WAIRARAPA NEWS

Evening Post, Volume XCVI, Issue 41, 16 August 1918, Page 8

WAIRARAPA NEWS

(BY TBLBGRAPB.—SPECIAL TO THE POST.)

MASTERTON, This Day.An appellant before the Military Service Appeal Board in Masterton stated that he had taken £476 in one year off twenty-two acres of land by mixed farming. The Land Purchase Board has inspected the Westmere estate and portion of the lea estate, both of which are situated to the east of Masterton, and are under offer to the Government for soldier settlements.

Four fresh cases of diphtheria have been admitted to the Masterton Hospital this week.

There are at present WO',ooo carcases in the cool stores at the Waingawa freezing ■works. According to the chairman of directors, the cool storage capacity is the most co.nmodious in Australasia.'

The annual primary schools football tournament is to be played in the Waifarapa this season. Teams from the Wellington, Palmerston, Wansanui, and Wairarapa will compete. In eighteen months the' Wellington Farmers' Meat Company lias been able^to ship only 230 casks out of 14,000 casks of tallow in stock.

A collision between two motor-cars occurred on the Masterton-Oarterion road on Wednesday evening. Both cars were badly smashed, but the occupants escaped with a shaking.

In the course of his address at the annual mooting- of the Wellington Farmers' Meat Company, the chairman of, directors (Mr. J. C. Cooper) conimonte'u /upon the fact that faulty wool hact been discovered last season, particularly? among tlie finer crossbred lambs. He suggested that this was due to the- use -of faulty dins. He also pointed out that the wools slipcd at the company's works last season were not up to the standard of previous years. Heavy rain fell throughout the Wairarapa yesterday.

New Zealand -soldiers and sailors on furlough in Great Britain sometimes feel called upon to give explanations and remove wrong impressions with regard to their country. The severer weather conditions in the Home country compared with those usually prevailing in the Dominion frequently form topics of conversation. An Englishman travelling in Scotland writing to a, New Zealand friend says :—"I got into conversation with a New Zealand sailor, and the first topic touched on was the usual one—the weather prospects. I ventured the remark that it was going to rain. The New Zealand sailor replied: 'In our country we always know beforehand what the weather is going to be; we have a meteorologist there who lets us know when changes may be expected, and his forecasts are remarkably correct.' "

"It is not generally known that when one person purchases a, car from another application must be made either for a new number or for permission to retain the old number," said Mr. H. P. O'Leary at the Magistrate's Court to-day, when he appeared for a young man named Ja-mes Proctor, who was charged before Mr. S. E. M'Carthy, S.M., with a breach of the motor regulations. A fine of 10s, with 7s costs, was imposed.

"It is an absolute disaster in a young country to have so many men found medically unfit," said the Minister of Public Health (the Hon. G. W. Russell) yesterday afternoon, referring to the high percentage of "rejects" for military' service. He gave an opinion that this sad fact was probably traceable to tho neglect of those persons' ailments in childhood—ailments which were commonly due to dental troubles. Ho did not say so because he happened £o be Minister, but the facts proved that the most important portfolio was Public Health, and the next in importance was Education. "If we have health and education,"' he remarked, "we shall work out our salvation ami achieve success.' Concluding his speech, he said that if New Zealand was to have a healthy race th© authorities should arrange that the poverty of any man or woman should not be a bar to proper medical atteii tion when necessary. He wished to see a staff of doctors attached to every ho» pital for that purpose. He had in mind something much biggor than the present, system of treatment of out-door patients at public hospitals. ;

"One of the most lamentable symptoms in education to-day," said Mr. S. R. Dickinson at the education conference in Christchurch this week, "is the general readiness of parents to seek soft options and exemptions for their children. Many of them, remembering thehard struggle of their youth, when con ditions were far less favourable than toflay, have resolved that their chi'drpn shall not grind or be ground in I'iie mil! in which they themselves toiled, and they have gone to the extreme in indulgence—one. of the greatest obstacles the school of to-day has to contend against. In many homes, too, the notion persists that the teacher is the natural enemy of the child, and he is often discussed to his disadvantage in the presence of the children themselves. A far closer 'rapprochement' between home and school is a fundamental condition of educational reform. Teachers must enlighten parents; parents must support teachers; and silly social barriers that hinder their relations must be broken, down."