RANDOM SHOTS

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 229, 27 September 1930, Page 2 (Supplement)

RANDOM SHOTS

COINAGE

3G&mE?

Southern people [reading the Parliamentary debates must get the impression that Ancklanders are uncommonly cleanly—at least, they talk a great deal about water. Opinions 011 the North Shore vary regarding the efficiency ot the local boroughs' destructor, but there appears no doubt that it is destructive of harmony. "So few donations have been made to lesse'n the loss of over £100 incurred by Music Week in Christchurch that a call has been made on the MO guarantors." I suppose this is called "facing the music." Mr. H. E. Holland suggests that many of Auckland's troubles would bo solved if the smaller local bodies were to merge into a Greater Auckland scheme. But Mr. Holland doesn't know what Newmarket and Mount Eden think of the City Council, and what the City Council thinks of both. It is the boast of New Zealand that the natives enjoy absolute equality with the European's, but the Maori method of voting at elections is very free and easy compared with the European. Some of the Maoris, according to a Maori M.P., feel themselves quite equal to voting more than once. There is an impression that something will come of the investigations now being made into the railways. Of couisc, there will be some fine new reports, and after considering them Parliament Avill express the opinon that the losses on the railways have increased, are increasing, and ought to be depiecatcd. There is sound sense in the proposal of a local institution to hold community singing gatherings for men only. Lots of men are secretly pining to express themselves, but there is nothing else that gives a man such a poor opinion of his own splendid voice as having a soprano singing beside him. The Arbitration Court has defined the duties of a chief cook in a restaurant, but in giving judgment Mr. Justice Frazer remarked that "We do not want to have the Court bothered with cases of this kind, which any magistrate is as competent to deal with as we are." Won t our magistrates be pleased by the prospect! "Sir Otto Niemeyer lectured and castigated the Premiers of all the States of Australia as though they were a lot of schoolboys," declares Mr. Lang, who used to he a Premier himself, and hopes to bo one again. And what have the Premiers, and their predecessors, including Mr. Lang, to prove that they are not a lot of schoolboys? "Parliament," says a Southern newspaper, "has lost control of expenditure. It has beconit) a snowball, once of manageable size, but which since has gained so much in dimensions and momentum that its inertia is almost irresistible." The thing to do is to nip its momentum in the bud and grasp its forelock before its inertia changes to top gear and gets out of hand. "Agreement has been reached by the local bodies interested in the Whau Bridge." It ought to be the perfect bridge. Eight local bodies, the Marine Department and the Harbour Board have all had something to say about its specifications and its cost. The only point that occurs to one is that if so many discussions preceded the building.of every bridge, there would still be many streams for the traveller to ford. The New South Wales Labour leader, determined to raise his State to prosperity onco more, has enunciated his proposals, which, it is estimated, would cost about £20,000,000 to put into effect. How his audience must have been thrilled as they listened to this man of vision. Outside the auditorium there was nothing but depression, poverty and gloom; inside, a vista of seven pay-days in every week, and time off to collect the pay. Why, it must have been better than the movies! While a man and his wife were listening in to a wireless programme in Dunedin, a thief ransacked their bedroom next door, and stole £20. Apparently the listening-in habit doesn't make the "listeners' hearing any keener. Of course, if this story were told in an American film the thief, after stealing the money, would stop dead 011 hearing "Home, Sweet Home" or "Mother of Mine" being broadcast, and would be so overcome by the sentiment that he would return the money, and in the following week marry the owner's daughter. But thieves —and owners— are a bit harder-headed in Dunedin thai? that.

Sir Olio Niemcycr says that gold coinage will not be currency in New Zealand.for some time. Mint, mint in millions, coins auriferous, Round, yellow, milled, nil tunefully a-ring, Metallic music most mellifluous, Coins limning, too, the Empire's Sovereign King; Coin if you will these outward symbols bright, . , , Make vastly-seeming glittering wealth untold, Then I will choosc; Ah! I will choose aright, And it shall be yourselves, oh hearts of gold ! I'll take instead of bullion, thews of steel, No leaden thoughts, but tempered manly will, The seeing eye, the very soul to feel— Then, ves, ah then, the coffers we may till; Masters of craft, and statesmen of the land, Here is the metal, here the wealth untold, Ready, aye ready, for the skilful hand, The currency to mould from hearts of gold. The lovely land unminted coinage yields, The treasury of earth pays interest true, See how the bullion blossoms in the field. The bonks wherein the corn is ever new! The El Dorado of the plough and spade, The unplumbed mines of pasture new and old, Spoil from the soil, and to be ever made By you, true metal, valiant hearts of gold. Mint, mint in millions, coins like golden suns, Round, rolling, resonant, rich, ringing, rare, Make mounds of milled-edged money, tons on tons, Mako princely portly portraits passing fair. There is a currency of blood and bone, Not to be bartered, bought, exchanged, or sold. It is a coinage, brothers, of your own, Minted and moulded in your hearts of gold. —C.J,