NEWS OF THE DAY

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 132, 2 December 1930, Page 10

NEWS OF THE DAY

A Matter of Etiquette. The action of tho Wellington City Council in putting down an artesian bore on a piece of land north of the Petonc Borough Council's bores and upstream from thorn was adversely criticised by the Petone Borough Council last night, and it was decided to ask the City Council for what purpose it was sinking the wells. The Mayor (Mr. D. M'Kenzie) said it would have been etiquette on the part of tho city to have notified Petone of its intention in tho matter. He did not think the city had acted fairly. "The Obvious Jest." "Once in Canterbury I heard a bellbird whistling something very like tho opening phraso of 'The Campbells arc Coming,' " said Mr. Johannes C. Andersen, in ''his lecture at Christchurch on Saturday to the Society for Empire Culturo on "Now Zealand Birds and Their Songs." "I didn't say anything about it because I was alone, but when I got home my boys said they'd heard the same thing. I mentioned this at a lecture, and a reporter wrote next day that I had said I'd heard, a bellbird singing, 'The Campbells are Coming.' This got Home to England, and a paper copied it, adding, 'Wo leave to our readers the obvious jest upon this scientist's name.' Hans Andersen wrote fairy tales," the lecturer added. Improved Hospital Conditions.' As showing the changed conditions of service and the growth of the Wellington Hospital during the past thirty years, Dr. John Ewart, medical superintendent- from 1889 to 1910, mentioned at tho opening of the new Ewart T.B. Hospital yesterday, .that for some j time after he was appointed to the medical charge of the hospital thcro were only 13 nurses. They were not trained nurses in the modern sense, and there was no proper accommodation for them at the hospital. For instance, in a small room off one of tho | wards there were two beds, and those beds were occupied by four nurses— two occupied them during the day, and the two others at night. The nurses had twelve hours of duty, as compared with the present eight-hour system. They worked on Sundays, and occasionally they got a half-day off. The medical superintendent sometimes got a fortnight off during the year—if his services could be spared. There was no doubt, said Dr. Ewart, 'that an efficient hospital. service was one of the greatest assets of the community. What is Decadence? "Are white people really ahead of the Maori?" is a question put to readers of the Native Bird Protection Society's Bulletin. "The Maori had virility, which is tho foundation of a race. We are losing it. Ho had hair to protect tho top of his head, and sound'teeth to masticate his food, and was, moreover, sound in limb and keen of eye. Ho tolerated no weaklings, and worked not for the individual interest but in the interests of the community. Ho had good laws, and enforced them, and understood the art of conservation which ia preservation for the purpose of utilisation. The Maori lived oh the interest Nature produced. We live on the capital. Wo may boast our wireless, flying machines, .motor-cars,. etc., but conveniently overlook the factthat Nature takes away that which wo do not use as she did the use of the wings of the kakapo, weka, and kiwi. In 100 years wo have destroyed 90 per cent, of tho forests which formed the soil upon which we grow our food, and a greater percentage of the» bird-life which dwelt therm. The Maori lived in the came country for at least 800 years, and kept tho forests and birds intact. Shall we eventually succu: ib in an insect infested and eroded land, or be wise in time and utilise the remnant of those gifts, which our Creator so bounteously bestowed, not in an endeavour to benefit the immediate individual interest, but in the interests of the community as a whole in perpetuity?" Learning From Us. Reviewing Professor J. B. Condliffie's "Now Zealand in the Making," the "Scottish Educational Journal" remarks: —"Why should we in Great Britain, with our long tradition, and our established institutions, and why should teachers in particular, study the 'economic and social development of New, Zealand!' A country whoso ;f.civilised' history has run for barely 100 years can at first sight scarcely claim that it is worthy of serious study, but New Zoaland is in a way unique, for it has a world-wide reputation for experimental legislation, and especially for measures of social improvement. There are few'other lauds where human life and welfare enter so consciously into political consideration.' In thisi country we arc but as it were at the beginning of serious consideration of these pressing economic and social problems. Tho experience of New Zealand is well calculated to teach us important lessons." ■ Temperance in Great Britain.. Speaking at the annual meeting of the New Zealand Licensing Beform Association yesterday, the president (the Eev. P. T. Williams), who has just returned from a visit to Great Britain^ said ho had beon amazed at the wonderful change- for the better, from the ternporanco point of view, disclosed on every hand in England and Scotland. He felt sure that this was largely due to the sweeping advances made in public house reform, which had followed the institution of the State control system in Carlisle and district. The licensed trade of England had been awakened to the importance of improving conditions if private ownership was to continue to exist in the Old Country. The provision of better environment thus created had done much to improve tho self-respect and habits of the people. The old-time evidence of intemperance, which he remembered when working in a 1 parish in East London forty years ago, had entirely disappeared. Ho had personally inspected the-so-called Carlisle system, and had met leading clergymen of the district, who till spoke in high terms of praise of the wonderful improvement effected unctbr State control. Liquor Control Abroad. "Great Britain continues to maintain the temperance trend so marked during recent years," observes tho annual report of the New Zealand Licensing Be-fo-rm Association. "The Eoyal",Commission on Licensing is still proceeding with its investigations. Thero is a feeling that at least a very substantial, minority of the Commission will bo in favour of recommending an extension of the Carlisle system of State control. Tho Dominion president, while on his trip to England, has been making special inquiry on behalf of this association into the various systems of liquor control. Tho executive looks forward to receiving from him much valuable information. Bival viewpoints continue to give expression to opinions as to the position in the U.S.A. There is, however, one outstanding certainty, and that is that Prohibition has so far been found unenforceable. The huge ramifications of the illegal liquor supply have brought about a state of criminality previously unparalleled and are giving grave concern to the best thought in the U.S.A. The conditions existing under attempted Prohibition in Finland are practically a replica of those ruling in the U.S.A. T!ic Dominion exee-ftive continues to keep in touch with those interested in tho subject of liquor control in other countries, and is maintaining a careful watch on all developments."

"A Good Understanding." "You havo got what might be termed good understanding," said Mr. E. D. Mosloy, S.M., to a witness in the Magistrate's Court at Christchurch, who said ho had measured a distance, after an accident, with his boots. Witness explained that ho allowed three boot lengths to a yard. Afterwards he measured his boots and they were only a fraction of an inch under a foot long. A Never-ending Job. Though two men arc- steadily on tho job and a power scraper is fairly often on the road, cars, lorries, and buses throw out the tilling from tho edge of the bitumen track oi! tho Hutt road more quickly than it can be put back, and just now tho guttering is very bad. In some. places it is four or five inches deep, and near Kaiwarra thero was this morning—as a matter of facto it has been there, in Bomo way overlooked, for days—a dangerous hole, bad enough to smash springs if hit at any. speed. Widening tho pavement, to , render it unnecessary to swing off tho bitumen to give passing room for other machines, seems to be the only cure for tho continually climbing cost of the unsatisfactory and never-ending job of filling tho gutter by shovel and broom, not only on tho city length, but right to the Petone crossing. No "Boom.'.' ' Asked by a "Waikato Times" reporter to comment on t)y? remarks of Professor B. Speight, of Canterbury College, regarding a revival of gold mining, in tho South Island, the Hon.1' A. J. Murdock, Minister of Mines, said he had not stated that there was a possibility of a boom. As Minister, it was far from his intentions to cause undue expectations and he had certainly no recollection of using the word ''boom" when referring to certain possibilities. Mi he intended to convey was that there were areas which would certainly repay investigation if the resources wore fully exploited. "Lest We Drift With the Tide." The Rev. J. E. Blanchard, minister of St. John's Church, Willis street, in his pastoral letter published in the church's seventy-seventh annual report, has a word to say about tho value of corporate worship. "Wq live in days when the call to worship, though sounded, is largely neglected," ho writes. "Wo must be all the more careful, therefore, lest we drift with that tide, thereby losing the glow of our own spiritual life and depreciating the witness of the Church in tho eyes of tho world. That heart does not keep the fire and warmth within which neglects the regular experience of corporate worship. And that Church- cannot hope to have the power to persuade, convince, and win the careless, whose ' own members are themselves careless of the privileges, benefits and responsibilities of its corporate worship." Glass on the Koadway. So frequent arc motor collisions, serious and otherwise, that it is rarely that a driver can make a run, say, to Upper Hutt, or even to Day's Bay, without having to dodge a patch of broken glass scattered on tho pavement —it would appoa.r that at least one more patch is added, somewhere or other, on the suburban paved roads every day. It is nobody's business to see that the mess is properly cleaned up, though the larger fragments aro generally thrown aside, on to tho macadam as a rule. The finer fragments aro left for other cars to scatter further or to take home as souvenirs, greatly to tho delight and profit of the puncture-mend-ing people. After the last bad smash on the Hutt road glass lay about the surface for a full week, and what sweeping up was done simply put the broken pieces in the hollow where tile pavement and the macadam join. Breakdown service men apparently pass over the sweepingl up as no part of their work of wreck removal, and evidently it is not the business of anyone else. Not One for Himself. Great catches of fish have been made lately with nets cast from tho Westshore beach, but a philanthropic amateur found the other evening that even a major share in a big haul is not inexhaustible, states the "Hawkes Bay Herald." Alfter a haul whicli netted 200 fish, ho took his share homo, and started to distribute them to friends, relatives, and neighbours. Tho good news quickly spread, and tho pile of fish rapidly diminished, until there was only one left, which the fisherman cleaned and put away for himself. When still another, neighbour called for a fish, he was in a quandary. After a prodigal distribution of the fish to all and sundry, he could not very well refuse tho man next door; So he preserved his reputation for generosity, but lie had to have sausages for breakfast.