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| Voice of ' Canada, The Empire and The World at Large the Press CANADA The Empire at Ottawa A party of Jews and Arabs went ' down yesterday from Jerusalem. They are on their way to Ottawa. They are orange growers, from that strip of green country which makes an oasis across the ancient country of the Phis- istines. They will come down on the miNtary railway that the British built in the Palestine campaign of the Great War, alongside the old caravan route out of Syria and Judea down to Egypt, where the Children of Israel once passed in their flight from the tyranny and the servitude of the Phar aoh, They are coming to Ottawa, to sell Jaffa oranges to the Empire, per- haps, and certainly to tell the Empire that the Jaffa orange is the best in the world. What a touch of color it lends to the preparations for the Ottawa Confer- ance, this latest pilgrimage out of the Holy Land! Jews, and Arabs are com- ing, those ancient and modern ene- mies, reconciled in this imaginative project of a larger trade and communi- cation between the diverse peoples who, in greater or lesser degree, pro- fess a common interest in the destiny of the British Commonwealth, President de Valera, fresh from his alarums and excursions about the Oath of Allegiance, is seriously con- sidering whether he had better not eome to Ottawa himself. Merchants of spices and cotton are coming from india, and tea planters from Ceylon. There will be men there from Kenya and Uganda, rubbing shoulders with th. official delegates of Australia and New Zealand and South Africa. All roads of the Empire, all trade routes of the seven seas, lead these days to the capital of Canada, where the Ot- tawa runs down to the mother of Cana- dian waters.--Vancouver Province. He Failed in Mathematics Much has been said by way of ex- posing the unsatisfactory character of written examinations as a test of scholarship and fitness for academic degrees and positions of trust. Edu- cationists recognize that while some students have the faculty for express- ing what they know on paper, others have not. It often happens that a poor scholar may do better than a good scholar fn a written paper, That is one reasun why schools, colleges and departments of education have been trying to get away from the straight-jacket of examinations. A school in New York has recently found a novel way out of the well known dilemma. At the Lincoln school a young student, William Beal, could not compass Algebra, Te hope- lessly failed in that subject. He did well in languages, wrote plays and es- says, shone in music, but mathematics stumped him, The management look- ed ahout for credits to compensate for his failure in a single' field. It was found in his ndtural aptitude for crea; tive work. Art came to his rescue. The Lincoln school has a new set of murals of singular merit, and William Beal has his diploma. This is an idea to which educationists may well give consideration. -- Mail and Empire (Toronto). Menace of Faulty Headlights It would be interesting to know how many motorists, reading the warning given by Hon. Leopold Macaulay, Min- ister of Highways, about the import- ance of headlights, have bothered to check up on this particular equipment of their own cars. Every driver, out on the highway after nightfall, knows that the headlights of the majority of approaching cars are a menace to his safety but in all probability he hasn't taken the trouble to ascer- tain whether or not his own beams of illumination are as annoying to others. There were 250 accidents in Ontario last year directly attributable to faulty headlights, the Minister of Highways declares, Twelve of these had fatal termination. --Hamilton Spectator. Holiday for Farm Folk The municipal Council of the Town- ship of West Luther unanimously passed a novel resolution at its last meeting. The motion expressed the wish of the council that the rate- payers observe every Saturday after- moon as a public half holiday during th. month of June and on the first two Saturdays of July in 1932. Coupled with the wish was 'a suggestion that games and sports be held at conveni- ent centres for the ratepayers of the municipality. The Arthur Enterprise- News, in referring to this action, con- ' gratulates the council on the move thus initiated and expresses the hope that it will develop into full fruition. The initiative thus shown by West Luther council is surely worthy of commendation. The municipality is thus linked up with urban centres in which the weekly half holiday has been observed for years by merchants and other business men. This weekly | in the desperate hope of somehow alance even. The / * give them a longer week-end respite from their arduous tasks. THE EMPIRE The Bulldog Breed The heart of the nation is still high. The British people have borne every burden imposed upon them with cour- age an dwith cheerfulness. Business and industry, though sorely pressed by the burdens of taxatiun, are still reaching out to new fields of enter- prise. The confidence of the people in their ultimate triumph is as strong as ever.--London Daily Express. Britain and Ottawa Britain already has given more than adequate evidence of her sincerity. At the time of her deepest distress, when she was compelled to abandon her century-old tradition of frec trade, she deliberately exempted Empire produce from the scope of her import duties. From that action she could expeot nothing = ut good-will, and good-will she gained in plenty--from all Domini- ons save the Free State, which d.- rived the greatest benefit. If her ac- tion, and the reactions of the older Dominions, are a foretaste of the Com- monwea'th's decisions at Ottawa, those decisoins will be preclous and enduring. If tho Free State's reaction as illustrated in her fantastic tariff policy, serves as a symbol of her atti- tude towards the Ottawa Conference, she will be the "wall-flower" of the imperial ball.--Dublin Weekly Irish Times. Each For All and All For Each After Lord Beaconsfield, there is one name that stands above all others, Joseph Chamberlain, Because of his work for the Empire, we stand on the threshold of the Ottawa Conference-- and because of the movement he founded we have to-day the first prac- tical instalmen'~ of 'his great policy, Imperial Reciprocity. He crystallized that policy in an undyink phrase: "Rach for all, and ail for each." It is a slogan we shonld remember when we are-apt to become impatient with progress. --Trinidad Guardian. The Ottawa Conference The negotiations at Ottawa will necessarily be difficult, and in some cases delicate, but they will be con- ducted on all sides in the friendliest spirit and with frank recognition of the fact that, while the common good should be teh aim of all, no part of the Empire is in a position to disre- gard its own material Interest, or can ba expected to do so.--Caps Argus. Forest Fires In view of the immense damage that is wrought every year by bush fires in Australia, the difference of opinion which exists as to their cause Is as- tonishing. Tens of thousands of pounds' worth ofsproperty are destroy- ed, hundreds of people are cast into homeless despair, great suffering and loss of life ensue, yet many talk as if bush fires were occurrences to be in- cluded in the legal category of "acts of God" or unpreventable accidents. Careful observers are satisfied that most bush fires are preventable. Is it not time that they were prevented, and that those who cause them, either by act or negligence, were punished? --Melbourne Australasian. Ottawa and Foreign Trade As soon as satisfactory arrange- ments have been made at Ottawa for reorganizing, the Empire so as to make the most of its economic ca- pacity in all directions, each foreign nation should be considered on its merits and offered terms for negotia- tion, If this question of suitably blending our foreign trade relations with our development scheme within the Empire can be settled satisfactori- ly, so as to give a stimulus both to in- ter-Imperial trade and to international trade at the same time, the one would react favourably on the other and an important step will have heen taken towards the improvement of world economic conditions. But if, on the other hand, Ottawa leads to an all-Bri- tish economic policy of isolation op narrow, well-contained Imperial lines, ignoring the foreign trade of Great Britain and her Dominions, there will be a grave danger that Ottawa may merely 'drive one more nail into the coffin of our world economic system.-- Major Polson Newman in the Nine. teenth Century (London). OTHER OPINIONS Europe on the Brink in an J of nervel and fatalism Europe is drifting helplessly towards even more stormy waters than threaten already to engulf it. Every day some new evi- dence of the deterioration of the gen- eral situation comes to hand. Not a country, with the temporary exception of our own, hardly one but goes on imposing new restrictions on imports kospiug the trade I ficulties at if she didn't make Paris Amelia Earheart Put- Even by plane, nam wag given a great reception there. Air-minister Painleve award- ed her the Legion of Honor, It stays where it is, and a continuance of drift will carry Europe inevitably into it in no long time unless the lead- ers of Europe have courage and strength to drive the ship against the current.--The Spectator (London). Cobblestone Farmers A prominent citizen of Pennsylvania proposes that the State should-fluance unemployed city' workers in the pur- chase of farms and stock. That kind of aid might he welcome to a genuine "back-to-the-lander" who had been brought up in the country, but how can it benefit the man who has never known of life outside a city? He could not tell a'horse crupper from its head- stall, he is helpless when he seafs himself on a milking-stool at a cow's flank, he has the vaguest ideas or none at all as to the proper feeding and care of swine. You might as well bring a discouraged farmer to the city and expect him to make a success of running a beauty-parlour or a high- class specialty shop.--Boston Tran- seript ethane i rita Capital in Water Power The total capital invested in the water-power industry in Canada fis now about $1,514,000,000 and of this nearly $1,370,000,000 has been ex- pended on land, buildings, . plant, and equipment for the generation, transmission, and distribution of hydro-electric power. This is a much larger amount than is invest- ed in any other single industry in Canada except agriculture and trans- portation. | | total eclipse of the sun on August Tn addition to the Imperial Eco- Ottawa on July 21st there will be} another event in Canada this sum-| mer which promises to 'attract uni- versal attention. This will be the 31. The eclipse will be visible frork a zone running through the province of Quebec and skirting the city of Montreal, Though usually total eclipses of the sun occur almost every year, the director of the Canadian government observatory points out 'their occur rence as total at or near any specl- fieq locality it a somewhat rare phe- nomenon. The last one to be visi- ble ag total in Canada was on Jan. 24, 1925, on which occasion the path of totality swept across western On- tario, crossing the "Niagara river into the United States and passing into the Atlantic' Ocean near New Haven, Conn. After the 1932 total eclipse the nex¢ one to be visible in Canada will be in 1954. For the 1932 eclipse the central line of the path of totality begins in the Arctic regions, sweeping down across Hudson Bay and skirting the eastern shore of James Bay; it crosses the St. Lawrence near Mas- kinonge and Pierreville, Que. some fifty miles east of Montreal, and passes across the international boun- dary a few miles east of Rock Island and Derby, Vermont, passing into the Atlantic Ocean in the vicinity of Portland, Maine. ~The width of the shadow zone in southern Quebec is approximately 100 miles; the west- ern edge passes through Montreal and near Boston, Mass., the eastern edge will be about 25 miles to the east of Three Rivers, Que.' The duration of totality on the central line is about 100 seconds, diminishing to zero at the eastern and western limits. The shadow travels at an average speed of about half a mile per second, traversing the distance of roughly 700 miles from James Bay to the coast in a little over 20 minutes; it crosses the River St. Lawrence at 3.24 p.m. East. ern Standard Time, the international boundary at 3.27, and leaves the coast of Maine at 3.31. The direc- tion of the sun at this time is about | 20 degrees south of west and the alti. | tude about 30 degrees. Several parties of scientists from other: countries are coming to ob- serve the eclipse and Montreal will be one of the principal points where these parties will 'concentrate in or- der to take advantage of the facill. ties and co-operation of McGill Unl- versity. --From Canada Week by Week, SR BEAR SEI ER Nine Months' Leave too Short Shanghai.--After spending - nine years doing missionary work in Thibet, B. Rathbone, an Englishman, hag just returned to his labors without seeing anything of the "out- side world" except Shanghai and Chefoo. | Granted a nine-months leave, he left his station, at Tunhua- fu, on his way to England. But Thibet Is far away, and travel is slow, 80 when he arrived here, he had already been away from Tun- huafu four months. Returning would certainly he no faster and that left him only one month in which to go from Shanghal to England and back--a manifest impossibility --80 he started back to spend anoth- er nine years in Thibet. a i, Comes we The wiieigoo] dons ua seceds. being climbing ontest, Falls "Clear"? nomic Conference which will open in| | | | | Nineteen-year-old Frances Emer. son, graduated "this year with a doctor of philosophy degree, the highest obtainable from the Unl- versity ot Missourl, The Aims of France By Edouard Herriot, Premier of France. In accord with the Covenant of the League of Nations, which is the fun- damental chart for the future, and in the spirit of the Pact of Paris, we shall seek security not for ourselves alone, but for all nations, all of which, small and great, have equal claims in our eyes. Within this general framework the government of thé republic declares it will favor all solutions, even those which are partial, which in the light of the discussions at Geneva and after a loyal exchange of opinions will per- mit, without compromising national security, the lightening of military charges and will represent a step to- ward progressive, simultaneous and controlled disarmament. At once, so as to associate itself with this effort, the government will put in force all possible economies which can be under- taken without imprudence. Regarding reparations, France can- not permit those rights to be contest. ed which are the outcome not only of treaties but of contractual agree- ments protected by the honor of the signatories. If the world is with- drawn from the sovereignty of law it must sooner or later fall under the empire of force. In affiming that principle the gov- ernment of the republic is conscious of defending no egotistical privileges, but universal interests. For the rest, it is ready to discuss any project, to teke any initiative, which will pro- duce the compensation of greater world stability or loyal reconciliations in peace. Romina in Intelligence of Animals All observers and writers agree that birds and animals are endowed with an extraordinary sagacity and instinct to a far greter extent' than | we give them credit for. How | wonderfully a dog understands his master's habits and wishes, and how faithful ip his affection! This has The N.Y. Times. France regrets her past hospitality to political exiles from other Euro- pean countries, from among whose renks have come the assassins of two of her Presidents, and the new regula- tions governing the entry of foreign- ers into the cdlintry und their sojourn here are being enforced by the police in co-operation with the immigration authorities. Members of the Surete Generale, the secret police, now ride on all inter- national trains to nake a second ex- amination of the passports of all pas- sengers after they have been hurried- ly stamped at the frontiers by the im- migration officers. The same procedure is carried out on all boat trains, which connect at French ports with steamers from the United States and the Orient. Fines imposed on hotel keepers who fail to report to the police within twenty-four hours that they have given lodging to foreigners have been greatly increased. Foreigners wish- ing to remain in France more than sixty days formerly were required to obtain identification cards from the police. Now they are obliged to get such cards after staying only two weeks. Inasmuch as there are now 4,000, 000 foreigners who desire to live in- definitely in France, a tremendous amount of documentation is necessary and large clerical staffs are kept con- tinuously busy in the identification- card department of the Prefect of Folice. In 1906 there were only about 1,000,000 foreigners, residing more or less permarently in France. The number of foreigners who have fled to France from their own .coun- tries to escape starvation of the tyr- anny of oppressive governments has steadily increased since the reign of Louis Phillipe. The secret police are responsible for surveillance over political exiles who have sought refuge in France.! Whenever one of these is caught en- gaging in any kind of plot against the existing government in his own country his identification card is with- drawn and he is summarily expelled from France. Such police measures as these might have prevented the assassination of President. Doumer by the Russian ex- tremist Gorguloff last month. Presi- dent Sadi Carnot wes murdered by and Italian anarchist in 1894. el eh to William P: Carney in| 100-House Villages : Planned by Chinese Nanking.--Ten rules for a system- atic construction of villages in the, northwest trave been isgued by the, Suiyuan Provincial Government. The plan will cover a period of four years. Five persons will be elected as a construction committee for each vil- lage to be constructed. Each village will be limited to 100 houses. The first year will be devoted to the build- ing of homes and barns; the second year to the village walls and streets; the third year to the building of gov- ernment buildings, and the fourth year to public buildings, schools, amuse- ment places, and parks. Bach village will be constructed ac- cording to a definite plan. Each house! been the theme of countless stories in the past hlindred years and what owner of a dog to-day could not tell remarkable stories from their own experience. The horse, too, what wisdom and judgment he can ex- hibit when treated with kindness and intelligence. These are the two pre- eminent friends of man but the same' characteristics will be found in every species of bird or animal when they are domesticated and treated in a reasonable ang humane manner, They" add immensely to the joy of liying| and is it not reasonable should defend and protect them from cruelty and exploitation! --J. J. Kelso. re in Some Queer Laws Massachusetts has some queer laws, but other states can peat it. It is said that during the making of the film "Disorderly Conduct" search was made for odd statutes and among dozens of others these were | found: That Pennsylvania has a law forbidding singing in the bathtub; that in Kentucky any one "operating a still must blow a whistle; that im- personating Santa Claus on the street is illegal in Minneapolis; that In West Virginia 4t is against the law, | to sneeze on Sunday; that in New- ark, N.J., it is fille; to sell ice after six p.m. without a doctor's preserip- | tion, and that in Zion, Ti, it is a | erime punishable -by a prison sen. | 3 fence to make. cngly faces at lone, = any ee Pine Blister Spores Fly Far | Amherst, Mass--Spores of white ~ pine blister rust are known to have Joww Wbmlies io tulest cartant, 7 pons a few handred | feet to, inact the. that we | owner must pay $30 Mexican to the! village committee, or may pay in terms of labor. | a i King Alfonso's Fortune Confiscated by Spain | Madrid. -- Former King Alfonso's { private fortune was declared confis- cated recently by the director of the Spanish Republic's treasury. The fortune included more than' $2,500,000 in cash and securities, as' well as other possessions valued at} more than $500,000. { The money and bonds would 'be at-' tached to the public treasury and the immovable property would belong to the state, the director said. He re- vealed that 21,000,000 pesetas (about $1,700,000) worth of seized property had not belonged to the deposed king, but to societies over which he pre- sided, tn ie A ken i "Mystery" Rail Excursion | A "Mystery excursion" is the latest venture of an American railway com: pany to stimulat 1 Neither the passengers 'nor the train.' men know where the 'excursion is go- ing until the train leaves. After the train pulls out the engineer receives | his sealed orders. i The first trip was a 100-mile ride; a twenty-five-mile automobile ride, a chicken dinner, and a ride home--an | eleven and a halt hour holiday for! _ $175. There were 650 passengers on the first adventure, and the railway company announci ware esoursi £] ed x serve the freshness of flowers for a longer length tim their natural tar ' gangs now harassing droughts in the northwestern inves of Shensi and Shansf, gon, writing in he N. Y. Times. When the floods devastated the country millions of persons were forced to abandon their farms and to escape to places of safety, carrying with them such few necessities as they could, Many farmers carried some of their treasured seed grain, hoping that when the flood waters subsided they cou.d return to thelr farms, plant their grain and start life anew. The floods, however, did not recedes brought on a severe state of ing 0 in time, and the seed grain has been eaten. Now that their lands are free from the water and walting for planting, the farmers have no grain to plant, and as a consequence no hope of a harvest in the Autumn. Although relief measures were im- mediately started by many organiza- tions to alleviate the sufferings of the refugees, the amounts of money and supplies donated and distribut- ed were mere pittances compared to the amounts needed to properly at. tend to the millions of people whose entire possessions and reserves of food were destroyed. Many Saved by Missionaries There is no doubt that the work done by these various missionary and relief organizations has saved the lives of thousands of refugees who, if they could not have obtained such assistance, would either have died of starvation or the attendant diseases and epidemics which swept over the flooded area when the flood waters began to subside. Conditions in Anhul, espeeially the northern part of the province, 'may be taken as a fair example of the conditions in the other provinces of the Yangtse Valley which were 'de- vastated by the floods, There all available foodstuffs have long since been eaten, so that now the peas- ants are forced to eat bark and the leaves of trees to keep alive, In many districts even the bark and river weeds are gone, So that there is nothing left for the people to look forward to but a slow death ,- by starvation. Twice within the last month cer- tain coins have been declared worth- less, so that, in many cases, farm- ers who thought they had sufficient money to enable them to buy sup- plies for a time found themselves penniless. Instead of trying to alleviate the conditions, many military leaders have held up supply trains until a heavy tax has been pald. Woman Sold Into Slavery Ag usual during all famines fin China, peasants are selling their wives and daughters for a few dol. lars. The women and girls are taken to the larger cities and sold as slaves or concuBines. The number of women and girls purchased al- ways varies in direct proportion with the population of the districts af- fected by the famine. Another distressing result <f the floods in the populous provinces of the Yangtse Valley is the alarming increase in the number of bandit the country- side. These bandits are separate organizations from the Communist bands in provinces where the Red In® fluence has made great headway among the peasants. These bandits have been forced to become outlaws in an attempt to obtain food and supplies by robbery. So far their raids have been planned only with the desire of procuring food for i themselves and those dependent up- on them, x Often smaller cities and villages ' = ! which have escaped the worst effects of the floods can, by bribery of a little money and food. persuade these bandits to refrain from looting. Im most cases, the government soldiers garrisoning any particular town are also willing to become party to bribing the bandits, rather than risk an open fight, In one case, however, after the government troops had | withdrawn from a town and the bandits had entered to collect their "price of departure" from the in- habitants, the government forces re. turned and locked the gates of 'the ' town. In revenge the bandits turn. ed against the inhabitants and drove many of them through the gates into the fire of the regular. troops. After the fight when the bandits had de- parted it was found that more than five hundred soldiers, bandits and civilians. had 'been Sea in the bat Heo" In the Northwest the same, only in this case the famine yas. bro brought on by a shortage, not