LOCAL AND PERSONAL

Hawera Star, Volume LIII, 4 November 1933, Page 9

LOCAL AND PERSONAL

The shield bowling fixtures arranged! for next Wednesday between teams representing the Park and Ha.wera clubs have been postponed on account of the opening of the Eigmont A. and P. jubilee show in Hawera on that day.

Giving to the indications of unfavourable weather it has been decided to postpone the Taranaki ski championships which Aver© to have been held on Fawtham’s Peak, Mt. Efemont, during the Aveek-end.

Assistance was given to 82 families in Hawera and Normanby this morning by the Aveekly distribution of rations to the registered unemployed in their stand-doAvn Aveek. The following commodities were made up into parcels and issued in sizes according to the number of children in each family: 161 b tea., 2021 b flour, 1381 b sugar, 781 b rice,, 47 loaves bread, 341 b butter, and 329 lb potatoes.'/

Ninety per cent, of the Otago farmers IniA-e accommodated themselves to the slump conditions to the extent oi being able to carry on in a makeshift sort- of Avay, but as a body they are not relieved of anxiety, says the Dunedin “Star.” Many of them who are managing to make a. balance as. betAveen income and outgo have reached that point by economies that are not economies—by curtailing expenditure on the upkeep of land, live stock, and buildings; and for that they AA'ill have to pay in the future. Nevertheless, most of those men are hopeful. In May of this year the Avorld’s chart as to the prices of commodities fell to the lowest in modern experience. Since that month prices have improved. That improvement has recently had tu check, but there is reason to believe tliat that check avus only a flicker, and already there are signs that the upward move AA'ill prevail. That is the ground of the farmers’ hopefulness. If it is realised the toilers on the land may soon be able to resume proper maintenance and possibly get a. little profit from their work. These remarks* on the present position embody the replies to a “Star” reporter from a New Zealander avlio has peculiar opportunities of knowing our land and the men who work it.

“Human nature is the hardest thing of all to* understand.” In the mood for philosophy, Mr Lincoln EllsAvorth, the noted American explorer, made such a statement to a Christchurch intervieAver recently, Avhen a. com-ersa-tion had turned to people and their doings. The explorer, Avho. declared himself a lover of sunshine, is going to spend, paradoxically, the next tAvp or three months in the frozen south. It Was someAvhat Avhimsical to hear a man, avlio will shortly make a trip to the land of eternal zero, saying that he could not understand Avhy men. lived a.t Campbell Island. “That's a cold place,” lie said, “and the avool producing areas of the world are not so crowded that Ave are forced to use that little hit. No, I can’t understand those avool men at all.” The explorer also said that it puzzled him why men Avent into the- Canadian northAA-oods and cleared away a space in Avhich to Ua-o, Avhen there were large tracts of. naturally clear land in much warmer climates.