LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 61, Issue 39, 26 November 1940, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Persons wishing to experiment with flax milling, such as the treatment of green fibre, are granted exemption from obtaining licences by a notice' published in the Gazette.

In. the report of the. appeal by F. A. Anderson, of Lauriston, heard by the Stan-Power Committee on Saturday, it was stated that appellant’s brother was an invalid. This did 1 .not state the position accurately. As a matter of fact, the evidence was that the brother, who was in partnership, was unable to do very much since he met with a serious accident two years ago.

Regulations gazetted last week automatically suspend maintenance orders against soldiers while they are with thp armed forces. Under earlier regulations the State assumed liability for the maintenance of soldiers’ dependents, and the practical effect of the new regulation is that the Army will pay allowances direct to dependents ini stead of through the medium of the Courts.

i Wool has taken the place of silk in the championship and class ribbons given to Winners at the Southland Agricultural and Pastoral Association’s Summer Show this year. The shortage of silk has been the cause of the change-over, which represents an increase in cost to the association of about 100 per cent. The. official badges this year will also he of wool.

The Government’s appreciation of the co-operation forthcoming from the footwear industry was expressed recently by the Minister of Supply (the Hon. D. G. Sullivan). He .said military requirements had thrown an added responsibility on the industry, and the response from the manufacturers and workers in meeting this rapidly-increasing demand had been, excellent.

. “I have survived some; 30-odd bombing attacks on areas through which I have been passing, and I cam assure you; that I know every ‘funk-hole’ in the Western Desert. Do not assume, however, that, like ‘Potato Bill’ I have uudaunted courage. It is rather that each time I set out the head and heart say, ‘Go,’ and the 'stomach says, ‘Stay!’ ” writes Mr J. H. Ledgerwood, of the National Council of the Y.M.0.A., from Cairo, Egypt.

One of the many signs that the people 'of Britain are not allowing themselves to he turned aside from their normal activities by the German onslaught is the receipt in New Zealand of the annual picture calendars. The only difference is that they are arriving somewhat earlier than usual. It is significant that a. typical one, the Scotsman Calendar’, now issued for the tenth year, confines it pictures entirely to scenes of beauty and contains not a hint of wartime activities-and destruction.

Four hundred books have been added to the shelves of the Ashburton Public Library shop in Burnett Street this month. Many of these are new and others have been recovered. Forty new books have been added to the children’s section of the Library which is becoming increasingly popular. In fact, there was a-period of some minutes on >2 day recently when there were only 12 children’s books left. Parents are* taking a keen interest in the section and many of them are making selections of reading matter for their children from the volumes .available.

Several important electrical works for the imjjrovement of railway services in the Canterbury. Marlborough and Westland districts were mentioned by th»? Hon. D. G. Sullivan (Minister for Railways) in an interview at Christchurch. “The installation of automatic signalling equipment on the 11-mile section of railway between Rolleston Junction and Dunsandel has just been completed, and, the changeover to this modern method of trainoperation will enable an improved traffic schedule to be introduced between Christchurch, Ashburton and Timarir when the new signalling is brought into use on November 25,” said Mr Sullivan.

An Ashburton firm this morning sent into the Borough Council office 21 Home Guard enrolment forms filled in Cy members of its staff and as there were still other members who wished to sign on a further, batch of half-a-dozen forms was taken away. The Home Guard membership stood at 112 at noon to-day. The first parade of the Guard will be held at the Drill Hall at 7.30 o’clock on Tlwrsday evening, when it is expected there will be a full attendance. It Iras been stated that in future all notices to members of the Home Guard will be given through the “Guardian,” instead of by means of individual notices.

The amount of sales tax collected during the month of September, l€4o, for ordinary revenue purposes, according to the October Abstract of Statistics; was £288,746 compared with £284,687 in August, and! £293,848 in September, 1939. The aggregate sales tax receipts for the nine months ended September, 1940, was £2,620,645, a slight decrease cm the total for the first nine months of 1939 (£2,708,324). The foregoing figures do not include the amount of sales tax credited to the War Expenses Account. The rate of sales tax was jraised from. 5 to 10 per cent, as from June l 28, 1940, the addi tional revenue to be used for war purposes. ,

War brought problems for the horticulturist, even if he vie re far removed from the battlefiront, remarked Dr. W. A. Riddell (High Commissioner for Canada) when omening a Rose Show at Wellington. Apart from the effect of tho war on seed supplies in New Zealand there was also the problem of labour, he said. As more men were called up for war service and more women taken into industry, the problem of labour became vital. War also created a given t demand for preserved fruits and vegetables. Armies must be lV?d, cither from home sources or by importing from other countries. Even an ounce and a-lialf of jam a soldier a day, the present ration, ran away with' a. lot. A division of 10,000 men consumed 450,0001 b annually, or more than 8 per cent, of the jams and jellies produced in New Zealand in the season 1937-38. In the last war there was a great demand upon Canada. fo|r such products, so they tried to reserve the output of their canneries for the armies and to encourage home preserving. Special lecturers on canning were sent about the, country holding meetings in suitable centres and demonstrating what could fcfc done by home preserving. The men at the front were thus amply supplied.

The rapidity with l which letters to and from the troops in the Middle Eastare handled, especially if they are sent by air mail, is demonstrated in the letters which are being received in Ashburton. One received several days ago is dated November 1, in the desou'C.

At the. Courtenay Show on Saturday Miss C l . M. Frampton gained first places in the classes for hack 11 stone, lady’s hack, best lady rider, best walking hack, best-mannered saddle-horse, and third place in the class for ponies over 14.2 hands. Miss Frampton’s “Major Sparks” was this champion saddle hack.

Bathed in sunshine, the Ashburton Domain yesterday drew 1 high praise from visitors. The extensive beds of flowers, the neatly-trimmed lawns and paths and the general setting of trees and shrubs brought to the observer a realisation that Ashburton possesses a public park that few in the Dominion can rival. Following several days of rain, the flower plots looked particularly fresh and attractive in the bright sunshine.

The 25 children to attend the annual health camp to be held at Methven early next year havp been selected from a. list of ( about 100 by (Dr. W. It. Ryburn, assisted by other Ashburton doctors. The children selected r the greater proportion of whom are gijrls, are all definitely in need of health camp treatment. The committee organising the camp is being well supported by donations from local bodies and has arrangements for the. camp well in hand.

Four cows and a sow were killed during the recent severe thunderstorm,in the Upper Barrett Road district, New Plymouth. They were standing in an open paddock and the owner, Mr R. Johns, believes their death probably occurred about 5 o’clock in the morning when there was an. exceptionally heavy crash. There being no burns on the carcases, it- has been suggested that the animals were killed by concussion rather than by lightning. This was the most serious damage suffered in one of the most violent thunderstorms the New Plymouth district has experienced for many years.

It is not often> the quantities of namice are cast up on the beach at Lyall Bay, yet a good deal of this fined rock in small pieces was seen there last week, along with quantities of driftwood. One resident was able to obtain enough driftwood to see him through the whole of next winter. He concluded, from the nature cf the wood, some of it large logs, that it must have come down the Wanganui River following, necent heavy rains, and, influenced by north-easterly winds, must have been carried along the coast- past the Otaki and Parapa.raumu beaches into the Strait, where it had been halted by recent southerlies and so brought ashore. Needless to say, the beach was soon cleared of the driftwood.

“There is such a lively demand, for good second-hand cars these days that I have had men from as far away as Wellington and Oamairu. trying to pick up suitable cars,” said an Ashburton garage proprietor to a. “Guardian” reporter this morning when discussing the trend in the purchase of cars at the present time. (He said that most of the demand was for the eight or ten horse-power cars and most of the vehicles on the roads were of this class. It was also a. fact that there was a good inquiry for the larger cars of new make, but these could not he obtained from overseas. When the petrol restrictions came into force he had a large number of the bigger sec-ond-h&nd cars Available, but nearly all of these had been taken.

New Zealand had some decided advantages for the amateur rose grower, remarked Dr.' W. A. Riddell (High Commissioner for Canada), when opening the Wellington Rose Show. It had a moist climate which not only gave alonger blossoming ppriod, hut made loss from the drying out of the grafts less likely. Pests appeared to be nq worse than in othea- lands. There was no danger here of winter killing, and in his opinion-, the colourings here were if anything finer than, in the Northern' Hemisphere. “From my limited- experience in planting some- hundred roses in my garden at Lower Hutt. however, I found one real advantage,” he said. “Your mild, moist climatei is probably responsible for less pains being taken in preparing plapts for transplanting than in some other countries. The roots of the rose bushes which 1 purchased did not appear to have as .much protection from the light and air as is usual in less-fav-oured countriies.” To this latter fact Dr. Riddell attributed the losses which occurred in transplanting. i

“The statements made by the president of the Board of Trade (Captain Oliver Lyttelton) and the chief economic adviser to the British Government (Lord Stamp) ajre in line with the views expressed by economists on the problems involved in war economics, that, except insofar as resources of non-belligerent countries can be drawn upon by borrowing or realising on overseas investments, resources for the war must be found out of current production,’' said Professor H. Belshaw in. an interview at Auckland. It was conceivable, he said, that sufficient would be found in a major war simply by increasing production. Reduction in civilian consumption was inevitable. From the point of view of the present war, the Empire had to he regarded as a unit, and all parts had to expect a reduction in consumption. As far as New Zealand was concerned, there was no reason why there should he any reduction in the consumption, of essential foodstuffs, and the emphasis should rather be on less necessary lines like comforts and luxuries, as a great many wore imported, or made from imported raw materials.