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Evening Star, Issue 23829, 8 March 1941, Page 10

Unemployment in Australian trade unions, which have reported to_ the Commonwealth statistician, was 6.2 per cent, for the quarter ended December 31. It was the lowest percentage since 1927, when it fell to 5.9 per cent. The number of persons employed in Australian factories in November*, 1940, was 37 3 per cent, greater than in the prewar year, 1938-39. The lowest level of unemployment recorded was in 1911, when the figure was 4.7 per cent. , The city organist, Dr V. E. Galway, has arranged for his after-church recital in the Town Hall to-morrow night a programme of unusually interesting items. ' ‘ Introduction and Trumpet Tune’ (Maurice Greene), ‘ Largo ’ from concerto for two violins (Bach), overture to the 1 Occasional Oratorio’ (Handel), Toccata (Mailly), variations from the ‘ Emperor Quartet ’ (Haydn), 1 The Curfew ’ (Horsman), and a request item, a march on a theme by Handel (Guilmant), are outstanding features of the programme. The assisting artists 'will be Miss Valda M'Curdy, who will sing ‘The Almond Tree’ (Schumann), ‘Time, You Old Gipsy Man’ (Besly), and Mr Ron Lamb, whose contribution will be ‘ Treachery ’ (Brahms). There will be no charge for admission. During the height of a chopping event, at the Raetihi Show, a razor-sharp axe head flew off the handle and made towards the crowd. Luckily it had lost way in the distance it had to travel and it did not strike edge first. A spectator was slightly injured when hit by the blunt end. The incident served to show that it is best to have a wide ring to watch chopping events. American - made aeroplanes have flown more, than 100,000,000 persons since the start of aviation 38 years ago, according to the United Air Lines’ statisticians. During this period the scheduled air lines of the United States have carried 12,500,000 passengers a distance of 5,035,422,000 passenger miles, and to-day the country’s airway system includes 37,000 route miles in the U.S. and and 45,000 miles in extensions in other countries. Alfred Freeman Jephson, aged 34, of no fixed abode, was charged in the Police Court this morning before Mr J. R. Bartholomew, S.M., with being found on the Logan Park croquet green without lavyful excuse. Seniorsergeant Vaughan stated there had been a number of complaints about someone knocking about the green, and a constable found Jephson there this morning with a swag. He was an unfortunate type of individual. The Court remanded him for seven days for medical examination. Taxation and the forced war loan leave “ nothing for future expansion and hamper production,” said Mr N. B. Spencer, retiring president of the Auckland Chamber of Commerce. He regarded taxation as having reached such a figure as to leave but little incentive for individual effort, and added : “ In .many cases businesses are being reduced; and in others they are not being expanded where they could be because the small amount of profit left to the individual maikes it not worth his while to take the ordinary business risks incidental to earning the extra profit. It is, of course, realised that this is a step in the directjon of the conscription of wealth, and the socialisation of business; but in the long run it cannot but be detrimental to the economic life of the country.” The assistance given in the United States to promising artists was commented upon by Professor T. Sizer, a visiting art expert from Yale (says the Wellington ‘ Post ’). He said that they had national and regional competitions, which discovered latent talent. To the most promising artists commissions were given for mural and sculptural decorations in the Great Government building schemes. One per cent, of the cost of all new public buildings was put into mural decorations; the result was that these buildings were fine and exciting. Artists could not live by hit or miss methods, but needed sustained patronage. They now had • this patronage with work for the Federal Government because Roosevelt had put in charge of public building undertakings men of disinterested' motives who had taste and knowledge. Two tons of unexploded bomb nearby does not make for comfortable feelings in a home, but Londoners seem to take quite calmly any new phase of the war as it affects them. Here is how a Wimbledon resident dismisses things in a letter to a New Zealand relative. “ There is a hig crater close to us and a number of others not far away. One night a German bomb wrecked a large water main which runs across the common, and tho water, in rushing away, tore out a channel over sft deep in places. A few yards away from this was an unexploded bomb, which, when dug up, proved to be one of the two largest dropped so far. It weighed over two tons and was about 9ft Gin long and 2ft Gin in width. Had this one gone off we would have gone, too. It has been moved to the London War Museum.”

His interest in trout fishing was neatly expressed by the GovernorGeneral, Sir Cyril Newall, in reply to addresses of welcome at the opening of the Municipal Conference at the Auckland Town Hall, reports the ‘ Herald.’ “If by chance I am fortunate enough to catch a trout of traditional dimen-, sions, I shall never doubt that it must have spent its early life under civic protection and guidance in the hatcheries,” His Excellency said, amid laughter. Advice that the Government had cancelled its original plan to ship 20,000 tons of superphosphate from the South Island to the North Island was received by the North Canterbury District Council of Primary Production at its meeting this week. A letter from the Minister for Agriculture stated that only a small percentage of the 20,000 tons originally intended had been shipped to the North Island, and steps had been taken to cancel the movement of further quantities. No more would be allowed to be shipped until the future of tho industry was clarified, and in any case the requirements of South Island grain crops would be safeguarded to the highest possible extent. What happens to'the physical condition of a man who flies 15 hours nonstop through the sub-fitratosphore in one of the U.S. Army’s flying fortresses? Tho answer, it was proved recently, is—nothing. This fact was established on a record-breaking flight of 3,000 miles from Dayton, Ohio, to Shreveport, Louisiana, to Dallas, Texas, and back to Dayton, non-stop. The test hop was made in one of the army’s huge four-motored Boeings by a crew of six, accompanied by a medical officer. With the flight ingjfor a minimum of 15,000 ft, oxygen equipment had to be used frequently. At the conclusion of the flight, mechanics inspected the plane and pronounced it in perfect condition, while the medical officer said none of the crew was affected physically by the gruelling test. The discovery of a gold signet ring among over 20,000 parcels collected in the big waste materials drive of some weeks ago has brought to light _ a strange coincidence. After tho drive a man whose name begins with B'reported to the Christchurch City Council that he feared a gold signet ring, bearing his initials, had fallen into the sack containing his waste material offering. A careful watch was kept for a ring when the huge number of parcels was being sorted at the council’s Moorhouse Avenue yard. This resulted in the discovery of a gold signet ring, and although the surname initial was a B, it was not the ring about which inquiry had been made. Council officials consider it most unusual that the loss of a ring should be reported and that ,a similar ring should be found, but from a different source. A return of more than £I,OOO from the disposal of the scrap metal given by householders in the recent one-day collection in Christchurch was reported to a meeting of the Canterbury Provincial Waste Reclamation Board yesterday (states the ‘ Press ’). The money will go to patriotic funds. “ This result is excellent, and perhaps remarkable,” said the deputy mayor (Mr J. S. Barnett), when the balance shiet of the sales of metal and other waste was presented to the meeting. “ The collection of vast quantities of materials, and their realisation for such a substantial amount, is a more than creditable performance,” he said. “It was a tremendous job.” An oil painting that is probably 250 years old has been presented to tho Christchurch Technical College by Mr W. H. Joyce, who will retire at the end of this month after 22 years in the service of the college (reports the ‘Press’). The painting has been in Mr Joyce’s family for 120 years. An expert opinion, passed on it in London, states that it is probably from the studio of Philip Wouvermann, a Dutch painter of the late seventeenth century, that part of the work was probably done by students, and that Wouvermann himself probably finished tho painting. Spanish soldiers and Dutch peasants are shown in the picture, which includes a brilliant white horse, a typical mark of Wouvermann’s work.