1 84 



The Review of Reviews. 



August 1, 1906. 



labour difficulty is presumably chiefly at the bottom 

 of this. But commercialism is too much developed 

 in comparison with agriculture. The average up- 

 country farm is very large, not less than 2000 acres, 

 often much more. ' Large estates are not split up 

 as they certainly would be if there were a Mr. 

 Seddon about. Absence of railway facilities in many 

 districts also hinders production. 



NATAL NATIVE POLIOT. 



The writer says one of the difficulties connected 

 with this thorny 'subject is that those who have been 

 born among the natives are intimate with their cus- 

 toms, and speak Zulu fluently, are at variance on 

 anv point connected with native policy. Is it impos- 

 sible, he asks, for the various sections of colonists to 

 look at the matter in a broad spirit, and not from 

 the point of view of parricular interests? — 



In our native population we have a big undeveloped 

 asset, like our rivers going to waste, and, like them, a 

 possible source of danger. We want fairly intelligent and 

 continuous labour for the natives, both on their own 

 account and for us as employers. Meantime the ouiy 

 remedy 'tried is to import additional Indians, and shelve 

 a question made more difhcult every year that passes. Un- 

 less we face our responsibility, and that right early, it 

 will face us in different, and perhaps very unpleasant 

 fashion. 



The man of the right stamp, with pluck enough 

 to face initial difficulties, will probably— to put the 

 matter bluntly — find the game worth the candle in 

 Natal. But there is no opening for a large number 

 of emigrants at once. Government having little suit- 

 able land to offer, and private individuals are asking 

 high prices. 



THE GREY WOLF AS LORD OF ENGLAND! 



His Siege of Neolithic Man ! 

 One of the most interesting and suggestive papers 

 in the May magazines is that which the Messrs. 

 Hubbard contribute to the Corn/nil. It is called 

 " Prehistoric Man on the Downs." According to the 

 writers the downs of southern England are still 

 covered with trenches, ramparts, and platforms 

 which neolithic man created thousands of years ago 

 to protect himself and his cattle from the dreaded 

 foes occupying the plains. Who were those foes? 

 The brothers Hubbard maintain that while the 

 trenches and ramparts were provided to ward off at- 

 tacks from missile-using men, the series of flat plat- 

 forms cut out of the chalk which are known as shep- 

 herd's steps, were originally made in order to afford 

 our remote ancestors a vantage ground for beating 

 off the attacks of wolves. For in those remote days 

 the plains were held by wolves, while men, driven 

 to the downs, held them as beleagured fortresses in 

 the midst of Wolfland : — 



The wolf, seeking his prey in the neolithic herds, was 

 the compelling influence which drove man into the uplands 

 and led him to exi^end such an infinitude of labour on the 

 "shepherd's steps" which mark off the bases of the hill 

 wherever we find the traces of our neolithic forefatheis. 



Keeping in mind the grey forms flitting through the night. 

 we can grasp the signiflcance of the other works which 

 we find ujwn the downs: the secular conteat with the wolf 

 furnishes the key to the enigma. 



These slinking hotinds advancing in the shade of the 

 valleys, or in the shadow of tJie great forests, or loupmg 

 along in their thousands over the marshy borders of tbe 

 rivers must have been a veritable danger to the herds 

 while grazing in the plains during the day, and this 

 danger would be still greater during the night. 



At the top of the hill a cattle camp would, therefore, 

 be constructed to receive the herds in the evening, and at 

 its base the great wolf platforms would be set in a position 

 where a conflict might be carried on without stampeding 

 the herds in the camp above. , ^ , , •, , j v ni„ 



As it is not the nature of wolves to fight a pitched battle 

 against a great and organised adversary, the presence of 

 bodies of shouting men stationed tier above tier on the 

 platforms would probably have been sufficient to drive off 

 the howling wolves. Furthermore, it is obvious for the 

 security of the herds that the wolves would have to be 

 driven off to a distance. To attempt to enclose a grazing- 

 ground by an impassable barrier in the plain, even if such 

 a conrse were possible, would have been to allow the 

 wolves to lurk around the settlement. 



Stupendous as are the works of neolithic m.an, it is al- 

 most ineonceivable that even he, tjefore the age of iron, 

 could have erected and maintained, mile after mile, for 

 hundreds of miles, an effective palisading. 



The paper which is illustrated by diagrams and 

 descriptions of these fortresses against the wolf that 

 still exist near Marlborough, is one of fascinating 

 interest. What a picture is that of these hilly islets 

 of humanity putting up for centuries, the sole refuge 

 of our race in the midst of the all encompassing flood 

 of Wolfdom which submerged the plains. 



'. 



CONCILIATION AND ARBITRATION IN TRADE 

 DISPUTES. 



Mr. I. H. Mitchell, writing in the Independent 

 Fcview on this subject, says that the Conciliation Act 

 of 1896 has certainly not been a conspicuous success. 

 Later on he says, quite truly, that Conciliation 

 Boards are practically in abeyance in New Zealand ; 

 and he might have added that in the largest centre 

 of population there not a single case has been re- 

 ferred to them for two years past, ever) thing being 

 taken before the Court ; and, moreover, that arbi- 

 tration there is more seriously called in question 

 than ever before. 



TTNDEE THE BOARD OF TRADE. 



Mr. Mitchell gives some interesting figures as to 

 the annual number of trade disputes since 1897. 

 which were greatest in 1897 (864) and smallest in 

 1905 (337). It is, therefore, nothing against the Act 

 that the number settled by conciliation and arbitra- 

 tion should have been eight in 1897 and only three 

 in r904. But in 1901, out of 642 cases, curiously 

 enough 12 were settled. However, the number of 

 disputes which took place in these years, as Mr. 

 Mitchell points out, possibly only represent one- 

 fourth of the differences which arose. 



TTNDER EMPLOYERS' AND WORKMEN'S BOARDS. 



The Conciliation and Arbitration Boards estab- 

 lished by employers and workmen, on the other 

 hand, on which the Board of Trade had always 

 looked favourably, have done excellent work. Some- 

 what more than half the cases considered by the 

 Boards have been actually settled ; and the number 

 of Boards known to have settled ca.ses rose to sixtv 

 four in igoo (578 cases), and to sixty-two in 190^; 





