LOCAL & GENERAL

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XIX, Issue 31, 23 January 1929, Page 6

LOCAL & GENERAL

Yesterday was the eighty-eighth anniversary of the founding of the Province of Wellington.

The usual Wednesday euchre party and dance will be held in the Trades Hall, Karamu road, to-night at 8 o ’clock.

A social and dance will be held in tho Fernhill Hall on January 30th, in aid of the Omahu tennis and croquet ground fund. Cars will leave Westerman’s corner at 9.30.

The Hastings drivers held a picnic to-day on the banks of the Tuki Tuki, at Te Mata. A merry party of some 250 men, women and children left the Hawke’s Bay Tribune Corner this morning, in fine, cool weather, and •were conveyed in seven lorries to their destination, where they spent a very happy day.

At a special meeting of the Hastings Borough Council held last night, the Mayor (Mr. G. A. Maddison) presiding, a formal resolution was passed to add 10 per cent., to rates unpaid by February 15th. It was also resolved, by special order, to pipe that portion of the Mokirikiri Creek, between Ellision road and Sylvan road, so that the drain may become a public drain.

A lecture, illustrated by lantern slides, will be delivered in tho Baptist School Hall, Hastings, on Thursday evening at 7.30 by Miss M. W. Turner, Now Zealand representative of the British Syrian Mission. The most strategic centre of the Moslem world, Dr. Meyer says that Syria is likely to become the centre of events which will have their mark in history. This is a strong reason for supporting the British Syrian Mission.

So great has been the enthusiasm of the Native people in the East Coast at the visits made to the various settlements by the Bight Rev. F. A. Bennett, Bishop of Ao-tea-roa, that accommodation in the churches in which he has preached has been taxed to the utmost. A writer in a Gisborne paper says that everywhere it is evident that his Lordship’s consecration has revived interest among many members of the church, and intensified that of the regular workers. Moreover, the personality of the Bishop, combined with his eloquence, has made a strong appeal to the pakeha audiences he has addressed, and it is the general opinion that no better choice could have been made by the senior officers of the Anglican Church for the post of the first Maori bishop.

The knotty problem of Native rates was referred to by Sir A. T. Ngata, Minister of Native Affairs, in th. course of an address to members of the Ngatiporou tribes at Waiomatatini. The Minister emphasised the im portance of meeting tho just responsibilities iu relation to the administration of the Dominion, and on the subject of rates declared that there was no other solution but to pay tho rate demands if they could; if they had not the money, they should dispose of lands which the Natives themselves could never use, in order to meet the demands. This alternative conrse did not appeal strongly to the elders of th" tribe, who held that it would b» humiliating to their tribal organisation if land belonging to their ancestors passed out of their hands to meet rate demands. The consensus >f opinion was that it would be possible, for Natives who could not meet the demands, to lease the partially improved lands to other Natives, who were in a position to pay the rates, and who could recoup themselves front the fj-uita “f tli-i soil.