The Holidays

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXV, Issue 22, 23 December 1944, Page 4

The Holidays

The "Manawatu Standard" will not be published on Monday, Christmas Day. Publication will take place, as usual, on Boxing Day. Summer Solstice

The summer solstice falls this week. Generally it is regarded as marking the longest day of the year and the time when the days begin to shorten. Actually there is no appreciable difference for about three weeks. A Wet December.

After a brief dry spell heavy rain fell in Palmerston North this morning, sb' points being registered at the East End up to 9.30 a.m. today. This brings the total for the month to date to 6.23 in, which is an exceptionally high hgure for December. Invercargill's Wet Christmas. Invercargill will celebrate this year its first wet Christmas for 38 yevss. So great is the demand for liquor that, according to the manager of one wholesale firm, the city is threatened with a beer fam:ne during the holidays. He said that orders for ale were so great that stocks were being rapidly overtaken.

Freezing Works Directions Nearly 70 appeals against men being directed' to the freezing industry were heard by two commjttces which sat simultaneously in Auckland on Wednesday. The appellants, most of whom lodged applications on the grounds of hardship or ill-health, followed a variety of occupations. Further appeals were heard by the two committees on Thursday and Friday. Conductor's Takings Stolen. A daring theft from a tramcar was committed by an unidentified man- in Auckland this week. The tram, which was bound for Ponsonby, had pulled up at a stopping place in Karangahape Road near the i'onsonby reservoir. The man, who was a passenger, while alighting snatched a canvas bag containing fares amounting to about £9 from a tin in the back of the tram and then jumped clear. The conductor chased the thief for a considerable distance around back streets, but lost sight of him. Auroral Displays

Two displays of the Aurora Australis were witnessed in Auckland on Wednesday. The first, visible in the southern sky between 3.15 a.m. and dawn, consisted of a pale green arc of light with a lemon tint. No rays were visible. After dusk the same day the display was repeated, the colour on this occasion being more reddish. The aurora is an electrical phenomenon occurring at a considerable height in the earth's atmosphere and is caused by outpourings of solar energy. Record Note Issue.

Judging by the increase in the Reserve Bank note issue in the last few weeks, the public have spent money very freely this _ Christmas. In the three weeks from November 27 to December 18 the Reserve Bank returns have shown an increase in the note issue of £2,623,154. The issue at December 18 stood at £40,835,023, far and away the highest level ever reached. The increase for the corresponding three weeks last year was £2,087,365 and for the same period of 1942 it was £2,293,636. Competition With Ports.

The statement was made at a meeting of the Wanganui Harbour Buard that the railway rate for sugar' from Auckland to Wanganui was 42s a ton, compared with 70s to Taihape. "Sugar can be railed to Wanganui for about £1 a ton cheaper than the rate to Main Trunk stations," the secretary (Mr J. Hedditch) said. "As a ■ result we have lost two-thirds of our seaborne sugar trade between Onehunga and Wanganui." The secretary was instructed to prepare a statement for submission to the committee. Saw Aircraft-Carriers Sunk.

After four and a half years' service with the Royal Navy, which included participation in some historic incidents of the war, Electrical Artificer H. B. Pitt, D.S.M., of Hastings, has returned to New Zealand on foreign service leave. He has served mostly in a destroyer in the Mediterranean. His ship stood alongside the aircraft-car-rier Ark Royal when she was sunk near Gibraltar and he saw the aircraftcarrier Eagle sunk in the Mediterranean. He was present at the Madagascar landing, and, since D-Day, at the landing in Southern France.' On the occasion of the operation in Southern France he was in the cruiser Orion, and had a number of other New Zealanders as shipmates.