TOPICAL READING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3211, 10 June 1909, Page 1

TOPICAL READING.

IMPERIAL CITIZENSHIP. We are looking now to the Defence ' Conference to tell us what part New Zealand can properly play in a comprehensive scheme of Empire defence, and when work has been allotted to U3 we must not make a virtue of doing it. There has been a disposition of late to regard the Mother Country as an elderly nation staggering under a huge and increasing burden. It would be more to the purpose to regarJ the Mother Country as a strong nation taking necessary steps for the protection of her people and her trade, and offering for the younger nations of the Empire an example that they should study closely and follow gladly. It is this aspect of Imperial citizenship that demands our particular attention" at present, remacks the "Lyttelton Times," and the work that is ours to do cannot safely be defined in terms uf Dreadnoughts. MONEY IN GUM LAND. An incident is related by Mr H. G. Ell, M.P., who recently came to the I North Island as a number of the Timber Confmfssion, tb~ show the value of kruri guru land. A party of ten Austrians purchaseJ from a widow who owns a farm thejright to ig on an area covering about ten acres, for the sum of £l6O. Another party of ten Austrians came along and paid the first party £l6O to share in the concession. After a time a third party of ten paid the same price for the privilege, and ten more Austrians also paid the same price. The ! widow gets £l6O as a kind of royalty, but the first party of ten gets £450, and retains the same rights as the other thirty Austrians to dig foi gum. Mr Ell did not credit the story when it was told to him, but states that inquiries he made confirm it. j LOST AUSTRALASIA.. [ | One of the theories put forward by Mr A. R. Wallace, the famous ; naturalist, is that the dividing line between the animal kingdom of Aus- i- 1 tralia and that of Asia runs westward of the Philippines, through the - channel separating Borneo from I Celebes and into Lombok Straits. ! The truth of this theory i 3 about to ' be tested by an exploring expedition j of scientists from Germany, who <

will carry out researches in X*ali, Lombok, and Celebes. Investigation since Mr Wallace made his guess at truth showed that there once was a continent—Australasia by nama— as it were linking Australia with Asia, but it has disappeared with the exception of a chain of islands starting from Lombok, and Celebes. . The special work of the expedition is the study of tha fauna found in these islands. In former days the animals migrating from Australia must have met those travelling from Further India somewhere on the lost continent. It has been ascertained that the meeting place was near Celebes. In Northern Celebes animals of the Australian type abound but in the southern section of the island Asiatic forms have the upper hand.