NEWS OF THE DAY

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 77, 28 September 1938, Page 12

NEWS OF THE DAY

'» Thirty-fourth Year As Starter. iC [y With his re-election as starter last : night Mr. T. W. Leslie enters on his Ln thirty-fourth year in the capacity with -y the Wellington Amateur Athletic Club. ;- "I hope to carry on for another thirty V years;" said Mr. Leslie with a smile* re- ' turning thanks for his election. j t Physical Welfare. j :n An assurance that the results of the lm work of the national physical welfare and recreation committee would soon , be seen in operation was given to the s annual meeting of the Wellington Amalc teur Athletic Club by the president, v Mr. A. C. Kitto, last night. Mr. Kitto • said that the national committee was LS not wasting any time, though the n spadework would necessarily take some it time. A tremendous amount of work tr which would' be of great benefit to the i Dominion had already been accom*j plished. c New Wharf Shed. The Wellington Harbour Board has \ accepted the tender of Cable and Comlt pany, at £15,212 19s 9d, for the'erection > and fabrication of the structural steelit work of the new shed 49, Aotea Quay. This shed, which will measure approxi- :> mately 700 feet by 100 feet, will be ' used for the storage and handling of '» general cargoes. It will be slightly r> greater in content than the Pipitea 1 shed. Other tenders were from the Wellington Structural and Reinforcing Steel Company Limited at £16,495 and from Luke Brothers Limited at £19,142. c College Pipe Band. 3 Wellington College in the near future 1 will have a pipe band. A dozen or so 3 boys have been practising assiduously for the last three months, according 1 to a report from Mr. W. A. Armour, received at yesterday's meeting of the Wellington Colleges Board of Governr ors, and by next year it is expected 5 that they will be proficient enough to play in public. The next move, it * was suggested, would be the purchase » of uniforms and perhaps some instru- \ ments, satisfactory arrangements hay- . ing been made about tuition. The r band, said Mr. Armour, would be a I splendid acquisition to the cadet bat--5 talion. 1 Sharing Kate Burden. i The Wellington Ratepayers' Association will, in the terms of a motion c carried at the annual meeting last f evening, pursue a system of propaganda to enlighten non-ratepayers as ' to the burden upon them as a resul. s of increased public expenditure. Mr. I P. Keesing, who brought the matter up, said the association could serve its purpose better by adopting that > method. It would go beyond the supi porters of the Citizens' ticket—it would go to the people who voted for the other side of the story. Every- " one, whether a ratepayer or not, felt 3 the burden of rates in increased rents s and higher prices in practically all J commodities. Hospital Bates. The hope of getting a reduction in \ hospital rates, so far as he could see, ) was not very great, said Mr. F. Castle, ". a member and former chairman of ! the Wellington Hospital Board, to the annual meeting of the Wellington Ratepayers' Association last evening. 3 One big factor was that there was an increasing demand for hospital treat- , ment. Although it might be said that 1 the population of New Zealand, taken - as a whole, was almost stationary, last year there was an increase of 3 ' per cent, in the demand for treatment ." over the whole of the Dominion. Parents Know Best. In his monthly report to the Wellington Colleges Board of Governors, t Mr. F. Martyn Renner, principal of - Rongotai College, remarked that he | had interested himself in trying to get parents to adopt a reasonable attitude over entering boys at too > early an age for various examinations. > He had furnished complete reports on their chances of success or otherwise, . but in numerous cases, contrary to adverse reports and to his advice, i parents had persisted in demanding that their boys should sit. "My relations with parents have always been ' of the happiest; they have always been ready to agree to my wishes in those matters till it comes to a boy's fitness for examinations, and then it matters very little what I say or what his masters say," said Mr. Renner. Long Flight by Model Plane. The "stick" type, rubber-powered model aeroplane, built by Mr. V. Offi- i \ [ cer, of Invercargill, which flew out of sight from the Gore Aerodrome on Sunday, was found at Knapdale later ' in the day, states the "Southland ' ; Times." The model had covered a dis- * tance of about five miles with a motor < . run of between 30 and 40 seconds. It ' was last seen in the air circling at 1 about 1000 feet, moving in a north- : easterly direction, after having been ; flying for about 25 minutes (unofficial). : The model was only making a trial flight and the motor was not fully ' wound. Upon being released the model ; climbed about 30 feet, when the motor ceased driving the model aeroplane ; after which it glided into a thermal and soared to an altitude of more than 1000 feet. A Tax Anomaly. The payment by domestics employed i on the staff of Wellington College of i a boarding tax of 8d in the £, in ad- i dition to the employment tax, was "\ protested against by the headmaster, Mr. W. A. Armour, in a letter read t at yesterday's meeting of the Board of Governors. "The Government," he c remarked in his letter, "formulated a i policy for the restoration of all cuts, s but this board or hostel tax has re- t mained, and in my opinion its im- t position is iniquitous. Why should it c be paid by domestics who are not civil i servants because they work in a f Government institution? This tax is c not, and cannot be, imposed on domes- g tics in private employment." Mr. t Armour added that strong objections had frequently been made by the col- g lege domestics against the tax, and }- domestics had been lost because of its t imposition. His sympathies, he said, j were entirely with those making the j protest. The board decided to send the protest on to the Department. Rate-free Government Property. c In view of the recent heavy pur- J! chases of property in Wellington, the c question as to whether the Govern- a ment should be asked to pay rates on s property it owns in the city is one a of vital interest to ratepayers, says the c annual report of the Wellington Rate- E payers' Association. The executive a states: "The continued purchase of private property by the Government a which, ipso facto, becomes rate-free, k is year by year adding to the burden a of ratepayers, and this association a affirms that the time has arrived when a Cabinet might fairly consider toe j proposition that the Government v should accept the responsibility for si j paying its just proportion of municipal o rates and so help to spread the bur- tl ! den which now bears so heavily on t< the comparatively limited number of n ratepayers, for it will be a surprise d to many to know that Wellington's X rate levy of £600,000 per* annum is 1 paid by only 22,000 ratepayers, whereas d the population of Wellington, taking the figures as at January, 1937, was w 115,653. It will be admitted that ir Government-owned, rate-free property a: is very extensive in Wellington and g this naturally tends more and more o: to accentuate the high rents at present demanded in the city and d suburbs." The matter will be taken b ug by. the incoming executive, c<