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Evening Star, Issue 25698, 23 January 1946, Page 4

The University Senate, which has been meeting in Auckland since last Thursday, concluded its business yesterday. Some of the delegates returned south last night, andl others will leayo to-day. The 1947 meeting will be held in Christchurch.

'Advice has been received that air mails which closed at Dunedin on January 3'arrived in London on January 7. An Association message from Auckland reports that the Pan-American Airways Skymaster left Whenuapai for Sydney shortly after 8 a.m. this morning! in continuation of its Pacific survey flight. " This would not get third class honours," commented the Chancellor, Mr Justice Smith, at Monday night's session of the. Senate of the University of New Zealand in Auckland, when re-' ferring •to the unsatisfactory way in which a Bill to repeal a statute had been prepared by the Academic Board, which consists of university professors. " I am sorry for many members of the board, because they are overworked," the Chancellor continued, " but they should stay in Wellington until they have done their job properly." Earlier in the session the Vice-Chancellor, Sir Thomas Hunter, had said that in drafting the amendments it had been impossible in some cases to interpret the intentions of the board. A resolution expressing the dissatisfaction of the Senate with the drafting of one Bill was carried.

The waterside workers employed discharging sugar from the vessel liona at the Chelsea sugar works (Auckland) refused to work overtime again last night, as no rationed" meats were included in the meal menu. The llona, which was originally scheduled to sail at the end of this week, will be delayed by the men's action.. "The catering firm is prepared to supply the men with rationed meat if they surrender coupons, and that has always been the case," said the manager of the Colonial Sugar Company, Mr J.. P. Wildman. No definite statement has yet been made by the union whether the men would l be prepared to surrender coupons for a rationed meat meal.

The value of a residential section of about an eighth of an acre in Musselburgh Rise was disputed in a case before the Otago Land Sales Committee yesterday. The property had been sold by the Perpetual Trustees and Agency Company of New Zealand Ltd. on behalf of the estates of Edward Hulme Hart and Frances Mary Hart to William Gladstone Middlemass at £BSO. The sellers submitted that the property was worth up to £9OO, whereas the Crown contended that a fair valuation was £685. The committee reserved its decision.

The powers of the Otago Land Sales Committee to compel a tenant of a property to permit an inspection of a property for valuation purposes under the Act were invoked yesterday. It was stated by the Crown representative, Mr J. R. Hampton, that a valuation could not be made because of the tenant's refusal to allow the valuer to inspect the property. In similar circumstances in the North Island a committee had made an order directing tie tenant to permit an inspection. The acting chairman, Mr W. M. Taylor, said the Servicemen's Settlement and Land Sales Act, in his opinion, gave ample power for such an order, and the committee adopted that procedure. Probably a record has been made by Mrs M. Crocker, of Devon street, New Plymouth, who has lived in the street for 85 years, and can recall the days when red-coated soldiers marched along it Mrs Crocker, who celebrated her ninety-first birthday on Monday, is an invalid, and has been confined to her bed for the past seven months. Reading like the telephone directory of a fair-sized town, the index to the programme for the New Zealand bowling" championships, , now being concluded in Christchurch, has more than 1,600 names. The book itself is a ninety-page production. The übiquitous Smiths take pride of place, as usual. There are 28 of them, and, to add to the confusion, nine of them have J as a first initial. Walker, a name famous among bowlers for the great player, Maxwell Walker, now dead, is represented at the championship by 10 competitors. Dry creek-beds and former fair-sized rivers reduced to a mere trickle of water emphasise the seriousness of the dry spell in remote districts of the East Coast, where rain has not fallen for more than four months (states the 'New Zealand Herald's' Ruatoria correspondent). At Te Puia Springs guests are being turned away from the hotel because of the water shortage, and if rain does not come soon, the hotel will be closed. In many places a visitor asking for water is, certain to be met with a refusal. Tanks . are empty, and meagre supplies are being carried in buckets from whatever creek-beds are not completely dry. At one place on the roadside near Te Pula water has been sold at the rate of 30s a tankful and at 6d a tin. Natural water supplies are scarce in most East Coast districts, the majority of places depending upon rainfall for ' their supply.

The lion population of the Auckland Zoo was recently reduced by one. Victor, one of the two males, had become old and ill, and had to be destroyed (says the 'New Zealand Herald'). His decease is regretted, for Victor, in common with his kind, was a devoted husband-and an indulgent father, who once'allowed his quadruplet cubs playfully to chew his tail until it bled without displaying annoyance. A lion in captivity normally lives for 10 years, but Victor was at least 24. It had been hoped. Colonel Sawer (curator) said, to make up for Victor's loss immediately by the importation of a pair of cubs from Sydney. " Unfortunately," he added, " I have received word that the lioness has devoured the cubs, so that we shall have to wait." Colonel Sawer explained that it was proposed to overcome foreign exchange difficulties by exporting stock from Auckland to overseas zoos, and by receiving new exhibits for local display in return. Enzed, the hippopotamus who was born at the zoo two years ago, had been sold for £2OO, and would shortly leave for Melbourne, He was the fourth Auckland-bred hippopotamus to realise that sum.

The membership of the New Zealand E.S.A. at the end of December was 101,167, of whom 57,226 are returned personuel of the present war, states an Association message from Wellington. • Former members of the_ ar,med forces qualifying for the gratuity payments, which are to be made available for withdrawal after April 1, are filling in their application forms promptly, and the Chief Post Office, the principal clearing point in Dunedin, is sending several hundred completed forms daily to Wellington, where the details of service are checked. The pamphlet supplied with the forms makes the task of completing information by applicants a simple one, and not many inquiries concerning the filling in of the various questions about length of service ■ and pensions, among other details, have been received by post office officials.

Explaining the main objects of his visit to Australia and New Zealand to a 'Star' reporter this .morning, Lord Glenconner, who is a London director df Imperial Chemical Industries Ltd. i and of the National Mortgage >and I Agency Company of N.Z. Ltd., said that he iwas beginning his investigations in ! New Zealand and Australia because he felt that the future of these two countries was of paramount importance to the future of the British Commonwealth. "In general terms," he said, " I feel that the promotion and development of local industries is a good thing for future development of these countries. All experi- : ence points to the fact that the de-' velopment of local industry not only raises the standard df living and allows the absorption of population, but eventually enables the importation of even more from the older-established countries than formerly, not only through an increase of population, but also per head of population." The development of New Zealand and Australia along these lines would be of advantage not only to tho Commonwealth as a whole but also to the Mother Country, said Lord Glenconner.