LOCAL AND GENERAL

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXVI, Issue 3444, 17 March 1932, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL

In to-day's issue the Railway Department advertise the earlier running of the Wellington-Auckland express from Te Kuiti, and stopping stations North thereof, on Sunday next, the alteration being due to the reversion to standard time under the Summer Time Act.

"The way out of the farmer's difficulties does not lie in cheap labour," said Mr. L. C. Walker, speaking at Christchurch on Saturday evening. "It lies in larger farms, with the assistance of the chemist and the biologist and other technical experts to run those large farms efficiently."

"There is only one day holiday at Christmas, here, two weeks' vacation for school children, and at Easter no holidays at all," writes a San Francisco resident to a friend in Stratford. "People go to work on Good Friday, and there is no such thing as Easter Monday," the letter continues.

A Hamilton resident, who visited Taranaki during the week-end, reports that he filled the tank of his motor-car with New Zealand oil at the New Plymouth refinery and made the homeward journey without any hitch, the engine running smoothly throughout. He believes he is the first motorist to have made the trip on New Zealand oil.

During the hearing of a lengthy case in the Te Kuiti Magistrate's Court on Tuesday last, a young man while give evidence, suddenly fainted and collapsed in the witness box. Counsels for the parties in the case walked over to investigate and found witness lying on the floor. Assistance was immediately forthcoming, and witness quickly recovered, but not sufficiently to enable him to continue his evidence.

"One of the jokes of New Zealand is that she is trying to run things by committees. There is only one way to get democratic government as we understand it and that is to elect an autocrat. You have not got a democratic Government now. Power to recall the autocrat would, of course, be necessary. That is the only way to do things expeditiously and to plan," said Mr. L. C. Walker, speaking at Christchurch on Saturday night. .

A most enjoyable garden party was held at St. Andrew's Manse yesterday afternoon, at which a large number of ladies representing the various churches were present. The guests were received by Mrs. Ross and entertained throughout the afternoon to games and competitions on the lawn, during which a dainty afternoon tea was served. Members of the Ladies' Guild presided over the sweets, cake, and produce stalls, the gifts from the recent harvest festival.

"Would you send your boy to a slave camp for unemployed single men?" a member of a deputation of Huntly unemployed asked a member of the Waikato Hospital Board at its meeting on Thursday. "I have a son working in one at present," came the quiet answer.

As a result of the continuous dry weather the whole of the watering places, including the ditches on the Te Kumi main road, have now completely dried up. Farmers, drovers, and owners of stock find this a great hardship to animals travelling on this -road in the heat and dust of continuous motor traffic.

"Danish butter is not in such demand in country places in the Old Country" (says a North Auckland man writing from Scotland). "There is too much moisture in it and the flavour is not 'nearly the same as that of New Zealand butter. There is a great demand for New Zealand butter everywhere now. I have been to several shops out of idle curiosity to see what was happening, and in every shop there have been at least four 561 b. cases of New Zealand butter. This is a weekly supply."

"The Chinese realise that we have better habits of living, and they would adopt them if it-were not for the aggression of Western countries," said Mr. J. E. Strachan in an address to the Canterbury Fruitgrowers' Association on Saturday evening on "Eastern Market." It was pointed out by the speaker that the raising of the standards of living in the East offered New Zealand great trade possibilities.

"If wages are protected, then there must be protection for the goods those wages produce," said Sir William Ellis, an outstanding figure in the British engineering world, when discussing tariffs at a complimentary luncheon tendered him by the Christchurch Citizens' Association. "If the standard of living is to be maintained British goods must be protected against the dumping of cheaper articles from countries where conditions are entirely different."

A well-known Wanganui farmer told a Herald reporter that he had always been keen on improving his flocks of sheep, but in former years the high price of flock rams had prevented him from buyin°- high-grade sheep for breeding purposes. Now, however, the present conditions had lowered the price of rams considerably, and this year he had been able to buy the best at very low prices. As a consequence, he hoped that within a few years he would have a flock that would do his place credit.

An example of the spirit in which some farm mortgagees are meeting their mortgagors in the present period of difficulty and also of their recognition of their common interest with their mortgagors in working through to better times, appears in the following letter from a first mortgagee which came before the directors of the Wairarapa Rural Credit Association, Ltd., at their annual meeting this week: "I deeply regret you are having a hard fight to carry on during the depression. We are all suffering at the present time, and I accept your offer of a full half of the interest now due, and hope for both our sakes that prices for produce will improve.

One reason why New Zealand had only a small trade connection with China was because little active interest had been taken in the subject, stated Mr. J. E. Strachan in the course of an address to the Canterbury Fruitgrowers' Association. People in New Zealand thought that the Chinese were too poor to worry over, he said, but with a population of 400,000,000, it was reasonable to believe that about 1,000,000 people were well-tc-do. Shanghai, a city of 3,000,000 inhabitants traded with

180,000,000 people who lived close to the Yangtse River. Great Britain and Australia all had trade representatives there, but as far as he could ascertain, there was no representative of New Zealand. Mr. Strachan said that the Dominion should have some energetic young business men in the East to study trade problems.

A bushman from the back country came into Wanganui the other day with a report that he had seen and heard a pair of huias in an area of bush from which he was cutting firewood (states the Herald). On investigation being made it was found that the birds were New Zealand crows (kokako). It is interesting to note that these birds, which are be--1 coming somewhat rare, differ from the South Island crows in one respect only. The North Island variety has blue wattles (fleshy lobes), whereas the South Island crow has orange ones. The New Zealand crow, which has often been mistaken for the huia, possesses a beautiful resonant note, and naturalists state that the widely acclaimed bellbird cannot compare with the native crow as a j songster.