LOCAL AND GENERAL NEWS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVIII, Issue 17780, 13 May 1921, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL NEWS.

Passengers on the Main Trunk line are complaining bitterly of the inadequacy of the heating arrangements on the trains We are having cold weather in Auckland, but passengers travelling at right through the centre of the island say our city weather is warm and cheerful by comparison, and they protest that the carriages are not sufficiently heated and that as a consequence there is no comfort in any part of the trains.

Indications of the spread of settlement on the east coast of the Auckland Province are afforded by the formation of three new branches of the Farmers' Union. One of the new branches is at Wbenuakite. Mercury Bay, and the other two have been established in the Tauranga district. A branch of the union has also been formed at Ngarua Road, Kaitere, in the Hauraki Plains district.

The Auckland Returned Soldiers' Association, at a recent meeting, passed a resolution expressing appreciation of the services rendered by the members of the Auckland volunteer motor service in conveying disabled soldiers to the different furctions held in the city on Anzac Day. A letter in the terms of the resolution has been forwarded to Mr. A. A. Martin, organiser of the service. It concludes:— " We are much indebted to you for your ever readiness to assist in anything organised to further the interests of returned soldiers."

The question of banned literature was considered at a conference of representatives of a number of trades unions last evening, and a resolution was passed protesting against the censorship of literature. The meeting decided to organise a movement of protest throughout New Zealand. The resolutions are to be sent to the Acting-Prime Minister, Sir Francis Bell, and all members of Parliament.

To remedy the trouble with regard to the cricket pitches on the Basin Reserve, which have shown a tendency to crumble in dry weather, the Wellington City Council has received about 18 tons of a certain kind of Napier soil, which will be utilised in the laying down of new pitches. A central pitch in the middle of the Basin Reserve has been entrenched and filled with the soil, and was sown with grass seed. The soil is browner in colour, and Mr. J. McKenzie, director of reserves, states that it is apparently a mixture of clay, sand, and lime. It hardens in the wet in a rather remarkable manner, as most soils are inclined to soften under such conditions. The new pitch is expected to be ready for use next January. Soil for other pitches is due to arrive ibis week.

The charge made by a local carrying firm for labour when delivering a piano to a house was the subject of a complaint received yesterday by the Auckland Prices Investigation Tribunal. The facts were that when the piano was taken to the house of the complainant there was no one to take delivery, and as, according to custom, the driver of the conveyance had no one to assist him, he returned it to the depot. The piano was subsequently sent out again, when the men required to handle it accompanied the driver. The tribunal considered the charge was not excessive, and dismissed the complaint.

A sonspot now visible to the eye through a piece of smoked glass is estimated by T. Wood, director of the Wanganui Observatory, as being 80,000 miles long and between 40,000 and 50,000 miles wide. <

"Far too many children enter a secondary school who will never receive any benefit from such an institution," said Mr. F. Martyn Renner at the Secondary Schools' Conference in Wellington. "Taking quite a conservative estimate, I venture to say that out of every hundred boys who enter a secondary school at least 15 of them ought to be either at a trade or learning a trade at a technical schooL It is surprising to find how many parents send their children to a secondary school without considering their children's capabilities. The gaining of a proficiency certificate is no guarantee that a boy or girl is fit to go to a secondary school. So variable is the standard of the certificate that it is practically worthless as a standard of education. Speaking as a teacher, I must confess I cannot understand how some boys gain their certificates. The diversity of capabilities and intellect among the 200-odd boys with whom I have had to deal nearly every year at Wellington College makes me more than ever certain that some means must be devised whereby some uniformity may be attained among boys and girls who are destined to pass on either to a secondary or to a techincal school."

The absence of Anopheline mosquitoes, the carriers of human malaria, from New Zealand was mentioned by SnrgeonGeneral McGavin in a lecture in Wellington, as a matter for congratulation. He said there were a great many people in the Dominion with malaria in their blood, ready to become sources of infection, and if the Anophelines were introduced there would certainly be a spread of malaria, and it would become epidemic, especially in the North of the Dominion, where the climate was favourable. He had made careful inquiries, but could not find, any evidence that the Anophelines had ever been seen in New Zealand. This was remarkable, because it flourished in places not far away.

Samples of ladies' kid glove 3of local manufacture were exhibited at the last meeting of the Wellington Industrial Association. They had been made from New Zealand leather tanned in the Dominion, and it was stated that they could be sold at a lower price than imported gloves of similar quality. The company undertaking the manufacture had obtained the services of an English tanner and a, French expert in glove-making.

"Learned counsel often do their clients an infinite amount of harm by reserving their defence in the Lower Court," said Mr. Justice Hosking in the Supreme Court in Wellington, in referring to a case in point. "Counsel often reserve their defence because with many it is the practice to do so, and there are frequent cases where it is very much" to the disadvantage of a client's case when we hear for the first time in the Supreme Court a story which has never been brought out before. Naturally it is sometimes looked upon with suspicion." " One of the most abhorrent remits I have ever seen before a teachers' confer- , ence," was the description applied by Mr. A. Gray, director of the Haw6ra Technical College, to the following remit which was moved at the Technical Education Conference in Wellington:—"That the department be asked to allow the time spent at physical and military drill and at school games by teachers selected for i this work, to be counted as teaching time." Mr. Gray considered that the remit was opposed to the best traditions of the profession, which were traditions of voluntary service on the sports field. Mr. J. P. Kalaugher, of Auckland, urged that there was another side to the matter. Those teachers who spent time regularly in fostering sport saw other teachers who gave no such service receiving the same payment and enjoying more leisure. The remit was lost on the voices.

The importations of tea into New Zealand have been greatly curtailed. During the first three months, 774,6451b. were imported, compared with 4,867,7371b. in the first quarter of 1920. The returns issued by the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce show that shipments from Ceylon to New Zealand during the period from January 1 to March 10 totalled 505,4781b compared with 2,139.3871b. in the corre-' sponding period of last year. Importa tions of dried fruits have also been re duced. The total of currants and raisins in the first quarter of this year was 34,1501b., compared with 2,321,9841b. in the first quarter of last year. Pigs, dates and prunes amounted to H47J5751b' against 5,073 J 240Jb. VM4 '