LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 58, Issue 194, 18 May 1938, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

After a lapse of several months the person responsible for the scratching of plate glass windows of shops in East Street has been active again lately and a number of windows that escaped the series of attacks that have extended over two or three years have been marked, while new lines have been cut in the surface of windows that had already been damaged.

Thieves have been active at the site of the new Government houses in Wanganui. The police are investigating the removal of a length of Rose from one of the houses, and an enterprising thief recently removed one of the patent drying lines which are being erected. These lines are bulky to handle in themselves, but the thief also took with him the heavy block of concrete in which the centre pole of the line is mounted.

The first multiple-unit four-motor electric train to he operated by the New Zealand Railways is nearing completion, and is almost ready lor res service trials, intended for the Welling-ton-Johnsoiiville suburhah service, the power coach and trailer now receiving their finishing touches will be the first of six two-car trains which will maintain fast and regular services between the city, and certain suburbs. i‘ivo multiple-units have already been landed at Wellington, and the sixth was due last week. \

The Workers’ Educational Association lias been revived in Ashburton after a lapse of some years and a fairly well-attended class was held last evening, when the first of a series of lectures was given by Dr. Helen Simpson, late lecturer in England at Canterbury Colege. Her subject was Modern Literature, the lecture being entitled “Authors’ Remonstrances.” The classes will he continued each Wednesday evening in the Kindergarten School.

The Patea Harbour Beard has not the power to grant a licence for the development of the iron-sand industry, according to advice received from the Mines Department. The board applied last year to the department for approval of a licence for a firm. The board has been informed that, apart from the effect of the Iron and Steel Industry Act, which provided that only the commissioners appointed unaer the Act could mine for iron ore, there was every reason to doubt the legality of such a licence.

The Ashburton sub-Centre of the St. John Ambulance Association will make its second annual appeal on Friday, when collections will be taken up in the streets of Ashburton. Funds are required to carry on the general work of the Sub-Centre but particularly at present for the building of a room that would servo as headquarters for the activities and accommodation for the holding of classes in first aid and home nursing. Arrangements have been made for a thorough canvass of the town, and it is anticipated that there will be a generous response to the appeal.

A further instance of a Reserve Bank £SO note being tendered and accepted as a 10s note, occurred in a shop in Newmarket, Auckland. It Avas not until some hours later that the shopper, a Avoman from the country, realised her mistake and communicated with the shop. A hasty search Avas made ancl the £SO note was found reposing Avith the 10s notes in the draAver. The attention of the Reserve Bank has been draAvn repeatedly to the marked similarity of tile. tAVO notes, but, in spite of numerous errors being reported, it is adamant that there is no necessity to make any change.

Although officers of the Department are reticent, it is gathered that in the Dunedin district there is not entire satisfaction with the effect of the regrading, in the Post and Telegraph Department. One member of the staff told a reporter that it was “impossible to please everybody,” and this is regarded as being evidence that in Dunedin some at least of the officers are satisfied with the adjustments that have taken place. No information was available to support a statement from Auckland that “shoals of appeals” had been forwarded against the reclassifications, but the impression was gained that there was some dissatisfaction with the introduction of the intermediary salary: grades.

The impression which has gained some currency that the New Zealand delegates to the conference of primary producers that was held in Sydney some weeks ago had been in favour of restricting exports of primary products to Great Britain was corrected by Mr A. P. O’Shea (Dominion secretary of the New Zealand I armers’ Union) in an interview with an “Otago Daily Times” reporter. Delegates, he said, were definitely not in favour of restrictions,' but were convinced that the regulation of exports by all countries concerned, and their close co-operation in marketing methods, would have the desired effect of preventing the Home market from being overloaded with any particular variety of produce.

Although farmers in the St, Andrew’s district have experienced trouble with disease in lambs, Mr W. A. C. Allan has had the misfortune to lose nearly 250 lambs out of a mob of between 700 and BCO says “The Timaru Herald”). Mr Allan had his stock grazing on turnips ' and rape, and later shifted them to a paddccli of green oats. After a few days the lambs startde to die at the rate of 20 to 30 a .day. The lambs 'throughout had been fed with oats and chaff and to all appearances seemed healthy. The digestive trouble is put down to the acid in the feed. Mr Allan had to burn the majority of the carcases as a return of only 9d a skin was not deemed worth the trouble of skinning.

In a letter written on April at Kong Chuen Hospital, just out of Canton, Dr. Owen Eaton, Knox Church s (Dunedin) “own missionary” in China, sa ys:— “The newspapers have just reported a speech of Madame Cluang Kai-shek, in which she refers to the heroism of the missionaries in North China and Central China, yhere they have proved beyond all criticism the worth of Christian missions and shown that the spirit of such as Livingstone and Morrison still lives. She announced that the generalissimo has been able to get the Government to rescind a law that lias forbidden the teaching of the Bible or of Christianity in any form during the regular hours of school work in all registered schools. It opens up the way again for more fruitful work in mission schools. When this struggle is over, Christianity will be in a position to advance as never before.”

Goods traffic on the railways is keeping up to the high level recently reported in Ashburton and long strings of loaded trucks have been passing through of late. Shunting in the Ashburton yards is being carried out at , all hours of the day and night, and the staff is being kept busy handling the miscellaneous assortment of goods arriving with every train.

Something unusual in fruit production was brought to the notice of a “Alan aw atu Evening Standard” reporter by a resident of Kopane, who lias an Irish peach apple tree loaded with a second crop. The first crop ripened about Christmas time, and the tree flowered again to produce another crop almost as good. The second crop has ripened well, anil the fruit has the rich colour and delightful flavour associated with a normal crop.

Wellington at present is in the none too gentle grip of the crop ol : early winter colds. The weather has been changeable and chilly, and the nuinbei of colds, in some cases a form of influenza, is probably due to a delayed change' to warmer clothing. Business houses in the city have been suffering from depleted staffs, but the chills, although distressing to the victims and commercially inconveniencing, have not graduated to the) epidemic class.

Twenty-four medal-bedecked veterans sprang to attention yesterday morning when the Governor-General (Viscount Galway) paid his first visit to the King’s Empire Veterans’ Home at Auckland. The ranks included 10 South African veterans and others of earlier campaigns. One had been through the Dardanelles in 1879 and the rest were veterans of the Great War. After the inspection, Viscount GaHvay expressed appreciation of the comfortable quai - ters and promised to present a portrait of himself and Lady Galway to add to the collation of pictures of GovernorsGeneral and their wives.

On the invitation of the Ashburton Technical High School Old, Pupils’ Association, the Ashburton Catholic Club, which met on Monday evening, decided to debate the Association on the subject, “Has democracy done more good for the world than dictatorship?” The club, which will take the negative side, will be represented by Alessrs M. L. Crequer (leader), H. AlcCosker and N. Tully. At the next meeting of the club Alessrs C. Bradley and J. N. Taylor will debate the subject “That the National Health and Superannuation Scheme is in the best interests of New Zealand.” The president (Air J. P. McDonnell) presided.

The need for commodious premises for Government departments with which the general public largely bas business was emphasised by the Minister for Pensions (the Hon. W. E. Parry) in replying to a deputation at Wellington yesterday. “There is no doubt,” Mr Parry said, “that there has ibeen overcrowding in the past in many of the Government offices where large numbers of the public have business daily. I found this overcrowding to be notable in more offices of the Pensions Department than I care now to remember. Gradually we are giving pensions registrars much-needed new offices, and when new offices cannot be obtained certainly extra space is being provided for the staff and the public. It was the Government’s policy to house its departments properly.

Mr S. H. Mayne, F.S.M.C., F. 1.0. (London), of Messrs J. It. Procter, LtcL, Christchurch, is at present in Ashburton, and may be consulted on all defects of eyesight at the Somerset Hotel to-morrow and Friday.— (Advt.)