TOPICAL READING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9563, 9 August 1909, Page 4

TOPICAL READING.

.HE EMIGRATION PROBLEM. I p to a certain point any people may endure legal restrictions. Restrictions upon the opening of shops a t nifht. ar.d upon the selli.g oi beer in the daytime, upon trie hours an artisan is to work, and upon the number a workroom may contain, upon the wages to be paid by protected industries and upon the apprentices to be employed in any given calling may be imposed without crippling prosperity; but when we restrict agricultural production, remarks the "New Zealand Herald," when the law locks up the land and refuses opportunity to the settler —what must happen? This is at the base of the emigration problem. Every New Zealander ' driven from home hy lack of land or lack of employment is a living impeachment of the Government.

FARMERS AND POLITICS. It is quite certain that nothing is more imperative and urgent at th.2 present time than a reconstruction of New Zealand's.financial policy upon the lines uf Belf-reliance, and it is a great wrong to the colony that Parliament is not in session doing this very work at the present time says the "Southland Times." The whole country is closely concerned, but the president of the Agricultural Conference was able to satisfy the farmers that they ara specially concerned, when he showed that while general taxation has increased 33J per | cent in th'S last ten years, the Land Tax has increased more than 100 pecent. If the Government are compelled, despite the abnormally heavj demand already made upon the taxpayers, to raise <i larger revenue the weight of the burden will pro* bably fall upon the farmers, and therefore, the farmers in particular should ponder the weighty words of the president of the Unon. THE NEW DREADNOUGHTS.

The four supplementary battleships which the British Government has decided to add to its 1909-10 programme will be or' the soparDreadnought typs. Thsy will be to the famous British battl.-ship, which Sir Philip Watts desiged in 1905, what she is to all her predecessors. The length of the new ( will be about 600 ft, or some 60ft longer than the Neptune class, of which class one is " building at Portsmouth, two more nave just been ordered, and two more are to be ordered shortly. The new ships will differ from th.3 Neptune moat strickingly in their armament. Instead of 10 12h guns, firing 8501b shells, and weighing about 60 tons, they will be armed with 10 13.5iu guns, firing shells' of 12501b and 13001b. and weighing 85 tons. In the Neptune class all the 10 12in guns caan be fired on either broadside. In the new . super-Dread-noughts all the 13.5 in weapons will he able in the same way to fire on either beam. Six will fire ahead and eight astern, so that the hitting power of the ne.v ship 3 will be unparalleled. The displacement of the new phips, as calculated by the length, will ba between 25,000 a"d 26,000 tons. Mny features of the utmost importance will appear in j them. They will'in all probability! carry as their anti-torpedo armaments a certain number of 6in guns, whereas none of the existing British Dreadnoughts carrry heavier weapons than 4in guns. The Unitej States have considered a design for a battleship mounting 10 14in guns, and are now preparing to build two ships of the Wyoming clas3, mounting 12 12in guns, which can fire on either broadside, and displacing 26,000 tons. The German Navy is believed to have a super-Dread-nought design now under constrction which mount* 12 12in guns, so disposed as to fire on either broadside.