RECORD BUSINESS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18589, 27 December 1934, Page 5

RECORD BUSINESS

AUSTRALIAN TRADE

BEST FOR FIVE YEARS

RAIN MARS HOLIDAY

(Klee. Tel. Copyright—United Press Assn.) SYDNEY, Deo. 26.

Overcast skies, threatened storms, and intermittent showers prevented Sydney from making Christinas Day, 1934, an out-of-dcors holiday and the beaches were almost deserted, the majority oi the people spending the day at home. To-day, however, was beautifully fine. Almost a record volume of Christmas trade is reported by business people, the eastern Slates reflecting general improvement in the economic conditfijfis oi Australia. The heads of some large department stores declare that, ddispite the acuteness of’competition from chain stores, their Christmas trade was the best for five years. The greatest drawback merchants experienced ‘in catering for the. holiday trade was the long spell of unseasonable and capricious weather, rendering it difficult to make suitable displays. Quite a large section of women had little use for summer frocks or bathing suits, but this did not deter them from spending freely in other directions. Reports irqm Western Australia state that business received a wonderful fillip owing to the renewed activity in the gold mines. Postal officials estimate that the number of letters and telegraphic communications handled in Sydney on Christmas Eve will show an increase of at least 25 per cent, compared with last year. Reports indicate that all States in the Commonwealth handled record Christmas greeting telegraph traffic. The King’s broadcast and the exchange of greetings among all parts of the Empire were heard splendidly in Australia.

NEW GERMAN SPIRIT

A NAZI CHRISTMAS

“BURNING OF THE HUN”

LONDON, Doc. 25

The Times ’ Berlin correspondent says that a definite effort to transform Christmas symbolism into something closer to the Nazi idea of “Blood and Soil" was noticeable this year.

For the first time, perhaps, since the Christinnisation of the Germanic tribes, the Christmas celebration, in which new rites were introduced, was observed by selected representatives of the labor service army in the presence of tho 'Commander-in-Chief, Herr Hierlat Rhulsdorf, who fired the solstice pyre, which he described' as the “holy fires we light, to celebrate the burning of the Hun,’’ and before which the inmates of the camp stood with burning torches. The Governor of Brandenburg, in a journalistic contribution, of which there were several similar by leading Nazi figures, to-day spoke of the “day the winter solstice was holy to our ancestors and the period was filled with fairyland magic of tho Nordic soul.” «