TOPICAL READING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9558, 3 August 1909, Page 4

TOPICAL READING.

EMIGRANTS AMERICANISING EUROPE.

An interesting article on "How the Returning Emigrants are Americanising Europe," by E. A. Steiner, appears in the/'American Review of Reviews." In the year of depression, 1907, nearly 800,000 immigrants returned from America to their European homes, and Mr Steiner has followed them to discover how the peasant countries notably in the east of Europe have ,been affected by this sudden ii.flux of numbers of those who for years have been in touch with a life which in many respects, was the antithesis of that whhh they had left. His conclusion is that "emigration has been of inestimable value economical and ethical to the three great monarchies chiefly concerned namely: Italy, Aus-tro-Hungary and Russia. It has withdrawn inefficient labour and has returned some of it capable of more and better work. It has lifted tne status of the peasantry to a degree which could not have been achieved even by a revolution. It has educated its neglected masses has lifted them to a higher standard of living and his implanted new and vital ideals So far as the emigrant himself as a person is concerned I have not seen one who if he escaped tne dangers of our industrial activity, has not baen bettered by his contact with us." GOOD WORK. In the annual report of the Wellington Branch of the" Navy Leagu< it is stated that "despite the some' what indifferent support accorded locally by the adult members of the community, the Branch has, sinci its inception in 1904 accomplished i fair record of work as follows Patriotic gatherings at Wellington : Napier, Nelson, Wanganui, Palmer ston North, Picton and Blenheim- . including receptions to Admirals Si A. D. Fanshawe, Sir W. H. Fawlces and Sir Kichard Poore, Trafalea Day Celebrations, lantern entertain ments—in all twenty-two meeting with audiences of over 27,000 ii . the aggregate. Celebrations of Tra ' falgar Day annually by short cere monials at the schools, by the hoist ing of bunting in the city, by a lar'gi ! increase in the publication of news paper articles relative to the Nav; and Sea-power. (Note—Prior to thestablishment of the Wellingt'oi Branch of the League, the 21st Octo ber was allowed each year to pas " unnoticed locally). Juvenile visit arranged to warships at Wellington Nelson and Napier of some 7,50< children in the aggregate. Distrihu tion among school branches of somf 6,000 bpoks illustrative cf the Navj and naval history. In many instances these books have been read by thi ' parents aa well as by the scholars ' Introduction of close upon 100 1 League wall maps of the Work 1 among the schools of the Wc llingtot District and other districts. Printing ' and circulation of an aggregate ol over 30,000 souvenirs of Trafalgar ' newspaper extracts, leaflets and re ' ports upon naval and Navy Leagu* maattera. Formation of aduh 1 branches at Napier, Nelson and Waiv ganui, juvenile banches at nineteer Wei Img ton schools, and at ten schoo's ! in outside disticls. (This is apart fiom the branches formed at Palmerston, Masterton and New Plymouth in conjunction with Lieut. Knox). 1 Over 1,000 essays on naval history has been written, ar.d about 150 appropriate prize books have been distributed. In View ot the foregoing, it may fairly be claimed that the Wellington Branch of the League with the invaluable and hearty co-oper-ation on the press, has done a lot towards improving the public appreciation of the far-reaching effects of Sea-power, and has largely helped to show that, h the recent words of Lord Dudley, the Cmmonwealth Governor-General, 'British naval supremacy must ever be regarded as the keystone of the Empire's policy ,and existence.' "

WHU ARE THE REFRESENTA TIVES?

j Mr Maasey recently taunted Dr. Find Jay with being no representative of the people. This is true also of the official Opposition. It does not represent the people, hut only a ' small and negligible minority. The Government itself stands shaking on its last legs before the breeze of popular disapproval that is shortly to blow it out on to the scrap heap. Mr Hogg and his proposed Liberal and Labour Party is not taken seriously by the country as a whole. There iB a vast, embodied force of public opinion that is not to be taken in tow by any sectional movement, but which wants clean administration, finance without tricks, and a broad, feailess liberal policy for opening up the lands, developing the country's resources, putting an end to the annual roads and bridges scramble, and making Parliament into an efficient machine for transacting the country's business, instead of a place where a number of people gather at so much per diem for the purpose of scratching one another's backs. A genuinly democratic reform movement, taken up by the right people and run on the right lines might £very easily sweep the polls from one end of New Zealand to the other at the next elections. However, no doubt we shall work out

our own salvation even if the future holds no more for us than alterations between the delirium of Warditis and the creeping paralysis of Masseyißtn.—"Citizen."