LOCAL AND GENERAL

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXVII, Issue 4396, 23 May 1933, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL

Unusual football jerseys have been adopted by a Manawatu school, where numerous complaints had been received from parents on account of torn clothes. The boys have secured sugar bags in which they cut arm and head holes, and have thus removed the possibility of their clothes being torn.

At the bi-monthly meeting of the Te Kuiti United Friendly Societies' Council, held on 18th inst., correspondence brought forward showed that the F.S. Council's application to have children's tonsil and adenoids operations performed in the Te Kuiti Hospital had been successful. In future these 'operations will be performed in Te Kuiti Hospital instead of at Hamilton as heretofore.

Another Dominion art union has been authorised by the Minister of Internal Affairs, the Hon. J. A. Young. It is understood the Government proposes that the whole of the profits of the new art unions shall be applied to assist voluntary organisations engaged in relieving distress due to unemployment.

During the meeting of the Combined Breeders' Association at Hamilton on Thursday, a suggestion by Mr. Goodwin that tested bulls should be sold on a special day was fully discussed. Mr. Hodgson, in support of the proposal, appealed for a tightening up of the standard of the sale. He considered that such a move would be on the right lines and should apply to all breeds. On the other hand it was considered that this would be an unfair step in the interests of backblock settlers, who were, perhaps, unable to obtain test records. After several motions embracing Mr. Goodwin's views had been unsuccessfully tabled, Mr. W. Livingstone moved that all bulls whose certified dams have a certified record of over 3001 b., irrespective of age, be offered first. The motion was carried. It was further resolved that, no further cattle from new vendors outside the South Auckland district will be accepted. j

A general basketball practice will be held on the primary school courts on Saturday, May 27th, at 2.15 p.m. All those intending to play are requested to be there at the time specified.

As patrons of previous years' functions no doubt remember, the annual military dance is probably the premier dancing function of the year in Te Kuiti, and a very large crowd should be ready to enjoy themselves at Barraud and Abraham's Hall to-morrow evening. Swift's orchestra is to provide the music, and a good supper will be provided.

The use of the term "near side" came up in the Supreme Court at Christchurch the other morning, when Mr. Justice Blair asked counsel if he knew what the "near side" was. Counsel replied that it was the side on which one mounted a horse. His Honour added that the term was one which was known to everyone some time ago, but it was dying out. It was a good term, but people who knew its meaning would soon be a rarity.

The fears expressed a few years ago that the increasing use of mechanised traction on farms might result in the disappearance of the farm horse have been set aside by recent events. Draughts, gig and cart horses, and even hacks are now in far better demand than they were a year ago, and one firm concerned in stock sales all over Canterbury has handled 300 horses in six weeks. There is a good demand at a price, where last year the demand was poor and nothing like the same number was handled. Evidence of the change can be seen on the farms and on the country roads. Fewer tractors are to be seen working, and many light trucks have been superannuated and have not been replaced. Blacksmiths have been busy repairing old gigs and spring carts, and saddlers are finding a slight increase in the volume of work given them.

A farmer from the North Auckland district, who was in Te Awamutu on Thursday, when asked by a Waipa Post representative if he knew any fuller particulars about the declared outbreak of the dreaded anthrax on on a Kaipara farm, expressed his opinio'n as totally at variance with that of the Department of Agriculture's officials. He said there might be some similarity in the indications, but contended that the declaration was somewhat hasty, and he was confident that it would be admitted a little later that it was a case of mistaken identity. However, he agreed with the suggestion that the officials were doing the right thing in quarantining all stock until a definite pronouncement could be made.

Rating problems and the obligations of the Crown in this respect are to be considered at a conference to be held at Wairoa on June 10 between representatives of Hawke's Bay local bodies. The step has been decided on in an endeavour to arrive at a uniform line of action in regard to the rating levies and the recovery of local body rates. The Wairoa Harbour Board, it was pointed out in a letter to the Napier Board, was unable to meet charges on loans secured. Many of the rates outstanding were owed by the Crown tenants who were the lessees of the Crown lands, and also by ratepayers whose properties were mortgaged to one or another of the Government departments. This was one of the aspects which would have to be most carefully considered with a view to making the Crown responsible for the payment of the rates levied and it was desired to arrange for some definite method for the payment by the Crown. The Napier Board decided to support the proposal, one member remarking that from the Wairoa conference it might be possible to arrange a larger c <nf erence embracing the whole of New Zealand.

"Australia is just' beginning- to realise that it is very much better off than most parts of the Empire just now, inasmuch as it passed through its hour of travail very much sooner than any other country," said a Sydney business man in conversation with an Otago Daily Times reporter on Friday afternoon. "One notices the difference in an instant on arriving in this country. Everyone is so hopelessly pessimistic about everything, and nowhere more so than in Wellington and Auckland. I find that business men generally in the North Island are very doleful about the future of this country, and although pessimism is not quite as rife in Dunedi'n, there is a gloomy look on most of the faces one sees in the executive offices of local businesses." The speaker stated further that although Australia was much better off than New Zealand at the moment, the Commonwealth had a long, stiff climb back to normal prosperity again, and he would not be surprised if New Zealand got there first after all, as he considered that the Dominion had greater recuperative powers than the Commonwealth.

That the Government was on the point of floating a new and substantial internal loan and that it contemplated renewing over-counter sales of stock at 4 per cent., were two rumours current in financial quarters in Christchurch on Wednesday afternoon. Both were denied by the Minister of Finance (Mr. J. G. Coates), with whom a representative of the Press communicated by telephone. Mr. Coates said that at the present time the Government did not have to concern itself either with an internal loan or with a renewal of overcounter sales. He was unable to indicate if or when either of these projects might be undertaken. Overcounter sales of stock, it will be recalled, were suspended when the Government -undertook the conversion of

the internal debt at the beginning of March last. It is understood that the Government has since made inquiries into the prospects of renewing these sales of stock at 4 per cent., but that it has been advised against taking such a course for some time yet. The flotation of an internal loan has also been discussed from time to time during' the last 12 months, but it is considered doubtful whether this could be wisely undertaken until interest is more effectively stabilised at the lower rates which the Government has been making every effort to establish. '

One of the remits for consideration at the provincial Farmers' Union Conference at Whangarei this week is one advocating that no lease of land for more than twenty years be permitted.

A local supporter of the Douglas Credit movement has found that there is a misapprehension regarding the movement which is very widespread, and wishes to point out that it is purely non-political.

A mayoral chain of handsome design has been purchased for the Tauranga Borough Council. The chain comprises 20 links, with a medallion as the centre piece. The cost of the links has been subscribed by exMayors of the borough who are still living, or by the relatives of others who are dead. The names of past Mayors are inscribed on the chain.

It is urged in remits to be* dealt with at the provincial conference of the New Zealand Farmers' Union at Whangarei this week that the Legislative Council should be reduced to twenty elected members; that all Parliamentary elections should be conducted by the preferential votingsystem; and that government by order-in-council should be opposed. All three have good prospects of being carried, but it would take a vivid imagination to believe that the Government of the day would put the recommendations into practice.

"The farmers of this country responded well to the Government's call to produce more," said Mr. Allardyce at the Douglas Credit lecture last evening, "and it is only a few weeks ago since we were told that our salvation lay with the ten-acre scheme. Now it is quotas that are going to make us turn the corner! The next thing that we are going to be told to restrict production at its source, told to force on the world a state of scarcity and famine to bring prosperity! It would be done in the following manner: Turn the cows into the blackberry, and wait until the blackberry had beaten the animals. Then our leaders would be obeyed."

"There is a surplus of 1,000,000 women in England who will never have a'n opportunity of marriage," said Mr. J. M. A. Ilott, of Wellington, in an address to the Palmerston North Rotary Club on observations made during his recent trip abroad. "There is also an extraordinary number of old people, owing to the decline in the death rate, and it is estimated that there are 1,000,000 fewer school children than in 1914, when the total population was 2,000,000 less than it is now. By 1950 it is considered that there will be three times the present number of people aged over 70. It is an extraordinary and a very interesting problem."

Although it is estimated that there are about 50 unemployed Chinese in Dunedin, all of whom pay the ordinary unemployed taxation, not one has applied at the Government Bureau for assistance. Chinese have the same rights as Europeans in respect of relief, and if single men applied for assistance they would have to go into the country to work. The conditions under which relief work is carried out, however, do not appeal to them, and the Chinese community, with characteristic independence, is providing for its own workless members.

"New Zealand was being l told to lower costs," said the Douglas Credit lecturer, Mr. Allardyce, last evening. "That was all right, but the trouble was that those in England had heard about it, too; they lowered costs and among them those costs which were ready to buy 'our butter. We were told to do some wise spending, and the Government reduced the grants to schools and hospitals—and I know of no wiser spending than in that direction." The whole problem, he considered, was not essentially a world problem, but one of getting New Zealand's products into New Zealand's homes.

Conversing with an Otago Daily Times reporter regarding his recent tour abroad, Mr. A. G. Neill was asked what was his principal impression in returning home. Mr. Neill stated that one could not but be struck by the fact that the people of New Zealand lacked the cultural appreciation and ideals of the inhabitants of the Old Country. Where the responsibility for this lay he did not care to state, but he thought that the University of New Zealand had made a mistake in placing the emphasis in its curriculum on the vocational rather than on the cultural side, and he expressed the hope that in the years to come something would be done to correct this unfortunate bias.

"In Berlin there were 100,000 living on a dole of 14s weekly for married couples, with 3s extra for each child," stated Mr. J. M. A. Ilott, of Wellington, when giving some impressions of his recent trip abroad to the Palmerston North Rotary Club. "Some 30 per cent, of the workers were unemployed in Denmark, where the dole,

was 3s 3d per day for married couples and 4s 4d a day for those with children. Belgium impressed me tremendously, with thousands of boats tied up owing to there being no trade. France, too, was labouring under the load of difficulties and depression.

One of its problems is that everybody J dodges the income-tax, but there are luxury taxes. The thrift and sturdy | independence of the French worker makes that country's problems less difficult to solve."

! Exception to the action of local manufacturers in immediately raising the price* of local products by an amount equal to the increased exchange rate was taken in a remit from the Darfield branch, passed by the annual conference of the North Canterbury Farmers' Union on Thursday. Mr. D. Gallagher said it seemed a wrong policy for the local manufacturer to raise his price. If the price of the local manufactured article had been kept down to a level below that of the imported article, it would have stood a better chance of securing l the market. The present, one would think, was the time for the local manufacturer to benefit in competition. Mr. M. E. Jenkins seconded the remit, which was referred to the executive for further consideration.

The possibility of establishing a wool dumping plant at the port of New Plymouth was considered on Thursday by the New Plymouth Harbour Board, at whose request Mr. J. R. Cruickshank had prepared a carefully detailed report upon the question. A suggestion made by Mr. Cruickshank that the Taranaki Farmers' Freezing Company be approached as it had many of the facilities available was considered most valuable by the Board, which decided, says the Taranaki Daily News, that the report be passed on to the New Plymouth Trade Expansion Committee with a request that the committee investigate the matter and submit a report.

The question of a reduction in the charges for rural telephones, about which there has recently been a good deal of agitation in country districts, was discussed on Wednesday (says the Wellington Post) between the delegates to the conference of the Makara-Hutt Valley section of the Farmers' Union, and an officer of the Post and Telegraph Department. The officer stated that it was not possible at present to recommend to the Government any reduction in the rates. He stated that any reduction in rural telephone rates would cause an agitation in the cities for reductions in urban areas. The request which had been made for a 10 per cent, reduction would, if granted, mean a decrease of £120,000 in revenue.