NEWS OF THE DAY

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 54, 31 August 1940, Page 10

NEWS OF THE DAY

Bankruptcy Returns,

As in August of 1939, only one petition in bankruptcy has been filed in Wellington this month. In the first eight months of this year there have been 14 bankruptcies, as compared with 16 in the corresponding period last year. Patriotic Appeal. So far it is known that the Wellington Patriotic Committee's street appeal yesterday for Christmas gifts for New Zealand soldiers, sailors, and airmen has realised £2425 Is 9d. Returns from Eastbourne, Petone, Upper Hutt, and Lower Hutt have still to come to hand. The collection is a record for the committee. - j Reserve Bank Records. Two tiew records in bank-note issue and borrowings from the Bank by the Government are shown in the latest returns of the Reserve Bank. Those itemjS for the week ended August 26 are here shown, the figures for the corresponding week of 1939 being given in parentheses:—Bank-notes, £20,066,118 (£15,802,188); advances to the State for purposes other than to the Marketing Department, £23,440,000 (£13,850,000). These two items show impressive increases. Higher Primary Production. The foll6wing estimated increases in the returns from livestock products for the season just ended were quoted by the Minister of Agriculture (the Hon. W. Lee Martin), when speaking at the luncheon yesterday to delegates attending the annual meeting of the New Zealand Meat Producers' Board:— Beef, £800,000; mutton, £1,500,000; lamb, £2,000,000; wool, £2,200,000; pigs, £400,000; butterfat for butter, £1,600,000; butterfat for cheese. £800,000. Total, £9,300,000. The Minister said that final figures were not yet available, but the estimates he had given were regarded as fairly accurate. Cheaper Listening-in. ' Australian wireless listening licences have been reduced from £1 Is to £1, and but for the war the reduction, the Postmaster-General said, would have been more substantial. The Broadcasting Commission has built up reserves of nearly £500,000 from wireless listeners' licences. The Commission will lose in revenue about £120,000 a year, and listeners and the Government will each gain about £60,000 under the new arrangement. On Bow Street Bench. An item of special New Zealand interest appearing in the "Solicitors Journal" of July 6, published in London, reads as follows: "Three New Zealand officers, two of them1 -Maoris, sat beside Mr. McKenna, the 'Bow Street Magistrate, on Tuesday last to gain first-hand knowledge of British Police Courts." "Anzacs" in South Africa. The formation of a company of New Zealanders and Australians in South Africa had begun recently when Mr. John Morrow left on his return to Christchurch after spending a year there in auctioneering, states the "Press." "There are quite a lot of Australians and New Zealanders there,, and when I was in Rhodesia I had correspondence from Johannesburg about the scheme. I don't think the actual recruiting had begun, but arrangements were under way," he said. Remarkable Bird Lost. • A bird which is believed to be the only one of its kind in New Zealand, a cross between a pheasant and a duck, lately escaped from its quarters in the grounds of the Colonial Ammunition Company, Limited, Mount Eden, Auckland, states the "New Zealand Herald." About a fortnight ago, it flew into the fowlyard of Mrs. R. A. Allen, Ellerton Road, but escaped before she could catch it. A reward is being offered for the cfipture and return of the bird, which is web-footed and has the distinctive markings of a pheasant on its back. The plumage on the breast and under the wings resembles that of a duck. _ I