LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 61, Issue 45, 3 December 1940, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

It was arranged some time ago that the members of the Ashburon Borough Council should be phoographed in a group to mark the Centennial, year, but because of iD’r. Miller’s illness the photograph was not taken. A group is to be made up from individual photographs and it will be framed and hung in the Council Chambers.

Fifty-six men from the Ashburton County who were drawn in the second Territorial ballot vlere medically examined at the Ashburton Defence Office this morning. Thirty-three were passed as fit, one was classed permanently unfit, and 22 temporarily, unfit.

Walking sedately alongside its master in St. Aubyn Street, New Plymouth, recently, a young pet lamb attracted much attention. The lamb, as if conscious of the unusualness of the event, behaved like a well-trained dog and did not stray from the heels of its owner.

Reporting to the Ashburton Borough Council last evening the Engineer (Mr J. R. Richardson) stated that in the last month 24 licences had) been issued to motor drivers in the Borough, making l©6o to date. In the same period four building permits, for structures estimated to cost £4717 ;(ineliiding two dwellings), had been issued.

“I am convinced that Italy did nop have the slightest wish to be involved in war,’ declared the Governor-General (Viscount Galway) when speaking at Wellington. “It was the wish of one man only—Mussolini-—and I hope the Italian people call him to account for the destruction and humiliation he has brought upon the whole country.”

Now that the surface of West Street between Walnut Avenue and the flour mill has been, tar-sprayed, the Borough Council last evening agreed that the remainder of the street as far as Racecourse Road should be similarly treated. The dip in the street jus? north of the mill has been filled in and consolidated and the work can oroceed as soon as the works staff is ready.

“The track around the Oval is cracking up badly in several places. It has gone a little too far now, but if something is not dona to top-dress it with tar very soon it will cost a lot more money,” said Mr J. Thompson at the meeting of the iDbmain ’.Board last evening. It was stated that there was on the estimates for this year a sum of £l5O for the repair of the track.

Stating that he was to be married on December 21, a reservist who appeared before the Auckland Area Man-power Committee last week sought temporary postponement of his territorial service on the ground of hardship. In answer to a question, thie appellant said he would be quite prepared to enter camp on January 7. The committee offered its congratulations to the appellant on his approaching marriage and dismissed the appeal on condition that he was not called for service before January 7.

On the 62nd anniversary of St. Andrew’s Anglican Church, Tinwald,‘the Sunday School pupils held their patronal festival party. Games occupied the afternoon and at 5 o’clock a service was held, when three cloths for the children’s altair were dedicated. Tea Was held, and in the evening a nativity play was enacted before a large' congregation. The patronal festival service, following supper, was held in the evening, Deaconess Park (organiser of the Sunday Schools in the Christchurch diocese) visited Tinwald for the occasion.

If residents in front of whose sections long grass is growing accept the invitation of the Ashburton Borough Council to cut and remove the grass for hay or arrange for others to. dcr ' it, they will save the Council a considerable sum of money. A suggestion that the long grass should be offered to residents on condition that they did the cutting was put to the Council and 1 was adopted, it being pointed out that the greater part of the plan applied to> tne Alienton area, which has only recently come under Borough jurisdiction.

A 1246-acre, block of coastal country fronting the West Coast, about 10 miles south of Dargaville, has been acquired by the Crown for purposes of closer settlement (says a Press Association telegram). It adjoins thei southern boundary of Bassets Block, acquired by the Crown for small farms about 1929. The owner was Mr W. H. Bradley, of Te Kopuru, and it is understood that the deal fell a. few hundred pounds short of £IO,OOO. The intention. is to cut the area into 100-acre blocks. All but about 250 acres is ploughable.

The Works Committee iof the Ashburton Borough Council is to inquire int-o the possibility of this year tarsealing or asphalting the footpath in West Street along the boundaa'y of the Domain. At the meeting of the Council last evening Mr J. Thompson said that the path would be greatly improved by a tar coating and covering with fine chips. It was uneconomical to have to grub away the grass and weeds from the path twice a year. It was pointed out that the ordinary asphalting would cost about £l5O for the work.

More than 50 tons of those foodstuffs which form the base of the average daily diet are required each week to feed men of the Central District Mobilisation, Camp, Trentham. Here up to 4000 sit down to each meal, and at times the number has been much greater. The most interesting feature of food statistics at the camp is the fall in the consumption of bread, butter, jam, and cheese, and the increase in vegetables and fruit —oranges, bananas, apples, and rhubarb, the lastnamed as a breakfast dish. The following quantities giv(e an idea of the weekly food consumption: Bi’ead, 8 tons; meat, including small goods, 15 tons; potatoes, 10 tons; flour and butter, each two tons; onions, 1 ton ; other vegetables, 18 tons: iam, 30001 b ; sugar, 50001 b: fish, 30001 b"; milk, 4000 gallons; fresh fruit, 250 eases. On an even division, therefore, each man in the camp now must get, directly or as part of some dish, a gallon of milk .and a pound of butter a week. Many residents of Hastings are now finding that their potato crops have rotted in the ground as a result of the continued wet weather. The trouble really started with the excessive rain of a .fortnight ago, and has been aggravated by subsequent downfalls, which have become almost a daily occurrence. Heaviest losses have been experienced where the seed potatoes had not been long in the ground.

Because the period left to the iend of the present Borough Council’s term of office is six months (the time allowed by law in which vacancies may be filled at once or hold over at the discretion of the Council) and because of the nearness of Christmas, the Ashburton Borough Council last evening decided that the vacancy on the Court oil should not be filled before the next election, which is due on the second Wednesday of next May,

Reference to what he described as the fine type of New Zealand manhood offering for service in the Royal Air Force was made by the GovernorGeneral (Viscount Galway) when, addressing the Wellington College C'acfet Battalion. “Large numbers are mow going through intensive training in Canada,” he said, “and they will be taking their place in the great air battles certain to eventuate in Europe next year, when the weather is better and flying conditions are good again. It may be that the Air Force will be the determining factor in, the war. Already the decisive importance of air superiority has been shown.”

The question of dangerous corners in the Borough where cutting is advisable to give motor traffic a clearer view .of other traffic having been raised at the meeting of the Council last evening, it was stated that the posters of the Council in compelling the cutting back of fences were wide, hut it was not known to what extent the Council coukl compel the cutting back of the actual section corners. It was agreed that the law on the subject should .be gone into and that the Council should discuss the point at its next meeting.

The poor opinion of the worth of New Zealand currency abroad is illustrated in a letter to a Dunedin resident from a New Zealander who recently visited Colon, which is on the Atlantic side of the Panama canal. “The first thing we had to do on our arrival,” said the writer, “was to find a place where ,we could get a bit of money changed. I was with two friends at the time so, as it was night, we went into a ‘speakeasy’ and each cashed a Bank of England note. For these we got only three American dollars. They wouldn’t look at New Zealand money,” he concluded.

The rough stnte of the surfaces of two private .rights-of-way running from Havelock Street to Runnett Street was referred to at the meeting of the Ashburton Borough Council last evening, when it was decided that the owners should be written to requesting that they should put the surfaces in good repair, the Council to give a certain amount of assistance in the loan of a grader. It Vas pointed out that the rights-of-way are largely used by the public and large stones were being pushed out on to the footpaths by motor vehicles which also passed through the lanes.