FIFTY YEARS AGO

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXXII, Issue 13333, 21 December 1943, Page 2

FIFTY YEARS AGO

The following items of interest are taken from the Bay of Plenty Times of fifty years ago. The natives of Whareroa (Ngatirangi tribe) are about building one of the largest and most costly naitve houses on the coast. The idea originated through it having been arranged to hold a meeting of the Tauranga and Whakatane tribes, whose ancestors came to this island in the great canoe Mataua and ever since then the tribes have been separated from each other. The reason of the great gathering is to talk over matters of olden times and bring themselves more closely together in the future. March is the month arranged for the opening of the house, as the harvesting will then be over and the natives will have their own grain made into Ripe peaches are being gathered in several orchards here at present, but we are sorry to say the yield of the early crop, at any rate, is very limited. A new drdege said to be the largest in the world, has been put into operation on the Mersey at Liverpool. It is 320 feet in length and it is calculated that it will raise 24,000 tons of matter daily from the bar at the mouth of the river. A very large amount of building and fencing material has been arriving in our port lately,- which shows an increase of building, etc. in the country amongst our farmers and new arrivals.