LOCAL AND GENERAL

Hawera Star, Volume LI, 25 May 1932, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL

Empire Day yesterday by coincidence marked the 50th anniversary of the safe arrival at London of the first shipment of frozen meat from New Zealand. It was on May 24, ISS2, that the ship Dunedin docked in London after a passage of 9S days from Port Chalmers, thus crowning with complete success a bold enterprise that started the Dominion on the road to prosperity.

Dance .patrons and members of the Hawera Reel Class are given a final reminder of the Highland Pipe Band “long night” dance to be held at the Winter Show Buddings in Hawera tomorrow (Thursday) evening. The programme will include ad the old-time square dances and reels ais well as the “Gay Gordons'’ and several modern numbers. Att-rill’s orchestra will be in attendance and a good floor and supper are promised. At the conclusion of the Rugby football match at Patea on Saturday it was found necessary to remove the Patea player, L. Edwards, to hospital, the concussion from which he was suffering being more severe than was at first thought. He is now progressing as well as can he expected. Edwards is an ex-pupil of the Hawera Technical High School.

An Empire Day ceremony organised bv the New Plymouth branch of the Victoria League was held at Pukekura Park in New Plymouth yesterday. Several hundreds of children representing the primary schools of New Plymouth and the junior members of the Victoria League from the New Plymouth Girls’ High School attended. Archdeacon P. G. Evans addressed the children on the significance of Empire Day. Archdeacon G. H. Gavin spoke of the meaning of Empire and Mrs A. C. Collins, president of the league, laid a wreath on the Queen Victoria memorial. The children saluted the flag and sang the National Anthem.

Ball Hut in the Mount Cook ranges (Southern Alps) is being subjected to extensive alterations and' -when completed will accommodate 60 people. Winter sports meetings will be held from July till the end of the season, about the middle of September. The team of Australian ski-ers which is coming to New Zealand will compete with the New Zealand representatives at the alpine resort in, it is expected, the last three days of August.

It is imported that 40 more men have been paid off on the Ohura section of the Stratford-Main Trunk railway and upwards of 100 families are registered at Ohura as unemployed. To alleviate the seriousness of the situation a. strong committee of local citizens and workers has been formed, and a depot opened in Ohura. Meat, potatoes and butter are 'being bought at the lowest possible prices and sold a cost to those out of work. The farmers, in spite of their own plight, a,re helping the committee very considerably with gifts of meat, vegetables and fruit.

Wild weather was experienced throughout South Taranaki last evening, . the storm reaching its height at an early hour this morning. Torrential rain and hail were accompanied 'by a high wind which did much damage to parks and gardens over a wide area. To-day the weather continued cold and wet but with occasional bursts of sunshine through the clouds. The rainfall for 24. hours ended at 9 O’cilock this morning aggregated 46 points—a comparatively light fall considering the violence of the storm during the night. Army life is always prolific in humorous incidents, and perhaps one of the brightest moments during the camp of the Queen Alexandra Mounted Rifles Regiment at Waverley last week was on the occasion of the visit of the G.0.C., writes a correspondent to the “Hawera Star.” The general was expected at 9.30 a.m. The regiment had ; one out to training, but a senior officer remained behind to meet the G.O.C. on his arrival. At 9.30 this officer collected the standard-bearer to the general, and the horse-holders for the mounts provided for the visiting staff and paraded them near the entrance to camp At 9.35 a car was seen approaching. The officer hustled bis little party into line, and called them to “Atten ,” but before he gave the final command, “ ‘shun,” the car drew up and—the milkman with his cans emerged! Some five minutes afterwards the general did arrive.

Addressing members of the Legacy Club in Sydney recently, Sir Robert Gar ran, ex-Solicitor-General for the Commonwealth uncompromisingly denounced the activities of those elements in the community which advocated a dictatorship of the proletariat. “Of Communism in the abstract,” he said, “I have nothing to except that Communism in itself, as a theory of government for an ideal humanity, is just as respectable as any other Utopian ideal. It merely denotes the collective ownership of all property by the community. If the Communist Party proposed to persuade the elector of the merits of this theory, and to establish it by constitutional means, we could have no quarrel with them. But their programme is very different. They do not propose to begin by converting us to Communism. They tell their followers that the road to Communism lies through revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat. The Dictatorship of the Proletariat, in plain English, is nothing more or less than the Red Terror. It is to be prepared for by the secret or open stirring up of industrial strife at every opportunity; it is to be established by armed revolution; and it is to lie maintained by the butchery of all who have strength and courage to resist, and by the cowing of the rest into abject submission. The proletariat—the revolutionary mob —are to ‘dictate at the own sweet and arbitrary will, with rifle, with knife, and halter; and the ‘bourgeoise’—everyone else —are to bleed, or swing, or cower.”