Page:Transactions NZ Institute Volume 10.djvu/58

34 science by providing some of the more expensive tools required, and by paying scientific men, so that they might devote more of their time to scientific studies.

He can do none of these things, except at the cost of the working classes; all the wealth devoted to the work would be diverted from the production of material comforts, which, if produced, they would enjoy, and no one has a right to make his poorer fellow-citizens pay for anything, unless he, after careful consideration aided by the best knowledge open to him, is fully convinced that the privation he compels them to suffer is compensated by the advantages they will get in exchange.

It is not too much to say that an expenditure equal to that represented by the national debt of England would be well invested, if it could be made the means of rousing the working classes of England to insist on every one of their children being as well educated as might be done, without throwing any unbearable burthen on the country.



rivers are ever scooping their beds to lower levels, and eroding their banks until new channels are established, are matters of common observation. Considering the immense weight of water in a river like the Waikato, its moderately rapid current, and its course, in the lower parts, through alluvial flats composed of materials of the lightest nature, it is at first sight subject for wonder that the changes are not more rapid than they are. It is, however, true that the lower Waikato cannot now cut its channel very much deeper in a practical view, unless the land is raised, relative to sea level, because a certain definite gradient has to be preserved to carry the water off to sea. But if we suppose the land to be elevated, suddenly or otherVi'ise, a great change would soon be observed in the condition of the river. Falls or rapids would be established at its mouth, which, in more or less time, according to the nature of the bed, would reduce the gradient to what it was before. During the time this was being effected, the increased current would have formed a new channel, sometimes coincident with the old one, but often crossing and recrossing it, until, when the normal level and current had again been established, the old river course would be traceable as a series of lagoons or narrow winding swamps, elevated above the new level of the river, by as much as the land had been raised. 