LOCAL & GENERAL.

Franklin Times, Volume XIX, Issue 39, 5 April 1929, Page 8

LOCAL & GENERAL.

Need for Better Appreciation. The need for a better appreciation of those citizens who do their duty on public bodies was stressed by Mr W. Appleton, a prominent Wellington busines masn, who retired recently after six years' service on the Wellington Hospital Board. Public service, he said, was detrimental to a young man's business in that other men believed he was seeking the limelight instead of attending strictly to business. As a general rule this explained the poor manner in which many towns are governed. '■

Unexpected Immersion. When riding a bicycle along the outer end of the Rattray Street wharf, Dunedin, one afternoon, a boy who evidently did not realise that he was so- near the edge, suddenly disappeared over the side, together with the bicycle. The attention of several Harbour Board employees coming up the harbour in a motor launch was drawn to the mishap, and they wore quickly on the scene. When the boy came to the surface, however, he swam to the wharf and was clinging to a cross-beam when the launch came alongside. The lad was none the worse for his sudden and unexpected immersion. The bicycle sank but was recovered by the launch .party with grappling irons.

W. Z. High Quality Butter,

"Now that we have reached the most trying period of the winter," writes Sir William Arbuthnot Lane, in a London newspaper article on diet, "when our systems are probably approaching their lowest ebb of vitality. we should take arreater care than ever to choose nourishing foods. Winter milk and butter are poorer in vitamines than those of summer. . We should, therefore, increase our consumption of them, and of other foods not sc deficient." Sir William adds: "Butter from Australia and New Zealand sustains its high quality owing to the cows feeding on sunlit pastures all the year round."

I Preference for the Farmer. A farmer can go to the Government for assistance in the acquisition of land and stock, and everyone agrees that the policy is sound: but. a competent tradesman anxious to create a local industry must look elsewhere for his finance, and recent history shows that he looks in vain, says the Lyttelton Times, which adds that the position is not merely that local industries have not been fostered; it is that they'have been hampered by excessive taxation and also by arbitrary and unnecessary interference with their internal management. These arc matters well worthy of attention by both Government and people.

Land Aggregation.

A clause in the Lands for Settlement Act states that no person who holds, occupies or owns a section of land exceeding five acres shall acquire another section of land exceeding five acres. As this clause has operated harshly in the Matamata district. ( the chairman of the Matamata Town ! Board brought tho matter to the notice > of the Minister of Lands and asked that ' the seclion be amended. Mr Forbes reply revealed that he was adamant in i his opposition to anything that would tend to allow aggregation of land. He said one way of overcoming the difficulty was to put a section in the name of a child, an infant one year old being entitled to hold a section. The present limit of G-'iO acres of first-class land could not be abolished. Indeed, he would be pleased to get such an estate at a reasonable price to cut up. As a drown tenant, he bad taken the keenest interest in such questions and had always urged every precaution against' land aggregation. In exceplional cases, like the one mentioned, he suggested that-the matter he-referred lo ihe Minister for consideration. "I in no! Peel that T could supporl any- . Hung which is likely to lessen the ire sen I provisions au'ainst aggregaion," concluded Mr Forbes. | t

Another Race predicted.

A keen observer of the peoples of the various countries that he has live.i in, Mr J. Gehring, who is spending aw holiday in New Zealand from Chicago,believes that a separate American racial type will arise from the mixture of nations, that now lives in the United States .(reports the Christchurch Sun). It was marvellous, he said, to see and hear children whose parents spoke nothing but—for example German; assimilate English as soon as they could speak, and always answer their parents in that language- ' instead of the one they understood. These children understood German but could not and would not speak it. It was the same with all the Americanborn children 'of foreign parents. The children were Americans in speech an J thought, although their parents could not speak English.

The Original Habitat of Flax. The Foxton correspondent of theManawatu Evening Standard writes that an interesting theory in regard to the home of the flax in the Manawatu was advanced by Mr Vat Croon during a recent inspection of plantingoperations at Motuiti. "It is quiteevident," said Mr Croon, "that flax is. not a native of the swamps as is evidenced by the excellent growth itput on when planted on dry or sandycountry. The opinion has been expressed by one of New Zealand's leading botanists that the home of the flax in the Manawatu is the Tararua Ranges. The theory held by this gentleman is that in the first place the ranges were covered with flar which grew in profusion, but with the coming of the bush the flax was forced down the mountain side into the plains, and the bush, ever spreading, finally forced it into the swamps with which localities it has been associated ever since." The first growth to appear on a slip in the ranges or high eountry to-day was always flax, a different species from the swamp flax, but nevertheless a mountain variety which tended to bear out the theory advanced in connection with the home of the flax.