LOCAL AND GENERAL

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 56, Issue 42, 30 November 1935, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL

Seven Girl Guides from Ashbmton visited Christchurch Mo-day for the garden fete held at Cashmere House, the residence of Mrs Cracroft Wi son. A case of tuberculosis was notified to the Borough Health Officer this week. No: notifications of infectious disease were made in Ashburton County. Two hundred and forty men on the Ashburton unemployment register will be given work wider the No. 5 scheme next week. Sustenance payments will be made to 172 others. Banks and the Ashburton Permanent Building and Investment Society were closed to-dav on the occasion of St. Andrew’s Day, The flag was flown on the Ashburtton Post Office. Attention is drawn to a land sale advertisement, appearing on page 8 of this issue. The sale, which is to be held on Friday next, December 6, is of a freehold property at Westerfield, comprising 1334 acres, being part Lot 12, D.P. 3795. If the property is not sold by auction it will subsequently be offered for lease. This offers an excellent opportunity to anyone on the lookout for a leasehold sheep property, in a good locality, as the land is good plains land, suitable for growing crops of oats, turnip, rape, and green feed. At present it is carrying 800 breeding ewes and 250 dry sheep.

Carrying far oyer the roofs of the surrounding buildings, _ the sounds emitted by the three radio sets installed by Mr (D. W. Buchanan on the “Guardian” result board in Burnett Street on Wednesday were easily picked up by residents far removed from the vicinity of the hoard. People living in Tailored and Moore Streets wei e able to hear the results as they were announced from 2YA and broadcast through the sets, and an. invalid lying in bed in a house beyond the Police Station was able to hear through an open window the speeches of the pai ty leaders when they were put on the air about 11 o’clock.

The catches of whitebait this season do not seem to be as large as those of last, judging by the reports received, and there is a general impression amongst those who have the welfare ot the future of this delicacy at heart that some system of licenses and restriction of catches is necessary if the small hut lucrative industry is to be preserved, states the Wellington “Post.” For years there has been a gradual falling off in the quantities of whitebait taken. It is estimated that in the most depleted districts they now run in the proportion of 1 to 1000 of their former numbers. This season, apparently l , even in districts such as the Bay of Plenty, Waikato, and Westland, where there has ■ been the nearest approach to a maintenance of supply, a shortage compared with last season has been noted. There was a time, when the population was smaller, when everyone could take whitebait without apparently diminishing the yearly run. The worst feature of the position, from the preservation point of view, is that the more the fish decrease the higher becomes the price and the greater the incentive to catch and market them.

An albino blackbird has been nesting for some time in am apple tree in an Ashburton orchard on the west side. Its feathers are mottled a dirty grey over the whole of the bird’s body. ,

Advice of the receipt by the Treasury tif the following conscience-money is given in the Gazette: —£1 and Is forwarded to the Lands and Survey Department ; Is forwarded to the Education Department; Is forwarded to the Defence Department; two amounts of Is each forwarded to the Railways 'Department; £5 forwarded to the Unemployment Board; 7s 6d forwarded to the Treasury

At present the Boys’ Employment Bureau of the Young Men’s Christian Association is experiencing a big demand from farmers for boys to assist with work on their farms, and is almost incapable of coping with the demand (says a Christchurch message). For those with a knowledge of milking positions are easily found* the wages are reasonably good and boys out under the supervision of the bureau are assured of good homes. For those boys who are unable to milk there is the opportunity of taking a training course on the training farm at Avondale Road, Wainoni.

A Sydney trawling company will operate in coastal waters from iP'ort Chalmers soon. The object of the company will be first to supply the needs of the Dunedin market and then to ship the remainder of the fish to -Sydney. The necessary preparations are now in train, and the governing director, Mr C. Cam, of Cam and Son, Ltd., steam trawler and colliery owners, Sydney, is at present in Dunedin attending to the detajls of the project. The trawler Olive (Tam, which operates off the New South Wales coast, is expected to leave Sydney on December 7 for Port Chalmers. The vessel will be permanently engaged in local trawling (says a Press Association message).

After more than 30 years’ service as a missionary in Fiji, the Rev. Father Leo Lejeune, S.M., of Cawaci, Fiji, has entered the Makogai leper, hospital as a patient. 1 Father Lejeune, who is •59 years old, is the second member of the Marist Mission in Fiji to contract leprosy during his missionary work. Father F. Nicholeau, S.M., became a leper patient and died at Makogai a few years ago. One of the nursing sisters, who founded the leper hospital, lias also contracted the fell disease and has entered the compound for leprous women. The number of patients on the island has increased to 550. Through the generosity of New. Zealand 70 cases of gifts for the lepers at Christmas time has just .been forwarded to Makogai.

A young man, Mr K. Fyfe, employed by the North Auckland Farmers Co-operative, Ltd., at Kaitaia, fell on Monday night from the balcony of his boarding-house at Kaitaia and received a dislocated elbow and is suffering from shock,, states the "New Zealand Herald," Mr Fyfe retired to his room on the second storey of the building about midnight, and at 1.20 a.m. two other boarders, who sleep on the ground floor, were awakened by groans. They found Mr Fyfe on the ground in a semi-conscious condition. Dr. Rule was immediately summoned and he attended the injured man. It is presumed that Mr -Fyfe walked in his sleep, having been found in that condition on previous occasions, and attempted to climb from his room down the fire-escape from the balcony, a height of 15 feet.

It is understood that the Fletcher Construction Company’s tender for the placing of the foundations for.the Goveriiinent Departmental buildings between Maginnity and Stout streets, Wellington, has Wen accepted, the figure being a litle less than £19,000. Such an expenditure upon foundations suggests that the block will be a very large one_, of eight floors. The work will entail the excavation of 9500 cubic yards of spoil and the placing of 2700 cubic yards of concrete, 175 tons of reinforcing steel, and 120 tons of structural steel. In accordance with .modern large-scale building practice,’ the whole of the foundation work will be securely tied, so that in addition to the sinking of the foundations proper, a great deal of steel will go under ground in a network binding wall footings and heavy block foundations together. The structural steel members from which the superstructure will later rise will be carried up to ground level. The building proper will be the subject of separate tender.

•The opinion that the future for building was brighter and that work was more nearly approaching normal conditions was expressed by Mr S. W. Fearn (the chairman) at the annual meeting of the Wellington branch of the New Zealand Institute cf Architects. At the same time, continued Mr Fearn, lie could see no great building development until there was a considerably greater population in the Dominion. He thought it might be questioned whether the progress of the country had not advanced as far as the present population would permit. There was a need for more people tO' carry on the work of development. Such an increase of population could only be attained by a sound immigration policy. Mr F. E. Greenish agreed with the opinion that further immigration was essential to progress; but it would need, he said, to be planned immigration and should not be left to the haphazard methods cf the past. The Dominion needed not only immigrants for the primary industries, but it was inevitable that workers for the secondary industries should come, too.

Probably the only section of the community in Hawke’s Bay which is not completely disgusted and increasingly surprised at the weather which continues to inflict itself upon the district is the Maori race, members of which some time ago forecast, with pessimism which appears to have been well founded, that little, if any, summer weather would be experienced before Christmas. The Maoris have for generations based their prophecies associated with the weather upon the flowering of the kowhai trees and it was upon this foundation that their gloomy prognostication was made on this occasion. Noted for their ability to make the best of things the Maoris have therefore philosophically accepted the prospect of continued unsettled conditions. The kowhai tree not only acts as a weathieri prophet to the Maoris but has fulfilled faithfully the task of announcing to the Maori race the best time for the pursuit of crayfish. Europeans who have sought hags of crayfish before the kowhai tree has I’eacbed a certain state of flowering have been watched with some amusement by natives, and have been forced to admit that there is more in the apparent superstition than appears on the surface.

One hundred and thirteen people attended the annual picnic ox St. Joint’s Anglican Church, Winchester, held in the Ashburton Domain to-day. They arrived by train this morning.

Entries are coming in very well for the New Zealand Meat Board’s MidCanterbury export fat lamb competition which will take place at the Fairfield freezing works next Tnursday. They will be received up to next Tuesday.

The expiry of half-yearly licenses has resulted in fewer radio permits being paid for at the end of October than at the end of the previous month. On October 31 there were 170,568 paid licenses for receiving sets in the Dominion, as compared with 175,290 at the end of September. The grand totals of licenses connected with radio in New Zealand were 172,919 and 177,683 respectively. The average increase normally is about 3000 licenses a month.

It is the opinion of Mr A. C.. Fall, an engineer from Birmingham, who has toured Australia and is now touring New Zealand, that the Australians are a selfish people. "They do not care where their stuff comes from as long as it is cheap; and they should take more notice of England,” he said. "Where would Australia, be if England dropped her in the same way?” This lack of consideration for England was not apparent in New Zealand, and New Zealand’s name stood deservedly high at Home.

As if to temper the atmosphere on the eve of the general elections, heavy enow fell' in many parts of Hawke’s Bay on Tuesday and although much of it was melted by the briliant sunshine of the following morning it presented a brilliant sight, to the north and also to the south, from Napier. Hail fell in the central Hawke’s Bay district on Tuesday and the temperature dropped to a lower leyel than for many weeks past. At Hatuma arid further south there was a considerable fall of snow, and sheep which had been shorn suffered severely from the cold. Motorists travelling on the main voads from the south and north passed through fields of white, though the snow did not settle for any length of time on the surface of the mads and motor services were in no why interrupted. .

Because of the reported wreck of the cable steamer Cable at Cape S'. James, near Saigon, Cochin, China, last month, it is believed that the cable steamer Recorder, which for many years has been stationed at Auckland, will be called upon to carijy out any necessary repairs in the northern area until the lost vessel is replaced. Although no official information has been received, it is understood that the Cable, which was stationed at Singapore, went ashore at Cape St. James, where the is a cable station, and became a total loss? The'crew was landed in safety. The Recorder is at present at Melbourne, where she is transferring to the cable steamer Faraday 80 miles of cable, which she took on board at Suva in July, after repairing a fault in the Pacific cable near Norfolk Island. The Faraday is to lay a telephone cable across Bass Strait from Melbourne to Tasmania.