LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1082, 22 March 1911, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

K.M.S. Aorangi left Ran Francisco on Jlarcn l>o with an American mail of 07 bags for New Zealand, and 30 for Australia. "About (en weeks" is tho period over winch Mr. Massey thinks the next session ot Parliament will probably extend." Permission to endow a cot in the Wellington Hospital, for the use of any child of a member of the lodge, is sought <~ the Wellington .District Lodge of Foresters. . The Hospital Board decided yesterday' to name a lump sum of or, , in the alternative, an- annual payment of «S2O as a sufficient endowment. A few days ago the General Labourers' Union forwarded a letter to the Mayor (Mr. T. 31. Wilford), containing a statement of the grounds upon which the union resisted the proposal to throw the proceedings at its recant conference with the council open to the press. The text of the union's letter, which embodied a tentative proposal anent holding a private conference, was published in The Dominion- yesterday. A reply has been received from the Mayor, in which he simply says: "I bog to acknowledge receipt of your favour of March 18, setting out in writing the arguments used by you at our late conference." This being somewhat inconclusive, the union is now addressing to the City Council a letter similar in import to that which was forwarded to tho Mayor. Yesterday the Hon. .T. A. Millar went to Mungaroa by the afternoon train and inquired personally into the complaints of the settlers there regarding the operations of the railway time-table. He returned in the evening to Wellington. The application for letters of administration in the Tuckwcll will case, which was to have been heard in the Supreme Court yesterday by Mr. Justice Cooper, had to be postponed as a misunderstanding appeared to have arisen in the minds of the parties as to the date which they themselves had asked for. The cafe has now been set down for 10.30 on Thursday morning. When this mailer was last hefore the Court leave was given for an affidavit to be filed by some member of the Tuckwcll family to the effect, that George Tuckwell was believed to be dead, this being a preliminary to the motion for letters of administration. • A southern exchange says: "The Hon. T. Mackenzie,'who was at the old identities' picnic at Waikouaiti, dealt summarily, with the statement about unemployment, alleged to have been made by the Mayor of Wellington. They had had a wail from Mr. Wilford, he said, because some cripples, who could not wave a (lag, were out of work, and land boomers who could not get further victims declared that there was a depression on the commercial horizon. Tho j-ear just past, Mr. Mackenzie added, was a record one. Over : worth of produce had left our shores, and that meant wealth and prosperity to our country." There was a brief flicker of the lighting controversy at the meeting of the Hospital Board yesterday. Taking hold of a statement by Mr. Kirk that a- considerably saving was being effected in the cost of lighting the hospital, Mr. Fitzgerald complained that Mr. Kirk did not take the Board's Lighting Committee into his confidence as he ought to do. ' Mr. Kirk explained that, until information, now being collected, could be obtained, nothing definite could be done by the committee. Ho addsd that the. Gas Company had been offered an opportunity of lighting one of the wards on a modern system, while.the City Council had been invited to demonstrate the utility of electricity as a heating agent in another part of the hospital. The council had not yet embraced the opportunity thus offered. Mr. Trevor had the last word.- ''Meanwhile," ho said, "we are going on, week after week, paying for gas that we are oot using." Mr. Justice Cooper, sitting in Chambers yesterday afternoon, had before him the petition of James Clarke, of Pambula, New. South Wales, who asked to be declared entitled to the proceeds of thesale of 60 acres of land in the County of Marsden. .The sum claimed was £KS l.is. lid., less costs of petition. His Honour adjourned the action for further evidence as to the identity of the petitioner. Referring to the Nurses' Home, attached to the Wellington Hospital, which was erected seven, or eight years ago, Mr. Hindmarsir stated at the board meeting yesterday that the piaster was falling down in every room. Tho estimates for the incoming year include a sum of .£3OO for interior renovations at the Home. The Hospital Board is considering the 3uestion of further providing for interior ecorations in the new Children's Hospital. The funds availablo for the building and furnishings total .£16,082. .Tho contract price for the building is .£11,713 15s. Bd. The sum of ,£2OOO has been allocated for furnishings, and payments to the architect and clerk of works are estimated at iSOD. A sum of ,£146!) 2s. Bd. remains available for expenditure upon improvements on the original design. Tho Hospital Committee is therefore of opinion that a further amount should be expended on interior decorations, and is to report to the board on the subject. The banquet tendered to Sir Joseph Ward, Prime Minister of New Zealand, in St. James's Hall, Sydney, on Saturday night by the Now Zealand Association of New South "Wales, of which Mr. E. Owen Cox is president, was of a typically New Zealand character. Not only was there an imitation Maori wharc on the platform, where from time to time songs about New Zealand and the Maoris were sung by New Zcalanders, but pictures of Maori chiefs and Maori poi-girls were scattered about the ferns and vines, with which the hall was lavishly decorated, and even the souvenir menu-card and programme had New Zealand scenes and Maori carvings depicted thereon. On the front page was a portrait of Sir Joseph ■\Vard, with his Maori name at the bottom, "Ta Hohepa Hori Waare," and at the top were. Maori words of welcome— "Ko ia to tangnta mana tatow e hono Ida tatoii." But in addition to all that, the dishes that were served bore New Zealand names. For instance, thero were "huitres a la Stewart Island," "tortue claire Bay of Plenty," "eailles en Nelson," "coupe Mt. Egmout," "selle d'agneau Eotorun," "asperges froides ilt. Cook," "gateau fourrc Maori Kins," and "Bombe Taranaki." On the back of the programme was a picture ot the kiwi. Altogether it was a memorable "taugi."