• that a newspaper paragraph does not tell us of life lost or risked to save life; of an engineer who has met death at his post; a child rescued from death; nurses and physicians voluntarily going to cholera-stricken districts. In actual life we regard as quite ordinary events risks tenfold more dangerous than any of the combats of the steel-encased knights of chivalry. Any one who thinks heroism lost to humanity should read the history of our civil war. The North was intensely commercial; the average Northerner of that period probably would have made little claim to heroic qualities. War was eminently distasteful to him; he wished neither to kill nor to be killed; yet the first shot fired at Fort Sumter found these shopkeepers and farmers ready as one man to give their lives for their country, and throughout the villages of the North the men fell into line, and of these commonplace men every community can relate heroic deeds fit to adorn a nation's anuals. The Copernican theory and the discovery of America gave to the sixteenth century a new heaven and a new earth; science and inventions have made as radical a change in outward conditions and intellectual conceptions in the nineteenth century. Within the past fifty years mechanical inventions without number, discoveries of new agents, forces liberated by science, steam, and electricity have made such a revolution in production, transportation, intercourse between nations, manner of living, &c., that if a person who had left this planet in 1840 could return to it to-day he would be as amazed as the man who in Bulwer's story descended into the depths of the earth and discovered "the coming race." In steam and electricity, science has invoked for man servants in comparison with whom the genii of the East were mere pigmies. Instead of the prince and princess being wafted on the magic carpet, commonplace men and women are carried in palace cars and floating palaces over land and sea; instead of rubbing the magic lamp to summon the slave to carry messages, electricity can circle the globe with almost the swiftness of thought. In the intellectual world evolution has altered the conception of the creation and government of the universe. No wonder there are suffering and confusion in this adjustment to totally changed conditions. The marvel is that the whole fabric of society has not been destroyed in the transition. Before the nineteenth century man sought the Golden Age in the past; evolution bids him look for it in the future. This planet has been a fairly comfortable abiding-place for the rich and the great, but the good time for the common people seems to be dawning. When the incalculable force which machinery can put at the service of mankind is fully apprehended and righteously employed, an improvement in material conditions now impossible to comprehend will take place; and if this material improvement is followed by the moral and intellectual improvement made possible by the changed conditions, the Golden Age will have dawned! Industrialism is a history of facts and figures, and by carefully considering these facts and figures comfort may be found for to-day and hope for the future.-MRS. MARIE C. REMICK, in The Arena. We have recently had several opportunities for admiring the good sense and practicality of Norwegian and Swedish women, and their latest device for removing the "servant trouble" is equally deserving of all commendation. They have established a Servants' Fund, into which mistresses pay whatever they can afford for every servant who has remained with them for twelve months. The money is registered in the servant's name, so that when age or sickness overtakes her she has a comfortable little annuity to fall back upon. And now the great aim of domestics in Scandinavia is to give such satisfaction that they may not be dismissed at shorter intervals than a year at least, so that they may save their provision in the fund. Perhaps some such scheme might be tried among us with benefit to both mistress and maid. JOHN MACKAY, Government Printer, Wellington. The Labour Market-Legal Decisions during January, 1897-Days appointed for Weekly Half-holiday-" Unemployed "assisted during January- Co-operative Works in New Zealand-Tenders-The Skilled Labour The Emperor's Message: Sickness, Accident, Invalidity, and Old Age In- surance in Germany-Labour Statistics-Conciliation and Arbitration, and Collective Agreements-Is the Family Declining?-Socialism and Militarism-The Unemployed - The Monopoly Trouble-Kettering Co-operative Building and Contracting Society (Limited)-Hamburg CILY ADVANCES TO SETTLERS. THE GOVERNMENT ADVANCES TO SETTLERS OFFICE HAS MONEY TO LEND IN SUMS OF FROM £25 to £2,500 On Freeholds and Crown Leaseholds. The advantages to the borrower of the conditions of an advance are:— 1. The right to at any time partly or wholly pay off the loan. 2. The low rate of Five per cent. for interest. 3. The easy repayment of loan by annual instalments of £1 per cent. in addition to the right to partly or wholly pay off at any time. 4. No commission or procuration fees. 5. Extremely small valuation fees and legal charges. 6. Secrecy. Any Postmaster or Agent of the Public Trustee will, on demand, supply free of charge the form of application and a circular explaining the conditions of the loans and the advantages to borrowers, and will also explain how the form should be filled up, or instruct an applicant how to proceed. The settlers requiring money should themselves apply direct to The Superintendent, Government Advances to Settlers Office, Wellington. The employment of any intermediate agent who may require commission or fees for procuring the loans is unnecessary. The conditions under which the amount of the loan may be repaid wholly or by small instalments at the times and of the amounts to suit the convenience of the borrower, are an incentive to economy by enabling him to invest, so to speak, on his own property his savings or the profits of his business-that is, to invest by applying to pay off the debt for which that property may be the security every sum of £5 or more that he may have to spare. The conditions, indeed, are designed to afford to the settlers to whom advances of small sums of money are necessary, and who can offer the required security, the assistance and facilities which should enable them to eventually become free from debt without any sacrifice of property. |