General News

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21886, 12 September 1936, Page 14

General News

Telegraph Service to Abyssinia Telegrams for Abyssinia may now be accepted at the same rates and conditions as for Eritrea, according to advice received by the chief postmaster, Christchurch. For offices other than Adigrat and Adowa the only special services admitted are for urgent reply-paid and collated telegrams (those sent on from one station to another, for which there is a special rate). It may be wondered whether the restoration of the service to Abyssinia will be of any great importance to New Zealanders; actually the Director-General of the Post and Telegraph Department, Mr G. McNamara, expressed the Opinion last evening that nobody in New Zealand ever sent a telegram to Abyssinia. He said that the information was sent out from the international telegraph bureau at Berne, which supplied information to 84 administrations, and was notified by them of any changes. The German Owl “All I can say is that this is directly opposed to all expert advice we have received,” said the chairman, Dr. G. F. V. Anson, at a meeting of the council of the Wellington Acclimatisation Society, when notification was received from the New Zealand Fruit Growers’ Federation that at the recent Dominion conference of fruit growers at Wellington it was resolved that, as the little grey owl had proved a very good friend of fruit growers in Central Otago, every effort be made to have it protected in that fruit growing area. “It is pretty well established that many of the birds destroyed by the German owl are friends of the farmer, eating the blight and other pests off the trees,” said Dr. Anson. He added that three carcases of these owls had been obtained and mounted by the taxidermist at the Dominion Museum. One was being retained by the museum, a second was to be sent to the National Bird Protection Society, and' the third was being kept by the acclimatisation society to be exhibited so that people should “know what the brute looked like.” New Cook Strait Cable The new cable for the Cook Strait telephone service, which has been ordered at a cost of £40,000, will arrive next March, according to the Director-General of the Post and Telegraph Department, Mr G. McNamara, who is visiting Christchurch. He said that the new cable would have 12 coaxial circuits, and eventually could be made to carry 27. The present cable system has only six, so that in addition to providing better audibility; the cable would effect a reduction of delay in the making of toll calls. Referring to the possibility of a wireless system, Mr McNamara said that the great difficulty was imposing secrecy on the messages. There was such a system between \ Scotland and Ireland; but secrecy was not a matter of importance in thickly populated communities; where listeners on short-wave sets would have less likelihood of being concerned with the identity of those carrying on conversations. Verse-Speaking or Elocution A distinct aversion is felt in Australia to the use of the word “elocution,” according to Mr J. F. Montague, chief elocution judge at the recent City of Sydney Eisteddfod, who returned to Auckland by the Wanganella. Mr Montague said that instead of “elocution” the word “verse-speaking” was preferred. Railways and Football Not many passengers from Christchurch availed themselves of the chance of going to Dunedin by train last evening to see the second test match between Australia and the All Blacks. The Railway Department ran a special train at reduced excursion rates from Christchurch shortly before 10.30 p.m., but there were only 100 passengers on it. The train, however, will stop at several places to pick up passengers. The provincial team will play the West Coast at Lancaster Park to-day, and there will be another invasion from supporters of the visiting team. At first five trains were to make the trip; but one then was stopped, and another has since been cancelled. It is thus probable that three very packed trains will arrive in Christchurch to-day, as about 1500 West Coast supporters are expected. < “Unexcelled in World” A tribute to the quality of New Zealand butter was paid by the Rt. Hon. R. B. Bennett, former Prime Minister of Canada, during a visit to the Waikato district. He said he considered that New Zealand butter was of the highest standard and unexcelled in the world. The possibility of New Zealand being afforded a market in Canada for butter and cheese was, in his opinion, a very remote one. The great difficulty of the British Empire, said Mr Bennett; was that so many of the Dominions were producing the same products, and Canada was now concentrating on dairying. He was impressed with the Ruakura farm, saying that such a training school for young farmers, by thorough methods, augured well for the Dominion’s future. Mr Bennett added that the experiments carried out in Canada with bacon, to meet the requirements of the British market and to enable Canada to compete on a better basis with Denmark, had been reasonably successful. River Protection at' Bexley An offer from the Minister for Public Works (the Hon. R. Semple) to provide a £ for £ subsidy for riverbank protection work at Bexley was before the Heathcote County Council last evening. A deputation from the council had waited on the Minister three weeks ago, putting before him details of the work, which would cost £250. The Minister’s offer was considered and a sub-committee was appointed to confer with the District Public Works Engineer, Mr F. Langbein. Sewerage at Cashmere A resolution to raise a loan of £SOO for the extension of the Cashmere sewerage system was passed at a special meeting of the Heathcote County Council last evening. The' loan proposal includes a rate of 0.02 d in the £ on the capital value of all rateable property in the Cashmere riding, to be levied for the 10 years’ currency of the loan, Rugby With Japan The addition of Japan to the list of nations with which New Zealand matches its Rugby strength- would be welcomed by the Japanese, in the opinion of Mr S. Fuse, a Japanese business man who has been in Taranaki furthering trade in primary produce between the province and Japan. Although baseball was the popular modern sport in Japan in the summer, he said, Japanese winter weather was much the same as New Zealand, and his people were becoming more and more enthusiastic over Rugby football as a winter game as a' result of the visit of the New Zealand University team. If New Zealand were to suggest a return visit from a Japanese team it would, he thought, be welcomed with gratitude. Boys and Basic Wage Unless a boy left school at a very early age he would have little hope of obtaining a position, said Mr W. P. Griffith, when referring to the operation of the basic wage legislation at the meeting of the Taranaki Chamber of Commerce. For the boys’ sake some alteration should be made, otherwise employers would be discouraged from starting a boy of 18 or 19 when they knew that at 21 he would have to be paid a wage sufficient for a married man with three children. While realising the seriousness of such a position other members said that the Arbitration Court still had to define “adult”, for the purposes of basic wage payments. . The Cup! “And this is the cup!” With this remark Mrs R. S. Mclnnes, at the twelfth annual dinner of the Southland Basketball Union indicated the trophy which signified Southland’s first victory at the New Zealand basketball tournament in Christchurch. “It has been remarked,” Mrs Mclnnes added, “that it is not a very big cup That may be so, but it was purchased in i926—at a time when there were only five teams entered in the Dominion tournament and little interest was taken in basketball. The all-important fact is that this cup is very precious, for only the best basketball players in New ’Zealand can possess it.”