General News

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28314, 27 June 1957, Page 12

General News

Iron and Fog Curtain Among the reasons for the recent formation of the South Christchurch Rotary Club were the existence of fog and iron barriers in the city, said the president (the Rev. G. D. Falloon) when he accepted the club's charter at a function last evening. “It was necessary to have a club above the fog barrier, and on this side of the iron curtain—the antique arrangement we have of shunting rail trucks back and forth across the main streets.” He said he had often gone to the crossing to revise his Army vocabulary. Salvage of Dredge

Auckland Harbour Board salvage workers last evening tried unsuccessfully to raise the bucket gantry of the capsized dredge Hapai free of the ..sandy bottom. Using a large hopper barge as a buoy, they exerted an 80-ton lift to the gantry without moving it. The men then began rigging gear for another attempt on the rising tide this evening, when a lift of 160 tons will be tried. “It will be a long job,” said the chief engineer of the board (Mr J. R. Sutton), after the attempt last evening. "We will try to turn her over where she is, patch the hole and pump her out.”—(P.A.) South African Grapes

A shipment of South African grapes should be on sale m Christchurch on Monday. The grapes, which arrived 'in Auckland from Cape Town in the Melbourne Star yesterday, - are expected to retail for about 4s 6d a bunch. A total of 11,390 cases came in the Melbourne Star, and a further 13,400 cases are due in the Dominion Monarch in a week. The South Island’s share of these shipments, about 8000 cases in all, will be sent from Auckland by rail-air services. Credit Squeeze

The retention of the present restrictions on credit was urged on the Government in a remit adopted by North Canterbury Federated Farmers yesterday. The restrictions, members agreed, gave small men a' more equal opportunity to compete with large organisations, and prevented any serious decline in the Dominion’s sterling balances. Consumers’ Choice in Cars

Scores of thousands of readers of the French motoring magazine “Auto Journal,” contributed to a ballot to find out what sort of car most of them wanted. Their choice was: a four-door, fourseater saloon with the engine at the front driving the front wheels, and with coil springs giving independent suspension all round. A four-stroke air-cooled flat fourcylinder engine of between 1300 and 1500 c.c., with a top speed of 85 m.p,h. and a four speed, all synchromesh, gearbox with normal clutch. ’

Machine Cuts Telephone Cable When a Nelson City Council trenching machine sliced through a 300-pair underground cable in

Vanguard street on Tuesday it put the Stoke and Tahunanui automatic telephone exchanges out of action and 1300 subscribers could not use their telephones. The mending of the broken cable was a very long and complex job for Post and Telegraph men. By 6.30 in the evening 150 of the pairs had been repaired and tested and by 9.30 yesterday morning the remaining 150 had been spliced and tested and the use of the telephones was restored.—(F.O.O.R.) Inflationary Pennies The Rye Borough Council has discovered that 30 shillings’ worth of pennies in its treasury are worth' £135. Each year the new Mayor throws out hot pennies to children from the steps of the Town Hall ‘and last year the borough accountant, Mr John Smith, drew £3 from the bank for the ceremony. There is generally a shortage of new pennies, so he held back 30s worth for this year’s. At the week-end he read in a papeitthat pennies dated 1951—0 f which only £5OO worth were issued—were worth 7s 6d each. He had a look at those he got from the bank. All of them were dated 1951. Now Rye children lucky in last year’s distribuion are looking in their money boxes—though according to Mr Smith most of the pennies immediately find their way into the tills of Rye’s sweet shops.—London, June 26. Wheels of Progress By choosing a wheel as the emblem of Rotary, its founder had shown prophetic insight as it was symptomatic of the present age of automation, said the district governor (Mr R. U. Macaulay) at a Rotary function last evening. He said that there 1 were 257 million radio receivers in the world today; 255 million newspapers were printed daily; 44 million television sets were in operation; and—“this I can well imagine,” there were one billion telephones used daily. Barrel Organ Needed One of the most difficult inquiries the Wellington Manufacturers’ Association has undertaken has still met with no success. It is the search for a barrel organ needed for the Otago Advances Fair. The association understands that the Auckland Light Opera Society managed to hire one a few years ago, but no one seems to know from whom it was hired. Coal Mines Idle Because of irregular shipping through the shallow water on the Westport harbour bar, the coal mine bins at Millerton and Stockton were full yesterday and the miners did not work. Denniston and Millerton mines will be idle today for the same reason.— (F.0.0.R.) Record Power Load The highest electricity peak recorded so far in New Zealand occurred last night in the North Island, when the demand rose to 759.000 kilowatts between 5.25 p.m. and 5.35 p.m. It was 33 000 kilowatts above the rated generating capacity, and was met without trouble only by reducing frequency for a period. The peaks this week have all been above 750,000 kilowatts.—(P.A.)