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Otago Witness, Issue 3996, 14 October 1930, Page 3

Friday was the nineteenth anniversary of the inauguration of the Chinese Republic, and was celebrated by the Chinese residents of Dunedin by a picnic and sports gathering at Evansdale. All the Chinese shops and other business premises were closed. Most of the picnickers journeyed to Evansdale in motor cars and other conveyances, which were decorated with coloured streamers for the occasion. It was on October 10, 1911, that the Nationalists overthrew the Manchurian Emperor, and the Chinese Republic was then formed. Cabled advice has been received from England that the team of speedway riders to visit New Zealand in the coming season and compete in tests with the Dominion’s representatives, is now being selected. The team, which is to leave for New Zealand on October 24, is being selected by the secretary of the English ' Auto-cycle Union.

Since the Christchurch Returned Soldiers’ Association gained the lead in the membership competition which is being held by the Christchurch and Dunedin Associations, the local organisation has not been able to reach the Christchurch figures. At the end of September of this year the northern body led by 192 members, the respective figures being:—Christchurch, 1601; Dunedin, 1409.

Advice has been received by the secretary of the Dunedin Returned Soldiers’ Association (Mr J. M. White) that the War Pensions Appeal Board, of which Sir Walter Stringer is the chairman, will sit in Dunedin some time in November.

The need for the church being able to face changes was stressed in the presidential address of Dean Julius to the Christchurch Diocesan Synod on Tuesday. “ I have not thought it fitting to refer to the Lambeth Conference and the resolutions adopted at that conference,” he said. “At present though we have probably all seen the resolutions, the full report has only just come to hand. But one of the first and most important duties of the bishop on his return, will be to bring these matters before us. We arc continually told that the Lambeth Conference has no legislative authority, which is quite true. But we also know that the results of its deliberations are of vital importance to the church, and both clergy and laity' alike will, I hope, take pains to study and weigh the results of the bishops’ labours. It is with alarm no doubt that some hear the note of change in the voice of the church to-day. We hear of new methods, new ideas, new responsibilities, new uses for the resources of the church, both in men and material. But after all the church that is 1 to turn the world upside down ’ must be ready to face change herself; and if, as we believe, she is the Body of Christ and the home of His Spirit, we shall be willing to face any* change and surrender any prejudices that she may more fittingly serve her Head and respond more effectively to the guidance of the Holy Spirit.’’

News of at least one member of the Byrd Antarctic expedition has been received in Dunedin by’ the last Canadian mail. Writing from what is described as an inaccessible part of Canada, Mr Allan Innes-Taylor, who had charge of the last contingent of sledge dogs for the expedition, and who spent some time at Mount Cook before leaving for the Antarctic regions, states that he arrived in New York on July 12 from New Zealand, and was welcomed by the crews of the supply ships City’ of New York and Eleanor Bolling. He was entertained with the members of the expedition, and enjoyed a very pleasant six weeks in New York. Mr Taylor dined with Rear-admiral R. E. Byrd and Mrs Byrd just before leaving New York. The admiral and his wife later journeyed to New Hampshire to enjoy a complete rest and to enable the leader of the expedition to work on his book dealing with the famous flight to the South Pole. Mr Taylor’ states that he spent some time trying to secure a position when he returned to Canada. He eventually secured a position as superintendent of the Engineer Gold Mines, Ltd., which operate three large properties in British Columbia. Concluding his letter, which was forwarded to Mr J. H. Duncan, manager for Messrs H. L. Tapley and Co., Mr Taylor states that he has not lost sight of New Zealand, and he also states that he intends to return to the Dominion at some future date. Mr Taylor is an experienced dog “ musher,” and was a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. He was attached to the White Horse detachment in the Yukon, for several years, and left the Force towards the end of 1928. He then secured a place in the Antarctic expedition, and arrived at Auckland early in 1929 with 15 extra sledge dogs. He came to Dunedin a week later and was located with the dogs on Quarantine Island for several weeks before going to Mount Cook.

Many tales are told of the sagacity of dogs and the companionship that one can derive from their company. But an authentic local tale, tinged with not a little pleasing humour, is told by the Auckland Star. George Walker, the British Empire champion wrestler, who resides at Takapuna, has a somewhat unusual method of training. He trains, with a dog up and down Takapuna Beach every morning. This canine companion has accompanied him only in recent times. The dog enters into the ardours of training with the same resolute spirit as the man. As one means of retaining his strength, Walker trots up and down the sands with a large stone in either hand, and the faithful pet follows hard at his heels with a stone in his mouth.

The delegates to the twelfth Congress of the Federation of Chambers of Commerce of the British Empire could have had no fault tn find with the hospitality extended to them by the people at Home, judging by the account given by Mr J?. R. Sargood of the various functions they were invited to attend. One of these, paid Mr Sargood, was the Hendon pageant, and in this connection it was interesting to record the fact that RiOl —a huge floating silver ship—had appeared on the horizon and had circled the aerodrome twice. The airship had presented a most graceful appearance. Mr Sargood verified the statement that the height at which RlOl flew was most deceptive. He had seen the ship on one occasion flying over London, when it looked as if she would knock the tops off some of the high chimneys. As a matter of fact, the vessel was at the time 2000 feet up in the air. One of the causes of the deception regarding the height was the huge bulk of the ship. A message from Blenheim states that F. R. Dix has secured a B pilot's license. He is the first civil-trained pilot to secure such a license. The tests involved a cross-country flight to Akitio, in the North Island, on a map and compass course.

A thing which had struck him forcibly during his visit Home, said Mi’ P. R. Sargood in an address he gave to members of the Dunedin Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday morning, was the inclination to pessimism on the part of some sections of the British tradespeople. He knew of nothing more detrimental to the rising generation and to possible foreign buyers of British manufactures than this lack of confidence in the future and the doubts regarding how they were to get out of the economic difficulties of the present time. He hoped New Zealand would not allow these pessimistic ideas to dominate her.. They must keep their peckers up and fight, and things would come right in time. Of course, there were very difficult problems for the people to solve, and although they were told that there were two million unemployed, he did not believe it. He had travelled widely over England, and, no doubt, unemployment in some parts was bad, but there was no indication of it in the London area, where big factories were being built. Mi’ Sargood criticised the dole, and said it was really creating artificial unemployment, but he doubted whether any political party would be willing to tackle the problem.

~~ This year the statutory Christmas holidays will fall on Thursday and Friday, and the question of the holidays to be observed is one which has been raised by a number of retailers. A similar posilion last arose in 1924 when the holidays fell on the same days. On that occasion a representative meeting of retailers decided to close down from Wednesday, Christmas Eve, until Monday, December 29, and from Wednesday, New Year’s Eve, until Monday, January 5. The natter was discussed by the executive of the Drapers, Clothiers, and Boot Retailers’ Association last week, when it was decided to recommend the observance «f the same holidays as in 1924. This decision is subject to confirmation by a Eral meeting of the association, to be at a later date.

Bequests of £2OOO to the Christchurch Kindergarten Association and of £5OO to the Plunket Society have been made by Miss Emily Anne D'Oyley, formerly of Christchurch, who died in San Francisco on August 1; aged 69. The estate has been sworn at £lOO,OOO.

A powerful wireless telegraph installation of the very latest type has just been installed on the tug Dunedin for the Otago Harbour Board by Amalgamated Wireless, Ltd. The dimensions of the aerial on any tug boat are naturally limited, but notwithstanding this limitation the set which has been installed on the Dunedin has a range not less than many large ocean-going vessels. The daylight range is 500 miles, whilst the night time range is approximately double that. The transmitter and receiver are incorporated in one cabinet and form an exceedingly compact and highly efficient unit. The value of a powerful installation of this type aboard an ocean-going tug can hardly be over-estimated. As a matter of fact, it is only on very rare occasions that a tug can perform satisfactory salvage work unless equipped with radio. Two of the principal New Zealand harbour boards have now fitted their tugs with powerful and modern wireless installations. Some time ago the Wellington Harbour Board equipped its tug Toia with an exceptionally powerful installation. A feature of the Toia’s set is the extremely efficient emergency set which enables the tug to maintain communication over very considerable distances, even when the vessel s dynamo is not being run. It is of interest to note that the Toia’s installation is the most powerful manufactured to date by Amalgamated Wireless for use on a tug.

Speaking at a meeting of members of the Dunedin Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday morning, Mr P. R. Sargood, who represented the chamber at the twelfth Congress of the Federation of Chambers of Commerce of the British Empire, said that he had no intimate knowledge regarding the manufacture of cheese, but he could say that dissatisfaction seemed to be growing in the Old Country with the quality of New Zealand cheese. Everywhere he had gone he had been told that the cheese market in London had partially gone from them, and that if they were not very careful they would lose it altogether.

In the course of an interview in Timaru last week, Professor P. G. Hornell, of Sweden, who came to New Zealand at the request of the Government to investigate the position at Arapuni, said: “At Arapuni we came in contact with features not seen elsewhere. They are extremely interesting from an engineering point of view. Seeing the number and kind of difficulties your engineers have had to fight .1 would be sorry if they were criticised too harshly. My report will probably be ready in a week, when there will be plenty to write about, but I hope the papers will not be too severe in their criticism. The firm I have been working with since 1899 has had 4000 commissions as consulting engineers, and of these I believe over 3000 have referred to water power, small and large schemes, and I may say that out of these I think the problem of Arapuni is the most interesting of them all.”

, Mr . Justice Kennedy has granted probate in the estates of the following deceased persons:—-James Carruthers, mine manager, Milton (Mr R. Rutherford); Robert Samuel IFGregor, Cambrians (Mr J. M. Paterson); George Paul Renton, retired farmer, Dunedin (Mr W. L. Moore); Isabella Jane Kerse, Tapanui (Mr W*. B. Naylor); Jane Turley, Dunedin (Mr John Wilkinson); James Brown, farmer, Owaka Valley (Mr R. R. Grigor); John Hope, hotelkeeper, Dunedin (Mr L. R. Simpson); Robert Caldow, retired carpenter, Dunedin (Mr W. Allan).

In connection with a paragraph relating to a crossword puzzle which appeared in the Otago Daily Times of Saturday, and in which the word “ Kiwi ” was the answer, quite a different explanation is given by a New Zealand “ returned soldier.” The London paper asked for a “ polish ” bird, and the answer was “ Kiwi,” the name of a well-known brand of boot polish. Poland, as the home of the kiwi, does not enter into the story at all, as the paragraph published on Saturday indicated. The British tommies at the war were not unacquainted with this brand of boot polish, which was freely owned by the Australian and New Zealand soldiers, and they always called it “Ki” (“i”hard) “wi” (“i” hard).

“We are often told that the new Town Hall was built from the excess profits of the trading departments during the Exhibition year, but that is not correct,” said Cr Marlow in an address to the City Ratepayers’ Association last week. The money, he added, had been obtained from the renewal funds of the departments. For a number of years the Gas Department had had to pay £5OOO a year towards the Town Hall fund. Last year it had made its final payment—not out of profits, but out of its renewal fund. Every department had a sinking and a renewal fund. It was possible to overdo a thing, however, and if a fund was such that £5OOO a year could be taken out of it, it was being excessively charged. The renewal funds of the council at the present time amounted to nearly £250.000.

“ The abolition of the bonus for the destruction of the kea will let down a large number of the Crown tenants in the back country of the South Island,” declared Mr T. M. Burnett (Temuka), when the Estimates of the Agricultural Department were receiving the. consideration of the House of Representatives (says our parliamentary reporter). Mr Burnett said that if the Minister would agree to keep the bonus in operation, even if only to the extent of a shilling for the ensuing -year, it would go a long way towards assisting the. Crown tenants, who were having an uphill fight in the South Island. “ I do hope the Minister will realise the seriousness of the position,” he said, “ if he takes away the bonus for destroying these birds, which undoubtedly cause hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of damage.”

A remarkable case of birds of different species setting up> “ housekeeping ” jointly is reported by Mr ■ Edward C. Walton, of Birkdale (says the Auckland Star). Scouting round some wattle trimmings recently, a son of Mr Walton discovered a thrush’s nest and a blackbird’s nest perfectly interwoven, twigs and straw in one department overlapping those that went to make up the other. The nests were perfectly formed, and if the different eggs in them had not been sufficient to determine their owners the styles of architecture would have told of the amazing alliance. The twin nests were perched three or four feet from the ground, and it is thought that the rivalry over the position arose from the fact that it commanded a view of ripening strawberries. It would be quite understandable had birds of the same species arrived at common agreement of this nature, but cases of birds who are not related, joining forces are distinctly rare. The freak nests have aroused considerable interest among bird lovers, who state that there is only one other reported New Zealand case of two types of birds feathering their nests in harmony. The nests are to be handed on to the museum authorities.

The Executive Committee of the South Island Motor' Union decided last week to ask the Government to make an investigation into the price of • petrol. It was agreed to request the North Island Union to co-operate. The chairman (Mr F. W. Johnston) said the Government should be informed that motorists had not been satisfied with the reply it gave when petrol prices were investigated on a previous occasion.

To express his opinion of opposing counsel’s remarks on his argument in a case before the Court of Appeal on Tuesday afternoon, the city solicitor (Mr J. O’Shea) resorted to sporting terms. Mr O’Shea said that, to use a football expression, his argument had been sidestepped. He then turned to the field of athletics. Opposing counsel, he contended, had not taken the hurdles; he —cut straight across the field, in fact, to arrive at the winning post, and should be disqualified.—(Laughter.) Mr A. T. Donnelly, appearing with Mr O’Shea, suggested that counsel for the other side considered the race a flat event and not a hurdle event.

At a meeting of the British Immigrants’ Club last week it was decided to forward two week-end cable emssages one to the chairman of the Imperial Conference (Mr Ramsay MacDonald) and one to the Prime Minister of New Zealand (Mr G. W. Forbes), asking that the conference should give its earnest consideration to the representations made on July 30, 1929, regarding the granting of old-age pensions and widow's’ pensions to British immigrants.

A Dunedin firm which recently indented a large consignment of goods from England suffered considerable loss through the packages, and even the goods themselves, being badly damaged in transit, despite the fact that the containers were marked “ fragile.” Considering that in the circumstances the Postal Department should have taken greater care of the goods, the firm approached the Dunedin Chamber of Commerce, which communicated with the chief postmaster, Dunedin. A reply has since been received from the chief postmaster to the effect that, although the parcels might have borne a “ fragile ” label, there was no provision for any special “ fragile ” fee to be paid on parcels forwarded from Great Britain to New Zealand in order to obtain conveyance in hampers. The British Post Office had for a number of years despatched all manner of parcels in bags, and no hampers were ever exchanged between the two countries. In making this arrangement the British Post Office took up the attitude that the onus of adequately packing parcels devolved upon the sender.

New Zealand mails which w'ere despatched from Wellington by the Makura on September 9 for the United Kingdom, via San Francisco, reached London on October 8.

The Christchurch Domains Board is concerned over the fact that Canterbury College students have been playing lawn tennis on Sundays on their courts in North Hagley Park in defiance of the board’s instructions. A lengthy discussion took place at a meeting of the board last week. It was decided to leave the matter in the hands of the chairman to confer with the registrar of the college.

Little prospect of officers in the New Zealand Military Forces securing employment in the Indian Army or in the forces of the Indian native rulers is held out in a letter received in Auckland from a senior officer in the Indian Army. “ The axe' is to fall shortly on officers where first appointments are dated between 1914 and 1920,” he says. “We have to retrench, and although many of the officers affected have been offered inducements, to retire voluntarily, few have taken them. There is, therefore, no alternative but the ‘ axe.’ ”

The first locomotive of a number of “ C ”

type engines) which are being constructed at the Hillside Workshops to replace the comparatively low-powered, and, in some cases almost obsolete, shunting engines at present in use throughout the South Island, was taken on a trial run to Port Chalmers on Wednesday, and will shortly be placed in commission. These engines, which embody all the latest improvements in locomotive construction, have been designed exclusively for shunting purposes, and have practically the same tractive power as the well-known W.F. locomotives, which have been doing suburban duty to and from Dunedin for some years past. Weighing approximately 65 tons, with an over-all length of 54 feet, their chief advantage lies in the fact that they are fitted with square fireboxes, giving increased grate area with a consequent Tower consumption of fuel, and extra large tenders of an entirely new design with a capacity of 2000 gallons of water and three tons of coal. The tenders are cut away afi the rear in a similar manner to the prac\tice adopted on American switching locomotives, thus giving the new engines i handsome and “ racy ” appearance.