Untitled

Manawatu Standard, Volume LV, Issue 254, 24 September 1935, Page 6

In furtherance of its poiicy to discontinue the State ownership of industry, the New South Wales Government has already taken action to dispose of a number of industrial undertakings. The disposal of the Walsh Island dockyards is now under consideration.

While demolishing the Cottage of Content Hotel, a relic of the old days, at Penrith, New South Wales, workmen found coins of the total value of nearly £6O under the old bar. These ranged from farthings to half-sover-eigns, and included two-penny pieces, groats (Id), and many silver coins.

The Government proposes to erect a new building ’at Napier to accommodate the Public Works Department and various other departments at present scattered in various parts of the town. The building will be erected on the Browning Street-S.hakespeare Road section occupied by the original building which was burned in the IJ3I earthquake. Reports are being received in Sydney of considerable mortality among the birds in the BombaJa district of New South Wales, principally black and white magpies and kookaburras. Numbers of them have been seen dead under the trees. It is generally believed that starvation is the cause, the dry winter having deprived them of their usual supply of insect food. Members of a departmental committee set up by the Railways Board to inquire into all aspects of the use or coal fuel have concluded a tour of South Island locomotive depots and will shortly pay visits to centres in the North Island. The inquiry is purely departmental, and is one of the routine steps of the board t,o investigate different aspects of its administration periodically to see if any improvements can bo made.

For the year ended March 31. 1935, the export of kauri gum amounted to 3112 tons, valued at £91,070, an average price of about £27 a ton, savs the annual report on the industry presented to Parliament. Statistics show a progressive decline in values since 1930, when the average price was £53 a ton, although this year’s price shows an advanoe of £2 on the average for 1934. However, it is still only aoout a third of the prices realised in 1922 and 1924.

An announcement was made recently to the effect that the National Art, Gallery and the Dominion Museum building, now under construction in Wellington, would probably be opened about this time next year. It was learned yesterday that the work was so well in hand that the new building was likely to bo completed in contract time Under these conditions it was anticipated that the official opening would take place not later than June of next year. Provided there is no bad weather between now and October 1, the angling season is expected to open under quite favourable conditions in the Manawatu. Fishermen are anxious to try their luck after the hot dry summer of last season, which caused considerable mortality. among the fish. Both the Manawatu and Oroua Rivers, though running fairly high of late, are stated to be fishable with minnow even now, while plenty of fish have been observed in the streams on this side of the ranges. The prospects for the opening of the fishing season in the Waikato on October 1 arc also reported to be satisfactory.

A two-year-old girl at Casino (N.S.W.) has been paralysed in the arms and legs as a result of poison from a dog tick.

After having been unconscious for 36 days, a longer period than any that can be recalled by South Australian medical men, a boy of eight years, who received head injuries in an accident, is showing slight signs of recovery at the Adelaide Children s Hospital.

The celebration of the Jewish New Year will commence this week, Friday being New Year’s Eve. Saturday is the first day of the year 6696. The Day of Atonement will be observed on October 6 and 7, and the Feast of the Tabernacles will commence on October 11.

Owing to the Magistrate, Mr J. L. Stout, being indisposed Messrs W. F. Durward and A. J. Graham, J.P.’s, presided over to-day’s sitting of the Magistrate’s Court. Civil business is conducted on Tuesdays but, owing to the restricted polwers o'f Justices of the Peace, the majority of tli© claims were adjourned. The school children living at Pukemiro Junction and attending the Itotowaro School are still on strike. The parents refused to allow them to return to school after the term holidays a fortnight ago owing to the Auckland Education Board refusing to issue free railway tickets to those who are over 10 years of age.

The incidental allowances to school committees were strongly criticised as grossly inadequate at a meeting of the North Canterbury branch of the New Zealand Educational Institute and a motion was passed unanimously urging that the Government be called upon to make adequate provision, especially for heating and cleaning.

While workmen were engaged in placing a large plate-glass window in a shop in the main street of Hastings, yesterday, a young man came along and, not noticing the window, which was standing at right angles to the building and covering nearly the full width of the footpath, he walked straight into it and smashed a large piece off the side. No cuts were received by anyone. The dangers of a broken power line were exemplified when a dog belonging to Mr F. Edmonds, of Palmerston North, was badly shocked through coming in contact with a fallen low tension wire on Cameron’s Line. Mr Edmonds was engaged in taking 6tock to Feilding when the dog received the shock. Mr Edmonds advised the Bunnythorpe substation and the fallen wire was promptly attended to. Part of the improvements to the Milson Aerodrome consist of the elimination of several watercourses skirting the outer boundary of the existing field, which is to be considerably extended. For this purpose a drain is being deepened ana widened for a length of fifteen chains alongside one edge of the approach to the aerodrome from Boundary Road. It will deviate to the Ivawau Stream, a small watercourse which runs across the centre of the planned aerodrome property.

“If the people of New Zealand want wrongs righted, abuses eliminated and greater justice between ail classes, then they must subscribe to the necessity of legislative enactments to achieve what they want. If, on the other hand, they desire the rigorous laissezfairc. system of the nineteenth century, with its blind and ruthless competition, without regard for human values, then can they criticise the Government lor the economic and social legislation passed in the last four years, on the grounds of interference.” —Rt. Hon. J. G. Coates (Minister of Finance), replying to a toast in his honour at the jubilee dinner of the Wanganui' Chamber of Commerce last night. “I feel I should take this opportunity to clear'up a misconception about the public debt. A great many people really believe that the public debt is destined to go on increasing year after year and never be paid off. What happens in fact is that each yean a sum is set aside for the public debt redemption fund and debts are continuously being paid off as they mature,” stated the Minister of Finance (Mr Coates) at Wanganui last night. “The present public debt is £280,500,000, but a major part of this was incurred during the war years for war purposes. War expenditure and the settlement of returned soldiers on the land accounted for an increase in the national debt between 1914 and 1920 of £106,500,000.”