LOCAL AND GENERAL

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 1, 1 July 1925, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL

A function is being held in the, Soldiers' Club, Palmerston North, to-night to celebrate the raising of the status of the Post Office there to that of a Chief Post Office. The Postmaster-Gen-eral (the Hon. Sir James Parr) ii unable to be present at the gathering, but the Post and Telegraph Department will be represented by the secretory, Mr. A.- T. Markman. ■', , . ■ In the House of Representative* yesterday, Mr. B, Makers (Stratford) gave notice to move fbs'.'i return showing : (1) The acreage of land purchased and settled under sections 1 arid 2 of the Discharged Soldiers' Settlement Act", which has been abandoned by soldier settlers; (2) the amount paid by the Government and settlers for the purchase of such land; (3) the present valuation of the land according to the valuation made by the Dominion and local revaluation boart's. The secretary of the Otogo Provincial Fruit Growers' Council has received word from tho New Zealand Fruit Growers' Federation that» the Government has approved of f ,the renewal of the guarantee, on export fruit for the 1926 season to 1 the extent of 350,000 cases of apples and 5500 cases of pears, states a Press Association message from Dunedin. Last year the guarantee for apples was up to 300,000 cases, and there was no guarantee as to pears. The guarantee on apples of fancy grades is equal to 3s 4d per case over and above the charges. It is hard to say exactly what the conditions as to the pear guarantes will be, but in view of the very risky nature of carriage of this class of fruit, it will probably be found that the guarantee will not cover much over the charges. "Many men an* women have wrong ideas of the value of money," remarked the Rev. J. W. Kemp, at the Auck> land Baptist Tabernacle, during the counie of v sermon on the parable \of the Prodigal Son. " This cry about liberty has blasted the lives of thousands upon thousands. la no country under the sun is there, more money'to the square, foot than there is. in New Zealand. "You are all well off, far better off than your brothers and sisters; across the seas. People come to Auckland expecting to see the streets running with gold but during the last week they' have been running . with something else. (Laughter.) This is a land of great opportunities and expectations. 1 am frequently receiving letters from Home on the sub-, ject, and last wee]; I received/one from a ' man with a family of ten, asking if there was room for them in New Zealand. But riches take unto themselves wings, and fly away. If you think that money is going to .buy peace, love, or satisfaction, you are mistaken. Money cannot buy these things." .■ / Reference to the recent floods in the North was made in the House of Representatives last night by Mr. F. F. Hockly (Rotorua), who asked the Minister of Lands whether, in view of tha damage caused'by the floods in the Rapgitaiki drainage area, he would take steps to afford' relief to the settler* Mr. Hockly remarked that about 30,000 acres had been submerged. The Minister (the Hqn. A. D-» M'Leod) replied j that he regretted that what Mr. Hockly said was correct. He... had taken steps to get a report from the head'of the Drainage Department, and from the Crown Lands Commissioner at Auckland, and he said he oould give the ,4esurance that the Government would do everything possible to. relieve' distress in cases of the sort. A similar question was asked by the same jnember in ?e- ---[ gard to the roadirig of the Reparoa settlement, in the Rotorua district. The Minister replied that he was having inquiries made into the position. All the moneys originally set aside for roading the Reparoa estate had been expended already, buthe had made'representations to the Minister of Public Works to have the fullest information regarding the difficulties of the, settlers obtained as soon as possible. The story of the Flora's disablement] and her waddling about the Hauroki Gulf beings to mind other coastal strugglinge, amongst them the fix that the little, steamer Go Ahead, a quarter of the size of the Flora, fought put of on the west coast of the North Island- in the 'seventies. ; "Peter Simple," a Punedia resi-'' dent, who was at the time an able sea. man qn this craft, tells the tale in the " Dunedin Star.", "We were going up' from Raglan and Waitara to the.Manu-'' kau,* with sheep on deck and cattle, in the hold. The westerly wind freshened, and kicked up a sea, and as the Go Ahead was light and the sea abeam, i and she hadn't much'power, we blew I to leeward, rathei? nearer the'shore thuu Captain Austin or any of us liked. So he starboarded the helm, and put her nose into it, intending to'get a bit of sea room before turning, to run in,over the Mariukau bar—the worst bar in New Zealand—the bar that wrecked H.M.B. Orpheus, the Flora Macdonald, and other vessels. We were wondering whether our weak-engined hooker would man jig* to creep off in the teeth of the westerly, and just thinking that she was doing a little when the steam ran down, and the engineer reported v leak' in the boiler. A pretty pickle. No possibility, of help. If we qouldn't keep off the rock* towards which we were drifting there was notihng for it but the vessel piling up ashore, and then only the mercy of vHeaven to save us. As it hap» pened, hov.'ftver, the Go Ahead was carrying some;casks of cement as cargo, and all hands set to, for bare life, to break open and damp this pement and pack it in under the boiler in the hope of thus stopping the leak. Stations were appointed, every man bent his back to his job, and for half an hour it was even betting whether our efforts^ would hucceed—the engineers doing their beut to keep the screws'.revolving..if. ever so slow, the men'l sweating at their awkward work. At last,we noticed the leak diminish, and felt the thrust of the propellers doing good< and an hour later we were in' deep water. It was a relief, I can tell you, when we weathered the last point, and realised that we were in the fairway of the south channel."

The amply of school books to school children free is advocated by Mr. G. Witty (Riccarton) in » question which he is addressing to the Minuter of Education. The Dominion Private Hotel Worker*' Award, incorporating the recommendations, of the Conciliation Council, hat been filed. The Council, »t ite recent sitting, reached a complete agreement. The prisoner* at Wtikeria have been transferred to farm work and treeplanting in camps on pumice country near Tokaanu and Taupo. Sixteen youths from the Borstal Institute at Invercargill passed through Wellington on.their way to Waikeria yesterday. A whale, estimated to be about forty feet in length, was* stranded on the • beach at Ohiro Bay, Happy Valley, on Monday afternoon. Soon after being washed up, the body broke in two and the smaller portion wh thrown well up the beach. The Cafe de Parii Hotel, in Cashel street, Cbristchurch, was told to Mr. H. Hollander, for Economic, Ltd., to-day, the price being £41,000, states a Press Association message. The vendor waa Mr. J. Sutton, formerly proprietor of the Dominion Hotel. The Minister in Charge of the State Advancea Office i* being esked by Mr. F. J. Rolleston (Timaruj whether, in loam'under the State Advances Act, priority will be given to returned soldiers who have not had the benefit of the Discharged Soldiers' Settlement Act or of the repatriation aoheme. The boys of the Salvation Army Home at Mersey street, Island Bay,' an keen on Rugby football, 10 much ai; that at least cne ball has become useless through hard wear- This fact h; s been made known to the Wellington '.lugby Union, which body has authorised the supply of another ball to the boys at the Island Bay Home. Feeling reference waa made at the annual meeting of the Wellington Bowling piub last evening to those members who had passed away during the year. Messrs. F. 0. Crease, H. Jessup, C. Stewart, and H. T. Woolcott, being mentioned.' Member* stood in silence for a few moments as a mark of respect for the deceased. "Do eonorete pipes last for ever?" At the last meeting of ihe Stratford County Council, the chairman (Mr. E. '• Walter) said that a concrete pipe that , had been laid down for 12 or 13 years ' waa recently lifted on the Douglass road, ' and had been found to have been eaten away in the same manner as whey would eat away a. concrete trough. They nad thought that concrete pints would laat for ever, but it appeared as though they were in for a shock. The engineer Mid that in tie South Island Mine time ago the whols of the ooncreta pipes of a certain local body had "gone west." ■ Lak* Clearwater. in the Ashburton Gorge, about fort X miles from Arthurton, t» completely frozen {states the " Lyttelton Times"). A party of about ten Ashburton residents visited the vicinity during the week-end for the purpose of •hooting, taking with them an amateur wirelesa act. The campers spent Saturday night in a hut near the lake and during the evening wireless messages were picked up from Dunlin and Sydney. Although a few ducks wsre < shot, the game was not very plentiful. I The ice on the lake was tested in many placet, and three of the party in p»rt;'cu- , ?ar. gave it. a try out and can vouch (or its durability. , A . deputation consisting of the executive of the Federated Superannuated Publip Servants, together with the local members of Parliament, waited upon Sir Heaton Rhodes, Minister of Public Servants' Superannuation Departments, yesterday, in respect to ( the cost-oMiv-mg bonus. The deputation's request was that' some action oe taken this ses-' sion to;-make permanent the cos t-of-living bonus of £13 to widows and children of superannuated servants as was promised by th<? late .Prime. Minister in the Budget last year in the paragraph' relating'" to cott-oMiving annuitants. Replying to the deputation, the Minister stated that arrangements, had been j made to carry on this bonus to 31st 1 March, 1926. This, he said, would tide over those who were eligible this year. He could not make any promise as to what would, happen this session, but he would place the request before Cabinet, and they must be satisfied with the decision. Sir Heaton Rhodes added that he was not sure what legislation the Prime Minister would be able to put through this session, but Cabinet had i been considering the question of dealI ing with this matter.