LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 28 October 1924, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

The expenditure last year under the Railways Improvement Authorisation Act, 1914, was £20,520. It is anticipated that in the coming summer fresh quinnat salmon will be offered for sale in Oamaru. To gain further information regarding the latest methods in irrigation, it is intended to send an officer of the Public Works Department who ha® had considerable experience in connection with the various schemes in Central Otago, together with an officer of the Department of Agriculture, to, California, and probably Canada, early next year. There have been 5000 bank robberies, with more than £1,000,000 lost, according to figures presented at the annual meeting of the American Bankers’ Association. Forgeries total £20,000,000. “During the past financial year a total length of 27 miles 31 chains of railway was handed over to the Railway Department for incorporation in the general railway system of the country,” says the Minister of Public Works in the .annual statement. From the Public Works Statement it is learned that 11,000 new subscribers were connected with, the telephone exchange systems in the Dominion during the year. The Public Works Statement states that tenders have been invited for automatic telephone exchanges at Hawera, Dannevirke and Stratford. A calf-rearing competition for children has been recommended by the Dannevirke A. and P. Association to be carried out, in conjunction with the Farmers’ Union, next year’. In his remarks on post and telegraph buildings the Minister of Public Works states: The efforts of the Department to, overtake the leeway in its building programme caused by the war and the subsequent financial depression have been successful to the extent of enabling increased or improved accommodation to lie provided at many places at which it was urgently required. The expenditure on new. post and telegraph buildings during the year far exceeded that of the previous year.

The Public Works Statement makes the following reference to telegraph extension in the Dominion: The persistent demand for the quickest and most modern means of communication by telegraph and telephone, and the extension of the telephone exchange system to all parts of the country, necessitates greater, provision being made year by year for the fuller development of the telegraph and telephone services in New Zealand. The past year’s operations involved a capital expenditure of £717,000 on materials and labour. A petition is being circulated among Greymouth carriers protesting against the borough by-law which prohibits a vehicle being hacked against a pavement for unloading purposes. The petitioners claim that where heavy goods have to he handled the by-law makes the work of unloading very inconvenient. In liis Public Works statement issued yesterday, the Hon. J. G. Coates says: “When we realise that per head of population we have twice as much roadway as there is in; the United. States and twelve iimes as--much as in England, it must be admitted that a standard of construction per mile as good as exists in these older, more populous, and richer countries cannot he expected in New Zealand. Nevertheless, the results that have been obtained to date in New Zealand need give no cause for complaint. While the United States has only about 13 per cent, of its roads hard-surfaced, New Zealand has 40 per cent.