NEWS OF THE DAY

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 135, 5 December 1930, Page 8

NEWS OF THE DAY

Registration of Private Hospitals. Amended regulations under the Hospital and Charitable Institutions Act, 1926, published in the "Gazette" last evening, increase the registration fees payable by private hospitals. The fee is now fixed at 20s for every four beds instead of 10s, and 5s for every additional bed. The total fee is not to exceed £5. Praise for the Press. When discussing this morning with a "Post" representative New Zealand's fruit problems, Mr. R. G. Hatton, the English fruit expert, who has just concluded a tour of the Dominion fruit areas, remarked that he found the New Zealand Press better than the. English in that lectures on technical subjects were more accurately reported, "Reporters in New Zealand seem to have a wider knowledge of such subjects," he said, "and report what one says instead of providing -the public with mutilated versions." "So Many Fools." * "Tho Post's" London correspondent reports that Alderman Sir Charles Jolraston, sentencing James Draycott, aged 25, a clerk, to three months' imprisonment for being concern-od with two men not in custody in stealing £150 by means of the confidence trick, said: "It is astonishing to me that thero are so many fools in the world. One hears of this kind of thing being done nearly every day, and it continues to be successful. I have no sympathy whatever with the man who has been tricked." It was stated that Draycott and his companions induced a New Zealand farmer now visiting London to hand them £150 to prove that ho was "genuine" before they could entrust him with £1000 to distribute in charity. Payment of Sustenance. A correspondent has written to "The Post" asking for information in reference to the payment of sustenance under the Unemployment Act. He asks when a person may draw money under the Act. It is officially explained that under tho terms of the Act no person is entitled to sustenance as a right. It is provided that the payment of sustenance allowances is entirely a matter for the board. Tho rates of the sustenance allowance are set out in the Act, and are as follows: (a) In respect of the contributor, the sum of 21s a week; (2) in respect of the wife of the contributor or other person who in tho opinion of the board is in chargo of his home and family, the sum of 17s 6d a week; (c) in respect of any child of the contributor, the sum of 4s a week. Defensive Measure. "It 5s more or less a defensive measure taken by the unions affiliated to the Trades Councils in Auckland and Christchureh, against the Alliance of Labour, which is continually purporting to represent them," said Mr. H. Worrall, secretary of.the General Labourers' Union and a past president of the Canterbury Trades Council, when commenting yesterday on the move being made to revive the Trades Council Federation (states the "Christchureh Times"). . "We are not satisfied at all with the attitude adopted by the Alliance towards the Unemployment Bill and the proposed amendment to the Workers' Compensation Act," ho said, "and there have been a number of complaints from the various unions because the Alliance states its opinion as the opinion of the working class movement." Mr. Worrall explained that the Alliance had as its main components the more militant unionists, the seamen, watersiders, and miners, and that the viewpoint expressed by it was not: always the viewpoint of tho more temperate unions outside the Alliance, who were as numerous as tho bodies forming the Alliance. Corres; pondence had passed between the Canterbury Trades and Labour Council and the Auckland Council, he said, and probably a meeting would soon be held here to consider the matter.