NEWS IN BRIEF

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 24, 23 October 1936, Page 11

NEWS IN BRIEF

Armistice Day

As in past years, Armistice Day this year is to be observed by a two minutes’ silence and tlie suspension of all vehicular traffic at 11 a.in. on November 11. A Gazette notice issued last night requests citizens and traffic-control authorities throughout New Zealand to observe the practice adopted in New Zealand on former similar occasions, and where a service is held it is suggested that it should be at tlie local cenotaph or war memorial, as the case may be.'

Labour Day Tranis and Buses. With the exception of specials, the usual tram services will be run in Wellington on Monday. The only bus services will be those to Karori and Roseneath, on which holiday timetables will be observed.

Radio in the Museum. An indication that wireless telegraphy has been sufficiently long in existence to give old apparatus an historic interest is the presentation of two articles to the Canterbury Museum. One is a German wireless telegraphic transmitter and receiver of a type introduced into New Zealand from 1912 to 1916 and fitted to ships and land stations, and tlio other is a homeasseinbled valve receiver, for the reception of broadcast entertainment, made from Australian parts about 1922, The apparatus was presented by Mr. W. Huggins, of the staff of 3YA. City Renewal Loan Authorised. An Order-in-Council consenting to the raising of the Wellington City Council’s Renewal Loan 1937 for £259,000 appeared in last night’s Gazette. The loan is set down as being for the purpose of repaying the Wellington City Consolidated Repayment Loan, £117,400, which matures on February 28, 1937, and the Wellington City Electric Tramways Street-paving and Town Hall Loan 1902 Repayment Loan, 1932, £168,300, which matures on March 1, 1937. The term of the new loan is for 20 years, and the interest rate 44 per cent.

Long-Distance Conversation. A Palmerston North telephone subscriber made a record long-distance conversation with Milan, Italy, on Wednesday night, says a “Dominion” Special Service message. The reception was most clear. It went through Wellington to London, which exchange arranged for the completion of the ciricuit to Milan. The call was ordered on Monday afternoon for 8 p.m. Tuesday, but reception tests were not satisfactory enough. It was delayed until just after 7 p.m. on Wednesday night, when the Palmerston North speaker wished Milan good morning and the Milan man said good-night. Mistaken Identity.

The campaign that is being waged in Otago against the German owl occasionally results in the destruction of the comparatively inoffensive morepork. On more than one occasion the secretary of the Otago Acclimatisation Society has had sent to him the head of a morepork which has been shot or trapped in mistake for the owl. The morepork is on the protected list, and anyone shooting this bird is liable on conviction to a penalty of £25. The owl is greyish brown above with white markings, white with brown streaks below. It is a smaller bird than the morepork. The colour of the latter is dark chocolate brown on the upper surface, and the breast and wings brown and grey.

Gorse on Town Belt. Some three years ago a considerable amount of money was spent by the Wellington City Council in employing workless men on the eradication, of gorse on the Town Belt. It is evident that the eradication of this pest is not an easy matter, for the whole of the face of Mount Victoria between the planted trees is now yellow with young gorse, which threatens to cloak the whole of the ridge once more. It is said by those who study the countryside that the gorse has never been so vigorous and healthy as it is this year, and that it is capturing territory which in the past has been fairly free of it. The-Wainui hills and valley are in its clutch. College Teaching Praised,

“I am satisfied , that the council has dealt with English and all the other departments of instruction in Victoria University College as liberally ns the financial supplies available would permit,” said Professor H. Mackenzie, in a letter read at last night’s meeting of the college council returning thanks for the expressions of appreciation for his 37 years’ service, “but I entertain the confident expectation that—with a people’s party and friends of education in power—the supplies provided in the future (for university staffing and instruction as well as for the extended accommodation and facilities for effectively carrying on the, work of the college) will be greatly increased and so enable the council to give fuller and more effective expression to its ideals in its control and administration of its educational activities.” Canon Critic of Church Schools. . “I do not think the church schools we have are doing what is claimed for them by their advocates,” declared Canon J. F. Coursey in the Anglican Diocesan Synod at Christchurch. Canon Coursey mentioned by name Christ’s College and St. Margaret’s as having failed to produce the type of young people useful in the work of the church. He attacked the principle of separate church schools. “We are producing a type of child different from that produced by the other schools,” he said. “I worked in this city in a parish for seven years. For Bible class teachers and Sunday school leaders I had to look to the public schools—to the Boys’ High School, rather than to Christ’s College or St. Margaret’s.” Canon Coursey said that the children who attended the church schools were inclined to think in after life that they had had too' much religious instruction and practice forced on them at school.