THIRTY YEARS AGO.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIV, Issue 210, 4 August 1934, Page 2

THIRTY YEARS AGO.

EXTRACTS FROM “STANDARD.” AUGUST 4, 1904.

At a gathering of about 200 ladies and gentlemen in the Square, when beautifying operations were inaugurated with the planting of trees by several gentlemen, it was stated that 30 years before there had been a swamp where the Union Bank then stood. London cables said that a message from Dr. Andree, who started on a balloon expedition to the North Pole in 1896, had been found at Spitzbergen in a bottle cast up from the sea. The Palmerston North Borough Council had cancelled a previous decision that £IOOO should be provided for the building of a destructor. Whether tuberculosis was contagious between animals and man or not was the subject of some controversy, Dr. Koch, a celebrated Gorman bacteriologist, having set the ball rolling some two years before when he said that it was not. The withdrawal of the subsidy paid to dairy companies to provide for the cost of freezing, storing and handling their products had caused some concern. Efforts were being made to have the Government continue the subsidy. General Keller (a Russian General) had been killed in action and the situation with regard to the Japanese attack on Port Arthur was regarded as most grave. Keen anxiety prevailed in Russia. Owing to the competition of the Manawatu Railway, wool could be freighted to Wellington more cheaply from Mangatainoka than from Eketahuna, although Mangatainoka was further from Wellington. The firm of Messrs Collinson and C'unninghame, which was later to* develop into the well-known company in Broadway, commenced trading operations to-day, and has thus completed thirty years’ useful service to the community. The opening day of the small store was anything but an auspicious one, a severe snowstorm sweeping the then comparatively small town at 9 a.m., being described as one of the worst days, from a climatic point of view, experienced for years. However, with the will to win through, the adversities of both weather and business conditions of those days were successfully overcome by the partners (Mr L. H. Collinson and Mr John Cunninghame) who are to be congratulated on a lengthy, honourable, and successful business career. The large establishment in the Square stands as a monument to their enterprise and industry.