NEWS OF THE DAY

Manawatu Times, Volume 62, Issue 64, 17 March 1937, Page 4

NEWS OF THE DAY

During Easter, a conference of the New Zealand Radio Emergency Corps Avill be held in Palmerston North.

Inmates of the Awapuni Old People’s Home are to be granted pre-admission to the Manawatu A. and P. Association’s shows, the general committee o i the association decided yesterday. The provision of a cherry blossom drive in Napier has become a possibility in consequence of a conversation between the Mayor of Napier, Air C. O. Morse, and Mr E. Kurasawo, manager of the visiting Japanese athletic team.

The N.Z. Meat Producers’ Board wrote to the Manawatu A. and P. Association yesterday congratulating the district on winning the North island inter-district challenge shield for lambs judged in London. Congratulations were also extended Messrs C. D. Collis and Alex McDonald who exhibited tho first and second pens respectively in the North Island contest.. The shield was on exhibition at the meeting and the president (Mr Jos. Batchelar) ex tended the association’s congratulations to the breeders.

‘‘You will never see me a whiter man than 1 am now,” declared the Mayor, Mr A. E. Mansford, to an amused gathering at the Convent garden party yesterday. Coating tho Mayor’s blue suit was a film of white fur. It was the legacy of the Mayoral robes which he had lately worn at the civic reception to the Prime Minister in the Square, and so windy was it in the band rotunda that the white fur oi the Mayoral robes suffered severely, leaving its conspicuous mark after the robes had been taken off.

Some 50 years ago, the Japanese nation made a gift to the city of Washington, the United States capital, of sufficient trees to establish a cherry blossom avenue. A suggestion that Japan might repeat the gift to Napier, on tho occasion of the New Zealaud centennial in 1940, was discussed by Mr Morse and Air Kurasawo. Air Kurasawo accepted the suggestion with enthusiasm, and expressed a desiro to do all he could to make such an arrangement, partly us a tribute to the beauty and general attractiveness of tho new Napier. He gaye the Mayor an assurance that he would bring tho suggestion before the notice of the Japanese Consul in Sydney at the earliest opportunity. That children attending State schools in the city were brought from certain country areas free of charge, whereas those attending the Convent did not enjoy that assistance, was mentioned by Monsignor McManus to the Prime Alinister yesterday when Mr Savage attended the Convent garden party. Air McManus thought it was not just that those whose parents wished them to attend the school of their religion should be in any way penalised. He would like the .Prime Alinister to consider the matter. When the Premier rose to speak, he said it would be realised that there Avere difficulties facing any Government in such matters, but he did believe that where children existed and facilities were necessary for their welfare, those facilities should be afforded them.

Air W. L. Birnie, of Palmerston North, secured the highest average percentage pass in Australia and New Zealand in the final section of the September examinations of the Australasian Institute of Secretaries, and was awarded the gold medal of the institute. A luncheon was held last week, and tho medal was presented to Air Birnio by Mr S. G. Dailey, chairman of the Wellington branch. In presenting the medai, Air Dailey congratulated Mi Birnie on his success aud expressed the hope that his commercial career would be as successful as his academic one. The medal had now been won by New Zealanders on eight occasions, and of the winners four at least were now resident in Wellington. Air Birnie said that no one received a greater surprise than ho did when he heard that he had secured first place. Ho was very pleased indeed to have been fortunate enOught to win the medal, and he thank ed Mr Dailey and the committee of the Wellington branch for their kindness in arranging the luncheon.