TOPICAL READING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3171, 23 April 1909, Page 4

TOPICAL READING.

UNPROFITABLE RAILWAYS, In theJSouth thero are a number of unprofitable lines, which absorb funds that should be used for more pressing works in the fast-developing North. It is satisfactory to note, however, that the Government are showing a disposition 1 to curtail expenditure and are presenting a bold front to those districts that are clamouring for small railway works 6f a totally unnecessary and unprofitable character. Retrenchment is the dominent note in the Government policy, says the "Manawatu Standard," and force of circumstances will compel adherence to that policy for a much longer period than their most ardent supporters imagine.

POWER OF THE WORKERS. Profit-sharing, that systems which has been adopted by large employers of labour in Great Britain, may do much to restore the shaken confidence of the ranks of Labour, and results of the experiments will be awaited with interest, remarks the "Mataura Ensign." Any movement or scheme which tends to conduce to better un derstandiug between employer and employee is welcome; it will serve to quicken flagging energy and promote an ideal the very effort of attaining to which will be beneficial.; Industrial upheavals are always to be deplored, and the very fact of their eternal imminence is a reason why every nerve should be strained on both sides to so conduct affairs and t.-eat men that they may be avoided. Bitter experience has taught many worker that the last ressurce— strike —proves too often to be a weapon whose recoil has to be reckoned with; it is a finality that might very well be dispensed with, with rel'ef to all concerned.

NORTH AND SOUTH POLES. Dr. Marshall, one of the members of Lieutenant Shacideton's Antarctic expedition, who is at present on a visit to Sydney, in making a comparison of the North and South Poles, pointed out that the North Pole area is apparently a deep sea area, although the Arctic Ocean is surrounded by a nearly continuous ring of land. The South Polar area, on the other hand, has an absolutely continuous ring of ocean of considerable depth. The polar area apparently attains an elevation of 10,000 feet at least, and the presence of limestone and coal at an altitude of 8,000 feet at the South Pole shows that the same crustal disturbances that have elevated mountain ranges in other parts of the world have operated in polar regions with no less intensity. There is a great difference in the temperature be tween the north and south polar regions. It is more than probable that the difference is the result of one region,being oceanic, and, therefore, subject to incursions of comparatively warm ocean currents, while the other area is apparently an elevated land surface uninfluenced by incursions of masses of warm fluid.