LOCAL GOSSIP.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20420, 23 November 1929, Page 1 (Supplement)

LOCAL GOSSIP.

MERCUTIO.

'A great deal of good will bo done, no aoufit,' by the trip made by business men on the Commerce train. They really ought to &co tho country and learn what they can about it. It may do the railways much good too. Meantime, the most noliceablo thing about (his tour on tho Commerce train is that when the party wants to see anything considered especially well worth seeing it seems to go by motor-car.

' It is an article of faith with all who work for newspapers that, their power and influence aro immense. Lots of other people agree; some, in fact, seem to think thcro is no limit to what a newspaper c'an do. They ask a good deal of it, anyway. For instance a hopeful correspondent writes thus: " Somo newchums think that Gisborno is in the Bay of Plenty. Would you kindly correct them through the Herald ?" Now. so far as publicity can correct the error, it is hereby, given. But since the teaching of geography, the records of atlases, gazeteers and other documents, the efforts of the post office and all other agencies seem to have been vain, it is rather much to ask for a correction in that downright fashion. Of course,, nobody should be deludedv into thinking Gisborno is in the Bay of Plenty. Captain Cook knew belter than that as soon as he saw the placo where Gisborno now stands; and at that time ho was among the newest of new-chums.

There aro doubtless many people in and. ground Gisborno who do not believe, or would not admit, that it is in the Bay of Plenty, who would describe its situation, vigorously, in very different words. There are always folks like that, 'i Just now they seem unusually vocal, unusually aggressive, wherever you go. This, of course, is a miserable, poverty-stricken country. Look at the places of amusement rearing their heads at every turn, the motor-cars which crowd the streets and the roads wherever you go, the wireless poles which have become permanent objects on every skylinei These are the signs and badges of a community living very near the bread line. It is common to suggest most of theso things are not paid for. let tho people who sell wireless sets seem to be able to ride in motor-cars, the people who sell motor-cars indulge in expensive wireless sets, and those who pocket tho takings at places of amusement have both motor-cars and wireless sets. Somebody must pay for these things somehow. It takes tho argument a long way from the Bay of Plenty, but it also suggests that it goes a long jvay from' Poverty Bay too.

Cne little point about the visit of Viscount Craigavon to theso shores received brief mention at the reception tendered him—he is now in what was onco the Provinco of New Ulster. The leading figure of Old Ulster ought to feel very much at home. Though far from home, he has merely put off one ulster to put on another. By charter granted iri 1847, New Zealand was divided into two provinces. All that part of the North Island north of a lino from the mouth of the Patea Oliver to the East Coast was called New Ulster. The rest was New Munster. It may be noticed than even in thoso early days the country was recognised as Consisting of the Auckland Provinco and its neighbourhood—and the rest. Wonderful how these great truths endure! Anyway, wherever else Viscount Craigavon may/wander, he surely can feel no more at home than in tho hub of what once was New Ulster, even if it ceased to be that after five years.

Somebody, supposed to bo suffering from absence of mind, addressed a letter to the Auckland Town Planning Association, prefacing it •with the one word " Dear." But perhaps ho was not so absent-minded after all. He may have been one'of those people whose nice little schemes for the most profitable disposition of a piece- of land had been upset by some of those rules and regulations for which the town-planning movement, is responsible. In that, event he may have intended to address the association in terms representing the way he felt about it, and then thought it better not to do so. After all the habit of starting off the most severely business communications with the word " Dear " is a bit absurd when you come to think of it. It is done by people when thqre is absolutely no love lost between them. It can then bo as significant as the same word used conversationally by one lady to another, when its real meaning is " Oil, how I would like to scratch your eyes out." It reminds one of the explanation a barrister once gave of the terin " Sly learned friend " used in court. This, ho said, really meant that the other man was not learned and the two were not. friends. All circumstances Considered it is not a bad thing <o omit, the " Dear " altogether from the beginning of a business letter, starting it off more bluntly, but probably more accurately, by simply "Sir."

Judging from what was said by members of ".a county council in liawko's Bay, tho paying of the dog tax is resented by in my fanners. No doubt; few of us like paying taxes of any kind, and the farmer, who usually keeps dogs for btrictly business reasons, has a measure of just iff; in bis view of this particular levy. Still, he may have reservations about the remarks of one councillor who advocated remission of the tax' on the grounds that tlie farmer was sufficiently taxed without it. But (hen it was not a farmer-tax, but a dog-tax that was being discussed, so the fanner would be justified in saying to that councillor, " Is thy servant a dog?'' Somebody else had a word to say in defence of the tax, in t-iat it discouraged the Maori from keeplnS too many dogs that might develop 8 n unlawful taste for mutton. There ho Jnade his way into historical ground. Those who occasionally remember that r*ew Zealand once bad a series of wars all her own, and a frontier story that Still await a heiiimore Cooper to exploit their romance, may also remember that Resentment of (Ik; clog lax was partly respousible for tho last serious threat of a Maori rising. Only a little over 30 years ago. in 1898 lo be precise, soldiers under arms were in the North, with field guns in their train, because certain tribesmen there threatened the peace. All sorts of things combined to fan their discontent, but the dog tax the Hokianga (entity Council levied was not the least "f their grievances. The troops, a detachment' of the Permanent. Force, actually came under fire, and very nearly fell Jfito an ambush. Two shots were fired, °"d the bullets whistled over them, before* peace-makers got io work. So resmitnieiit of the dog tax is nothing new, fvtii if j n (j iesc uiiadventurous days nobody proposes to go to war about it.