LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLII, Issue XLII, 21 May 1923, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Mails which left Wellington on 9th March per s.s. Athenic, via Panama Canal,, arrived at London on 19th April; also mails which left Wellington on 20th March per Maunganui, via San Jjfancisco, arrived at London on 23rd April. The usual increase in unemployment as winter draws on has not yet been noticeable m Masterton (remarks the Wairarapa Age). The Labour Depart»«»t state that the demand for men has been kept steady. Carpenters are ap«oially m demand. "I did not see an egg for fire years, The nearest cow was 2000 miles away and the nearest horse was still fu'r--th«r, said the Rev. Mr. Tremaine in the course of a recent lecture at Palrnerston North on the North American Indians and the blonde Eskimos. The Wairarapa Age is informed that the only seed crop likely to,be affected »y the floods recently is coworass practically all the other seed being already in store. As there is in any case an over-supply of cowgrass the loss will not matter. A great deal of imported se«d can be bought at 97s per cwt, which is lower than the 9d per lb which the farmers are asking for their undressed cowgrass. There is no outlet tor export either.

Io is stated (says the Daily Telegraph that a well-known Napier commercial traveller? on being awakened to his danger in a recent tire, insisted or. following out a long-standing custom, that of preparing a proper toi;ette. He carefully adjusted his collar and tie and even found time to lace up his boots When emerging from the burning building he stepped into a puddle ot water, when he discovered tiiat he had omitted to put his trousers on. With a view to replacing the piano which was lost m a recent fire and also to provide pictures to brighten up the classrooms, the teachers of the Onehunga school organised a Paddy's' Market (relates the New Zealand Herald). The children entered enthusiastically into the scheme and collected a great variety of saleable materials. The proceeds amounted to £75, and it is ex- : pected that a £1 for £1 subsidy will be granted, which, with the £40 'insurance on the piano, should help to make the school more attractive, for some years past has been on the Mr. /- Stafford, M.E.C.V.S., who statt of the Agricultural Department, has resigned in order to acoeot the appointment of lecturer in veterinary science at Canterbury Agricultural College, Lincoln. Mr. Stafford served throughout the whole of the war period with the New Zealand Mounted Rifle Brigade, winning the D.S.O. Douglas Fairbanks' New Zealand representative (Mr. Sam Blair) -was to have "done" the Wanganui River this week, but bad weather made him change his plans and he went to Christchurch instead. He is to cross over to the West Coast, and then leave en route to Wanganui. While in Wellington Mr. Blair obtained a great num- ; ber of snapshots of the river., mountain, and coastal scenery of New Zealand', and he considers it an ideal place for "shoot scenes such as Fairbanks will • require for his picture. "Californian scenery has been done to death," declared Mr. Blair, "and we want some- , thing fresh. A great many of the i scenes will lie taken in the South Sea | Islands, and then Mr. Fairbanks will | bring his company of 100 players or so to New Zealand.'' Lady Eve, wife of Sir H. Tristram | Eve, of Bramham Gardens, South j Kensington, S.W., has been elected j chairman of the Parks Committee of the j London County Council. Lady Eve told | a Daily Mail reporter that she is very interested in games for children, and j that would be a great point in her work, j "I am very keen about lawn tennis, I cricket, and net ball for our young . people," she said, "and I consider that ' playing in a team is an essential part ;of the education of every child. I have not contemplated the construction of more sports grounds in the parks yet, j but I do believe in as much amusement las possible for everybody." A few days ; prior Mrs. Wilton Phipps was elected .as the first woman chairman of the . London County Council Education Com- : mittee. I Further to his telegraphed warning regarding the necessity for boiling all Blenheim water for human consumption, the medical officer for health (Dr. W. F. Findlay) wrote to the local borough council (states the Express): "No enteric exists as far as is known in , Blenheim, nor has there been a case of this disease for a long time. However, the present flood may have dist persed widely fecal matter from septic tanks and other sources. I think it advisable that residents of the borough and suburbs should boil all water used for drinking- until your engineer is reasonably certain that all defects in the water i>ipes in the borough are effectively repaired. Those using wells , should also boil their water for the next two months. I think the citizens should clearly understand that this is not done as an alarmist measure, bej cause there is no reason for such alarm, but nevertheless they should underj stand that it is a wise safeguard against , the occurrence of intestinal trouble." I Mi\ J. G. Myers, writing in the curj rent Journal of the Department of j Agriculture, holds that' so far as the indigenous birds of New Zealand are concerned, with one possible exception, all are either beneficial or are entirely harmless. With regard to the foreign i birds introduced through misplaced sentiment or through fallacious opinions regarding their habits, although complaints have been received of practically every species except the hedge-sparrow, (it will be immediately suspected from j the foregoing remarks that in so far as { concerns their relations to man and his crops they are by no means as black as they are painted. A case might be made out for even the house-sparrow. Many of J;he imported birds, other than game birds, were introduced at a time when native pests, increasing phenomenally owing to the tremendous access of new food supply j n the shape of crops and to the driving away of their natural enemies, the birds, by the burn, ing of forest covert, were placed in desperate straits. It must be admitted (that to a certain extent they saved the situation, and that the* present freedom from such wholesale infesta- [ tion is in part due to their continued , activity. I "No wonder some of the young couples come to grief when we consider the way they start out in life," was what the chairman of the Relief Committee of the Auckland Hospital Board said when referring to the nuMber of young couples who found themselves stranded because misfortune, chiefly in regard to lack of work had com* early to them in their married life (relates the Auckland Star). Very often there is 25s for rent, and cases hare been known where it is more than that, and on top of that some of them have taken on the burden of paying 20s per week for the use of furniture, very little had been saved before these young people, many of them under twenty years of age, had taken on wedded life, and they had not been able to buy furniture of their own. It was all very well for a. while, but when the time came that the household expenses increased, friction commenced, debts accumulated, they commenced to take stock, and very often decided that an appeal to the Relief Committee w«s tho only solution to their troubles. These cases take up a valuable lot of tim«, and it has been necessary to read them n. stern lesson and tell them candidly that the Relief Committee did not expect to meet to consider cases such as theirs. They were young, and although they hnd made big mistakes, they should bo nWe to battle through Ufe for a ?.> ni r time yet ".-jthout needing help r-r-,, anyone. T^e "omminee's chief '>•<< v was to eire for the :i<red and the.Tilin«', find in doin<r t'»ia nobl» work on Mini f of tlio people they hnd their hands pretty full. A football dance will be hold in the Pihama Hall on Friday next.

The Taranaki championship shoot will be decided at Stratiord on the 24th £-VV ndei n .th u c auspices of the Strat- j foid Gun Club. Post entries will be matr e ventd BWee»Bta^ "*» *»»ow the ; In addition to being an excellent plattorm speaker, Mr. F. L. Combs, M.A., who delivers an address on "Education and Politics; an informed constituency and how to get it," .at the Oddfellows' Hall, Hawera, on Wednesday next, is also a writer of ability possessing a highly critical faculty a compelling force, and an incisive style seldom equalled by any present-day j\ew Zealand writer. Some years ago he attracted widespread attention by a series of articles on education, which appeared in the Wellington Dominion. Mr: F. Milner, M.A. (headmaster of Waitaki High School), speaking on "The Rights of the Child,' 7 at a meeting in Wellington, quoted a great British headmaster as saying: "Boys are always reasonable; teachers are sometimes reasonable, but parents never. (Laughter). The more I see of the average modern parent, the more I think of the modern boy.'' (Laughter and applause). . The ''Joy Bells" cabaret, which will be held in the Savoy Tea Rooms tonight, promises to prove a huge sue- ' cess. Patrons are urged to arrive punctually in order to hear the "Joy Bells" ring at 7.45 p.m. The jazz trumpets will be presented to the" earliest arri--vals only. The dancing floor is in perfect order, and combined with Renwick's popular jazz orchestra, there will be nothing to mar the night of mirth and merriment. • "I see that, we are purchasing American nails; can't we get British?'' asked : a member at the meeting of the Napier i Harbour Board on Wednesday, reports the Hawke's Bay Herald. The chairman said the board always gave preference to British goods, but in the present case English nails were not available. Another member said lie had never seen a British nail. The chairman : "There are a lot of storekeepers on this board." First member: "Yes, I and patriotic ones." / ' A Gundagai vegetable grower, who has been losing much of his garden products by midnight raiders, waited [ recently to see if he could find out i where his beans, etc., were going. At midnight a "man" came along and filled a bag with vegetables, and then the owner charged, and the vegetable ; thief ran. The felt hat that "he" I was wearing fell off. and down tumbled ' a mass of hair—the supposed man was a woman.—Sydney Mail. ! That the men who make the laws are by no means exempt themselves was evidenced when the Mayor and a num- * ber of councillors were aboard a new Dennis fire engine which was being demonstrated on Saturday. The engine had, in the course, of a trial run, crossed over the intersection of High and Princes Streets, when the driver , was approached by a constable and warned that he was breaking the borough by-laws by driving at a speed greater than six miles an hour. i Lord Huntingdon, who has issued a statement affirming his belief in the tradition that Robin Hood was the second earl of his line-, boasts of another with a romantic history, says the Manchester Guardian. After the death, of the tenth Earl in 1789 the barony of Hastings devolved upon his eldest sister, and tho earldom was pronounced t extinct^ for lack of a male heir. Some 1 years later an army officer. Captain Hans Hastings, had an altercation in a public coffee-room with an Irish peer, and challenged him to a duel. The peer replied that he could not fi<rht a commoner, whereupon Captain Hastings declared that if he had his rights he would be Earl of Huntingdon. A lawyer hi the company pricked up his ears at this, and when peace had been made asked the captain_for further particulars of his claim to the earldom He learned enough to see that it was worth pursuing, and did so, with the result that m 1819 Captain Hastings became •loventh. Earl of Huntingdon. With very earnest purpose the African World, published in London, hopes and trusts that every Dominion Premier will be present at the Imperial Confex-enc« this autumn (says a^London correspondent), to debate on and decide questions of. paramount importance to the British Empire as a unit, effectual albeit scattered, in the realm of world politics. "These questions are peculiarly domestic to one and all of the Dominions and ourselves. They are economic—trade and migration of peoples; they are self-preservative— communications by sea and by air; they are administrative—for greater union in certain matters and greater common support in others; they might eventually be constitutional excepting for the v«ry wise horror of the Anglo-Saxon for anything in the nature of a Potsdam rule-of-thumb precision. They are all this and more besides, and the time has come —we are frank and shall not indulge in the platitude that the time is coming—when they must be thrashed out in the interests of the Empire and its component parts. Therefore, we urge the Premiers of South Africa. Canada, Australia, and New Zealand to make every human effort to be in person present at the autumn, 1923, Imperial Conference. More than human foresight can now predict depends on this gathering of the Dominions with ourselves." i '< The quest for information from Mr F. W. Furkert, Engineer-in-Chief, Public Works Department, regarding the official, opening of the Arthur's Pass tunnel made by a representative of the Christchurch Press did hot result in any tiling very definite being ascertained. As far as could be ascertained from Mr Furkert's very guarded statements, it appears that the work in connection with the tunnel for which the Public Works Department is responsible is practically completed, although there remains a considerable amount of cleaning up to do, the Department's energies having been concentrated recently on getting the tunnel and the line ready to be opened. There remain the electrical equipment of the tunnel, the necessary equipment by the Railway Department to make the line fit for traffic, the training of the men who are to operate the electric locomotives through the tunnel, and the repairing of the damage to the line caused by the recent floods. On these points Mr'Furkert was not in a position to give aiiy information. The ordinary general meeting of the farmers' Co-op, will be held in Hawera on Tuesday, June 26. The retiring directors, in rotation, .are Messrs J S Connett, C. R. Honeyfield, Wbi. Jones Edward Marfell, T. W. Owen, and A.' xL». Sym«s.

The following vessels should be within wireless communication this evening .—Auckland: Makura, Westmeaih Berengan, Chatham, Bradford City, Kawatin, Laburnum, Canadian Ranger, \Vaipon t Ulimaroa, Tredinnick, Orari, *iora, Kaiapoi, Veronica, and Tutanekai. Wellington: Ngaio, Mararoa Wa. hine, Port Hacking, Wingatui, Admiral Lodriiigton, Manuka, Wanaka, Moeraki, Tort Melbourne, Opawa Orari and Matakana. Chatham Islands I lonic and Tainui. "It is absurd for a community to say that it cannot afford to spend more on education," said Professor Hunter, speaking at the education rally at th« Wellington Town Hall on Wednesday, " for the fact is that it cannot afford to do otherwise. In 1922, 12.3 percent, of the total expenditure of New Zealand went out upon education^ in. 1914, 12.5 per cent., so New Zealand has gone back a little, a great deal in. fact when one considers the tremendous leeway of the war years. Some peopleare proud of the fact that three and a> half millions were spent on education. I blush for them. Some look upontkat. expenditure as waste. I tremble for them. Twice that amount was spent, upon tobacco and alcohol, three titne* that amount went through the totaJisator, no one knows how much was spent on amusements. I am not talking of morality. lam looking at this question from the point of view of economics. . . . Can anyone say that £5,000,000' spent on education could be spent in any better, any wiser manner, not orfly from the point of view of the balance of profits over expenditure, but from the point of human happiness. Wherev there is no vision the people perith."