFORMS. Sir Charle3 Elliott, formerly Lieut-enant-Governor of Bengal, discusses Lord Morley's Indian reforms in the ' Nineteenth Century."He.says he for one would never have joined the Civil Service if he had not believed that the ultimate result of our rule would be to raise the people to a capacity for self-Government, and for 40 years he laboured to that end. Discussing the immediate reforms Sir Charles inadvertently shows how almost impossible it is to secure satisfactory representation of Hindu and Mohammecan interests on the Legislative Councils. As to the appointment of a native to the Viceroy's Executive Council he is pessimistic. The recommendation was in the first place Lord Minto's, but it is directly opposed to Indian official opinion in general. Sir Charles has to admit, in conclusion, that the "reforms" will be regarded in India as a payment of popular representation on the instalment rlan, and that India is like to emulate Ireland in discontent. Nevershele«, he feels that "the pure sympathy with the rising generation,' 1 and tha plainlyexpressed purpose of admitting natives "to a larger and larger share in the government of their country" will bring a grateful India to our feet.

BRU'ISH BACKWARDNESS. A recent cablegram stated that the London "Daily Mail" had offered £I,OOO for the first aeroplane of British invention arid manufacture tofly a mile. An offer of a prize for the first British aeroplane to fly a mile is a singular proof of British backwardness in this line of effort. Scores of flights of over a mile have been made abroad. Mr Wilbur Wright's record is over 60 miles. The conrJitign* ]

UurleJr WBiGn* experiments with the AfTny aeroplane are being carried out at Parnborough are thus described :—• "When a trial of the aeroplan: ,' • attempted it has. to be laboriuusly extracted sideways through an inadequate dcor, and has t4 tie coaxed With infinite difficulty through all sorts of tifeklßlctions in order to teach Vf& absurdly limited piece of g¥oimd where alone flights can be attempted. By the time that these protracted operations are complete, the weather has probably changed, and they have to be repeated backwards to get the unlucky machine into its cramped quarters. 'Painful economy' is visible in the whole equipment. Dirigible balloons involve a radically different type of work from that expended upon aeroplanes ; both, however, are carried on in the same broken-down establishment, and by the same inadequate staff, which in addiiton has to supply ordinary non-dirigible balloons. In such conditions anything that can be called progress is obviously impossible." THE POSITION OF HUNGARY.

In any estimate of the present situation in Central Europe, the Hungarian nation becomes a factor of the utmost importance, and the Kingdom of Hungary comes prominently into view as the probable theatre of great events in the contingency of a collision between the Teuton and the Slav. Yet Hungary is a country which has been so much overshadowed by Austria, owing to the politica tie, that its peoples ard its resources, its industries and its aspirations, are to a large extent almost unknown outside its owo borders to the great mass of English-speaking readers.

Hence the publication of "Hungary of To-day" by members of the Hungarian Government, whose chapters have been edited by Mr Percy Alden, M.P., is something of an event. The book gives a very complete account of the country, emphasising the fr.ct that it is an independent Kingdom, and containing chapters on the Hungarian industries an 1 finances, the Constitution, the industrial labour legislation, agriculture, education, taxation, the national literature and music, and a mass ot kindred subjects. Th« editor dwells especially on the independence of the Hungarian Kingdom. Francis Joseph, Emperor of Austria, he points out, is King of Hungary by virtue of his election as "Apostolicus Rex," and except for certain clearly defined and specific purposes Hungary is an absolutely autonomous and independent State. The fact that for these specific purposes, such, for example, as war and foreign affairs, mutual arrangements have been made by virtue of which Austria-Hungary acts as one kingdom does not in any degree lessen that independence. Out of a total population of about 19,000,000, rather more than 50 per cent, are Magyars, and about 60 per cent, speak the Magvar tongue, the remainder classified according to their mother tongues being Roumanian, German, Slovak, Servian, Kuthenian, or Croatian. The German element, which in Austria amounts to 35 per cent, of the whole population, in Hungary amounts only to 11 per cent., while the Slav element, which in Austria'amounts to 60 per cent., is only 19 per cent, in Hungary. A thoughtful obsaryer cannot help speculating on the future destiny of the Maygars, who are islandi ed, as it were, between the rising streams of Pan-Germanism and PanSlavism, that already seem to be swirling around them. Will they be able to retain their nationality, or will they be engulfed by one or other of the rival floods?