Notes and Comments.

Feilding Star, Volume III, Issue 839, 27 March 1909, Page 2

Notes and Comments.

One of the questions the Mayor and Borough Council to be elected next month can take up with benefit to the district is the development of a scheme to provide a gymnasium and a place of resort for the growing youth of the district. There is plenty of room on the section utilised for the public baths to erect a building which couIH be used for the purpose, and its proximity to the baths would be of considerable use to those who take advantage of the scheme. There are numerous instances all over the dominion where such institutions have been successfully established, and it seems a pity that those residents with the means and leisure to promote a movement of such vast importance to the community do not recognise their responsibility in the matter. We know that it is much more pleasant and enjoyaTjle to attend to one's own affairs to the exclusion of matters more nearly concerning other folk, and that there are many people who prefer the comfort of their own firesides to the strife and stress of public duties; but there is a certain responsibility towards the community which no citizen has a right to ignore, and we firmly believe that this question will have to be faced so that there will not exist the reproach against the people of the district that opportunities of turning the leisure of our lads to useful account are ignored. Speaking at the public meeting held in the i>riil Hall hast nijjiit to discuss tiie question or compulsory military training, Air W. M. McLean said the cadets were made a laughing stock of by the street loafer and the lazy person. Whenever the cadets went away to put a day in at drill and campaign work, they ' had the linger of scorn pointed at them. Surely there is something to be said' on the other side. For instance, when the cadets left for the Christchurch Exhibition, they received a great send-off; and when they returned, they were met at the j.»,ailway station by practically the whole population, and, led by the Manchester Brass Band, were marched amid cheering crowds to the Square. One would have thought they were returning from a flong and victorious campaign. Of course there may be one or two senseless individuals who are ready to sneer at anything, and make no exception for the cadets; but the general public, we are convinced, are in full sympathy with the cadet movement. fiioaiPT, plain measures are the best in most things, and, judging by the experience of raisers of fat lambs m this" district, the most likely to bring good results when dealing with the dominion's Ministers of State. On Friday of last week the Feilding branch of the Farmers 7 Union, after discussing the question of the shortage of trucks and haulage for the removal of stock by rail, decided to send a telegram to the Minister of Railways, through Mr D. H. Guthrie, M.P., pointing out the injustice under which the district was suffering throught the shortage. The telegram was dully sent, and backed up by a Press Association message appearing in all the papers last Saturday. The result was entirely satisfactory. The Department was suddently galvanised into action, and extra stock .trains became the order of the day. Farmers who had been waiting for days for trucks were suddenly accommodated, and the clearance has been effected >' in a way which shows what the Railway Department can do when it really tries. Thfeb is little doubt of the corj^ctness of the cablegram from Belgrade stating that there is a feeling of relief over the renunciation of the succession to the throne by the Crown Prince, for if ever there was a man unfit for a position of responsibility it is the eldest son of the man who succeeded to the throne owing to the murder of his predecessor and hie wife. The Crown Prince has been an example of everything it is wise to avoid — cowardly, unprincipled, dissolute, and treacherous. It is said that his younger brother is very much more likely to make a good ruler even than King Peter, and perhaps it is one of those wise dispensations of Providence which provides for the peaceful retirement from the position of heir-apparent of a man of the calibre of the Crown Prince »6 as to make room for one better fitted for the office. It seems a pity that the Feilding Borough officials cannot see their way to keep the fire-plugs in the town in such a condition as to be easily accessible to the Fire Brigade. In the metalling and sewerage operations which are going on the plugs are frequently 'covered over and no attempt is made to restore them to the condition they were in before. In addition to that a number of the direction plates have been' defaced or made almost useless for guidance purposes. As the successful operations of the Brigade depend so much upon the water-supply being readily available, it is to be hoped that these matters will be promptly remedied. To-day's Supplement chock-full of mr terestirig reading. . First Page for to-day's paper: Auckland acceptances; The Balkans; Marton and Mangaweka Bankruptcies; FeiTding Junior Footballers; Potato Blight. Fourth Page: Compulsory Military Training Meeting; Dairy Workers before the Arbitration Court; Feilding to the liescue,