Untitled

New Zealand Times, Volume L, Issue 11655, 20 October 1923, Page 4

The Opunake Electric Power Board is now facing the problem of placing the electrical scheme on a firm financial footing, and the levying of a rate eeems inevitable (says the local paper). The prospective revenue to-day is £2*500, but this is not nearly sufficient to meet the interest bill and the cost of reticulation. To date the scheme has proved an unqualified success from a supply point of view, but the trouble is that the supply of newer exceeds the demand. This will fiave to be altered.

Some attention is being directed to the proposal to mako a new road from Wairoa to Opotiki, which will be 100 miles shorter than the proposed railway loute from Wairoa, via Gisborne, to the same destination. It is this road which has already caused some concern to the Poverty Bay business people, who foresee that much trade from the Urewera Country will come to Napier, instead of jroin'g to Gisborne a® at present. The Telegraph Department is already erecting a main trunk telephone line along the new route, which follows the Waimana river to Waikaremoana.

At a meeting of the Masterton. Dairy Company the question of improved marketing facilities for those engaged in the pig-rearing industry was considered. It was stated that fanners would have to arrange for their own killing, and possibly freezing, but this could easily be surmounted if the farmers'banded together and formed seme organisation in tho Wairarapa to assist in this direction. The secretary (Mr R. Brown) was instructed to write to the New Zealand Dairy Producers’ Marketing Association, and also the New Zealand Dairy Co-operative Freezing Company, to ascertain what assistance could be given the pig producer to place his marketing on a sounder 'basis.

“If I .were called on upon the whole of the evidence to dccido what was in the Raetihi district the usual rate paid for the use of a woolshed for a season, T should say that it was 2s 6d por 100 sheep,” said.Mr Justice MacGregor in the course of a judgment in the Supreme Court yesterday. <f ln the present case it was common ground that the carrying capacity of the ground in question was from 700 to 800 cheep. It is obvious, therefore, that the total payment to bo made for the use of the woolshed for two seasons would probably not exceed 40s, and tho real ‘uncertainly’ now complained of by the defendant was and is an uncertainty whether he would have to pay this small amount or nothing at all. His Honour thought bids- was surely a matter to which the maxijn do minimus ought to bo applied,,*-’