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Otago Witness, Issue 3994, 30 September 1930, Page 46

According to a telegram from Wellington, the Minister of Education (Mr H. Atmore) on Friday informed a Masterton deputation, which pressed for the prompt erection of a new technical school, that he was unable to consider further expenditure under the education building vote this year, as it had to be curtailed by £70,000. However, he advised the deputation to consult him later in the year in regard to the matter.

If you want to buy a cheap car go to Sydney Mr S. Holden Howie, who returned to Auckland last week from a visit there, said he saw a car bought for 10s and driven away. It was in first class running order. All sorts of cars can be bought at ridiculously low prices. An indication of the tremendous slump in the car industry over the other side is forcibly brought home by the fact that during the last quarter, 54,000 licenses were handed in to the authorities. Dr Fisher found time in the course of an address at the University Club luncheon on Friday to direct a thrust at Lord Beaverbrook and his colleagues who are devoting so much of their time on behalf of Empire Freetrade. He bad just explained that the main hope of an improvement in the world’s gold position lay in co-operation between the great central reserve banks of Europe. This information, he said, might lead people to think that since New Zealand was so small a country, it could have no influence on the position whatever. That might be so, but if people in this country only realised that the solution of the problem lay so away from themselves they might at the same time learn to appreciate better the Dominion’s interdependence on other countries. “ Also,” concluded Dr Fisher, “ it would convince people in New Zealand of the profound unimportance of the work Lord Beaverbrook and his companions were making such a song about.” In accordance with instructions from the council to report on the question of the consumption of alcoholic liquor in halls owned by the council, the Finance Committee will recommend at the next .meeting of the City Council that a bylaw- be made in similar terms to the Wellington city by-law which was framed specifically to deal with the question. The by-law makes Tt an offence for any person to take into, have in possession, or consume within any of the halls owned by the council, any intoxicating liquor without first obtaining a permit issued on behalf of the council.

An ambassador from the academic communities of Great Britain will shortly visit Dunedin in the course of an extended tour covering the universities and high schools of the Dominion. He is Dr Howard Guinness, of the Interuniversity Fellowship of Great Britain, who is at present making a similar tour of Australia. Dr Guinness bears a name that will be recalled by many -who can take memory back for over a quarter of a - century to the time when his father. Dr Harry Guinness, impressed local Preswith his exceptional gifts of oratory. Going still further back to the early ecclesiastical history of Dunedin, the name has yet another honoured place, having been borne by Dr Guinness’s grandfather, Dr Grattan Guinness, who will be remembered as one of the most distinguished ministers of Knox Church. Dr Guinness, during his visit, will occupy the pulpits of both Knox and First Churches, and while in the city will be the guest of the master of Knox College.

Mr Thomas Hickman, who died at New Plymouth recently, was the smallest in stature of any of the men who have ■do’ne service in the New Zealand Police Force. He performed some of the hardest and most trying work over a long period of years that any policeman was ever called upon to do when he was stationed at Opunake. Old settlers speak with enthusiasm of how he kept the balance even between pakeha and Maori and how he won the esteem of both races. John Ballance, the great Liberal Premier, was an idealist who found it hard to get the people of this country to absorb some of his advanced ideas, but he never made a greater masterstroke than when, .five or six years after John Bryce’s raid on Parihaka, when Te Whiti and Tohu were arrested and taken to the South Island, he withdrew the armed force which was still maintained to keep peace at Parihaka, and replaced it with the smallest policeman in the country. It is a story full of romance how, after Te Whiti returned from cap: tivity and Hickman was in sole charge of the district, he, by a carefully conceived plan, had Te Whiti arrested at night in his own whare and conveyed to New Ply-r. mouth to answer a simple charge. Hick: man had done single-handed what it had taken an armed force of nearly 2000 under Bryce to dp previously. How Ballance chuckled over the achievement, for ah though the circumstances were different, the incident was talked about from one end of the" "country to the other, and it lost nothing in the telling, especially by the partisans of the Liberal Party.

Specifications and plans of t.s.s. Awarua, the new tug to be built on behalf of the Bluff Harbour Board, have been completed and arrangements are. being made to call for tenders through the New Zealand High Commissioner in London and the New Zealand Commissioner of Trade in Australia. The new vessel will be steam driven by twin triple-expansion engines. She will have a length between perpendiculars of 135 feet and a breadth moulded at the main deck of 32 feet. She will have an indicated horse-power of 1400, and the boiler pressure required will be 1801 b per square inch. She wil| have a mean draft of 13 feet with a 14foot maximum draft, and her speed wheq fully laden will be 124 knots. The tug will be complete with fire-fighting equip: ment and will carry salvage equipment, The Awarua ifl to be constructed for" straight-out tug and towage work and no passenger accommodation will be pro: vided, as it is not the intention of the board to engage further in the passenger service. The t.m.v. Southland is at present on the market, and the board has received several inquiries with a view to purchase of the vessel. It is intended eventually to offer the Theresa Ward for sale when the Awarua has been commissioned and put into service. The Theresa Ward has been in the service of the Bluff Harbour Board for over 30 years. •

When the first settlers penetrated to the back country of Otago they had littlemoney for brick and mortar or even for wooden houses. The homely thatch and rough cut sod were the best shelter many families had from winters piercing cold or summer’s sultry heat, but it -was astonishing how perfectly such ' an abode achieved its dual purpose. The sod hut of the early days was comfortably temperate at all times, cool in summer and warm in winter. Few pioneers, however, would anticipate that 50 years after the erection of such rude shelters their grandchildren would still be making use of a structure that had withstood half a century’s weather and decay. Yet such is the case in one instance at least. On a Tokarahi farm visited by our representative last week, father and' son were busy re-thatching an old sod hut that had passed the half-century mark and was still ■ weather-proof. The original roof cover-; ing, thatched by craftsmen whose craft would appear almost to have died with them, was being torn off to be replaced by; new straw and with hands as proficient and as thorough as an old-timer’s coaching, could make them. The sod walls still stand staunch and trim, and even the onslaught of a heavy six-cylinder motor car sliding along wet and slippery grass could accomplish little more damage than the constant wear and tear of 50 summers and winters. Inside this relic of another ageis yet another reminder of past days. A cider press that has done duty for many a year turns out" the soft sweet wine of the apple that our forefathers brewed‘‘so carefully and drank so appreciatively. No better cellar for such a vintage could be found than the old sod house that summer could not warm nor winter freeze. The eider -house is the last of hundreds of its kind in the district, and is regarded as an interesting relic of the early days which is worthy of preservation, and. many a toast to other times and other men is drunk in the old-fashioned bevejr age it produces and houses.

A machine for resuscitating persons suffering from electric shock, drowning or •suffocation will shortly be in the possession of the Municipal Electricity Department in Christchurch, according to the chairman of the City Council’s Electricity Committee (Cr Thacker) in a statement at the annual meeting of the CanterburyCentre of the Royal Life Saving Society on Thursday night. Cr Thacker said that the machine, which administered oxygen to those persons exhausted by electric shock or other cause, was equipped with a gas mask, and could be transported to cases of fire, "drowning, or electric shock. When the machine arrived the speaker intended to begin a class of instruction in its use. Such a machine, which was about the size of; a suit-case, was used all over the United States and Canada for smoke-suffocation cases.