NEWS OF THE DAY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24774, 26 November 1941, Page 4

NEWS OF THE DAY

TTNDER the will of John Donald McKenzie, a retired Presbyterian minister, who died in Auckland recently, two-fifths of the value of the estate, which has been sworn at under £SOOO, will go to the trustees of the Foreign Mission Fund of the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand, the interest from the legacy to be used to provide a Sarah McKenzie Memorial Scholarship to assist the training of students for foreign missions. The balance of the estate (says a Press Association telegram) is to be divided among the family.

Daylight Trips Cancelled It is announced by the Union Steam Ship Company that because of a necessary rearrangement of the special time table at Christmas time the daylight trips scheduled for December 19 and December 20 from both Wellington and Lyttelton cannot now be run. A Trotting Club Secretary A decision to adjourn the case until the first sitting in April has been given by the Auckland Man-power Committee in the appeal by the Auckland Trotting Club for the postponement of service of its secretary, Alfred Ernest Forrest, for at least 12 months. The committee (states a Press Association message) has instructed the club to make every endeavour to train or find a substitute for the reservist before the case is reconsidered in April. Remittances to Soldiers

The Mayor, Mr A. H. Allen, stated at the meeting of the Otago Provincial Patriotic Council yesterday that in Australia permission had been granted to send £SOO per annum to each soldier overseas. In New Zealand the amount was £3O. The Mayor added that it had been stated that during the past 18 months New Zealand had sent £561,000 overseas on the present scale of £3O as a maximum and the previous lower scale of £25. No Steel for Minesweepers

Supplies- of Australian steel are still not available to the building of the first steel minesweeper at Auckland. Three composite trawlers have been launched at Auckland and three steel minesweepers are to be built there. The- work on the three composite trawlers, H.M.N.Z.S. Hinau, Rimu, and Manuka, is not being held up by any shortage of materials, and they are now equipped with wheelhouses and the decks have been laid. There is still a large amount of internal work to be done, and it is expected it will be some months before the vessels will be ready to be commissioned.

Wasteful Expenditure The National Bank of Australasia comments in its November summary of conditions in the Commonwealth that there can be no doubt that much of the public spending of the past two years has been wasteful and unnecessary in time of war. A survey of the forms which this spending has taken confirms that many of the classes of commodities in great demand by the public can hardly be described as essential. It adds: "Sooner or later this spending must be curtailed if we are to approach a maximum war effort. Otherwise, no matter how much money the Government actually spends on the war, no matter which methods of finance are favoured, the* resultant effort, measured in material things, will not represent the utmost of which we are capable. To fall short of that utmost is to jeopardise our future.'" An Abbreviation

"Flak" (the word used to denote anti-aircraft fire) is the abbreviation of the German word-monster Flugzeugabwehrkanone, states a correspondent of The Times, London. Flug is our word flight or flying, Zueg is stuff, implement, craft, and thus the two words together mean aircraft or flying machine. Ab is our preposition off, and' Wehr defence, a body of armed men. which, makes Abwehr mean warding off, fighting off. Kanone is our cannon or gun. No wonder that even the Germans thought it advisable to reduce their word for an A.A. gun to the monosyllabic flak. Another rerently adopted German word, Panzer (pronounced puntser), is the mediaeval German word for a coat of mail, and now signifies armour and armoured. Thus a German Panzerkreuzer, e.g., is an armoured cruiser, and a Panzerauto an armoured car.

" Soon Be Like Mexico " " We will soon be like Mexico after a civil war, when every second man in the country was a colonel. It looks as though our value in this country will be about 6d a dozen," declared Lieu-tenant-colonel W. Bell, Group Commander of the Home Guard in Invercargill, in a speech at a jubilee social to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Invercargill Defence Rifle Club. Lieutenantcolonel Bell was referring to the recent promotions of a large number of Home Guard officers throughout New Zealand. He vigorously attacked aspects of administration of the home defence force, and lack of enthusiasm, particularly among the younger men, in the Home Guard, and put forward a proposal that men should be conscripted for home defence in New Zealand. He said he did not altogether blame the older men for losing enthusiasm while so many young men, who for various reasons had no chance of being called up for service, .were doing absolutely nothing apart from their ordinary work to help the country in its organisation for defence.

Military Supervision A statement that the army already had a provost section operating in Auckland, and patrolling the streets continuously, was made by the officer commanding the Northern Military District, Brigadier P. H. Bell, D. 5.0., when referring to the remarks of Mr F. H. Levien.S.M., on the unruly behaviour of some soldiers while 'on leave. In addition, he said, an officers' picket from Papakura camp was on duty in the city every week-end. Information he had received about the incidents described in the Auckland Police Court showed that the patrol had passed the scenes of disturbance from 10 to 15 minutes before the incidents occurred, and at that time everything was quiet. Every effort was made to ensure good behaviour on the part of the troops on leave, but it was obviously impossible for the military police to be in every part of the city at once. In the immediate vicinity of Auckland, added the brigadier, there were thousands of troops encamped and in barracks. In comparison with the number who were able to obtain leave in the city the number of street disturbances was comparatively small.