GENERAL ITEMS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 76, 14 October 1941, Page 4

GENERAL ITEMS

, Women Taxi Drivers ! There is one woman taxi driver opcrating in Dunedin, and in the near I future there will probably be several ' i others (states the “Otago Daily j Times”). In its report presented to the! ! meeting of the Dunedin City Council I i last night, the general committee of j I the council stated that in view of the ' difficulty of taxi companies in obtaining ' j suitable drivers, it had considered the ! question of issuing licenses to women ' ;to drive taxis. The issue of such li--1 censes had been approved as a wari time measure, subject to the women j being employed during daylight hours ; i only. The granting of a license to a woman to drive a taxi is not without j precedent in Dunedin, as approximately eight, years ago such a license was i issued on the condition that the driver i operated from her own residence. ! Shortage of Labour j Demands of war on man-power and the need for keeping up production I were mentioned by Mr V. K. Donald, ' : as chairman at the meeting of the Wai- 1 ! ivrapa Co-op., IVlasterton. “With thoust ands of our men overseas/’ he said, “in_ j 1 dustry : s feeling their loss, and produc- j ! tion will fall, unless those physically j j fit men at present unemployed (or un- i productively employed), are brought 1 hack into occupations which are ol | national value.” Double-entry System "The origin of the double-entry i system of accountancy, strange to say, j was in Italy,” said Mr C. W. France in an address to the Invercargill Rotary Ctub. “In Russia, where they seem tc ;d • many things differently, Lenin j stated that there could be no efficient control without accountancy. He imj ported a large number of foreign acI countants, and also initiated a system cl high-pressure training in account- ! ancy so that systematic accounting J would become firmly established in the i country.”

Odists’ Hdiaviour A complainl that cyclist: m Ncl am ! laid become very slack in the last 18 months was made by Mr F. V. I’oweTT iat a meeting «»f the committee of the Automobile Association < Nelson) last night. lie said that many eyelets were particularly lax in regard to sigj nailing a turn when they were i idmg j ahead of ears. The complaint was supported by other members who referred to cyclists swerving suddenly and t itling three abreast. Ii uas decided to ask the City Council to advise the j Trnltie Inspector to effect some improvement in the conduct of cycling. ! especially in the matter of signalling. .' Competition of Wages Frequently fanners have complained that one of the main reasons w hy they i cannot get labour to help them on their farm i the biggei wag< paid out by the Public Works Depart 'merit (states the Manawatu “.Stand lard"). A further instance of this comes | hom the Foxlon district where, it i stated, youths of Hi and 17 years of age < ; tax each fortnight m the Mouloa swamp, planting Max. All the farmer can offer is “."is per week and found. It is reported that the boys are even , leaving essential factory work for the ! Unique Record ! During a presentation ceremony to Mr A. J. Maclaine, who has retired from the position of clerk to the Marl- : borough County Council, it was claim- [ cd by the chairman (Mr J. Kennington) i as unique in the history of local body i work in the Dominion that father and ’ son, in the persons of Mr C. Nees. sent', and Councillor A. 11. Nees. should have 1 j sat together on a local body, and each hnv become chairman of that body • reports the “Express"). Speaking lat cr in the function Councillor A. il. Nees humorously remarked that he had . sat under his father as chairman. His ! one regret had been that his father had i.ot had to sit under him. -Laughter.) I)cer and Keas The killing of deer under the Guv- ; a liment’s deer destruction scheme is having an effect on the number of . keas in some parts of the back country, according to Mr G. Guy. of the staff of Ike Christchurch Teachers’ Training College (reports “The Press”). During discussion as a conference. of the New Education Fellowship Air Guy said there were reports of increases in the number of keas in areas where Government deer shooters were at work. This was apparently because tiic num - ber of deer carcases left in those areas provided an unusually good food supj ply for the keas. “V" in Naval History The letter V has an enviable record ; ip British naval history, according to a ‘ orrespondent of “The Times.” London. In four of the six great sea battles of the wars of the French Revolution and Empire the name of the flagship of the l English Commander-in-Chief had the ■ initial letter V—namely, at St. Vinj cent and at Trafalgar, the Victory: at ; Camperdown. the Venerable: and at the I Nile, the Vanguard. Also in the great - ; military blockades of the French naval : bases, maintained from 1803-05 by Nelson off Toulon, and by Cornwallis off Brest, the flagships were the Victory 'end the Ville de Paris. When Britain's ' enemies tried to use the charm its ; action was reversed. Cornwallis’s Ville Ide Paris was a new hip. commemor- ! oting the capture of De Grasse's flagship of that name by Rodney in bis victory of 12th April, 1782. At Camperdown. too. the enemy commanderI jr-chicf had a V flagship, the Vryheid, j and like De Grasse, he was captured, j ship and admiral. In the last two and 1 a half centuries Britain has suffered reverses at sea on four important occasions: oil! Beachy Head in 1000: off Toulon in 1744: off Alinorea in 1750; and off the Chesapeake in 1781. On | none of these occasions was there a V ! ship in the English line. Accumulation of Maize I The Boy of Plenty maize crop of j 80,000 bags is steadily deteriorating •in the growers’ cribs, according to | statements made at a special meeting <’!' the Eastern Bay of Plenty Primary . Production Council, states a Whaka- | lane correspondent. The Government’s I action in appealing for increased pro--1 dnclion and then allowing the im- : p-ortation of South African maize and j Australian wheat to compete with the local corn was strongly criticised. The chairman, Air R. Ruddick, of Taneatua, i sai(' the farmers, in good faith, had 1 doubled production in order to overI come the necessity for importing ! maize. Now the crop was harvested , the prospect of disposing of it appeared | to be getting more and more remote. The crop had increased from 35,330 bags last year to 92.840 bags this year in the Bay of Plenty. In spite of the Government’s promise of a guaranteed price, only 8500 bags had been sold from the Bay of Plenty as yet, while Ire position was further aggravated by production in the Gisborne district which had risen from 45,000 bags tc 60,000 bags. Air H. C. McCreadv con. tended that the main cause of the slump in sales was the amount o: South African maize imported by the very Government which had appealec for increased local supplies.