LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Evening Star, Issue 18139, 1 December 1922, Page 2

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

The second concert in Burns Hall to raise funds to enable the Dunedin Pipe Band to take part in the contest at Wellington was given last night. Tho rather pom' attendance was no doubt duo to the wretched weather and to tho fact that there are not so many country visitors as was the caso this time last year. However, ;ns tho financial,mulls wore not as satisfactory as was hoped, tho committee will make further efforts to augment tho Dunedin Pip’o Band contest fund. Tho programme was as under:—Selection, ‘Athol Highlanders,’ Dunedin Pipe Band; Irish hornpipe, Miss Annie Moore; Irish reel —Misses Thelma Gillespie, M-aisio Thompson, Rota Beck, ’and Eileen M'Cartby; horn solo, Mr D. Whelan; Sean Triubhais, Miss Thelma Gillespie; sword dance, Misa Beulah King; clog dance, Miss Eileen M'Oarthy; Reel o’ Tulloch—Mieses Ruby Robinson, Lily Pox, Ethel Sinclair, and Jill Fax;- songs, Miss Betty Baird, the Lyric Four; humorous, Messrs 11. Guyton and James Paterson; recitations, Mias Jessie M‘Arthur; violin solo, Mr J. 0. dark; double sailor’s hornpipe. Miss Ebhal Sinclair and! Masle? Alex. Sinclair; and ‘March Triumphant,’ Dunedin Tramways Band.

11 J notice,” said Mi’ Hoary Bucklolon, chairman of tho Associated Banks, to a representative of the Wellington ‘ Evening Post,’ “ that a statement wag made by a Labor candidate, speaking in the South island, that tho Commonwealth Bank of Australia had reduced tho rate of interest on overdrafts. This is a sample of the misstatements that the public is asked, to digest, and many people who know nothing to the contrary do digest statement was utterly false. This is tho truth : While the Commonwealth _ Bank was charging 6 per cent. —which it has done since its inception—the banks of New Zealand were charging only 5$ per cent., and that was the rate until two and a-haii vears ago. Responsible Labor leaders know this; and if they do not, it is their business to find out before they make such misleading statements to people who, in many cases, have not the same opportunities as they have of finding out the correctness or otherwise of such assertions. It was not-until increased taxation came into force in New Zealand two and a-half years ago that the rate of overdraft rates was raised. Now that tho taxation is to be reduced, the rate is to be likewise reduced. All the advocates of a State bank for New Zealand point to the Commonwealth Bank,, but they suppress the fact that the Commonwealth _ Bank pays no taxation. If the banks in New_ Zealand were placed on tho same footing in regard to payment of taxation as tho Commonwealth Bank, then they could' reduce the overdraft rate to less than the Commonwealth’s 6 per cent.”

An unusual case was heard at tho Magistrate’s Court, Hamilton, when Edward Alexander Fitzgerald, grocer, of Frankton Junction, was charged with disposing of goods by means of a lottery or game of chance. The defendant pleaded guilty. Detective Colloty stated that the defendant had advertised a scheme for a “free grocery day” at his premises during a period of twenty-five trading days in October, Everything sold for cash on that day was. to cany a refund in goods to the same amount. The day was chosen by ascertaining tho average cash takings for tho twenty-five days, and the day on which the takings appeared nearest to this average was to lie “ free grocery day.” Purchasers producing cash dockets for goods bought on that day wore to receive goods to an equal amount gratis. Fitzgerald was fined £5, and ordered to pay costs. The newly-formed branch of tho ,Sawyers Bay Presbyterian Church Busy Bees, supported by the Ladies’ Sowing Guild, held its first bazaar in the Public Hall last Saturday, .when a largo turnout of the general public re warded the maiden effort of the bees. Tho Mayoress of Port Chalmers (Mrs Watson) opened the bazaar, and at tho dose of sales the sum of £SO 15s 3d was recorded. The stalls were beautifully decorated with bunting and flowers. The effort was made to pay off the sum of £7o—balance remaining on tbe manse of tho church, which has been recently purchased at a total cost of £725.

The latest progress report of the Repatriation. Department that the department has placed 28,567 discharged soldiers in employment, and there are at the present time 115 names on the employment wanted register (Auckland 36, Wellington 54, Christchurch 13, Otago 10). In addition to 1,438 students who have keen assisted financially with grants for the payment of fees and the pm-chas© of textbooks, the department has arranged vocational training for 6,100 partially disabled soldiers, apprentices, etc., ana_ of this number 5,923 have completed their courses and have been absorbed in various industries. During the month of November two men commenced training, and twentysix trainees completed their courses, There are 177 men still being trained —viz., 80 subsidised workers and apprentices in private workshops or factories, 59 trainees at Ruahura and Tauhcrenikau training farms, etc., and 43 others at universities, etc. The total amount expended to date on the provision of facilities for training and for the sustenance of trainees is £395,965. Loans to assist discharged soldiers to establish themselves in businesses or professions have been granted in 6,331 cases at a cost of £1,152,924. A further 16,601 men have received advances totalling £744,583 for the purchase of household furniture or tools-oi-trado, and 4,610 have been granted financial assistance in other directions. Altogether no fewer than 62,647 men have received assistance from the department to. the extent of £2,506,631. Of the total amount of £2,306,681 expended on behalf of soldiers, £1,897,505 represents loan advances for the establishment of businesses or for the purchase of household furniture, etc., and up to October 31 last the department has collected in respect thereof £1,144,728. Repayments, therefore,, already amount to 60 per cent, of the total loan advances.

When the astronomers at Wallal had photographed the eclipsed sun and! the surrounding sky on plates 17in square made of -|in plate glass, they found! images of between eighty and ninety stars, a great number of which, are invisible to the eye on the clearest night. Some months earlier the same patch of sky was plrotographed by night in Hawaii, and for the famous test of the Einstein theory the two sets of plates have to b© tested to see whether the images are in the same relative positions or were tihifted by the passage of their light through the sun's gravitational field. As the greatest shift to be expected is only about one-thousqndith of an inch, it is 'impossible to compare directly photographs on glass of such thickness'by putting one over the other, A simple device to overcome the difficulty was described by Dr C. E. Adams in his lecture on the expedition. When Dr Truniplor took the photographs in Hawaii, he took one set directly on the sensitive film in the usual way, and a duplicate set with the plates reversed, ao that the light passed through the glass. The direct find reversed Hawaiian plates are first compared by placing them film to film, and the discrepancies due to the refractive effect of the glass in the reversed plates are carefully tabulated. These plates are then used film to film with the Wallal photographs, and a similar tabulation is made. Comparing these tables gives finally the amount of “ shift ” in the star images during the eclipse. The measurement is done by a very exact instrumental means, and is subject to several ohecks, Eeoord Wool Price.—Mr 6. L. Rutherford, “ Connemara,” obtained the record price of 25 Jd per lb at the Christchurch November sale. This wool was dipped with “ Highland ” dip.—[Advt.]