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Manawatu Standard, Volume LIV, Issue 243, 11 September 1934, Page 6

A decision to erect a radio beacon at the new, lighthouse on Baring Head, outside Wellington, it, after investigation the site proves suitable, and to erect a temporary beacon tor experimental purposes at Tiritm, in the Hauraki Gulf, is announced in the annual report of the Marine Department. Further beacons will be erected as soon as controlling circumstances permit. Expert authorities are now busy preparing a code upon which the Government’s proposed legislation for the construction of earthquake resisting buildings will probably be based. The New Zealand Standards Institute is completing its arrangements for the preparation of the code, which, if approved by the Government, will govern the construction of building along earthquake resisting lines throughout New Zealand. A special building committee, with its technical committee and by-law panel, has been established, and is now functioning m Wellington. Fifty-six years aeo on Thursday— September 6, 1878-the first through train ran from Christchurch to Dunedin. The journey was timed to be done by the regular express trains in 11 hours, more than three hours longer than the present express schedule. The then Governor of the colony the Marquis of Normanby, was on board the train, and civic welcomes were held at Ashburton, Timaru and Oamaru, where His Excellency opened the new wharf. The scene at Dunedin on the arrival of the train was described in the Ghnstchurch Press of September 7,187 b, as follows:— “Long before the train runs into the station the coloured electric lights and illuminations, with which Dunedin is ablaze, are seen, and on reaching the station and remembering the undemonstrative manner in which the event was celebrated in Christchurch, opinions are expressed that the two cities have changed characteristics. . . The train runs into the station, which is lined inside with volunteers. The guns thunder out a salute, the vast crowd gives cheer after cheer, and the marriage of Mr Dunedin and Miss Christchurch, as felicitously remarked by one of the speakers at the banquet in Christchurch, is ‘un fait accompli.’ ”

Five fur coats, valued at over £6O, were stolen from a shop in Karangahape Road, Auckland. on a recent evening.

Whitebait are “running” in the lower Rangitikei at present, and several small catches have reached Bulls. If the weather becomes warmer this delicacy should become more plentiful.— Bulls correspondent. The 92nd anniversary of the death of Governor William Hobson, R.N., first Governor of New Zealand and founder of Auckland, fell yesterday. It was marked by an appropriate ceremony at Auckland.

“The land in the county was saturated three _or four weeks ago and there have been more slips than have occurred for years,” said the acting engineer (Mr L. C. Pickering) at today’s meeting of the Kairanga County Council.

One of the greatest surgical events in tins part of the world will take place in Auckland in 1937 when the annual meeting of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons will be held there. Preliminary arrangements for the gathering are now being made. Following out the schedule of works which it has arranged, the Palmerston North City Council has now a gang of employees engaged in resurfacing and regrading Ames bury Street in readiness for tar-sealing operations this summer. Carroll Street will be the next to 'receive attention.

Every day in the year 21 million telephone conversations take place in New Zealand, stated Mr C. S. Plank, chief telegraph engineer of the Post and Telegraph Department, to the conference of the Supply Authority Engineers’ Association which was opened in Wellington yesterday. The Wellington Cricket Association, at the annual meeting last night, decided to request the New Zealand council to arrange for each major association to have direct representation upon the council, and also to ask the council to arrange for biennial conferences of the major associations in lieu of the present two-yearly conferences of ail associations.

The Kairanga County Council to-day decided to write to the inspector of noxious weeds asking if hemlock is closed as a noxious weed. If the plant is not so classed, it was agreed that the necessary steps be taken to declare hemlock noxious within the county as soon as possible, Cr. W. G. Shannon commented that it was one of the most dangerous weeds to stock. Four boys of the Takaro Scout Troop were responsible for good service when Gordon Tweedale, the 15-year-old boy. fell over the cliff on Sunday afternoon on the Fitzherbert side of the Manawatu River. Early on the scene, they gave what assistance they could and improvised a stretcher from sticks and coats. They had carried the injured boy about a mile when they met the ambulance party. At to-day’s meeting of the Kairanga County Council the acting engineer (Mr L. C. Pickering) said that a transport license for the route from Apiti to Palmerston North had been granted by the Heavy Traffic Licensing Authority for this district at a sitting at Dannevirke. The council decided, on the motion of Cr. P. G. Mildon, to ask the Commissioner of Transport that licenses be dealt with only in the distrists to which they applied.

A party of sportsmen from Dunedin and Invercargill, accompanied by Mr Bernt Balchen, pilot of the Ellsworth Expedition, visited the Te Anau district during the week-end for the dual purpose of sightseeing and indulging in some shooting. Sport was fairly plentiful, especially in the shape of wild pigs and hares, and a quantity of both will be forwarded to Dunedin and placed in cold storage prior to being loaded on the Wyatt Earp before she sails for the Antarctic. Concern at the. continued decline in attendances at Wellington schools was expressed by the Brooklyn School Committee in a letter received last night by the Wellington School Committees and Education Federation. The falling birth-rate and the exclusion of the five-year-olds were cited as contributing factors to a position “giving cause for extreme pessimism.” The federation decided to invite the co-operation of kindred organisations in an investigation of the situation.

The inadequacy of the existing charts of the New Zealand coasts is mentioned in the annual report of the Marine Department. The report says the charts are mostly based on surveys carried out as long ago as 1850, and are neither sufficiently accurate nor complete to meet the needs of modern high-speed shipping running closely to time-table. The Government has been in communication with the Admiralty on the matter, and it is expected an Imperial surveying ship will commence a resurvey of the coastline toward the end of 193 b.

Sales of Auckland rock oysters have greatly improved this year. The season which closed on September 1 was the best experienced since 1930, 5272 sacks of oysters being sold during the three months’ season (May 31 to September 1). These brought £5920 12s 3d to the coffers of the Marine Department. “In these hard-pressed days,” said the Minister of Marine (Hon. J. G. Cobbs) last evening, “the Treasury, which is still in need of all the revenue it can get, will benefit from the fairly substantial profits which the Marine Department has made from the chief marketable product it cultivates. This last oyster season was the best since 1930.”