LOCAL AND GENERAL

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 146, 21 June 1924, Page 6

LOCAL AND GENERAL

The need for the widening of the Taita Gorge road was shown on Thursday, when a large slip containing seventy or eighty yards of spoil completely blocked. the road for several hours. Several Wellington cars and lorries were held up on the north side of the slip, but with commendable expedition the Hutt County roadmen, working till Thursday night, had the road clear within twelve hours.

"A house is .not immortal," remarked Mr.- A. E,. Entrican to the building conference yesterday. He said the life was only about 50 years in a wooden structure, and in some of those that were being built %-day the life would only be about 25 years' Containing, he said timber had recently been rmfc°!nto buildings in Auckland which contained over 80 per cent, of water based on the oven-dry weight of the wood. It had been established that wood containing between 80 and 30 per cent, of water did not shrink the hundredth part -of an inch, but when it came below 30 per cent, the shrinkage commenced.

"We've had the opportunity of doing this for the last 25 years and we've never done it," said an employer at a Conciliation Council meeting at Christchurch on Thursday. The assessors were discussing a proposal which the workers objected to on the ground that it might be abused by employers. "Well," said Mr. C. H. Hewlett, "it's been in the Canterbury award for years and it's never been abused, and" I suppose the employers in Canterbury are just as bad a lot as in any other part of New Zealand." "Worse!" commented the Conciliation Commissioner (Mr. W. H. Hasger), amidst laughter from assessors "from other parts of New Zealand. Mr. Leicester Matson, a Ohristchurch employer, rose to the bait beautifully. "I'll guarantee," he said emphatically, "that our store is as well conducted as any in Christchurch." (Laughter.)

Re-grading of positions in the service caused a lengthy discussion at yesterday afternoon's sitting of the Eailway Officers' Institute conference. The executive committee was accused of having been lax in not remedying a long-standing grievance, and it was eventually decided that any instance of the necessity for re-grading a position brought under the notice of the executive committee be thoroughly investigated, and that special attention be given to the claims of Frankton Junction in that respect. It was also contended that some foremen and inspectors .ivere being illegally placed by the Department, in their wrong\erades m the D 3 classification list, and it was agreed that the names of such officers should appear in the grades to which their salaries applied. The following remit from the Wellington branch was agreed to :—"That, it lie represented to tlio Department, in connection with the employment of lady clerks, that equal pay should be a;ivr.n in the Railway Service for pqiinl output, irresnedive of Uini sr>\- of tho employees join" the work.. -

A conference of assistant- teachers in primary schools and officers of the Education Department is .to be held early in July to discuss the new salary scale.

Sir Harold Beauchamp has donated the sum of £100 to the Building Extension Fund of the Wellington Boys' Institute and S. A. Rhodes' Home for Boys.

iiie AssouiUed Board K.A.jU. and R.C.M., London, is holding examinations in all grades of theory throughout the Dominion to-day. Wellington candidates to the number of 118 are sitting at Sydney Street Schoolroom.

In his annual report to the Petone Fire Board, the superintendent (Mr. J. P. Gay nor) states that the brigade had effected a saving of property during the year valued at £6015. The calls received during the year ( totalled 12, none of the outbreaks being of a serious nature. The Postal authorities have received cable advice from Sydney that the Tahiti left at noon on the 19th instant for Wellington. She carries 174 bags of mail from Australia, 533 from beyond, and 41 parcel receptacles for the Dominion. (Beyond includes East 24 and Africa 3). According to a Press Association message, arrangements for the Gisborne harbour loan of £250,000 have now been finalised, and a .loan at 5 per cent., issued at £94, has been definitely raised. The net return to investors will be 35 3s Id per cent., the same as in the case of the recent New Plymouth and Wanganui loans. A statement has been published to the effect that a Government i»/aluation is at present being made of the Hutt County. When the matter was to-day referred to the Valuer-General, he characterised the statement as being misleading, and added that only a small portion of the county in the vicinity of Plimmerton is being revalued.

By a recent ruling of Mr. Justice Sim, Sunday schools are held to be subject to rating purposes under tiie Municipal Corporations Act, contrary to the view previously held that they were immune. A deputation of representatives of Churches which conduct Sunday schools will wait on the Prime Minister next week to urge that the Act be altered so as to relieve Sunday schools of the necessity to pay rates" The matter -was brought under the notice of the ActingPrime Minister (Sir Francis Bell) by the P.P.A. last November, and Sir Francis then indicated his intention of preparing legislation to remove the anomaly.

At a meeting of the Perpetual Trustees, states a Press Association message from Dunedin, Mr. Peter Barr staged that as long ago as 1915 the Dunedin Chamber of Commerce had advocated moratorium measures such as Mr. Massey now proposed, namely, the onus for •proving the need of extension to be on the mortgagor. From Mr. Barr's own knowledge locally, he said he knew that most mortgagors had completed arrangements for renewals, and ho considered it was certainly time that the present unsatisfactory position was changed.

In October last, reports Mr. J. P. Gaynor, superintendent of the Petone Fire Brigade, the brigade entered into competition with the brigades of the district, and was again'successful in winning the Licensed Victuallers' Challenge Shield, and was also placed in three open events. The Phare Cup, competed for by brigade members, was won by Foreman A. Shai'dlow. During Easter, at Hastings, the' brigade was placed second for the aggregate shield', and in the three-men memorial shield event, in the run-off for second place,. the brigade' broke the New Zealand record. Speaking of the progress of the changeover yesterday, the Mayor, Mr. E. A. Wright, M.P., said that it was the intention o£ the council to attend to rewiring, or re-conditioning of installations for ouly in a small proportion o£ houses is the re-wiring at the householder's expense necessary, in suburban and residential areas first, leaving the mid-city area for final attention. The reason for that policy was that as the work was necessarily slow, house by house, it would extend over several years in all probability, in which time there must be great development in residential suburbs, with, corresponding extensions of electrical reticulation, and it would be obviously unwise to extend an old system and scrap a year or so later, when the changeover work reached out to the suburbs. The city area woulcl, of course, develop steadily, but the extension could not be so great, consequently there would not be the need for carrying out new lengths of street reticulation upon the old 105----volt, single-phase system.

It was decided at a meeting of ( the Blenheim Farmers' Union yesterday'that the following remit be forwarded to the Dominion Conference:—"That the method of subsidising dairy farm instructors should be put on a uniform basis by the Department of Agriculture, and in the opinion of this conference dairy factories should be called upon to pay only one-half of the instructor's salary and expenses." The mover of the remit declared that apparent*}' there ■was not a standardised' system of subsidising dairy farm instructors, such as it was desired to have appointed in Marlborough, in that in the North Island the Government paid the salaries and travelling in part in some cases and in whole in others. The meeting also passed a resolution, at the instance of the chairman, congratulating the local dairy companies on the definite action they had taken in an endavour to secure the appointment of a dairy farm instructor., and offering them the union's cordial support arid co-operation in any similar matter of mutual interest.

If someone were to compile a list of accidents in the railway service for some years past, and set opposite each the day of the week upon which it occurred, ne mfght be able to throw definite light upon a question discussed between Mr. Justice Frazer and Mr. M. Connelly, president of the Amalgamated Society of Eailway Servants, at the railway inquiry yesterday afternoon. In support of a claim for a sis-hour day for shunters, Mr. Connelly referred to the arduous nature of the work in the railway yard, pointing out that it was ever necessary for the shunter to be on the alert, as he was liable to meet with an accident at any time if he did not keep an extra eye open. It would be found, he said, that accidents in the yards usually occurred towards the end of a day or towards the end of the week, when the worker was more or less exhausted as a result of his constant vigilance. His Honour said it was remarkable how many accidents occurred at the beginning of the week. He admitted that if ■a man was fagged out, probably he would not be so watchful, but a report of the Labour Department of New South Wales showed that actually more accidents took place at tho beginning of the week than later in the week! The explanation was that it took the men time to settle down to their work Mr. Connelly said that all the information he had gathered pointed to the fact that a man was more liable to meet with a mishap at the end of a shift