LOCAL AND GENERAL NEWS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVIII, Issue 17776, 9 May 1921, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL NEWS.

The civil sessions of lhe Supreme Court will be opened this morning at 10 o'clock with a jury case to he heard before Mr. Justice Stringer. To-morrow morning at the same hour Mr. Justice Adams will sit to take all Chambers business pending, and on Wednesday and Friday mornings he will take undefended divorce cases. There are 70 undefended and 15 defended divorce petitions set down for hearing this session, as against a total of 87 last session.

The weather during the week-end was very changeable. Early on Saturday morning a thick fog was experienced, which lifted as the day wore on. Bright sunshine with a light northerly wind then prevailed for the remainder of the day. Light rain fell early yesterday morning, followed by a heavy shower at about 11 a.m. The weather then cleared up and remained fine until the afternoon, when showers fell at intervals. The rainfall for 48 hours ended at midnight, as registered bv the Herald gauge, was .llin.

A motor-car which was being driven up Symonds Street'at 7.30 p.m. on Saturday crashed head on into a tramway centrepole just below Wakefield Street. The radiator of the car was completely smashed in, and the impact dislodged a portion of the overhead fitting of the tramway pole. A steering-gear defect is supposed to have been the cause of the mishap.

"We are beating the air in a great manv things," said Mr. E. C. Cuuen, S.M.. at the Workers Educational Association's social on Saturday evening, in criticising the importance attached by the association to such subjects as economics. "Some people make a fetish of economics and politics, and I think that undue time is spent on them in the association's work," he said. " Par too much reliance is placed by people on material means of progress, and too little importance is attached to moral means. If we concentrated the greater part of our efforts upon the moral realm, the rate of social progress would be multiplied many times." Which, asked Mr. Cutten, was more desirable, an unpretentious industrial machine with abundance of the oil of goodwill, or a delicately-balanced machine with sand in its bearings? Locking at things generally, the points that should be drawn attention to most were character and character education.

A reduction has been made by regulation in the rate of commission for money orders payable in the United States of America, including Hawaii and the territory of Porto Rico. The new rate is 6d for each 5s or fraction thereof, as against Is as fixed on January 13, 9d on September 20, and 6d on August 23. The regulations still provide that " th e maximum amount that may be remitted by money order by any one person in New Zealand to any one person in the United States is £5 in one week."

The members of the Auckland Tramways L T nion have had under consideration during tho past few days the offer of the City Council, made through the Public Services Committee, as a counter-proposal to the men's demands. The term of the agreement irnda.- which work is at present proceeding has expired, and the men asked for an increase in wages amounting to 3d per hour all round The committee, which had been given power to act, offered an increase of Id per hour, with a further increase to some of the men engaged in special occupations. The municipal elections intervening, the Public Services Committee automatically went out of office, but ot the first meeting of the new council, on Thursday evening, its reconstitution was effected under the name of the Electricity and Tramways Committee. This committee will continue the negotiations with the union. In the meantime f he 1 utter has decided to take a ballot of ,all its members on the question of the acceptance or rejection of the offer of Id an hour increase. It will be some davs before the result of the ballot will be k.iovvn.

A collision between two tram-cars occurred in Newmarket at about 9 p.m. on Saturday. A Remuera car, which was proceeding to the city, and a Royal Oak car, which had come down Khyber Pass, were simultaneously driven toward the points opposite the Newmarket Post Office and crashed into each other almost head on. Neither the motormen nor any of the passengers were injured, though the front portion of one of the cars was considerably damaged, and the other was damaged slightly. '• Both cars were removed to the Epsom depot.

The annual appointments of Revaluation Committees under the Land Laws Amendment Act, 1915, are gazetted. They include the following:—For the northern portion of the North Auckland land district, Mr. H. B. Matthews, of Kaitaia; for the southern portion, Mr. J. A. S. Hemphill, of Mapuna; and for the Auckland land district, Mx. James Boddie, of Te Kuiti. Some time ago the' lessee of the refreshment rooms at the Morrinsville rail-; way station, who "was the owner of the old premises, received word that the lease would not be renewed. He wrote to the Railway Department offering to sell the building at valuation. After waiting for six weeks and receiving no reply he in-, vited tenders for the purchase of the building for removal, writes our Morrinsville correspondent. After a tender had been accepted an official of the department arrived to value the building. He received a shock when he found it had been sold. The purchaser was then sought out and asked if he would sell. This he declined to do and the result is that the tea-rooms have been pulled down and removed. It is understood that the Railway Department contemplates erecting new refreshment rooms at the station.

" I like this country—it is a go-ahead, progressive little place," remarked Mr. David Wilber, Consul-General for the United States of America, to a Wellington reporter. " I knew I would like it when I first came here. At present I am afflicted with one of the pandemics that has struck this little Dominion, as well as the larger countries of the world. I can't get an office and I can't get a house. But I'm hoping for the best!"

A startling demonstration of the power of a rifle was given at Newtown, Wellington, a few days ago. A cadet, experimenting with his rifle, put a cartridge in it and accidentally discharged it. The bullet went through the walls of the house and into another, penetrating altogether nine partitions or doors. It lodged at last in the kitchen of the neighbouring house, at a point where only a moment before a woman with a baby "in her arms had been standing.

The clinker resulting from the destruction of refuse in Sydney is put through a special process to provide material for concrete and plastering work. Mr. A. Dudley Dobson, the Christchuroh city engineer, who recently visited Australia, found that the clinker is broken by a crushing plant, and is then put through a series of siftings which produce a variety of light, hard material of different sizes, all of which have a considerable commercial value. Mr. Dobson proposes to ask the City Council for authority to install a plant and develop the process in Christcbuirch.

Speaking at a meeting of the Wellington College Old Boys' Association, the new principal of Wellington College, Mr. T. R. Cresswell, said it was a gratifying thing to a principal to find a strong Old Boys' Association. It was a big thing for the school, and counted as a great strength. He did not know of any old boys' association which was so strong, so influential, and so continuously interested as the Wellington College Old Boys' Association.