NEWS OF THE DAY.

Auckland Star, 2 September 1933, Page 8

NEWS OF THE DAY.

Building Subsidy. Applications numbering 67 wore received by the Labour Department this week for building subsidies under the Unemployment Board's No. 10 scheme. The estimated v;iluc of the work was £10,952. To date 701 applications have been lodged, the estimated value of the work being £304,283. Of that amount labour will absorb £99,351. and the subsidy will be approximately £36,400. '■ Greeting From Neptune. The uncommon spectacle of a school of porpoises disporting themselves in the harbour was witnessed thie morning by a lady observer whose ' balcony liae a harbour view. She was enjoying the prospect of the Dominion and Commonwealth Navies afloat on the Waitemata when the lon ping porpoises swept into the picture— an appropriate matutinal greeting from Neptune to the Australian fleet. Schools Reopen on Monday. Primary schoolboys and, schoolgirls will go back to their books oil Monday, when the schools will reopen for the third and final term of the year. They have been on holiday for two weeks. The University College term will als.i commence on Monday, and the Seddon Memorial Technical College will reopen on Tuesday. The majority of the other secondary schools will resume on Tuesday, September 12. In the Hokianga and Bay of Islands districts, where the echoole closed early on account of the prevalence of sleepy fiickiietis, scholars will resuina their studies on Monday. First Train Through. It is not intended to have any official welcome on Monday morning when the first Auckland express arrives at Stratford over the new railway line. Five o'clock was considered toe early in the morning for such ceremonies, but there will probably be a gathering in the evening when the first New Plymouth-Auckland train goes through. Mr. J. B. Richards, president of the Stratford Chamber of Commerce, told an interviewer be did not think, however, that there would be official speeches or anything on an elaborate scale. An Omen? What might have been taken in a superstitious gathering as nn omen occurred after a supplier at the annual meeting of the Cardiff Dairy Company had risen to take exception to a remark by the chairman, Mr. C. A. Marchanl, that suppliers other than directors had to take the greater part of the blame for defect* in milk loading to imperfection in coloured cheese. As the supplier eat down after hie mild explosipn another of an artificial nature occurred, a radiator cord leading to a hot-point fusing with a startling flare and disconcerting buzz just behind his head. To some of those present the phenomenon seemed to lend some support to the objection.

Air Sight-seeing. Having flown to Franz Josef Glacier on a recent Saturday afternoon, Mr. J. C. Mercer, instructor to the Canterbury Aero Club, took one of the guests at the hotel* for a flight early on Sunday morning. Other paseenjers followed so fast that his breakfast had to be taken to him at the aerodrome, and he did not finish flying till 0 o'clock in the evening. He began again at 7.30 the following morning, and did not stop till midday. Altogether 30 visitors to tlie Franz Josef we're carried over the glacier and mountains most of them being anxious to get close to Mount Cook. Testimony From Abroad. Two year* ago a Dunedin firm of rangcniakers accepted an order from a resident in the Argentine. Tlie two employees who made the range, knowing that it wa* to go to a distant land, took great care that the details should be warrantable, and, being satisfied that no fault could be found by ite user, they dropped into it a slip of paper with their names on it. Now, after a full trial, the lady who ordered the range has sent to those men her thanke for providing her with a range which she describee as "a capital range, giving one pleasure to use," adding that a friend with thirty years' experience saye it is the best cooker she knows of. A Pertinent Comment. With reference to a resolution p.'.&sed at its previous meeting regarding the great disparity between the price of raw wool and that charged for knitting wool, the Masterton Chamber of Commerce had before it recently a letter pointing out that by the time it was converted into knftting wool, the material had passed through tlie hands of 43 trade unione. This, it was suggested, mainly accounted for the high price of knitting yarne. Mr. D. M. Graham pointed out that the wool had to be put through the eame processes when much higher prices were being paid for the iaw material. Prices for raw wool had dropped to a very low figure, he added, while tlie retail prices of manufactured wool had dropped very little.

A Sore Point. The Canterbury Trades and Labour Council liars forwarded tlio following resolution to tlie Minister of Employment, the Ho.i. Adam Hamilton: "That this council enters a strong protest against the policy of the Unemployment Board in supplying the services of subsidised workers to farmers, under the No. 4a scheme, who are in a position to pay for such services, i.e., the case .submitted by the Ashburton Unemployment Committee recently. We are of the opinion that revenue derived from levy, wages tax, etc., was never intended to assist farmers other than those in financial difficulties. The Unemployment Board is obviously now violating the principle of devoting unemployment funds for legitimate purposes."

Patience and Industry. An example of Oriental patience and industry was shown at the reception held yesterday on board the Japanese training ship Shintoku Mam. The whole ship was decorated in the Japanese style, with paper streamers and hanging Eastern ornaments. Between decks on a large hatchcover a track chart had been designed. It showed the Shintoku Maru'e track from Japan to San Diego, to Auckland, and back to Kobe—a triangular track, each of the three sides represented being , about 0000 miles long. But the map was not drawn in the usual way. It was designed in beans! The sea was composed of millions of grains of rice. Xew Zealand and Australia were picked out in perfect detail in black beans, the track was traced by an unbroken line of redspeckled beans, America was shown in Lima beans, Japan in little round yellow ones. The hours of patient and delicate work involved would have been beyond the English sailor—only an Oriental could settle down for the day and meticulously place each bean in its right place without going mad.

Ratana and his Promise. The decision of Tahu Wiremu Ratana, who is a direct descendant of Turi, to erect a model pa on the site of Turi'rs first home at the mouth of the Patea River, is the outcome of a promise j lie made to the Rev. T. G. Hammond in 1924, I when that old Maori missionary, juc-it before his death, visited Ratana at hk pa, not far from ! Turakina, and urged him to use his great influence to perpetuate the name of hie noted ancestor at Patea. Ratana fell in readily with Mr. Hammond's suggestion, but asked that the matter otaud over till he (Ratuna) had paid a visit to England and other countries, so that he could learn how the memories of great men were recognised in older lands. Ratana, although lie has done little during the intervening years to help forward tlie memorial idea, has now formulated hid plans after the memorial concrete canoe lias been erected in the Patea borough. The erection ' of a model pa on the isolated spot selected, ill the materials used in ancient times as a memorial to Turi may appeal to the Maori mind, but a memorial of more lasting material, which would i.tand out through the coming centuries, wa>3 what Mr. Hammond thought Ratana intended to put up, according to letters the agtjrl missionary wrote at the time.