LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Patea Mail, Volume XLIII, 14 July 1919, Page 2

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Try D. Jones, Egmont Street, for plumbing and tinsmithing repairs.* A returned soldier’s badge, lost in Patea, is enquired for in this issue. Air, Bernard Partridge, the wellknown black and white artist, hits off very neatly in a “Punch” cartoon entitled “The Reckoning,” the true inwardness of the German protests again the Allies’ indemnity demands. A very irate Hun, the indemnity bill in hand, exclaims : —“Alonstrons, 1 call it. Why, it is fully a quarter of what we should have made them pay if we’d won ! ’ ’

The London Times correspondent af Versailles recently declared that Sir Ernest Pollock and Air. Alassey were the two members of the Gommilfec on the Responsibility of the war who most energetically sought to make the exKaiser and Ids associates responsible directly for the greatest crime in history. ]( was mainly as a result of their activity that clauses were embodied in the Commiltee’s report formally condemning the Kaiser.

“What is a skeleton .'” a schoolmaster asked a. class of small hoys, one of whom replied, “A thing with its inside out and its outside off.” A warning is issued lo the public not to discharge fireworks in the streets on J’euee Celebration nights. Owing to ihe danger from fire the Government Ims instructed the police to prosecute .wery individual offending in this respect. All .veterans and returned soldiers arc invited to attend the smoke concert to be held in the Druid's Hall on ’.Monday next at S o’clock. Complimentary tickets may lie obtained from me secretary of the Returned (Soldiers’ Association, -Mr. E. AV. Locker, or from any member of the Concert Committee. A reminder is given of the fancydress masquerade ball to bo hold in the Town Hall on Friday next. The Committee are sparing no effort to make this the event of the season. The Committee point out that it is not compulsory to wear fancy dress, but all dancers mut wear masks. In view of the forthcoming general election the following story is worthy of careful perusal. A good many “whales” Avill be promised from the political platforms oro long. Hero is Ihe story : “In my race for the Legislature,” declared the Hon. John R. Loom waller, the Avell-known Arkansas statesman, “1 am promising that my tirst act after taking my seat will be to introduce a bill to present every hillside fanner in the Grand Old Commonwealth with a full-grown Avhalo, absolutely free of charge. And I’ll let you anything you like that I viii be overwhelmingly elected!” “Mil, groat guns!” carped a sens'! ie citizen, “Don’t you realise that farmers on hill-sides haven’t any use for whales.”’ “ Well,that doesn’t prevent them from

wanting whales, if they are free, docs it, and, confidentially, what difference docs it make Avhetlior they can use whales or not, as long as they arc not going to get any ?”

Nature had boon very generous to New Zealand, remarked Mr. G. 'l'. Booth in the course of his address to the Workers’ Educational Association at Christchurch recently. Not only had she given them a fertile soil and a

genial climate, but she had endowed them with vast supplies of raw material for wealth production in their forests and coal measures. “We have,” .Air. Booth continued, “wilfully destroyed millions of pounds’ worth of forest. Great areas of it are gone for ever, and only a few years’ supply remains. But even this avc tire persistently destroying, AVhero milling is carried on under the Stale regulations, of (>very tree that is felled only about one-third is converted to use ns timber. The other two-thirds is wasted, and this shronld not be. AVe import hundreds of thousands of pounds’ worth of paper every year, which, we could produce ourselves from our forest waste. Half the silk of commerce is made from wood, as well as an almost endless variety of other useful and valuable commodities. Our remaining forest should not be destroyed. .11 should be conserved by scientific methods ami then will become a permanent and never-failing source of wealth. And what about our coal ? Of every ion we waste eqivalent to IS cwl. or IKI per cent, by our crude am! improper methods of use. if is estimated by a competent authority that Great Britain wastes £1U!1,1)00,000 worth of eoal per year. On the same basis our loss most run into some millions yearly, Avhieh might be saved by scientific treatment. Coal, like timber, contains a wonderful

variety of valuable constituents, nearly the whole of which are lost, when it is burned .in open fires or furnaces. Germany can teach us very useful lessens on agriculture, the conservation of forests, and the proper utilisation of coal.”