LOCAL & GENERAL

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXI, Issue 307, 11 December 1931, Page 4

LOCAL & GENERAL

The first sale of this season’s Christchurch series was to open to-day at 2 p.m. The catalogue comprised slightly over 21,001) bales, the allocation for the bale having been 25,000 bales. The Union Steamship Co. of N.Z., Ltd., and the New Zealand Shipping Co., Ltd., have removed from their temporary premises, Herschell street, to their new offices. Port Ahuriri. The Napier Boys’ High School’s annual distribution of prizes will take place in the Drill Hall, Napier, at 6 o’clock to-night. The prizes will be presented by Mr J. S. Barton, Commissioner for Napier. The paying out of reimbursement claims in connection with earthquake damage to houses, continues at a fast pace at the Public Trust Office, Hastings. Yesterday a further 108 payments totalling £1,350 were made, bringing the total payments made to 438, involving £6,350 since the task was commenced on Tuesday. There are still 220 claims for approximately £3,150 to be settled. A Colfix footpath has been laid across the Square to the Post Office at Havelock North. The path will remove the danger of pedestrians crossing the road in all directions. With the opening of the new bridge there will be a constant rush of traffic through the village, and if pedestrians Will use the new track the risk of accident will be lessened. Mr E. A. Wood, Labour Department, Napier, has received word that a small sum of mc-.-ey has been made available by the Unemphn rent Board for speciai Christmas relief. It has been suggested that such money be used to subsidise, on a 50—50 basis, such work as gardening, cleaning-up, chopping wood, or other similar work. Mr Wood would therefore be pleased to receive offers of work immediately, so that such offers may be considered by the Napier line: flovment Committee at its meeting on Monday next, December 14. A wonderful treat is being offered to children in Hastings to-morrow night, when a Ch .stmas party will be given in the Hawke’s Bay Farmers’ Tea Rooms, and the pupils of Misses Gran tham and Patston, of the Barrie Studio, Hastings, will dance and carry out the nursery rhymes in costumes. The “Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe” will be there with other very popup "gures from the pages of the story books. Mrs Bailey will also be singing and after the concert supper will be served. That Maoris are liable for the payment of dog tax was made clear at a meeting of the Egmont County Council. The chairman (Mr \V. C. Green) said therp was usually trouble over the collection of doz tax from the Maoris, particularly in the case of greyhounds and other sporting dogs for which the fee was 10/-. The collectors seemed to be under the impression that they could not collect dog tax from Maoris if they refused to pay. He considered, however, that the Act made it clear that if anyone refused to pay the tax or denied tlie ownership of the dog the animal could be seized and either destroyed or sold.

The quarterly meeting of the South Island Motor Union is being held at Blenheim to-day.—Press Association. A pupil of the West End School (Palmerston North), Margaret Beattie, daughter oi Mr and Mrs A. N. Beattie, has attended the sohool for eight years and three months and has not been absent once. The Marlborough Bowing Association has chosen Easter Saturday as the date of the race for the championship eights over a distance of two miles on the Picton Harbour. —Press Association. At a “shop” to be run by the Maraekakaho Presbyterian Church on Saturday in Market street, Hastings, “fresh from the farm” will be the slogan. The “shop” will open at 10 o’clock Hastings Starr-Bowkett Building Society shareholders are reminded of the general meeting to be held in the Chamber of Commerce rooms at 8 o’clock this (Friday) evening, when appropriations amounting to £l5OO will Ire held. Four English dirt-track riders, Messrs R. Frogley, T. Farndou, J. Jackson, and N. Key. arrived at Wellington yesterday by th e Mataroa to participate in speedway contests In New Zealand. Frogley and one of the other riders will be taking part in the speedway races at Kilbirnie to-morrow evening. Arrangements have been made to expedite the application of town planning principles to the reconstruction of the area at Napier damaged by the earthquake last February. A town planning scheme for the business area of Napier was submitted to the Town Planning Board on November 17. A “Gazette” notice published last evening declares this scheme to be urgent. General satisfaction will be felt in amateur athletic and cycling circles that the long standing dispute over cycling control is settled. Conferences have been held during the last few weeks between representatives of the New Zealand Amateur Athletic Association and tho New Zealand Union of Cyclists, and a plan for the future control of the sport has been formulated, by them. The Wellington Harbour Board has received a further wireless message from the tugs towing the floating dock, reporting that on Wednesday they were 150 miles east of Brisbane. The dock was then about 1400 miles from Wellington, and at the average speed that the tugs have been maintaining should reach Wellington about Christmas weedr. Much will depend upon the weather conditions in the Tasman, but the dock should arrive hero before the New Year. The extensive repairs to the Richardson Company’s coastal steamer Pakura are nearly finished, and the vessel came off the Patent Slip, Wellington, yesterday morning and berthed at No. 14 Queen’s Wha-f, where the repairs will be completed. The boilers have still to he lagged, and small adjustments require to be made in the engine and boiler-rooms, hut repairs are to be completed by Monday, when the Pakura will resume her running in the Wellington-Napier-G isborne trade. The way in which travelling is being speeded up by means of a co-ordination of the railway, motor services and air transport is illustrated by the experience of a Masterton resident who covered the distance between Gisborne and Masterton—usually a tedious journey—in 7 J hours this week. He flew I coin Gisborne to Hastings by one of the aeroplanes of an air transport oompany which conducts a service between the two towns, and, joining the mail train which leaves Hastings at 9 a.m. for southern stations, he arrived in Masterton at 2 p.m. Bankruptcies in the current year will show a big increase on the figures of last year, but that is not alarming, for it is what was to have been expected in the present depressed state of the world. For the ten months to the end of October the bankruptcies total 726 against 626 in the corresponding month of last year, an increase of 100, equal to 16 per cent. Tho bankruptcies in the North Island numbered 497, against 46-5, an increase of 32, and the South Island figures were 229, against 161, »u increase of 68, or just over 42 per cent , while the North Island percentage of increase was not quite 7 per cent. In the ten months there were registered 273 deeds of assignment, as compared with 188 in the corresponding term of last year, an increase of 85, or just over 45 per cent. Under this section also the South Island shows the greater increase. The figures of the North Island were 176, against 133, an increase of 43, equal to nearly 33 per cent., and the South Island figures were 97. against 55, an increase of 42, or very nearly St) per cent.