LOCAL AND GENERAL

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 62, Issue 4422, 7 May 1941, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL

After a strike lasting for seven working days, the men employed at the MacDonald coal mines decided by ballot yesterday to return to work and refer the matter to the disputes committee.

A most welcome evidence of goodwill and co-operation reached the Te Awamutu Red Cross Committee in the form of a donation from the Ngutunui-Puketotara Sports Committee. The amount was £37 Ils 6d.

In order to permit of a general overhaul of the lines, the Te Awamutu Electric Power Board by notice elsewhere, to-day announce that power will be shut off along several circuits next week.

A reduction of one farthing a unit on all lighting and heating charges, and on those of milking and farm motors, was decided upon at a recent meeting of the Thames Valley Electric Power Board.

The Te Awamutu District Executive, with the District Controllers, is to meet this evening when a comprehensive review will be made of past organisation and of future proposals over the whole district centring on Te Awamutu.

The supplementary roll of electors in the borough has now been compiled and will be available in a few days’ time. It contains an additional 198 names so that, with 1799 enrolled in the main roll, the total of electors in the borough for the elections next week is 1997.

Many donations for the patriotic carnival funds are being received by ministers of religion in Wellington from those who support the principle of giving, not gambling, says the Dominion in commenting on the progress of the Queen Carnival in that city.

“It is not only enemy bombs we have to look for in air raids, but what our anti-aircraft guns send up has to come down again,” said Mr W. Holmes, the visiting British trade « union leader, in an address on Saturday evening. “My son had one of our own shells come down and bury itself 12ft. in the ground beside his house. I have had several bits of our own shells come through the roof of my house.”

A claim for exemption from jury service on the unusual ground that he was over the age for jurymen was made by a man whose name was called when the jury was being empanelled in the Supreme Court, Wellington, on Monday. He pointed out that the maximum age for jurymen was 60 years and said he was 61. Agreeing that a person over 60 could not be compelled to serve and that the application must s be allowed, his Honour remarked that a man over 60 was not compelled to speak up. In these days when there were sufficient men to be called it did not matter if such men claimed exemption, he said.

Painful and perhaps serious injury was sultered by Mr Thomas Tootiil, of Te Awamutu, on Monday evening. He was driving a car along the main highway, and when at the bottom of Poplar Hill, near Rukuhia, a rear tyre blew out. The car overturned, and Mr Tootiil, who was the only occupant, was thrown on to the roadway. Mr R. Hodgson, who was following in another car, at once summoned assistance, and the sufferqr was removed to the Waikato Hospital. The extent of his injuries is not yet determined, but at a glance it was evident that he suffered concussion and numerous abrasions.

How successful the “Penny a Week” scheme of the Trades Union Congress of Great Britain had been in raising funds for the Red Cross was described by Mr W. Holmes, past president of the congress, in an address at Christchurch. Mr Holmes said it had originally been suggested to the congress that 6d a week contributions should be sought from workers, but it was thought that although contributions might be good at first, they would soon fall off. So the “Penny a Week” scheme was substituted. Already £500,000 had been subscribed in this way, and the amount received was now rising to £20,000 a week.

The ethics of a true sportsman! Such was the comment on a reported anticipation of the shooting season by a young farmer not many miles away from Te Awamutu. For some time he is believed to have been feeding maize to the wild duck of the neighbourhood which, naturally enough, flocked to the friendly sanctuary he provided. And then, when the appointed day arrived, while others rose before break of day to trudge the wilderness of swamp and fern, this sportsman with a few friends sat comfortably in arm chairs to scatter maize and buckshot. Within a few days of the opening of the season he claims a bag of 118 duck and to have lived lavishly and scattered bounty amongst his friends. Credence to this story is given by other sportsmen in the locality who aver that the few duck that have fallen to their bags have been “chock full of maize!”