In the News

Southland Times, Issue 24163, 27 June 1940, Page 6

In the News

Loan Of £2OOO Free Of Interest The Bluff Harbour Board last night decided to lend the Government £2OOO free of interest for the duration of the war and six months afterwards.

Mishap At Oyster Wharf The gale raging at Bluff yesterday was the cause of a mishap at the oyster wharf. A power-driven truck used for conveying sacks of oysters from the beds to the railway siding was blown over the end of the wharf into the harbour. The truck was fully loaded at the time. The services of the Bluff Harbour Board’s diver were later obtained to salvage the truck and contents.

Supplies of Coal The shortage of coal which existed recently has been overcome and plentiful supplies from the Southland mines are now in hand. The Linton mine was idle on Friday and Saturday to enable alterations to the plant to be carried out and the Black Lion, Birchwood and Black Diamond mines were also temporarily idle. With the cold weather now being experienced, it is expected that there will soon be a rush of orders for coal.

Harbour Board Donations The Bluff Harbour Board at its meeting last night decided to contribute £lO to the cost of a page in the Invercargill guide book produced annually by the South Islands Travel Association. Advice was received from the director of the association (Mr J. J. W. Pollard) that because of the shortage of paper the publicity magazine Discovery would not be produced this year. The board also decided to make a donation of £lO/10/- to the Invercargill Chamber of Commerce.

Fire Brigade Calls Eleven calls, none of which was to a fire of a serious nature, were attended by the Invercargill Fire Brigade during the past month, stated the report of the superintendent (Mr F. S. Simpson), which was presented at the monthly meeting of the Invercargill Fire Board yesterday. Six calls were to chimney fires, two to hedge fires, two were justifiable false alarms and one fire occurred in an unoccupied dwelling where practically no damage was done.

“Itching Foi- Something To Do” “We are a band of men itching for something to do, and there is a lot we can do,” said Mr W. S. Mac Gibbon, president of the Associated Chambers of Commerce, when addressing the Minister of National Service, the Hon. R. Semple, at a meeting of the chairmen of committees of the Canterbury Chamber in Christchurch. Mr MacGibbon assured the Minister that the members of the chamber, their goods and chattels, were at the full service of the Government for the duration of the war. The main concern of the chamber, Mr Mac Gibbon said, was how it could help the Government in the war effort, and the members had assembled to offer suggestions to the Minister. Many times in the past the chamber had been misunderstood, and had been called various things, but the Minister realized that now the chamber approached him in a spirit of genuine helpfulness, with all thought of party politics put aside.

Motor Registration Plates Reconsideration of the present system of issuing fresh number-plates annually for motor-vehicles is being suggested to the Government by the Auckland Chamber of Commerce as an outcome of its investigations into methods of reducing waste in war time. It is regarded in other quarters as probable that a change will be made by the authorities who have already given some consideration to the question and to the difficulties in obtaining mild steel for plates. Amended Breakfasts

“There is one way in which we can help to increase the supply of bacon for Britain and that is by doing without bacon for breakfast and relying instead on the mutton chop,” stated Mr W. J. Polson, M.P., chairman of the Primary Producers’ Federation, in addressing a large meeting of farmers in Palmerston North. Apart from less consumption in this country, he added, it was most important to augment the production of bacon nigs.

In A Dug-out In France “During the German advance in 1918 I can remember being with some others in a dug-out in France reading Haig’s famous order of the day, known in history as the ‘Backs to the Wall’ order,” said Mr A. T. Donnelly in an address at Christchurch. “It was a time "when you heard men speak of what they would do when the war was over, just as you might hear children saying what they would do with £1,000,000 if they had it. There was a silence; it seemed to us as though we were beaten, and that great soldier, Brigadier J. Hargest, under whom I was privileged to serve —he has just left to lead again the men of this country in war—intervened, broke the silence, and said: ‘We shall win through yet.’ Today we can' say the same as Brigadier Hargest said then: ‘We shall win through yet.’”

Geraldine Men On The 8.8. C. Two former Geraldine residents were heard over the British Broadcasting Corporation short-wave broadcast within 12 hours on Tuesday. The first was Mr Edward Riches, a son of Mr E. Riches, Geraldine, who gave a graphic account of the evacuation of Geneva by British residents. Mr Riches, who was educated at the Geraldine and Timaru High Schools, was for a time assistant to Professor J. B. Condcliffe at Canterbury College, and since 1929 has been on the staff of the International Labour Office at Geneva. The second speaker, Mr Geoffrey Cox, a son of Mr C. W. S. Cox, former manager of the Bank of New South Wales at Geraldine, spoke of his experiences as a journalist in France during the last two months. He was educated at the Whare Kia Ora School at Geraldine and left New Zealand as a Rhodes Scholar. His work as a war correspondent has taken him in recent years to battlefronts in Spain, Finaland, Belgium and France. Mr Geoffrey Cox attended the Southland Boys’ High School while his father was manager of the Bank of New South Wales in Invercargill. . A School Newspaper The pupils of the Christchurch South Intermediate School have just published the first number of Flight, a journal of school news which is to be published monthly. Flight is unusual among school newspapers in that it is not only written by the pupils, but printed by them on the school press. It is attractive in appearance, illustrated with lino-cuts by pupils, and besides school news items contains a number of original literary contributions.

Radio Plays Cancelled The cancellation of a radio play, “The Enemy Within,” it was officially explained in Wellington, was decided’ on by the sponsors of the programme. No official intervention was responsible for the serial being discontinued. The explanation was made that the sponsors had decided to revert to their original feature programme, and that the change had no significance. All programmes are now subject to the control of the Director of Publicity, and it is explained that if a radio presentation

included anything likely to interfere with the national effort by disruption of the morale of the population, action would have been taken by him. Another radio feature, “The Radio That Hitler Fears,” also ended abrutly some time ago. The reason given for the noncompletion of that series was that the subject was wearing thin. Patriotic Regulations

Sneaking at a function held by the Wellington Travel Club in honour of the officials responsible for the Sick, Wounded and Distress Fund appeal, Mr R. H. Nimmo, deputy chairman of the National Patriotic Council, said that the successful result was a complete and emphatic answer to those who had criticized the Patriotic Purposes Regulations. Tremendous savings had resulted from the organization which had been established throughout the Dominion pursuant to the regulations. The machinery of operation and the coordination of effort that had been brought about left no room either for waste or inefficiency, and ensured that the gifts made by an appreciative public to the funds would be devoted to those for whom they were given with a minimum cf overhead cost

William Pitt Speaks Again “There is not a man whose stake is so great in the country that he would hesitate a moment in sacrificing any portion of it to oppose the violence of the enemy; nor is there, I trust, a man in this happy and free nation whose stake is so small that he would not be ready to sacrifice his life in the same cause,” said Mr William Pitt, speaking in the House of Commons in 1797, m the opening stage of the long struggle against Napoleon, the dictator of that day. He continued: “There is one great resource, which I trust will never abandon us, and which has shone forth in the British character, by which we have preserved our existence and fame as a nation, which we shall be determined never to abandon under any extremity, but shall join heart and hand in the solemn pledge that is proposed to us, and declare to his Majesty ‘that we know great exertions are wanted; that we are prepared to make them; and are, at all events, determined to stand or fall by the laws, liberties and religion of our country ’ ”