LOCAL AND GENERAL

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXVI, Issue 3443, 10 November 1932, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL

A Press Association message received to-day stated that gold is at LG 4s 8 ti>d an ounce.

In his monthly report to the Wairere Power Board, the engineer stated that the willow removal operations so far have had little effect on the screen at the headworks, although a close Avatch is still being maintained.

We are living in a motor-car age but with bullock dray finance,” said Mi'. P. B. Fitzherbert amid laughter at the Douglas Credit meeting on Monday evening in Hamilton, when referring to the gold standard and the necessity for superseding it with a currency based on real wealth, namely goods and services.

Strong opposition to the regulations for the control of road transport was expressed by several speakers at a recent meeting of the North Canterbury Farmers’ Union. All agreed that the burden of transport costs on produce would not be lessened, but would be increased by regulations which would create monopolies and destroy the flexibility which was the greatest advantage of motor transport. A resolution was carried expressing opposition to the regulations.

The deafness with which a juror said he was afflicted was not regardby the Chief Justice (Sir Michael Myers) in the Supreme Court on Monday as being sufficiently bad to warrant exemption from service being granted. Speaking rather more quietly than usual, Elis Elonour asked the juror a number of questions, all of which he had no difficulty in appreciating. “You seem to hear me all right,” His Honour remarked. “I have been speaking in a lower tone than counsel and witnesses use. I think you are quite competent to act, and I see no reason to exempt you.” His application having failed, the juror was told to take his place and be sworn in.

Some unusually large shipments of dairy produce, especially butter, will leave the Dominion during the next seven weeks, space allotments arranged by the Dairy Board providing for the loading of 942,000 boxes of butter and 252,100 crates of cheese. Including four ships now loading, the list includes eleven vessels sailing up to December 23. The C. and D. Liner Port Gisbcrne, which is due to leave Auckland this week, is taking 120,000 boxes of butter (3000 tons) and 22,800 crates of cheese. The New Zealand Shipping Co.’s motorship Opawa, will take a like quantity of butter and 25,000 crates of cheese.

Requests from Montreal, Canada, have been received by the Patea Harbour Board for samples ’of the black iron sand at the Patea Beach. Mr. Alfred Stansfield Birks, Professor of Montreal, wrote asking for the samples, which were sent to him and receded safely. Several instances of the wonderful properties of this iron sand have been received by the board recently. It is understood several attempts to commercialise the manufacture of the sand into metal have been made. The result of the McGill University’s experiments with the sand will be watched with interest.

When the first railway line in Taranaki was opened between New Plymouth and Waitara in 1875, the cost of construction was about £SOOO per mile. Other lines constructed later cost over £BOOO per mile. Recent figures given as to the cost of the Stratford line show that the Maitere section cost £33,000 per mile, which figures would make some of the pioneers in railway construction gasp if they were here to see it. The cost of 52 miles of railway from New Plymouth to Hawera, completed in 1881, cost less than £6OOO per mile.

The suggestion by Commissioner Lamb of the Salvation Army that the time must inevitably come when a better distribution of the people of the world must be made is certainly founded on fact. Figures, it is said, are prone ot lie. In the case of fitting people into the world, figures at least give one and ideal at which to aim. Some idea of the unequal manner in which people are accommodated at the moment may be had from the fact that Monaco has nearly 6000 people per square mile and Iceland only two.

In the course of an impromptu debate on the cost of living, which took place at a sitting of a conciliation council in Wellington recently, the commissioner, Mr. W. Newton, interposed with the remark that as it was lunch time an adjournment was desirable. One of the employers’ assessors saw an opportunity of clinching his contention that food prices had fallen considerably. “This time last year we paid one-and-six for our lunch,” he said. “To-day we can go out and get it for a shilling.” A workers’ assessor wanted to know where. “At lots of places,” said another employer. “A shilling is all lunch costs me.”

The ways of Government departments are passing strange; not the least of these is the Income Tax Department, remarks the Christchurch Times. One hears of over-tax, excess tax, and super tax, but one can judge of the amazement of a relief worker who has been out of employment for two and a half years and who returned home the other- evening to receive an income tax demand. This stated that as a return had not been made his taxable income had been estimated at £485, plus 5 per cent, additional tax incurred through late payment!

“The first Methodist Church in Sydney was built on rum and the first Methodist Church in Christchurch, which stood in High Street, was saved by beer,” said the Rev. P. N. Knight at the jubilee banquet of the East Belt Wesley Church in Christchurch, in responding to the toast of “Mother Church.” Mr. Knight added that when the church in High Street caught lire the water supply ran out and barrels of beer were rolled up and thrown on the flames, which were thus extinguished. “It was about the best job beer ever did,” he concluded, amid laughter.

“If the central bank proposals sponsored by Sir Otto Niemeyer are adopted by the Government. New Zealand will become a county of England, governed by the Bank of England,” said Mr. P. B. Fitzherbert at the Douglas Credit meeting in Hamilton. “If we have a central bank it must be a public utility, owned and controlled by the people and run in the interests of the people and the people only.”

After the Rt. Hon. J. G. Coates, Minister of Public Works, had driven the first train over the newly driven last spike of the Stratford-Main Trunk railway at Heao cn Monday, it was interesting to see souvenir hunters in the crowd picking up flattened pennies laid on the rails for that purpose.

Mrs. Anita Baldwin, daughter of a lucky American speculator and one of the richest women in America, recently announced that she was “fed up” with the United States and will move to Canada. “We are lawed to death, and taxed to death. That explains my decision,” Mrs. Baldwin said, “I do not want to come back until the country has been well swept with a good stiff broom.” During the Hoover regime, she added, her holdings declined in value from £7,000,000 to £3,000,000.

The growing popularity of New Zealand dairy produce in the homes of Northern England and Scotland is shown by the fact that 252,809 boxes of butter and 91,231 crates of cheese entered the ports of Liverpool, Manchester and Glasgow up to April 30th this year, compared with 154,607 boxes and 74,228 crates during the corresponding period last year. Manchester shipments have more than doubled compared Avith last year.

“We must get rid of the idea that the only type of education is academic education,” said Mr. T. B. Strong, Director of Education, speaking to members of the Addington School Committee. “I do hope,” he added, “that we have got past the stage when we are satisfied with examination results. Our system should move in the direction of testing the children for their future needs in various Avalks of life. Our system at present is far too narrow.”

A petition signed by more than 23,000 of Otago and Southland who pray that the Dunedin Training College should not be closed and that the four New Zealand training colleges should be retained will come before the Education Committee of the House on November 22. Sir Charles Statham, who presented the petition to Parliament, will make his personal appearance before the committee on behalf of the petitioners.

“The beekeeping industry is on the increase and is being taken up seriously in the Cantrbury province as a full-time occupation.” said Mr. W. J. Fix, apiary instructor of the Department of Agriculture, in Christchurch last Aveek. He stated that the recent rains had reneAved the confidence of apiarists in the prospects for the coming season’s output of honey. He had just completed a trip through the province, and good crops were expected, but much depended on the weather during the summer months. Stocks which carried through the Avinter successfully were now in a very forward condition.

“We have two colleges of university degree in Australasia, and they are both in New Zealand,” said Mr. H. G. Dickie (Government, Patea), when criticising’ Massey Agricultural College in the House of Representatives. Mr. Dickie said that when Massey College was first mooted he opposed it strenuously. He realised that what the farmer needed was a central research station, and not a teaching institution. In addition to Massey College there was a bureau of entomology and experimental grass plots, and, Mr. Dickie contended, there should be co-operation between Massey College and the Agriculture Department. Entomological work was carried out at the Cawthron Institute, and if it was transferred to Massey College a considerable saving would be made.

Urging that the highways fund should be maintained and that at the earliest possible date all special motor taxation should be paid into that fund, the New Plymouth Borough Council, on Monday night decided that, while fully armreciating the financial difficulties of the Government and recognising the necessity for the strictest economy in order that the Budget might be balanced at an early date, it disagreed absolutely with the National Expenditure Commission’s recommendation that the highways fund should be abolished.

A Wanganui farmer remarked the other day that it was time the Government knocked off employing a good deal of this unemployed labour, especially during’ a time when seasonal labour was available. There undoubtedly was, he said, work for good men throughout the country, under private engagement at the nresent time. He gave an instance of a relief worker whom he desired to employ in his shearing shed cn special work, and under present conditions the man himself was afraid to accept.

“When the Cook Islands were annexed by the Seddon Government in 1900 ‘in the interests of the native people,’ the native population was regarded as a dying race,” states Sir Apirana Ngata in his annual report on the Cook Islands. “Its numbers (excluding Niue) were estimated to have decreased from fourteen thousand in 1823 to less than eight thousand in 1900. A heavy infantile mortality and tropical and imported diseases took a terrible toll of life. Not only have the ravages of these afflictions been arrested, but modern scientific methods, the spread of educations, improved hygiene, the provision of a hospital of efficient medical and nursing staffs have turned the tide, SO' that at the end of the last financial year the Department was able to announce that the population is now increasing at the rate of 20 per thousand per annum.

In commemoration of Armistice Day, the customary two-minute silence will be observed at 11 o’clock to-morrow throughout the Empire. The firebell will be tolled to indicate the period of silence in the Borough, and vehicular traffic will be suspended.

The Otorohanga County Engineer has written to the Commissioner of Transport drawing attention to the fact that many collisions occur in their locality through" cars being driven round corners at a fast speed and suggesting that it be made an offence when driving round a corner not to leave sufficient room for an approaching car to pass.

“If the Government does not intend to carry through its obligations with regard to superannuation, then we intend to ask to be liberated from further payments to the fund, and allowed to arrange matters for ourselves,” said Mr. J. H. McKenzie, general secretary of the New Zealand Post and Telegraph Employees’ Association, speaking in Wanganui on Saturday evening at the annual re-union of the Wanganui branch. Mr. McKenzie said the association had a very attractive offer from an insurance firm, and would undertake a superannuation system for the members. The association was “standing pat” on that as it were in the meantime, said Mr. McKenzie.

“Nauru Island covers an area of 12 square miles and there are 12 native tribes living there, each with its own dialect,” remarked Mr. D. N. Campbell, during an address to the Wanganui Rotary Club. He said that a native on one side of the island had great difficulty in understanding one on the other side. The tribes led easy lives, contenting themselves Avith fishing and growing cocoanuts. The landowners were paid a royalty for every ton of rock removed from the island. “It is probably the smallest community in the world that has had the whole 'of the Bible translated expressly for it. They are a fine upstanding race, and are one of the few Pacific people Avho still preserve their own language,” added Mr. Campbell.

Notices Avarning members of the congregations against thieves have been posted in several Christchurch churches, as a result of thefts that have occurred Avhile worshippers have actually been at the altar rail receiving communion. All the evidence points to the thief being a v/oman. On three occasions during the past two years lai’ge sums of money have been stolen from members of the congregations of various churches, with whom this woman pretends to be a fello\\ r -worshipper. The latest theft occurred on Sunday week at St. Luke’s Church. A parishioner arrived at the church for the 8 a.m. Communion service, and was joined by another woman, who had just ridden up on a bicycle. Both sat doAvn in the same pew. The first Avoman went to the altar rail, naturally leaving her purse behind on the seat. The other woman remained behind kneeling, but when the communicant returned, her companion and the purse containing £l3 Avere both missing.

The duty of a person injured in an accident in regard to damages and the amount he should be allowed were matters to which the Chief Justice (Sir Michael Myers) directed the attention of the jury in a civil action in the Wellington Supreme Court on. Tuesday afternoon. In discussing the question of special damages with particular reference to claims for wages lost through being unable to go to work, his Honour said it was the duty of the injured person to minimise the damages and not to aggravate them. The question of general damages, continued his Honour, was quite a different thing. Where there was a claim for general damages and the defendant accepted liability, the plaintiff was entitled to a reasonable sum, not an extravagant, niggardly, contemptuous, or an unduly liberal sum, but a reasonable amount to compensate him for the pain and suffering he had undergone and for any permanent disability it was probable he might suffer.