LOCAL AND GENERAL

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 34, 8 August 1925, Page 6

LOCAL AND GENERAL

Cabinet approved yesterday of the new railway tariff. The tariff will now be brought into operation. Copies are being prepared, and will be made available without delay.

The Postal authorities have received cable advice from Sydney that the Moeraki, which left at 11 a.m. on the 7th instant for Wellington, has on board 500 bags of mail from Australia, 57 from other places, including East 19, Africa 13, Fleet 5, and 35t parcel receptacles.

"Here is a man whose name is John Brown asking to have his name suppressed," said Mr. J. W. Poynton, S.M., in the course of a bylaw ■ case in the Auckland Police Court. Considerable laughter greeted the Magistrate's remarks. It was not thought necessary to suppress the nama

"I am afraid I cannot be too optimistic as to this year," remarked the Prime Minister (the Hon. J. G. Coates), in the House of Representatives this morning, when replying to requests as to when the new Dominion Museum is to be erected. Mr. Coates said the Public Works Statement would contain information on the matter. There were a large number of public buildings to be erected in Wellington, and it was a matter for the exercise of discretion as to which one of them should be started first.

A new order .by the Arbitration Court (says a Press Association message from Auckland) lays down that to ascertain the proportion of apprentices a computation is to be made on the average number of journeymen employed, for not less than two-thirds full time each week for the year ended 31st March, inclusive or otherwise of the employer. As a journeyman is governed by the decisions of each award the returns are to be furnished to the district registrar, and if he deems it necessary he may require interim returns to be furnished.

Mr. A. C. Rose, who has been appointed'to the London office of the Department of Agriculture, resigned the position of manager of the Cardiff - Dairy Company at Taranaki when a young man to enter the Government service, and after being in the Taranaki office tor two years he was promoted to Dunedin, where he has served with much credit for sixteen years as dairy inspector and grader. His duty in London (states "The Post's Dunedin correspondent) will be as inspector of New Zealand dairy produce in the United Kingdom. In this he is to be associated with Mr. Waltor Wright, who has been in Englanti for years as inspector of dairy produce. The idea is that, in view of the large increase of produce shipped to the Old Country, the Department needs more reports as to the quality of the produce as it appears in London, so that instructors and graders at this end may have additional guidance in ensuring uniformity of grading as between different ports. ,

Weird noises, utterly inexplicable to the inmates, had kept the people in two houses at Island Bay awake for several nights. Energetic search seemed to quiet the sounds immediately, but they repeated themselves at intervals. The nouses came from the basement of one of the houses, but the unrest had communicated itself next door. A thoroughly systematic overhaul of the lower part of the house disclosed four sniffing hedgehogs. These dispatched, the resident imagined he had dealt Avifch the trouble, but next night fresh disturbances arose. Hurriedly dressed, and armed with a stick, the resident went down again. The Seople next door were again out of bed. :ear the noise the investigator struck a match. Almost instantly a dark head rose from among some debris, and it was quickly struck down. The cause of the sounds had been accounted for—it was a good-sized penguin. It transpires that the house, which was only recently erected, is built over an old-established breed-ing-spot for penguins, successive generations of which breed in the sajne site.

An instructive address on the subject of war pensions was given to a meeting of returned soldiers at Christchurch "by Mr. S. G. Raymond, K.C., chairman of the War Pensions Appeal Board, on Wednesday. In the course of his remarks Mr. Raymond said the system of pensions was about as old as the hills, The earliest* case occurred about the sth or 6th century before Christ. In the'early part of the Christian era pensions were given to disabled Roman soldiers by Augustus. In England the Government of the country insured the man, but after tha war the Government only gave a pension for injuries received on the field of battle. In New Zealand the War Pensions Appeal Board had no jurisdiction over the economic side of the case. It dealt only with two questions, whether the disablement was caused during the war and whether the man had received a just award. The main work lay in finding out the causes of injuries. Thus a man after the war, while on a ladder, had, owing to the effects of the war, fallen off the ladder and injured himself. Thus the cause of his injuries was really the- war, and the man was given a pension; A common disease was "pensionitis." This would be removed if the soldier were paid the whole pension in a lump sum. The Appeal Board had a duty to carry out. It hod to see that justice was done to those who served during the war and to those whom they had served.