Notes and Comments.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume III, Issue 118, 22 October 1901, Page 3

Notes and Comments.

People seem to never tire of advising that the British AB&rr War office should adopt BEfoxicthe methods of some other country for th« trainiw? of Tommy Atkins, and (l,e latest country to pose as a jaodei is Switzerland. It seems (bis model would be a good one to copy if U were practicable. fhe *' voluntary compulsion system** in vogue in Switzerland it said to ensure a maximum of ireU-tr*ined iokiieraata minimum <osU Tfae latter is £8 per man per year, as against £46 in Germany, t>47 in France and £64 in Britain. All citizens from twenty to thirty-two form the main army jnd with the older men, the JiUidwehr. and Landsturn, the Swiss can put in the field over half -a million well trained and reliable men. The Swiss have no ww recruka, such as the great jnajority of those who are drawn by the compulsory conscription of France and Germany,. or who tikethe King's shilling in England. A« soon as boys go to school their military training begins, and they ire drilled, marched and taught gymnastics throughout their school course. Rifle shooting is <be natioual pastime of this little coantry, and most of the uieu spend their spare time on the The standard of marksmanship in the Swiss army is very high, probably the highest in Europe.

Heut.-001. F. N. Maude, writing on the alleviation of indiav Indian famines, says famines, that the < precautions taken against famine in the past have been immensely costly, and not over successful. The reason for this is not so.much lack of food aa lack of means of dittribufcing it, and this has caused much suffering that could have been avoided. Colonel Maude proposes the establishment of a number of road transport companies with bases on the railways or other great arteries of communication, working as feeder* to the railway in prosperous times and distributors from the railways during periods of famine. The trade in India between great towns away from the railways is enormous and mostly in heavy, bulky articles inch as cotton bales and grain sacks. These are still carried in bullock carts, with which Colonel Hands would dispense. The carts travel ten miles a day and coat id to <M per ton per mile. Colonel Maude .says:— "The great difficulty in India is to attract substantial capitalists to utilise its many resources, and by demonstrating their capabilities to induce the rich natives to iuvert their money instead of hoarding it. Some progress haa b»en male in Bombay and Bengal, bat the northern districts offer great scope to enterprising capitalists. If the wealth of India were invested in undertakings giving greater mobility to the population famines would lose much, if not all of their intensity."