NEWS OF THE DAY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 103, 3 May 1937, Page 6

NEWS OF THE DAY.

A Dunedin Plough for Chile. a Practice! appreciation of the quality of' * lucally-niade agricultural implements has been » received by a Dunedin firm, which lias been g:v.-n an ..nl.. r f<-r a double-furrow plough j irrnii Magellan?*. j n t/hilp (report* the , •■Star's" Dunedin correspondent!. .As there is no direct shipping from Xew Zealand to Chile. < the plough has to be forwarded to England. *" for transhipment to its remote destination. , Shooting Season". J A number of good ducks were secured on ■ ! the Piako River these last two days, writes * the "Star's" Piako correspondent. " Messrs. ' Wood, Austin Carr and Faulkner Brothers and ' Firth's party of eight all secured the limit. | ! There were a number of shooters out, but j l some had very little luck.' There is great''' concern at the poaching that was done before! . the opening of the season, when a number of '' ' ducks were shot op the Piako and Waitoa , Rivers. , How They Know. j , The secretary of one play-reading society ' in Wellington deems it his duty to take mem- ! ' hers into his confidence as to the character of ' i the next play to be read. In his last circular '' '• he refers to Charles Bennett's 'The Last < Hour" as follows:—'This is no namby-pamby ' society-cum-sex problem with a chew-gum! atmosphere, but a real "hold-your-seat" *and ! breath-taking adventurous trip 'with a sinister 1 rojrue. To relieve the tense moments a west:-' country police sergeant meanders his ponder- > ous way through the story."' New Railway Tickets. j The new regulations came into force this morning regarding the workers' tickets on the railway. The first train affected wa« the. 7.4") a.m. from Papakura. and it was notice- ' able that a number of passengers were new : to the train, having r.iven up the road transport. Up to Otahuhu the train was full, but : there 144 school children got off for the Tech- I , nical High School. There were three carriagesj , nearly empty then into town. There were ! about 230 passengers all told on arrival here.' which is about the average number. j County Council's Aerial Tour. An aerial tour of the Cook county from ' end to end was made on Saturdav morning by members of the council and the chiefs of! : the staff, prior to considering estimates in thei afternoon. This i< the first occasion on which 1 an entire local body has used aircraft for this purpose in Xew Zealand. The flight was undertaken because of a change in the system of rating. In the past the council operated j on the system of riding accounts, and this | • year these have been abolished. Formerly a councillor was required to know only his own ! riding, but under the present system a know--1 ledge of every portion of the county will be helpful. For this reason it was decided to , inspect the whole county. A tour by road, it was estimated, would have occupied at least four days, possibly more. Inquiries • showed that an aerial tour could be accom- . i pliehed in a fraction of the time at a greatly reduced expenditure. Both the East Coast . Airways aeroplanes were chartered at a cost ' of £25, and an estimate made of the cost , » to travel round the county by road was , nearly double that amount. 1 Birth-rate and Schools. , The serious position revealed by the de- ' ■ dine in school rolls, which is attributed to the I falling birth-rate, was emphasised at the I annual meeting of the Southland Education : Board. Members suggested various other '. causes, but it was generally agreed that the : ' birth-rate wae largely responsible for falling j rolls. ,Mr. F. G. Stevenson opened the disI cusaion by referring to the average attendances for the bast five years quoted in the 1 annual report. These showed that in 1932 the ! average attendance was 11.034; 1933, 10,360; , 1934, 10,082; 1933, 10,066; and 1936, 10,312. The first year quoted was before the raising ' of the school age, and the last year the first ; after five-year-old children were readmitted r to the schools. It was quite apparent, said Mr. Stevenson, that school rolls were not| : increasing. The chairman, Mr. S. Rice, said, that the falling birth-rate was a world prob- j lem. Mr. J. Hargest, M.P., asked to what j extent the growth of private schools could be j j held responsible for falling rolls. Several; members expressed the opinion that private \ r schools would have very little effect on the[ r position. ' r I New Zealand Trampers. The party of Xew Zealand Youth Hostels Association trampers on board the Jervis Bay ' is due to arrive at Southampton to-day. En- ■ thusiastic letters have been received from I the earliest ports of call. The Tasman crossing was rough, but many of the trampers , ' proved "f>ood sailors." In Sydney successful ' trips were made to Katoomba and the Jeno--5 lan Caves. During their stay at Hobart the j 5 party walked to the top of Mount Wellington on a beautifully clear day, and had a wonder-1 ' fill view of Hobart. the Derwent River djs- j : trict and the see. At Adelaide the party was j i i welcomed by Mr. Croll, vice-president of the' . Melbourne Tramping Club. A member wrote: "We all love Australia, and if the rest of our. f trip is a> full of pleasant surprises it will i exceed all expectations." Directly afterwards j , they encountered a fierce storm in the A us-' tralian Bight, and «ome probablv osked them- ' selves why they had left Xew Zealand. Most i 1 of the members have reserved seats for the ) Coronation procession. It is greatly hoped . . that the English summer will be fine, so that ' the Xew Zealand party will have good wee- • ther for their tramping expeditions to the' . youth hostels of Great Britain and the Con- , tinent. :

Fire in Car. \ A fire, not much bijr-er than that which glows in the h*wl of a pipe brought out two engines from the Centra! Fire Brigade in answer to an alarm from Shortland Street shortly after 10 o'clock this morning. A, spark or a eigaretu- butt had set smouldering' the upholstery of the back seat of a car parked near the top of the street, burning a hole about two inches in diameter. There was much smoke, but little fire. Studying Players* Safety. j With the object of lei.-*eninjr the risk of players lx?ing injured, the Auckland Rugby League proposes to pad the entire length of the picket fence which skirts the city side of Xo. 2 ground at Carlaw Park. Only j»ortion of the fence has been so far padded! The! action of the League in thus studying its players was on Saturday the subject of favourable comment by both players and public alike, and it should prevent many a player from receiving a nasty knock when thrown into touch during a heated melee. " Shooting Story." Usually it is a fishing story that holds ; the crowd on the workers' trains, a story of some wonderful fish that has been hooked" and, then unfortunately lost. Sometimes even the fish was eanght. But the latest is a story straight from the Waiketo River. It is of a sportsman who shot four ducks with the first barrel. He calmly says that he watched four ducks fly overhead, saw them get into line above, and. taking a careful eight, brought the four birds down, all four falling in quick succession. This was told in a crowded carriage, and then there wa< dead silence. Thames' New Address. One would think that with all the money spent on advertising Xew Zealand and its products in London, to say nothing of the prominence given to this country by its soldiers during the war. that it would "be impossible to iilld a responsible London business house not knowing the difference between Australia and Xew Zealand. The librarian at Thames has just received a letter from the '•Book Trade Journal." of London, addressed: "The Librarian, Observatory (S. Wellington). Thame>. Australia." , Nauru Phosphate Not Guano. That the phosphate found on Nauru and Ocean Islands was not bird deposit was revealed by Mr. A. F. Ellis. Xew Zealand representative on the British Phosphates Commission, during an address to the agricultural section of the Otago branch of the Royal Society of Xew Zealand. The deposits were certainly not guano, Mr. Ellis said. Coral, sharks' teeth, sea urchins and shells were found among the phosphate, pointing to its origin in the sea. The islands had at one time been below the sea level, and consisted in large part of limestone formation, but how the deposits were formed had not been established. Radio Congestion. Radio conditions in Xew Zealand offer a welcome contrast to those in other parts of the world, according to Mr. W. T. Jarboe, PanAmerican Airways' radio operator, who left Auckland to-day by the Monterey for Honolulu. "After being engaged in commercial radio in the United States, Central and South America and the Orient for 15 years, it is a welcome change to come to Xew Zealand and find that there is comparatively no congestion on the air, particularly in the* high-frequency bands, which we operate," he said. "The highfrequency channels are the only ones adequate for long-distance "routes of 1500 miles or more, and it is in this-ephere that we have enjoyed exceptional freedom from interference." Musical Burglar Alarm. To walk on the inlaid floor of an Oriental temple and to have the singing of distant nightingales reproduced by one's footsteps was one of the many interesting experiences of i Mrs. E. T. Costello, formerly of Timaru, during a trip wbich she made recently to the East with her husband. The building was the Temple of the Singing Floor in Kyoto, a place seldom visited by travellers. At the sound of the nightingales' song a priest came into the temple and showed them the many fine treasures which the shrine contains. He explained that years ago the floor had been laid so as to give a warning to the priests if bandits entered the temple to steal the priceless gems. "I thought it was a very beautiful effect when I heard the birds 'sinking, and was rather disappointed to be told that it was anything so mundane as a mere burglar alarm," said Mrs. Costello. Sir James Carroll Memorial. Authority for the reconstruction of the Timi Kara Memorial meeting house at Wairoe, on a site at Waihirere. has been given by the trustees appointed by statute to administer the funds. The contract is in the hands of Mr. R. .T. Wills, of Tikitiki. whose work has civ-n satisfaction to the sponsors of several other structures of the kind, including those at Xgaruawahia. Waitara. Kaiti end Tokomaru Bay. The amount involved in the Wairoa meeting house contract has not been disclosed, but it i> understood to be in the vicinity of £4000. Until recently financial considerations had hold up progress with the scheme to erect a permanent Maori memorial to the late Sir James Carroll at the place of his birth, but within the Inst week arrangements have been completed by which the necessary funds have become available, nnd accordingly instructions have been given for the erection of the building on a site at Waihirere, on the outskirts of Wairoa township. The spot is a secluded one off the main road on land made available by the Maori people of the district.