LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 61, Issue 124, 7 March 1941, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

The ’ Manpower Committee to hear appeals against service in the Territorials will sit in Ashburton next Wednesday and Thursday. The Ashburton Home Guard paraded at the Ashburton Domain last evening and platoon and company drill were carried out. Several new members were sworn in. Repair'work at the Methven library, estimated to cost £2OO. was authorised by the Ashburton County Council today. The expenditure will be a charge on the Mount Hutt Riding. A faint blue light filled the southern sky for some time late last night. The glow was brighter, at intervals, fading down to a. me/rc glimmer, but at the height of the display the stars were eclipsed by the brightness. The levelling of the surface of the footpath on the south side of Winter’s Road has been started, in preparation for the sealing. This path was recently kerbed and channelled, and he completion of the work will bring about a much-needed improvement in the locality. Two special troop trains carrying men who have been on 10 days’ leave hack to camp will pass through Ashburton. for the north to-morrow afternoon. The first train is due here at about 4.0 and the second train at 0 o’clock. A, donation of £o was made to the Dr. Miller Memorial Playground Fund at a meeting of the Ashburton 'Sports Association. It was decided to support a sports queen if a carnival is held in aid of patriotic funds in the Borough. The president (Mr S. Mitchell) presided. Very few persons have applied to the Ashburton vpOst Office for forms under the free medical service of the Social Security Act. The service came iijto force last Saturday and it was stated at the Post Office this moyning that about nine applications had been made • for adults’ forms and eight for children’s forms. “Every man in the Army should try for promotion all the time,” said Colonel John Findlay, C.R., D. 5.0., at the Ashburton Club social to soldier members last evening. “He should he always looking for promotion. The higher up he gets the safer it is, of course. If he gets- toi he a Colonel — and I speak with some authority here —you will have a very safe job, though in, this war it is- not- as safe as it used to be. In fact, it seems to be getting Worse!” During a meeting called to form a Home Guard in Tutaenui, near Mayton, a “black-out” was experienced. Electric power failed in the building and the newly-enrolled guardsmen were called upon for their first test in initiative. Torches, even candles, were found, and the meeting was able to carry on until the arrival of a trouble man from the Wanganui-Rangitikei Electric'Power Board. The experience served to emphasise that if ever the need arises for a “black-out” in big centres, people will be fortunate if they have had some training to enable them to move and make good in the dark. Much interest has been aroused among members of A and B Companies of the Ashburton Home Guard following a challenge! thrown out by B Company for a meek attack over land to the south-east of Ashburton on Sunday morning. The two companies will hold a. whole-day parade, with A Company carrying out an attack in the morning and B Company attacking in the afternoon. Plans for the tactics have been, worked out by the officers of the respective units, and it is believed that an umpire from Burnham Military Camp will he in attendance. Endeavours are also being made to have aeroplanes from Wigram Air Station take part in the manoeuvres. About 40 members of the Ashburton Salvation Army Band and Songster Brigade will attend a congress at Christchurch during the week-end. At a musical festival to-morrow evening the Band will contribute the chorus “Gloria” (Mozart) and the air-vane “The Little Ship” (Mountain). The Band’s Male Voice Party will sing “Comrades in Arms,” and the local songsters will augment the Congress Choristers in massed numbers linder the conductorship of Captain E. Elliott, of Ashburton. Songster-Leader C. E. Hopwood will sing the solo “The Door Sergeant” (Ball). The Band will piny “A Song of Hope” (Batiste) at the morning service which will Le broadcast from Station 3YA Christchurch on Sunday. “I believe it is essential to keep ever before us a picture of that new world for which we are fighting,” said Air Ivan Alenzies, cf the Gilbert and Sullivan Comic Opera Company, speaking in. Wellington on “National Alorale.” “It was surely one of the causes of this war that the victors did not realise their vision in the years after 1918. They—that is we—relaxed when surely we should have known that a new and dynamic world had been born in the suffering and sacrifice of the war —a new spirit, demanding inspired leadership for its development. Alorale is being recognised more and more clearly by our leaders in Britain as a most important force, not only for winning, the. War hut also for what is just as important, for winning the peace, and so eradicating once and for all the disease that has ravaged Europe for so many years.” According to passengers who arrived at Auckland from Noumea by the Honolulu Clipper, the New Caledonian Government has placed a complete prohibition on the export of metals to Japan, and four Japanese vessels which recently arrived at Noumea for ore are held up there, unable to load, reports the “New Zealand Herald.” A cable message on Alondny stated that two Japanese vessels had been debarred from loading on the ground that the quarterly quota of 24,000 tons of iron ore had already been exceeded. The ships had then been at anchor for eight days. The head of a New Caledonian nickel mining company, Air Henri La • flour, stated on his arrival on Friday that the Government’s decree had created a serious situation for the min - ing industry and for the colony as a whole. He was 'on his way to Australia to. enlist the help of the Commonwealth Government in overcoming the difficulty. -If necessary he intended to go to the United States in continuance .of his mission.

Including the men now in camp, the Ashburton Club and M.S.A. has about 80 of its members in the overseas forces, according to a statement made at a social function last evening. The appearance of tliei 'Post Office mail and telephone boxes in Ashburton is being improved by fresh coats ol paint. With the provision also of neat small, green rubbish, containers in the streets the. tidiness of Ashburton should be increased. Though cnlisments in the Ashburton Home Guard have been made steadily over the last few months, the number of men. offering has been considerably below the expectations. With the object of stimulating interest in tho Home Guard a parade of the four companies will be held through the streets of Ashburton next Thursday evening, when it is hoped that the Ashburton ■Silver Band will also parade and head the march. A grant of £5 is to be made to each Homo Guard in Ashburton County by the Ashburton County .Council, according to a decision reached to-day. It was stated that the initial expeditujie of the Home Guard was the responsibility of the local bodies. An application for a subsidy of £3 for £1 for transport costs had been made to the Government. The belief that the time-honoured toast, “Navy, Army and Air Force” would, after this war, have the “Homo Guard” added to it, w#ns expressed by a speaker at the social tendered last evening to soldier members of the Ashburton Club and M.S.A. The speaker said that the Home Guard in England had.already built up such a reputation for service under air attack and in general defence work that it could not be ignored. A pig-stye on the property of My J. Cavill, of Elgin, was burnt about midday on Tuesday when fire spread to it from a straw stack that had been burnt and was thought to bo safe. Mr Cavill was in Ashburton at the time but the fire was noticed and prevented from doing any further damage. There were three pigs in the stye and one of these died from burns, while it is believed the others may also have had to be destroyed. No other damage was done. Collection of household waste paper by school children began in Wellington last week, and already a ton of paper, valued at about £7, has been received at the depot from one school alone. All the proceeds will go to patriotic funds. The deputy-chairman of the metropolitan committee for the reclamation of waste material (Mr A. R. Christian) said that school masters and pupils had started enthusiastically and were doing a good, thorough job. The collection of paper from business premises had been, in progress for three or four weeks, said Mr Christian, and the result was satisfactory. After the German raiders have visited London and other English cities the children compete with each other in gathering up the metal from the exploded bombs, according to Mr G. •Davis, a visitor to Wellington, who tells some interesting stories of the people’s heroism in England. When the children have collected 71b of metal they are presented with a model Spitfire, and this makes tho competition extremely keen. The metal is of course melted and used against the enemy in the form of shells and bombs. “They will never break the spirit of the English people,” Mr Davis said. “On occasions such as this, when the armed forces are being honoured and references are being made to the glorious deeds of the, men. of the last war, it is to be regretted that the veterans of tho South African War are not mentioned more often,” said My A. A. McDonald at the Ashburton Club social to soldiers last evening. “The men who went- to the war in South Africa blazed the trail for New Zealand in war,” Mr McDonald said. “Then came the New Zealand force in the war of ' 1914-1918, which made a name for itself second to none in the British Army. Now we have our men in Libya, where some of the units have added laurels to the proud name.” The fact that the idea of the British Commonwealth of Nations had originated in America was recalled by the Rev. Robertson Orr, of Vancouver, when speaking at the Wellington Travel Club. This had been conceived and expressed in a document called the Olive Branch Petition, prepared just before the outbreak of the American War of Independence. This petition had asked King George of England to bring about the precise relationship between Britain and the U.S.A. as was brought about latar by tho Statute of Westminster among the various parts of the British Empire. For some reason, the speaker said, the petition had not been presented, and a year later the American, War of Independence had broken out.