NEWS OF THE DAY

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 16, 20 January 1936, Page 8

NEWS OF THE DAY

Making Better Citizens. "Every year 24,000 boys and girls are leaving our schools and colleges, but we are breeding 'scroungers' rather than citizens," said the Hon. R. Semple I (Minister of Public Works) when speaking at a civic reception at Greymouth (reports "The Press"). "When you do that, the bill will be paid in years to come. It must be ended in New Zealand; it is not fair to let it go on. If you dump a child budding into manhood on a scrap heap, you cannot expect anything from it, and that is what we are doing. Today there is not much opoprtunity for a child in New Zealand. It is our task to open the door of opportunity. All we ask is that the people will give us a chance to do our job." Efficiency of Hallways. The greater efficiency with which the railways in common with other services in New Zealand, were being conducted at the present, compared with a decade or more.ago, was commented upon by a railway official in Auckland on Friday (states the "New Zealand Herald"). Formerly, especially at rush holiday periods, he said, it was the usual practice to accommodate increased passenger traffic in very large trains, which were difficult to operate and which could not possibly adhere to their time-tables. Today, trains at holiday time were smaller and ran more frequently, and, ~as a result, delays and late arrivals were comparatively rare. The official added that on a trip to Wellington during the recent Christmas period he had passed five expresses, none of which was more than a few minutes behind schedule. The Hutt River. Friday's heavy rain in the Hutt Valley, considerably over an inch, resulted in the Hutt River rising rapidly and early on Saturday morning it was very high and across the road at Silverstream. But with the cessation of the rain the flooded river just as quickly started to return to normal levels, and the water receded from the roads 'without causing any holdup of traffic, although for a brief period early on Saturday morning considerable care was necessary on the part "of motorists negotiating the highway. \ Hardly In Keeping. An overseas visitor to Wellington whq attended the concert given on Saturday night by the famous Spiva-kovsky-Kurtz instrumental trio was none too complimentary about the appointments of the Concert Chamber in the Town Hall where the concert was given. "You have three musicians of world-wide fame visiting you," he remarked, "and your capital city apparently cannot do better than the provision of a stage devoid of any carpet or the slightest vestige of decoration, and, to cap all, the performers are provided with nothing but the commonest of plain wooden kitchen chairs." *