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Manawatu Standard, Volume LI, Issue 169, 19 June 1931, Page 6

Application for the sum of £75,000 is to be made by the Hawke’s Bay Hospital Board under the terms' of the Earthquake Act for the rehabilitation of property destroyed by the earthquake and the repayment of existing loans.

A start has been made with the protective works at the Otaki _ Rivei, and, among other things, it is proposed to erect a stopbank at a cost of £I6OO. This will be financed jointly by the Railway Department, which is contributing £750 ; and the Main Highways Board, which will contribute £350. The remainder of the estimated cost of the stopbank has. been found, by the residents of Otalu.

Whether or not a third party can advance money to a man s wife and and hold the husband responsible for repayment, even though he had not asked for the advances to be made, and, in fact, may not have known that they were made, was a point of law that came before. Mr Justice MacGregor in the Supreme Court at Wellington yesterday. It was held that in such a case the law would hold the husband responsible for repayment if the money had been advanced for the purchase of necessaries. Referring to the Hawke’s Bay earthquake when addressing shareholders of the Bank of New Zealand at Wellington to-day, Mr Win. Watson remarked that very exaggerated reports of the disaster were cabled abroad, which adversely affected the financial credit of the Dominion to an entirely unwarranted degree. Compared with the total wealth of the Dominion, that which was destroyed in Hawke s Bay represented but a trifling proportion, great credit was due to members of their staff for their energy and coolness in coping with the catastrophe and saving both life and property. None of the staff or of their dependants was injured. A case of major significance to motorists and the public of New Zealand was heard before Mr E. D. Mosley, S M at Christchurch yesterday, when an insurance company asked for an order suspending the driving license ot William Millner, contractor, on the ground that he was a danger to the public In its statement the company stated the application was made on the ground that the safety of the public was being unduly endangered by Millner. The company also applied for an order disqualifying Millner from obtaining another license for such period as the court might think fit. Millner was also charged on the information of the company with driving in a manner dangerous to the public on March 23. He pleaded not guilty. Judgment .was reserved on both points.

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The diseases of golden scale and green aphis are gaining ground rapidly on British oak and silver birch trees in the reserves in Christchurch.

Gisborne to-day is without mails from the South owing to slips on the Napier Road at Devil’s Elbow holding up. the traffic, states a Press Association message. Under the will of the late Mrs Christina Davie, of Dunedin, a bequest is made to the Patients’ and Prisoners’ Aid Society. It is expected to amount to between £SOOO and £7OOO.

About two o’clock this morning the Palmerston. North Fire Brigade was summoned to an outbreak of fire in an old wooden shed at the rear' of the Empire Hall. The flames were extinguished in about ten minutes and, although a number of motor cars were standing near tho shed, they were undamaged.

Particulars of a proposal to amalgamate all the old men’s homes- in the Hawke’s Bay and AVairarapa districts and to establish a central home in the Wairarapa to serve both districts came before the Wairarapa Hospital Board yesterday. The proposal, it was stated, was favoured by the Health Department. The board, however, decided not to consider the proposal.

Heavy floods rendered the PokenoPaeroa Road impassable on Wednesday. Several motorists had an unenviable experience. It was impossible to take the mail through from Morrinsville to Kaihere. The water rose to the floor boards of the cars, in some cases putting the engines out of action. The bridge near Kaihere collapsed. Cream-carting services were considerably disorganised.

Mr A.. Warbrick, chief Government guide at Rotorua, made what may be his last climb of Mount Tarawera last week, on the 45tli anniversary of the eruption (June 10, 1886), which brought death to many of bis relatives. He has travelled to the summit 1969 times in the years since the eruption, and ho calculates that lie must have led upwards of 10,000 tourists to the mountain.

Complaints have been made to the Wellington city officials that altogether too many “inspectors” are calling upon householders. Inquiries made among the various corporation departments confirmed these complaints, and it is quite clear that impostors are busy. Consequently, the town clerk has issued a warning to citizens that they should require persons calling upon them as inspectors to produce their certificate of authority. “It seems to me that our present difficulties would gradually disappear if, instead of hoarding gold and endeavouring to shut out imports, the United States were to appreciably lower the tariff and resume lending, and if Great Britain would give such a measure of preference to oversea Dominions as would enable them to more successfully compete with foreign exporters of produce to the Old Country.”—Sir Harold Beauchamp at the annual meeting of the Bank of New Zealand.

In the course of an address to members of the Economic Society at Dunedin, Hon. W. Downie Stewart said that if New Zealand could have enlarged and developed her carrying trade in the Pacific on terms that enabled her to compete successfully with foreign nations she would have drawn to herself a great and splendid revenue as England did in the Atlantic and the seas of the Old World. To an onlooker, however, it appeared as if she was slowly being driven out of the deep sea trade and being forced back on to the narrow coniines of her own coast.

A narrow escape from death or serious injury was the experience of Mr George Penny, of Okaihau, when driving a motor lorry through the Awarua Gorge, about 30 miles from Kaikohe, on his way to Kaikohe from Whangarei about midnight on Tuesday. The night was very rough and wet, with lightning. The lorry went over the gorge, falling 200 ft into a creek, where it now lies submerged. In the descent the roof of the cab struck an obstruction and was torn off. When the lorry struck the water, Mr Penny struggled clear and managed to reach the bank and ultimately the roadway, where he was picked up some time later by a passing motorist and taken home. “The banking system of New Zealand has been evolved during more than 90 years of practical acquaintance with the country's requirements. it differs from the British system inasmuch as it has to deal largely witn aiding the development of land, as well as assisting in the establishment and encouragement of all other industries essential to the needs of a young country and its growing population. It will be admitted that had the banks conducted their operations strictly in accordance with the lines of British banking, the Dominion would not have made anything like the progress it has, and therefore it may be justly claimed that the system has met the needs of the country, and has enabled the banks to assist their customers in weathering many a storm with minima of ill effects,’’ said Mr W. Watson, chairman of directors of the Bank of New Zealand, at the annual meeting to-day. The plinth of the well-known secondary school Rugby trophy, the Moascar Cup, was uestroyed during the Hawke's Bay earthquake, and with it went the original record of the holders of the cup over a period of years. The plinth was made from the propeller ol an aeroplane used in the Great \Y ar, and associated with it was all the tradition that attaches to the cup itself. The manager of the Te Aute Native College football team stated that when the trophy was won by Te Aute last year the plinth had been forwarded to a Napier jeweller to have the usual silver shield record inscribed. However, whei\ the 'earthquake occurred the subsequent fire destroyed the premises wherein it was housed, thus severing a link in the history connected with the cup. lh e trophy, taking its name from a military camp, was won by the New Zealand Mounted Brigade in Egypt, eventually being presented, to the secondary schools of the Dominion lor competition.

During the course of his speech when seconding the motion for the adoption of the report and balance-sheet at the annual meeting of the Bank of New Zealand to-day, Sir Harold Beauchamp quoted a short extract irom a wellknown American paper —the Saturday Evening Post —which, he said, might have a tonic effect upon his hearers. The extract read: “'the literature of all ages is filled with prophecies that never came true. When Edison exhibited his incandescent lamp, the stocks of gas companies dropped because it was predicted there would be little further use for gas. National magazines predicted that the current business slump was nearing an end in the fall of lb2o. I have before me statements made by business and political leaders during all the business depressions of the last generation. In every case, very few prophets correctly forecast either the decline or the recovery in business. But it has never failed that when times were good they got bad, and after they were bad they again got good. The surest thing in the world is change.”