KARAMEA NOTES

Grey River Argus, 17 January 1940, Page 11

KARAMEA NOTES

[Our Own Correspondent]. Miss Williams, our popular school teacher, is spending her holidays with her parents in Blackball- Just before going on holiday, Miss Williams made a plucky rescue from, drowning of a schoolgirl who had gone down for the third time. Only the courageous action of Mist; .Williams saved the girl. By the way, Miss Williams is an expert in the art of fishing, and has to her credit the largest pike yet caught in Karamea. While in Westport for the trots, ] had to admire the taking ways oi some of the Westport people, more especially the Trotting Club, who kindly take without a blush, a paltry Is to go in the gate. ' There was a fair number of men in khaki present. When I saw, at the same time, a number of beautiful black eyes adorning others who were not wearing khaki, I was wondering whether the war was being fought out in France or in Westport. Some of the wearers of the black eyes don them every Christmas. Mr Walter Grant, who has been training, horses in Sydney and Western Australia for the past eighteen years, has returned to Karamea. where his parents reside. He intends to remain in New Zealand.

Mrs W. Arthur, of Turumaha Street, Greymouth, is spending a holiday in Karamea. We are now in the middle of the 1940 dairying season, but the supply of butterfat is well below last season. Many herds were late in coming into profit. This, together with the heavy mortality among stock during the severe winter, is the cause of the depleted output. Over seventy dairy cows, together with young stock, several horses and a large number of pigs, perished through the severity of the winter. There are some people at present trying to stir up trouble between the Government and the dairy farmers on the pretext that they represent the dairy industry. . To show how far the Farmers’ Union represents the dairy farmers, >let us take Karamea as an instance. There are 116 supplier! here, and about 40 are in the Union; but at the end of the financial year, all the Labour supporters are pulling out. This will leave about 25 members out of 116 suppliers. The subscription for 1940 is raised to 30s from £l. Other places will be probably the same, and many will refuse to pay the extra 10s. One topic of the day is the question of conscription. There is a good percentage here in favour of conscription, but they are farmers ana are quite "safe,” as farmers are exempt ! Others are above military age, although there are not so many “would-to-God-ers” as there were during, the last war. Personally, I do not believe in conscription, though, there seems to be a laxity in the youth of to-day as compared with the youth of former years.. Seerm ingly, many of them have never heard of Nelson’s last words to his men. I think a lot of the laxity is caused by reports of earlier volunteers on camp life, and over-bearing officers under conscription as carried out during the last war. It is to ; be hoped that the voluntary system, will liven up. . - Karamea can boast of the world’s worst road—the road front Quinlan's bridge to Karamea. This is an absolute disgrace. The methods of the Public Works Department are strongly condemned by the residents on the north side of the bridge, • as they are completely isolated for several hours while the tide is in, and when the. tide is out the road is not fit to put a decent car on, owing to deep ruts and salt water.