LOCAL AND GENERAL

Grey River Argus, 24 February 1947, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL

The Dominion Hotel, Blackball, changed hands yesterday, when Mr Ron Gardner, of Taihape, took over from Mr Alex. McDonald, the’ late proprietor of the hotel.

Kathleen Stratford, a schoolgirl, aged thirteen years, residing at Boddytown, was admitted to the Grey River Hospital about 8 o’clock on Saturday night, believed to be suffering from a fractured pelvis and shock, sustained when she became involved in a collision on the Sawyer’s Creek bridge. The girl was cycling from Heaphy Street towards High Street, when the collision occurred between her and a motor car proceeding south, driven by Thomas Sotheran. Last night, her condition was reported to be satisfactory. .

Don’t forget. Grand Variety Concert, Town Hall to-night (Mon). Funds aid Gwen’s Marching Team.— Advt.

There was a good attendance of brigadesmen at McGinley green yesterday morning 'when the Greymouth Fire Brigade held their annual competition in the 2-men hose and hydrant event for the McDowell Cup. The results were as follows: G. Shaw and L. Patterson 1, (Time: 36secs.); F. McEnaney and A. Cawley 2, (38secs); T. Mclntosh and J. Brennan 3, (38 4-ssecs). Conditions for the competition were ideal. L. Patterson repeated his performance of last year when he won with J. Brennan. The cup was presented by Mr A. J. McDowell, a former secretary of the Grey Power Board

The Westport Competitions Society’s annual festival will’ be held from May 19 to May 24. Vocal, dancing, instrunjental and elocution. Syllabus available on application to Robt. Francis, Greymouth and Hokitika.—Advt.

Commissioned by an Auckland firm which is building fishing vessels, Mr J. Strachan, of Timaru, is making eight large fishing nets for China, — no easy task, considering that they will all be made by hand, and the making of each involves the tying of about 50,000 knots. It is. a task that will keep him occupied for several months, but the Chinese fishermen to whom they will be delivered will have the satisfaction of getting the best nets available, for Mr Strachan is l a master of the old craft. Mr Strachan learned the art of net-making in Scotland, although he never did any trawl fishing in his own country. Apart from his special commission to make nets for China, he has supplied several to Timaru fishermen.

The finest string orchestra in Britain is to tour New Zealand and Australia later this year. Boyd Neel, the orchestra’s' founder, discovered his true sphere of work as a musician only after a naval education at Dartmouth, and a medical education at Cambridge. Before the war he took his orchestra to the international festival at Salzburg and also to Portugal, under the auspices of the British Council. Formed in 1933 with the idea of perfecting a string ensemble of first-class players to work together permanetly, the Boyd Neel Orchestra originally consisted of 17 members. Since Easter, 1946, it has numbered 20, but for its tour it will revert to its original size. Its present composition is as follows: —Six first violins, three second violins, three violas, three ’cellos, and two doublebasses.

Enough timber to keep a mill occupied for a fortnight in the manufacture of cooperage is to be obtained from a 150 ft high kahikatea, or white pine tree, which has been felled on a Hawke’s Bay property at Poukawa. If the timber were suitable, there would be sufficient to build two houses. The felling of this old giant of the forest was a task of some magnitude. After a way had been made, it took two foresters a day and a-half before the stem finally parted company with the base, which was 12ft in diameter. The Bft. 6in. saw employed was not large enough to do the job without a considerable amount of side-scarfing. No estimate has been made of the age of the tree, which was fully alive, but it had grown through many yearq and weathered many storms. Now that it lies sprawled for some 150 ft. across l the ground, it present the foresters with a further formidable task in trimming it and preparing the huge trunk for transport to a mill.

A constant stream of requests for raspberries is being received by l small fruit growers in the Waimate district from retailers, auctioneers, and individuals from Christchurch to Invercargill. “We cannot meet the demand, and I cannot understand why the public should think we have a normal crop of fruit when they must know that losses were heavy”, said a prominent grower to a representative of the “Timaru Herald.” “There are probably no more than foui' or five good crops in the district, and some growers whose crops suffered most in the frost will get a yield this year of only 25 to 30 per cent, of the normal crop.” He estimated that the yield for the whole district will bei reduced by about 50 per cent, on other seasons. Growers have been compensated in some degree by the recent increase in price to 19s 6d a bucket, which will be effective in Canterbury until the end of February, when the market will be made open. The effects of the frosts will be feltyiext year, as many young canes were’blighted by the unseasonal weather.

“Hardly a year passes without some part of the country having a visitation of some kind,” said the president of the South Canterbury Executive of the Federated Farmers (Mr J. Woodhead) at a meeting last .week, when commenting on a remit from the Waimate branch: “That the practicability of an insurance scheme to cover loss or damage to crops be kept in mind”. A levy on some of the more important lines of produce might be practicable to float the scheme, said the chairman. The matter was referred to branches for comment in time for the next meeting.

The following appointments to West Coast schools were made at Friday’s sitting of the Canterbury Education Board: Blaketown, Miss S. Cunningham; Cobden, Mr.' A. A. McCone; Koiteran’gi, Mr. J. H. Rapson; Kokiri, Mr. D. R. Thurlow; Kumara, Miss B. J. Harris. Confirmation was given to the appointments of the following teachers who secured positions in their own schools: Greymouth Main, Mr. H. A. Jones, Mrs. R. A. Henderson; Hokitika District High, Miss N. M. Carlyon; Kumara, Miss C. M. McGrath; Taylorville, Mr. H. I. Turnbull. Resignations were accepted as follows: Aratika, Mr. D. S. Gibb; Blaketown, Miss N. Traue; Cobden, Mrs. F. E. Driscoll; Hokitika District High, Miss V. M. Romans; Marsden, Mr. P. J. Gillin; Rapahoe, Mr. G. P. Lock; Taylorville, Miss E. M. Paul.

The aim of companies was to give consumers the best possible service in spite of difficulties which, from time to time, might arise, said several delegates at the annual conference of the Gas Institute. At times there might be a shortage of coal which would necessitate rationing, and last winter rationing had had to be enforced in the North Island because of lack of coal. Generally there was sufficient coal in the bins at the West Coast, but lack of shipping caused a bottleneck. Were it possible to build up reserves it would be pos-» sible to maintain full services even though supplies failed to arrive when expected. A suggesstion was made by Mr F. J. Kennedy (Wellington), that the main centres should work on a Emit of between 300' and 400 tons of coal a day, and when this limit was reached they should introduce rationing.

High taxation in Britain is hitting ducal art collections, and one of the greatest boms in art sales' history is only just beginning. Christie’s and Sotherby’s report joint sales. of over 3J milions, mainly to U.S. buyers, in the last 12 months, and .some of the prices are fantastic. Constable’s' ‘Stratford Mill,” which cost its owner £8,92'5 in 1895, was sold the other day for £43,050, the highest figure ever paid for a landscape by an English painter. Much the same thing occurred in France aftei* the 1870 war, when taxes rose to pay the German indemnity and even chateaux were transported over the Atantic. The Government finally had to step in and appoint a Ministry of Fino Arts, which declared important works of art national memorials which couldn’t be sold overseas without permission. This had some curious effects. In pre-war days an Australian artist was offered a chateau, complete with moat and drawbridge, for the trifling sum of £soo—he was renting it for 30s per week Its owner preferred a modern villa in the village. The only snag was that the Australian would have to live in the chateau as it stood. Shifted to Australia its value would have been almost priceless.

The establisment of an emergency landing strip for aircraft at Aramoana was suggested to the Otago Harbour Board in a communication from the Otago Expansion League. The Minister of Defence (Mr Jones) had suggested that if details of this area could be supplied, arrangements would be made for the investigation of possible flightways, according to the prevailing winds. The chairman, Mr W. R. Clarke, said the suggestion was linked up Avith the question of air services for Otago. A sub-com-mittee had been set up by the board to consider the question of the establishment of a seaplane base in the harbour, but its report had been held up pending the receipt of a meteorological report on the Otago Harbour from Wellington. The board had at Aramoana a large area of land which was leased for grazing purposes. If it could be used as an emergency landing ground it would be of great value to the province. In point of time Aramoana was no farther from the city than were the aerodromes from several of the other main centres. The minimum length of runway that could be provided at Aramoana was 3000 feet. It was decided to forward the necessary information to the Minister of Defence,, as requested.

A resident of Hamilton who owns four sheep to assist in keeping down grass in his orchard spent a considerable time the other afternoon searching for one of the sheep which had broken out of the orchard as a result of being worried by a dog. The dog apparently was not too gentle in his “worrying” and the four sheep' were panic stricken. Three of them were rounded up in a quarter of an hour, but after a lengthy search one which had broken away from the rope on which it was tethered could not be found. When the owner of the house went inside, however, he ■ was amazed to find the missing she-ep curled up asleep on a sofa in the main sitting-room.

There has been a bad blackmarket going on in softwoods in the Sydney timber trade for three years past. Cypress pine is prominent in the racket. Sometimes the premium paid by the frustrated builder is no more than the additional cost of handling the timber on trucks at a raliway siding whilst paying timber-yard prices; sometimes the “black” loading is considerably more. As usual, gentlemen of foreign birth who found Australia a happy haven during the war are figuring in the racket, says “The Bulletin.”

This summer has broken all the North Queensland records for queer weather antics. With the coastal country bone-dry from Cairns to Townsville, Boulia, deservedly reputed as the most sun-parched town in the State’s arid far-west, has had to use beats to attend its annual race meet- ’

ing. The function had already been postponed on account of rain on December 26. Four days later the Burke River came down its two channels simultaneously, one 150 yards wide, remaining negotiable by high trucks, but its 30-yard mate requiring the use of the Shire Council’s rowboat to cross dry-footed. The oldest inhabitant claims that it is the first time in history that such a thing has happened in the place where Aboliars have so often alleged that frogs never get a chance to learn to swim and the ten-year-old kids hide under beds when they see their first drops of rain.

Siam is the home of the climbing perch, but there is another amphibious fish that prisoners of war at first thought dropped from the clouds. When the first rains came after the dry season, bucketfuls of fish, some a foot long, were picked up from the steaming earth. The lateral fins were fused to form a pair of stout hoops which enabled the fish to pull itself along the ground. The gillets were underneath, not on the sides as in most fish, so that they could be pressed to the wet ground to continue breathing. There were two feelers and an eel-like tail. During the dry season this fish burrows in the mud of the paddyfields, emerging at the . first of the rains and heading for the nearest stream —overland. The final stage of its existence is passed in the rivers, where is grows to a length of several feet.

“Only those who nave had to operate rationing from the retailers’ point of view and have had to compile the necessary returns, can appreciate the amount of work involved,” states the annual report of the New Zealand Master Grocers’ Federation. “For the greater part this work has had to be done outside normal shop hours', and whilst during the war it was accepted as part of the trade’s war effort, grocers find it difficult to look on it in the same light to-day,” continues the report. “In fact, the work involved in the rationing of sugar, butter, and tea is out of all proportion to the profit margins allowed on these commodities. And not only is there considerable work invloved, but there i.” a resultant slowing down of serving in the shop and delivering of orders. The cutting, cancelling, or collecting of coupons all takes times, and when efficient labour is difficult to obtain, as it is to-day, grocers find that the burdens of rationing weigh veryheavily.” The report went on tc say that while the Master Grocers’ federation desired the earliest possibia lifting of official consumer rationing it preferred the inconveniences °* cutting and counting coupons to the embarrassment of having insufficient stocks to satisfy reasonable puhhc demand.