LOCAL AND GENERAL NEWS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19882, 28 February 1928, Page 8

LOCAL AND GENERAL NEWS.

Students of the Elam School of Art commenced the new term yesterday. It is expected that there will be an increase in. the roll, but the administrative staff is at present too busy to produce details of enrolments. This year no change has been made in the instructional staff.

A member of the crew of the schooner Margaret W., which arrived from Port Stephens yesterday, is probably the lowest paid sailor in Australia or New Zealand. He is Mr. Douglas L. Ross, and he receives the sum of one shilling a month. Mr. Ross, who is a solicitor' in Dargaville and deputy-mayor of that town, has been a member of the schooner's crew for some time. He recently decided to take a threemonths' .holiday for health reasons, rather paradoxically securing work which entails harder toil than he has ever attempted. The schooner is to trade around the coast for some, time, and at the end of the three months Mr. Ross will draw exactly three shillings. V

The port of Auckland will be exceptionally busy this week, and most of the berths at the wharves will be occupied. In addition to the Kaituna, Mataroa, Kanna, Hinemoa and Kaponga, which were jn port yesterday, the arrivals, other than local coastal vessels, were the from Westport, the Waimea, from East Coast pOrts, the Ashburton, from New York, the Royal Mail liner Niagara, from Vancouver, the Margaret W., from Newcastle, and the Wingatui, from Southern ports. To-day the Marama will arrive from Sydney, the Herminius from Antwerp, the Echunga from Newcastle and tho Westmoreland from Liverpool. To-morrow the Lamb steamer Omana will arrive from Newcastle and on Friday the West Nivaria is due fx-om San Pedro, the Rotorua, from London, via Wellington, and the Katoa and Kurow, from Southern ports. Other steamers which are expected about the end of the week are the Devon from Antwerp, the Canadian Challenger, from Wellington, tho King Edwin, from Texas and the Quercus, from Java.

"If all farmers kept accounts, they would be better off," said the Minister of Agriculture, Hon. Q. J. Hawken, when addressing a book-keeping class al the Pukekohe Technical High School yesterday morning. The Minister emphasised the value of education with an agricultural bias. When it was pointed out that this school was the nearest State school to Auckland conducting classes in practical agriculture, he promised to convey to the correct quarter the desire of the board of governors to acquire another five acres of land. A deputation suggested that some pupils of the Seddon Memorial Technical College, in the city, should go to Pukokolie for practical training. Private advice has been received that one of the two senior university scholarships—that in contracts and torts—has been awarded to Mr. Ernest E. Bailey, of Auckland University College. Wilsons Cement Company has completed arrangements for firing a record charge this week, in which 25 tons of gelignite 1 will be used, says the Herald's Whangarei correspondent. Last year 1/ tons of explosive were used in bringing down enough rock for practically a year's working. } A party of four Morrinsville fishermen caught over 400 eels during the week in a creek that flows into the Tohehahae stream. The eels were caught, with a sharp hook on the end of a stick as they swam past in shallow water. " The Maori was an agriculturist, a fisherman, a bird snarer, but he was never a pastoralist," said the Hon. O. J. Hawken, Minister of Agriculture, addressing the section of Maori pupils at Wesley College, near Pukekohe, yesterday. Therefore although the Maori already possessed the sense of agriculture he had yet to be taught general farming, to be allowed to handle animals, and acquire the pastoral sense, said the Minister. Not alone should he be persuaded to exploit his hereditary gardening faculty, but also to adopt European methods in other farming fields. Those Maori and Island boys being so ably trained at Wesley College would have a great influence for progress among their own people. As foresters they were ahead of the Europeans. A letter requesting an exhibit of New Zealand dairy produce at the Kingston, Ontario, Industrial Exhibition has been received by the Waikato Winter Show Association. The communication has been referred to the New Zealand Co-operative Dairy Company, Limited. At Christmas time a cablegram was sent to England from Wellington requesting the forwarding of 220 tons of steel, rolled and cut to dead lengths, for building construction. Apparently no time was lost by the recipient of the order, for all the steel, which was supplied by several different ' firms, arrived by the Rotorua, which reached Wellington on Saturday. The vessel left England on .January 20. A collection at the King Edward Barracks, Christchurch, on Sunday evening on the occasion of a concert given by the Dominion champion band, Queen Alexandra's Own, Wanganui, amounted to only £3l. As there were fully 4000 people present the average payment for admission was less than 2d a head. One patron tendered a halfpenny covered with silver paper. The nimble threepenny piece was much in evidence, and in at least one case it piloted a family of six past the doorkeeper and the collecting box. It is stated that the season ticket concession was much abused during the currency of the band contest. The Napier Ministers' Association has made a strong protest to the Minister of Railways against the running of excursion trains on Sunday. The grounds stated are as follows:—"Firstly, because such excursions entail Sunday labour for a large staff of men and the encouragement of a policy not consistent with the general attitude of the Government to Sunday labour. Secondly, because this tendency to ignore the sacred significance of the Sabbath cuts across our highest national traditions and is obnoxious to a large sectiop of the people, who view as detrimental to the Church and the community anything which savours of the Continental Sunday."

A step to encourage tourists to call at Napier has been taken by the Napier Thirty Thousand Club, which has appointed Mr. Rex Yates, of Auckland, formerly of Napier, to act as its agent in Auckland and get into touch with travellers and distribute propaganda to induce travellers who landed in Auckland to travel down through Hawke's Bay. Speaking at a recent meeting of the club, the chairman, Mr. W. Harvey, thanked Mr. Yates for offering to do the work, and remarked that he thought the club should have such agents in the four centres. Hawke's Bay did not got enough oversea visitors.