Nature's Dread Toll.

By the aid of many wonderful modern inventions (the moving picture) New Zealand theatre audiences were already seeing in August, on the screen, the forerunners of those United States forest fires which at that time were still raging in drought-stricken parts of the American Continent. August cablegrams completed the tale that was commenced on the moving picture “gazettes,” and a very disquieting tale of destruction it is. Owing to the slump that began (or became visible) in October last, 1930 is not a good year for a “visitation” of nature; and it is clear that the prolonged drought and consequent fires, by hitting the American farmer when he was at his worst, have intensified President Hoover's unemployment relief problem. Last year it was floods, this year fires, next year—what? And to think that the Republican campaign cry in 1928 was “Hoover and Prosperity!” Prosperity based on seasonal developments is hardly predictable. Be it hoped that the drought will not migrate to the Southern Hemisphere.