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Evening Star, Issue 22571, 12 February 1937, Page 8

That provision, be made in the estimates for the incoming year for an increase in the council’s contribution for the upkeep of the Otago University Museum from £l7O to £750, is a recommendation of the Finance Committee of the City Council. The committee is satisfied from the information which has been placed before it that the increase is essential if the institution is to be maintained at a reasonable standard and continue to be of educational value to the public. An outbreak of fire caused considerable damage to a large two-storied wooden building immediately opposite the old Borough Council chambers at Karori (Wellington). Much of the damage was confined to the rear and residential part of the building, but three shops in front all suffered in varying degrees. The damage was estimated at £7OO. A dwelling at the rear suffered considerably from fire, smoke, and water. The outbreak apparently originated in the kitchen of the dwelling. On Monday night the City Council will consider a motion to apply to the Local Government Loans Board for its sanction to the borrowing of the sum of £13,000 as a supplementary loan, found to be required for the purpose of completing tne Deep Creek water scheme, for which •'a loan of £IBO,OOO has already been duly authorised by a vote of the ratepayers. Mr Arthur Barnett has very generously presented the mayor (Rev. E. T. Cox) with a cheque for £2O to enable the Hundred Thousand Club to conduct at St. Clair beach on Saturday, February 20, a sand castle building competition for children ranging in age from eight to 12 years. No entry fee is being charged, and the competition will begin at 2 o’clock, entries to be taken on the beach. Judges will be appointed during the week.' One prize of £5 will be allotted, and there will be 15 prizes of £1 each. Mr Barnett informed the mayor that he felt the children of the city had been deprived of so much pleasure during the holidays in being shut in at home that this competition would in some small measure act as compensation for them. There are to be five age grades, with three prizes in each grade, and the championship of £5 will be open to all. Invitations are also being extended to the St. Clair and St. Kilda Surf Life Saving Clubs to give displays of water work and other exhibitions.

The General Committee of the City Council recommends that the necessary steps be taken to introduce a Bill iii Parliament enabling the council to regulate control of, or prohibit, traffic in the streets surrounding the Public Hospital. It will be remembered that a similar Bill which was introduced in the House in 1935 was so amended as to preclude the possibility of the council putting any really effective measures into operation to eliminate or substantially reduce street noises in the vicinity of the hospital.

The Finance Committee of the City Council recommends that a grant of £5 be made to the Spanish Relief Committee to send a medical unit to Spain. The premises of the Ideal Bagwash Laundry, Petone, were damaged by fire yesterday. The property is owned by the proprietors of the laundry, Messrs J, Roberts and C. G. Noble. The concrete portion of the buildings suffered principally from smoke, the fire being largely confined to the wooden portion, which was gutted. The cause of the fire is not known. The building and contents were insured, but the proprietors will lose heavily. The Wanganella, which left Sydney yesterday for Wellington, carries the aif mail for Wellington and the South Island, despatched from London on January 27, states an Association message from Wellington. Authority has been granted by the Gas Committee of the City Council for the carrying out of necessary repairs to the chimney stack at the Caversham gasworks, at a cost of £125. _ The work was found necessary following a detailed inspection of this stack. A sentence of 15 months imprisonment was imposed by the Chief Justice on Jack Kenneth Edward Murray (32), a labourer and orchardist, for indecent assault on a female at Masterton. — Wellington Press Association. The Hon. R. Semple was asked by a deputation from the Bruce County Council at Milton yesterday as to his attitude in respect to the declaration of roads as highways, and also referred to the spreading of noxious weeds, notably gorse, during road improvement operations. The advised the deputation to place its claims for highways before the District Highways Council. He stated that in cases where gorse had been spread inadvertently by the Public Works Department that would be dealt with by the-department. The Minister also promised to have an inspection made by his engineers of the Summerhill-Kaitangata road, which was stated to bo in an unsatisfactory condition. The traffic returns for the tramways for the last fortnightly period, as submitted by the tramway manager, show that for the period under review the revenue decreased by £251, as compared with the corresponding period of the previous year. For the period of 44 weeks, from April 1 to January 30, the revenue showed an increase of £3,995. or 3 per cent., as compared with the corresponding period of last year. The- revenue and expenditure statement for the 36 weeks ended December 9 shows a net surplus of £2,465. Evidence in support of the case presented by the New Zealand Journalists’ Association for a Dominion award governing the salaries and conditions of employment on metropolitan newspapers occupied the Court of Arbitration in Wellington yesterday. _ Mr Justice Page presided, and associated with him were Mr W. Cecil Erime and Mr A." L. Monteith, employers’ and employees’ assessors respectively. Mr A. W. Croskery conducted the case for the journalists. Mr J. M. Hardcastle represented the New Zealand Newspaper (Proprietors’ Association. 3ho proprietors’ case was opened to-day. An offer from the Shell Company of New Zealand Ltd. to purchase a disused bulk oil tank at present erected at the rear of the power station on the reclaimed land, in the sum of £2O, has been accepted (reports the E.P. and L. Committee of the City Council). The company is to dismantle and remove the tank from the present site at its own cost. The area occupitd _by the tank is now required, in connection with the new extra high pressure sub-sta-tion on the reclaimed land.

Requests for certain alterations in an agreement at present under consideration between the board and the Government were placed before the Minister of Public Works (the Hon. R. Semple) by a deputation from the Otago Electric Power Board which waited on him at Milton yesterday. The chairman of the board (Mr B. H. Michelle) asked for a reduction in the charges of £lO and £8 per kva proposed by the Government with respect to the supply to the board’s northern area, and also requested that the board’s charges should be made on a basis of three or five peak loads a quarter, instead of on one peak load a quarter as the Government suggested. The Minister said that the basis of one peak load a quarter was in conformity with the conditions in other Earts of the Dominion. He promised, owever, to discuss the hoard’s representations with the chief electrical engineer of the department (Mr F. T. M. Kissel). The winner of the Masport Cup, the Pioton speedboat Pelorus Jack, owned by Messrs J. Morgan, S. Buck man, and C. Olsson, was brought to Dunedin by freight car yesterday by the two last-named. To-morrow at Port Chalmers she will compete in the Sojr.h Island championship regatta, the I) cal Miss Victory being matched with hsr Pelorus Jack, winner of _ the coveted speed trophy three times in succession, is a single-step hydroplane equipped with a 300 horse-power Hispano Suiza aero engine, developing 2,000 revolutions a minute. The propeller, which is chain driven, provides 6,000 revolutions a minute. The craft is 21ft in length, and the graceful lines are accentuated by the red and silver colours of the hull. She travels through the water at speeds seldom lower than 60 miles an hour when fully extended. Though smaller than the Miss Otago, she is equally as powerful, and should provide many thrills to-morrow when she races. The Masport Cup, which her owners won at Nelson on January 22, is at present being exhibited in a city shop window. The menace to game birds of hawks in the Rotorua district was mentioned by the Minister for Internal Affairs (the Hon. W. E. Parry) when visiting Rotorua. He said that he visited Rcnoroa, where hawks appeared to be in numbers far exceeding his expectations. “ One would be very sanguine indeed to believe that game birds in the district could survive the ferocity- of hawks,” said Mr Parry. In the Renoroa district the settlers were dealing with rabbits, and proposed to go m for a vigorous system of trapping This might check the rabbits, but it would he a poor look-out for any pheasants liberated in the district* ' Something would have to be done about the depredations of hawks and their extermination.

Quite a stir was caused at the Moerafei Beach recently when a sea elephant came ashore near where a number of children were bathing. The monster—for such it was, measuring about 15ft in length and Bft in girthattracted many visitors to the locality, but after a short rest on the beach, it returned to tho sea and disappeared. The Tramways Committee and the Electric Power and Lighting Committee of the City Council each report that an application from the Otago Expansion League for a contribution of £ls towards tho cost of a booklet of views of Dunedin and surrounding districts, which is shortly to be issued by the league, has been agreed to. The .bulk of the cost is being contributed by the Expansion League, Tourist Department, shipping companies, and the Railway Department.

The postal authorities advise that the Wanganella left Sydney on Thursday last with 83 bags of mail and 21 parcel receptacles for Dunedin. The mail includes the air mail despatched from London on January 27, which should reach the local office at 1.30 p.m. on Monday next. The remainder of the mail should be to hand on Tuesday afternoon. At the Port Chalmers’ Court to-day Mr J. R. Bartholomew, S.M., presided. Harry Inglis, William Simpson, and Kenneth M'Kiggan were each fined 10s and costs (10s) for being unlawfully on licensed premises. John Conlin was fined 10s and costs (12s) on a similar charge. Last night the Port Chalmers fire brigade extinguished a fire in a condemned dwelling in George street. The house was unoccupied. Criticism of the delay and inconvenience to which, it was stated, passengers arriving from overseas were put in New Zealand was expressed yesterday by Mr A. E. Kincaid, when addressing the Canterbury Employers’ Association on his experiences on a recent trip abroad. Mr Kincaid said that in London and New York the work of passengers through the Customs and immigration officials’ hands was done with a minimum of delay that contrasted strangely with the methods in New Zealand. When he arrived in London the 1,100 people off the Orion were cleared from Tilbury Docks in a miraculously short time. .Overseas, he added, the work was accomplished with such a minimum of fuss that the passenger scarcely realised that he had been passed by the Customs and immigration officials. It contrasted with what happened when he reached New Zealand. The three classes of passengers on the boat were herded into a small compartment and checked over by the immigration officer. His luggage went into the Customs at 1.30 in the afternoon, and when he asked for it he was told to come back at 4 p.m. Eventually he got it in time to reach an hotel for tea. The Maori land settlement scheme inagurated by Sir Apirana Ngata and continued by princess Te Puea Herangi was proving a great asset to the Maori race, said Mr W. J. Broadfoot, M.P. for Waitomo, at the ie Kapua jubilee celebrations. _ The plan had spread over the Dominion, and there were 74 schemes under _ way, covering about 600,000 acres. His advice to the Maoris was to work amicably with the department, because it had the capital and the officers had the desire and will to help them. The Maori settlers should seize every opportunity for advancing the settlement scheme as a means of becoming independent farmers, Mr Broadfoot added.

The Electric Power and Lighting Committee of the City Council states that tht reports of the consulting engineers on the progress of works in connection 'with the Waipori tunnel during the past two weeks shows that, during the period a further 91ft of steel pipe lining were placed and concreted np. making a total of 547 ft completed. Work in connection with the picking up of water along a section or the tunnel is in progress, a total of 20ft having been completed. The contractors had 14 men employed, the whole of these being on the pressure tunnel section. The fastest passage on record between New Zealand and Japan was made recently by the Osaka Shosen Kaisha Line vessel Tokyo Maru. The ship left Wellington on January 11 at midnight, and, according to cable advice, arrived at Yokohama on January 25. A deputation from the River Board waited on the Hon. R. Semple at Milton yesterday, and asked the Minister to widen the span of the new bridge at present under construction over the Tokomairiro Stream at Clarksville in order to enable flood waters _to get away more easily. The Minister inspected the bridge and stated that, although a widening of the span did not appear to be necessary, every facility would be provided to enable the passage of water in flood time.

Eye strain—for eyo comfort, for better vision, consult Sturmer and Watson Ltd., opticians, 2 Octagon. Dunedin.—[Advt.J The Kaihvaiy Department advertises in this issue train arrangements in connection with the Dunedin races at Wingatui to-mor-rojv. The Pacific Starr-Bowkett Building Society will dispose of £2,000 by sale on February 16, at 8 p.m.