OTHER NEWS IN BRIEF

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23083, 22 October 1949, Page 6

OTHER NEWS IN BRIEF

FENCING CHAMPIONSHIPS. The New Zealand fencing championships were opened yesterday in Dunedin by the acting-Mayor, Mr. L. M. Wright, in the presence of Sir Joseph Ward, president of the New Zealand Amateur Fencing Association. There are 46 entrants from nine swords clubs competing.

SHORTAGE OF ONIONS.—Onion crops at Pukekohe, one of the main sources of supply for early markets in the Dominion will yield less than usual this season. The cause is the failure of seed beds to produce the usual quantity of plants owing to the continual wet weather and the reduction in planting areas because of the labour shortage. STAFF COLLEGE.—The Minister of Defence, Mr. F. Jones, announces that Wing Commander I. G'. Morrison. 0.8. E.. R.N.Z.A.F., and Lieuten-ant-Colonel A H. Andrews, 0.8. E., New Zealand Military Forces, will attend a course at the Joint Services Staff College at Lattimer, in Buckinghamshire, next January. Wing Commander Morriso.i is to remain in the United Kingdom on exchange dutv with the R.A.F. for two years after the course has been completed REDUCED CABLE RATES:—Rates for cablegrams from New Zealand to Central and South American countries will be rectuced. with effect as from November 1, said the PostmasterGeneral, Mr. F. Hackett, last night. The reductions vary from 3Jd to 6d a full-rate word, according to the countries of destination. Examples are: Argentine and Chile, rate reduced from 4/1 to 3/7 per word: to Mexico, from 2/10J to 2/7: to Uruguay, from 4/6 to 4/-; to Panama, from 3/5 to 3/1. TRIP TO HONOUR PLEDGE.—To honour a pledge made as a prisoner of war, Mr. J. Brabbs, of 2 Madeira Place. Grafton, Auckland, will leave Wellington bv the Mataroa today on a journey that will take him half round the world and back again. While a prisoner at Marlag und Milag Nord camp, near Bremen, Mr. Brabbs and 19 others who shared his room made a pledge to meet again five years after they were liberated. One of the prisoners, an artrist, made an illuminated document setting out the pledge, and it was formally signed by all 20 men. Now the meeting has been arranged to he held at Bedford, England, on New Year's Eve. LOSS ON RAILWAYS.—A loss was again incurred bv the Railway Department during the four-weekly period to September 17, bringing the total deficit for the financial year to £823.959. According to the latest working account of the department, all lines were run at a loss during the period, the deficit on rail operations amounting to £139,196.. This was slightly reduced by a surplus of £14.703 from miscellaneous services, making the net loss for the period £124.493. For the financial year from Aorii 1 to September 17, revenue was £3.617,908, and expenditure £9,441.867. producing a net loss of £323.959. For the corresponding period last year, expenditure of £9.038,071 exceeded revenue by £674,170.

SHIPPING DISPUTE.— A dispute which began in Wellington involving the hold-up of cargo handling on the coastal steamer Port Waikato was settled yesterday following a meeting of the Port Committee and another meeting of the executive of the Watersiders' Union. The latter body announced that work would be carried on “meantime.’’ EMPIRE GAMES VlSlTOßS.— Thirteen hundred householders have already offered accommodation in their homes for visitors to the Empire Games in Auckland in February. The games accommodation officer, Mr. W. J. Waghorn, said yesterday that the bill introduced in Parliament on Thursday providing protection under the tenancy regulations would help to achieve the public relations office’s obieclive of accommodation in private home of 2000 visitors. ST. HILDA BAND LEAVES.—New Zealand’s champion band St. Kilda from Dunedin left Auckland bv air yesterday morning to compete in the Australian contest at Ballarat. Thirtyseven playing members and five supporters went from the railway station to Whenuapai airport and breakfasted there before boarding a chartered Skymaster for Sydney. On the train .iournev to Auckland at nearly every ston parties of loca l bandsmen turned out to wish St. Kilda good luck. T.B. AMONG IMMIGRANTS.— Concern at the fact that many immigrants were not thoroughly examined medically before leaving Britain was expressed by Mr. G. Russell, chairman of the Otago Tuberculosis Association, at a meeting on Thursday night. There were several cases of immigrants falling ill from tuberculosis soon after arriving in the Dominion, he said. “It seems wrong that people are being allowed into New Zealand who have not been fully examined before embarkation. It is to be hoped that more care will be taken in future." £IOOO DAMAGES. —A school teacher who worked at the Dannevirke Hospital during the May holidays this year lost part of two fingers of her right hand in an accident in the hospital kitchen. In the Supreme Court. Palmerston North, she was awarded damages totalling .t_‘ 1009 9s against the Dannevirke Hospital Board. She is Monica .Tune Harris, aged 21. of Dannevirke. The jury found that the accident was the result of.negligence on the part of the de fondants. Tire amount claimed was ±2516. PARTIAL SOLAR ECLlPSE —Gisborne experienced a partial solar eclipse early Ibis morning, caused by the passage of the moon between the sun and the earth. A total eclipse would not be visible anywhere on the earth’s surface, although at Budd Land, in the Antarctic, 0.96 of the sun’s diameter would be obscured at sunrise. The area in which the partial eclipse was visible extended from New Guinea to Cape Horn in an arc through Western Australia. Along this limit, the eclipse ended at sunrise. The northern limit of the eclinse was well into the Eastern Pacific and included all New Zealand.