Local and General

Hawera Star, Volume LIV, 17 September 1934, Page 4

Local and General

The anniversary of the entry of the New Zealand Division into the Battle of the Somme falls to-day. This is one of the most noteworthy anniversaries in the history of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force during the Great War. The New Zealand Division was in the battle for 23 consecutive days, when it was withdrawn. The New Zealand artillery, however, remained in the line for 52 consecutive days. The event coincided with the first employment of tanks, which the New Zealanders led in the capture of the village of Flers. ' Medical men in Christchurch (says “The Press”) do not consider that the cablegram from London discloses anything that is very new or startling about, progress made in radio-biology. :;ne prominent man said that such work had been going on continually for some years, and was better known in science as bio-physics. Speaking very broadly, radic-biology could be defined as a study of life by means of rays. The use of radium and X-ray in endeavours to alter such conditions as were found to exist with cancer came within the scope of - the science. Through the use- of rays, it was possible that, a great deal would be discovered which would be invaluable, hut at the same time there were no immediate prospects * of radio-biology achieving some of the things which had been promised of it. However, this branch of science had already been put to most important use by geneticists in the study of inheritance.

The possibility of a market in Ceylon for New Zealand timber to be used in the making of tea chests was discussed recently by Major J. W. Oldfield, a member of the Ceylon Tea Piopaganda Board, who is at present in Dunedin. He said that the wood used for tea chests must be odourless, as was the case with New Zealand white pine, which was employed in the making of butter boxes. In addition to dairy and farm produce, timber for tea chests was really the only line of New Zealand produce offering for trade with Ceylon, where there was a big demand for this timber. Price might, however, be a difficulty. At present he doubted if New Zealand was in a position to export timber at a price to compete with Japan, from which country most of the wood was now sent to Ceylon. The Japanese price for this timber,, like many others, was very low. So far as he knew, the possibilities of New Zealand white pine had not been tried out, but similar wood from. Canada had been used in Ceylon arid found sucessful until it had been beaten m price by Japanese wood. A member of an Auckland local body has had it proved to him that faith can be just as effective as medicine. He was approached recently by a woman who asked permission to gather leaves from the native medicinal shrub known as kumara-hou, which, she said, grew in a certain public reserve. She mentioned several ailments from which she suffered and which she thought the native medicine would relieve. He readily gave the permission she asked. Not long alter (says the New Zealand Herald) lie me t her in the street and inquired whether the treatment had done her good. The woman was loud in her praises of kumara-hou, and said that she felt very much better in every way for taking it. Having doubted all along that the shrub existed in the reserve, he asked her where it grew. She gave him an exact description of the spot, and, on visiting it, he found his doubts justified. The woman had plucked leaves from an ordinary, garden shrub, of no known medicinal value and not even a native of New Zealand.

To the borough of Quievy, in France, will be forwarded, in the near future, an 1870-71 war flag which was brought back from France by Mr T, A. Prior, of Fernside, North Canterbury, and which for the last ten years has hung in the Fernside school, states “The Press.” The flag was brought from France by Mr Prior after the Great War and was presented by him to the ltangiora Branch of the Returned Soldiers’ Association, with a request that it be sent back to France. There was some doubt about the part of France to which the flag should be sent, but the secretary of the association (Mr F. Hunt) wrote to the Mayor of both Quievy and Cambrai advising him of the existence of the flag and the present owner’s desire. Last week a letter was received from the Mayor of Cambrai stating that the Commune of Quievy had been entirely reconstructed and he had forwarded the letter to the Mayor of that Commune. Another letter has since been received from the Mayor of Quievy, dated July 22, 1934, as follows: —“I have received with pleasure your letter dated May 30, 1934, giving me information that the flag of the soldiers of 1870-71 of Guievy was in your possession and that you were willing to return it to 'the Borough of Quievy. In 1918 Quievv was destroyed by shellfire, but in December, 1918, the village was reoccupied. 1 will be very grateful if you will return the flag to the Returned Soldiers’ Association of Quievy, to whom it will be a precious souvenir.” The flag bears the inscription: “1870-71 Soldiers, Commune of Quievy.”

Friendly repartee, not, however, without point and thrust, was indulged in in the Wellington Supreme Court on Wednesday afternoon by counsel engaged in the dispute between the Palmerston North City Council and the Manawatu-Oroua Electric Power Board. Mr J. B. Callan, K.C., who appeared for the council, referred the Court to records of the Power Board meetings, citing therefrom at considerable length. In reply to an observation by the Chief J ustice, ho said he thought that the supporters ot the city’s interests at the meetings had snoken excellent sense. At the moment, however, hej was speaking of his friends, the enemy. ‘‘The muddlebeaded ones,” suggested Mr H. P. Richmond, counsel for the board, seining upon an expression used by Mr Callan earlier in his address. Mr Callan’s reply was keen-edged, though gently delivered. “I was trying to be charitable,’ he said.

Assistance to the extent of £2O a year rebate on rates was granted by the Stratford County Council at its meeting on Saturday towards providing the district with an aerodrome. The area to be set aside for the purpose lies between the end of Flint Road east and Beaconsfield Rtoad. Full details of the plan were submitted to a public meeting at Stratford recently and were adopted by the meeting. “Although we have had to play 19 matches in less than five weeks, the social side of the tour is proving more strenuous than the actual playing,” said the manager of the touring Australian hockey team, Mr W. Rothwell, on arrival in Auckland last week. “Most matches are followed by a dinner and a dance, and while in Christchurch we were entertained by both the Canterbury and New Zealand Associations.”

After a .season of great winter sports activity at Mount Cook the keas of the district have caught the ski-run-ning habit, states the Christchurch : .ess.” Soon after daybreak they repair to their favourite glissading ground, the sloping iron roof of the Ball Hut. and to their screeching activity more than to anything else can be attributed the early rising or the residents. In. spite of stern discouragement, the keas’ curiosity and mischievousness are unabated. A bedroom door carelessly left open attracted a ‘o?k of the birds, and one of the party '■ e .university ski-runners staying there ad the lining picked out of a good pai r of shoes and a pair of slippers badly gashed;

Reference was made in one of the papers read at the Power Board Engineers’ Conference in Wellington recently to the possibility of a development in gold mining in New Zealand, with a consequent big demand for electrical power. One Wellington delegate was not impressed with the virtues of gold-mining as a first-rank New Zealand industry. “Surely the world is going to wake up soon and see the utter fallacy of spending millions in digging gold out of the ground and spending more again in the process of putting it underground again where it cannot be reached and cannot be . used,” he said. “Gold mining has always been regarded as a speculation, and to-day it has become an appalling speculation. I sincerely hope that New Zealand is not going to rely upon building herself up on the gold mining industry.’