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About The frontier. (O'Neill City, Holt County, Neb.) 1880-1965 | View Entire Issue (April 16, 1936)
Isolated TMepaJ Nepal Porter* Carry 150-Pound Loads. Pr«pir<s1 by National Oeo*r»phlc Society, Waahlngtun, D. C.—WNtJ Service. KPAL, though Isolated in the high mountains north of the border of India, and almost untouched by western civ ilization, Is remarkable in a num ber of ways. It can boast of un rivaled natural scenery, of the high est and most fascinating moun tains; of unique architectural mon uments; of an Immense army quite out of proportion to the popula tion; of an excellent and enlight ened system of government which brings peace and prosperity to the little kingdom. Even the chosen few who gain ac cess to Nepal may not wander at will. An Interesting way to ap proach Nepal la through Itaxaul, on the frontier of India. The most agreeable way of reach ing Raxaul Is by way of Patna, the ancient capital of Asoku. From here the pious Buddhist emperor himself set out, In 250 B. C„ on his religious pilgrimage to Nepal and other sacred strongholds of his faith. At Patna you board a paddle boat and cruise five of six miles up the Ganges—the distance varies ae cording to the height of the river— and get Into a waiting train on the other side. Next morning you wake up in Itaxaul. On one side lie the unbroken acres of the Bihar rice fields, yel lowing beneath the sun; on the other lie more rice Helds, In the sequestered kingdom. You strain your eyes towurd the eastern hori zon and dimly perceive a dark green belt. This flat, low-lying tract of cul tivation and jungle, lying between the Himalayan foothills and the border of Bihar, and stretching 200 miles from east to west, is known as the Taral. From April to No vember this part of the country Is infested with a deadly malarial fever. Thus the stray visitor to Nepal wisely coniines his visit to the winter. Beyond the Taral again rise huge shadowy forms, the Himalayas bid lng In the morning mist. Through the Jungles. From Itaxaul, a little meter gauge train sets off across the Taral. For the first mile the railroad leads through the main street of the city, with shop and house fronts on either side. Then It comes out Into the open rice fields and so Into the tiger and rhino-haunted Jungl»s be yond. And what Jungles! Halfway through them your train draws up, all passengers get out, clamber onto the backs of waiting elephants, and pad silently off Into the mys terious depths. The jungles of the Nepal Taral are sub-tropical and consist chiefly of sal trees with long, thin black trunks, and huge leaves starting very near the base. Here nnd there a giant teak, with Its beautiful crocodile back, soars upward, state ly and erect. All this thriving growth Is In terrupted In certain places by the passage of wide river beds. These have long been destitute of water, and their barren white sands and smooth round pebbles contrast strangely with the luxuriant vege tatlon on either side. A tiger shoot In Nepal is con ducted on novel lines: the tiger Is attracted to a kill and Is then sur rounded by a ring of elephants. Slowly the ring closes In until the angry beast, well aware of what Is going on, charges. On a shoot you may ride some two miles from the train to the kill, where you Join the ring of 90 elephants surrounding It. Lurking somewhere within that wide circle is the tiger. . The huge animal upon which you sit moves stealthily forward. Yon look down the line of waving trunks and swishing tails: there is not an • other howdab elephant, carrying rifles, for a hundred yards. Per haps the wily creature sought would break through the Intervening, un armed ranks? The Tiger Chargee. But you have little time to con sider this possibility. From a neigh boring clump of banana palms comes a series of snarls, and be fore you quite realize what Is hap pening a huge bristling muss of bluck and yellow Is hurtling toward you. It Is u wonderful thing, the charge of an angry tiger—the break from cover In a crash of thunder, the mighty bounds toward the foe, the gleaming teeth, the flaming eyes, and roars of savage hate. A companion fires once, and the elephunts turn with one accord, for none will face a charge; twice, and the tiger turns with a bitter snarl which subsides Into a last gronn of defeat as he rolls over nnd lies dead at the bottom of a little gully. After two dnys’ shooting In the Tarul, you push on to the railway terinltins, AmlekhganJ. From here you continue the journey toward Katmandu, the capital of Nepal, by motor. Some thirty miles of narrow but excellent road lead through wooded foothills to Bhimphedl, where the ascent of the first mountain puss begins. Here ponies nnd dnndis take the place of cars. There are two differ ent types of dandl: one Is a wooden chair with leather cushions, the other a canvas hammock, slung on long poles. In which you can lie full length. Both are carried by teams of six coolies In bright-blue cotton uniforms. Two miles from Bhimphedl lies the little mountain village of Sisa garhl, where travelers customarily spend the night. The village Is complete with Its garrison of Gurk has—a foretaste of the tremendous military power active within the kingdom. Over the Pass to the Valley. After rising early at Sisagarhl you climb the few remaining feet which lead to the top of the first pass, approximately 8,000 feet high. Directly below you lies a smiling valley, while beyond It n turbulent mountain ocean rises and fnlls In colossal waves of sunlight and shadow; far out to “sea" the waves are capped by the glistening white horses of the eternal snows. Then the descent begins. The path Is no longer smooth; It is ex ceedingly steep and incredibly rough. It consists principally of solid rock and along Its Jagged sur face large loose bowlders are strewn at random. For the next six miles you ride through flourishing fields of brown headed buckwheat, golden mustard, and ripening rice. The snows are no longer visible ntid the sun shines brightly overhead. The path eventually leaves the fields to rise nnd fall over rolling grassy downturn!. Then you come to the foot of the Chnndragirl pass. From below, the road before you re sembles the sheer wall of n preci pice; but your ponies muke light of It. The view from the top of the Chandraglrt pass is so amazing that you cannot afterwards believe It exists. Below lies the circu lar rice-clad valley of Katmandu, bathed In the orange glow of the evening sun. Itlsing out of It, away to the right. In a medley of miniature pagodas, palaces, and towers. Is the magnificent capital city. Surrounding It. in a black and purple wall, are the mighty mountain guardians. At first you are disappointed be cause the snows seem hidden. Vain ly do you try to penetrate the misty white banks which cluster around the rocky heights. Sadly you aban don hope and look up Into the sky to see if the* moon has risen. It is difficult to believe what you Bee. There, in all their glittering splen dor, are the Himalayan giants, leap ing to fantastic heights above the clouds. NATIONAL CAPITAL ^ Carter Field Washington.—The best the Amer ican merchant marine can hope for from the present congress Is a restoration of the $22,1)00,000 cut out of the post office appropriation bill. The Item approved originally was $20,500,000 for ocean mall carrying, but the senate cut this to $4,500,000. No one contends that carrying the mails by American ships Is worth any such sum as $26,500,000. If It were a question solely of getting the malls carried, there Is little doubt that foreign ship owners would bid a lower price than that. And be glad to get It. The larger sum Is pnld actually because of the accepted theory that the government must encourage an American merchant marine, and on two theories. The first theory, of course, Is national defense. In the event of war, both the army and navy would need a very large num ber of auxiliary vessels—boats to carry supplies, oil, food, munitions, etc. In the World war the whole hope of the Germans to win was based on the possible success of their submarine campaign to break this line of supply. The other reason Is the one so frequently stated by President Wil son. He liked the Illustration that If one department store used the de livery service of a competitor to send out Its merchandise. It would not be long before the one depend ing on the other for trucks or wagons would be forced out of busi ness, even If It saved money by util izing the service during the first few months or years. Mr. Wilson was very forcibly im pressed with the advantages that Germany and Britain had gained In the period prior to the war by hav ing their own trade routes to South America where he was anxious, ns has been every subsequent Presi dent, to build up American trade. There’* the Question If these two reasons for having an American merchant mnrine are accepted, the question then comes of how to make It possible. There has been such violent objection to the word subsidy that the straight forward course of encouraging the construction and operation of ships under the American flag has never been possible. Even with the huge Republican majority that resulted from the 1030 election. It was never possible to get such a measure through congress. The Inte Senator Jacob H. Galllnger of New Hamp shire again nnd again deplored the fact that despite an almost universal desire to build up an American mer chant mnrine congress was never willing to aid It except by subter fuge. This subterfuge, of course, has al ways been the mall subvention— paying ship owners a grent deal more for carrying the mall than the service Is worth. But, due to the regulations and requirements of the shipping board (originally set up by President Wil son for no other purpose than to foster an American merchant ma rine), much of the money spent to aid American shipping has been pure waste. With the best inten tions In the world, millions were wasted in aiding the financing of vessels, or the purchasing of ships taken over by the government after the war, nnd then forcing the opera tion of those ships In an uneconomic way. The famous Leviathan Is a classic example. The federal treasury would be ahead something In excess of $15,000,000, at a minimum, if that glnnt vessel hnd been towed out to sen nnd sunk ns soon as the Inst soldier was brought home from Frnnce. Instead the government spent $10, 000,000 In reconditioning her, turn ing her Into an oil burner, etc., and then, after leasing her to private ownerships, lost money on her every yenr since. Moreover, the private Interests that leased her also lost money on every trip she made. Which would seem to indicate that perhaps there are some fundamental things to be cleared up, such as ar tificial operating expenses forced by law nnd governmental regulations, before very much hope can be had for an adequate American merchant mnrine. Boost Excise Taxes The proposed excise taxes, which. Ye vied on 33 commodities, were cal culated to raise $221,000,000 a year, are not dead. They are just pushed under the pile for a few days. In fact, the hest judgment on Capitol hill and in the Treasury depart ment Is that they will not only be revived, but will be Increased. Trensury experts have been work ing on this whole problem for months. They know very accurate ly what can and what cannot be tlone in the way of raising revenue. The point Is that they know con gress will never enact It without so many exemptions and loopholes that It would not produce anything like tlhe revenue required. Moreover, the President did no» contemplate enactment of the tax plan without the excise taxes. So that, in addition to writing In all kinds of exemptions, the proposal of the Bill subcommittee would strike $221,000,000 of annual revenue from the bill. There Is a further element which puts the whole house subcommittee progrnm Into red Ink, the treasury experts privately point out. "Hils is that the committee counts on $100,000,000 from the “windfall" tax. No one in the treasury has ever really taken that tax seriously. As a matter of fact, treasury experts do not think the President had fig ured on It seriously as a revenue raiser. Its purpose was far more propaganda than as a money pro ducer. It was Intended to hold up before the country the Interests that profit ed from the Supreme court deci sion Invalidating the AAA and out lawing the processing taxes. Difficulties in Way Constitutional difficulties of actu ally collecting the tax are some thing else again, and so the treas ury experts who figured out the tax schedules just put thnt to one side, as far as any reliance on revenue was concerned. Meanwhile the hearings sehed uled by the house committee, and those which will follow when the measure gets before the senate finance committee, will riddle the whole idea that a change in the corporation taxes will produce the needed revenue without thnt very substantial part of the whole tax scheme which the President himself Included, the excise taxes. It has been no secret from the first that the senate would rewrite the whole bill. Members of the house admit that freely. Adminis tration leaders in the senate like Pat Harrisor., chairman of the finance commtPee, will do their best to follow the President’s ideas as closely as possible. Expectation has been ail along that, in order to make sure of enoungh money, they would be forced to retain the present cor poration levies in whole or In part— the tax on all net earnings of cor porations, now 15 per cent on all corporations of any size, the cap ital stock tax, and the excess profits tax. In fact, there has been a strong tendency to save all these taxes, intact, and add on enough of the tax on undistributed earnings as proposed by the President to make up the additional amount needed. This additional amount, by the way, Is roughly $792,000,000 a year, less whatever is raised by proc essing taxes and the windfall taxes, Government Ownership Flood disasters 4it>ell a tremen dous boom in government owner ship of electric power plants. Con gress is in a liberal mood with re spect to flood relief, but It Is also ready to go further in the direc tion President Roosevelt has always desired in bringing about publicly owned power systems. Even in the direct relief, which will of course be followed by vast works aimed at lessening the pro portions of such disasters, there is a notable advantage to “publicly owned’’ utilities. For Instance, con slder two electric plants, one pub licly owned, one privately owned, at nearby towns on the same river. It could be the Merrimac, or the Con necticut, or the Allegheny of any river hit in the recent floods. Money already allocated by the President is available for "replace ment” of the publicly owned plant. The stockholders of the privately owned plant must take their loss, unless they have flood Insurance. It is for the future that the de velopment is really important, how ever. There will be a wave of dam building, aimed at holding back future flood waters, and utilizing the water meantime for the gen eration of electricity In publicly owned power plants. These nat urnlly must sell their electricity somewhere—the Supreme court up held that in the TVA case even if it did not specifically mention flood control. But it did sny with great clarity that the government had the right to sell surplus power devel oped incidentally to some constitu tional project. So thnt actually all the 60 odd injunctions by the private utilities against PWA loans for power plants seem a great deal less important than they appeared to be a few weeks back. Flood Control The amount of money which will be spent on these flood control proj ects will stagger the Imagination, when added up, as for instance In a general flood control bill. Sena tor Francis G. Newlands, 25 years ago, was regarded as a nuisance because be talked about spending a couple of hundred million dollars for both flood control and reclama tion. Congress at this very session will seriously be considering spending several billion dollars for flood con trol alone, and without covering the entire country at that. One bill. Introduced by Senator Joseph F. Guffey of Pennsylvania, and providing for flood control works In the Ohio basin about Pittsburgh, would appropriate more than fifty-five million dollars. This would cover the Allegheny, Wonon gahela, Juniata and one or two smaller streams. Copyright.—WJfO Sorrm Two Lovely Blouses For Your New Suit 1880-B Blouses have to go a long way toward giving the tailored and mhn nlah suits a sweet and feminine ap pearance. The model at the top Is a new lingerie blouse made of madonna blue crepe de chine and trimmed with tiny crystal buttons. 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