LOCAL AND GENERAL

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 64, Issue 4533, 6 February 1942, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL

The Te Awamutu Bobby Calf Committee has now ceased buying operations for the season, the supplementary pool having been closed.

A special installation has been elected by .the Sumner Borough Council engineer to supply coal gas to motor cars. Gas bags can be filled in about three minutes.

Practice's better than precept. The Mayor of Cambridge (Mr Edgar James), although he would be entitled to a petrol allowance as Chief Warden of the E.P.S., now uses a bicycle when on public as well as private business.

The Housing Department is about to construct ten State houses in Te Awamutu, and tenders are now being called for their erection. Five single and one two-unit houses will be erected in Mutu Street, and one single and one double unit house in Mahoe Street.

So far no appointment has been made to fill the vacancy as local representative of the Agricultural Department occasioned by the death of the late George Melrose. In the meantime, all local matters and requests are being dealt with direct by the Hamilton office of the Department.

A flutter of excitement was caused at the Te Awamutu sale yards yesterday when an Army vehicle with its impressment officers put in an appearance. Details of a number of trucks were taken, and two vehicles belonging to the New Zealand Co-operative Daily Company were impressed right out.

“When the National Party becomes the Government, we are going to give the occupant of every State house the opportunity of acquiring the freehold of the property,” said the Leader of the Opposition, Mr S. G. Holland, when speaking at Morrinsville in support of Mr A. S. Sutherland, National candidate in the Hauraki by-election. Mr Holland’s declaration was greeted with applause.

Comparatively little activity having been shown by the general public in Wellington in providing air raid shelter trenches and protection at their own homes, the Mayor (Mi- T. C. A. Hislop) has felt impelled to issue a warning against further delay and to urge that this work be undertaken immediately, particularly , now that plans are available for domestic types of shelter. In an appeal which came up for “insideration by the District Manpower Committee at its Cambridge sitting one reservist thought fit to bolster up his case with a eulogistic letter to members of the Committee which was appended two £1 notes. The appellant, who did not appear at Court, will now be acquainted of the Committee’s determination of his appeal. and doubtless will be ruminating in the incomprehensibility of human nature in general and of Man-power Committee members in particular. One of the major problems, and perhaps the most costly one, confronting the Otorohanga E.P.S. is the blacking out of the local State School. This work is rendered necessary by reason of the decision of the authorities to use the building as a hospital in the event of an emergency arising. “It is all windows,” declared a member nt the meeting of the Otorohanga County Council on Tuesday—and that gives some idea of the task which ■■waits the E.P.S. Some modification in school uniforms is likely to occur in Auckland secondary schools owing to the difficulty in obtaining different lines. Boys at the Mount Albert Grammar School are being encouraged to attend classes attired in white silk shirts instead of the customary navy blue woollen ones. Sandals are to be permitted, and socks are no longer necessary. Previously, some of the pupils went to school sockless and in summer shirts, but this was not officially approved until this year.

The unseasonable weather during the past two months has retarded the growth of Bay of Plenty maize crops, which are not nearly as advanced as at this time last year. On Matakana Island, at the entrance to the Tauranga Harbour, the Maoris have again planted a large crop, estimated at between 1250 and 1500 acres. This is in response to the appeal to farmers to grow more maize, as a result of which the Native Department throughout the Bay of Plenty last year organised the planting of about 2500 acres.

Up to last night the sum of £267 10s had this week been lodged at the Te Awamutu Savings Bank in connection with the National Savings

scheme.. The weekly quota is £483, and it is hoped to attain that sum before the expiry of the week on Saturday. The authorities would very much like to reach this end, especially as its achievement would mean the accomplishment of “the hat trick,” the quota having been subscribed in the two previous succeeding weeks. Accounts opened at the Te Awamutu office now number 1006.

An indication of the difficulties experienced in distributing Patriotic Fund goods so that every man receives a fair share is given in the latest report from Lieutenant-Colonel F. Waite, Overseas Commissioner for the National Patriotic Fund Board. “We have the greatest difficulty in finding out where the Air Force men are,” he said. “They shift in a week from the Western Desert to perhaps Kenya, or Syria, or Iraq. Railway and survey companies are scattered from Tobruk to Port Sudan, Akaba and Cyprus.” ,

In replying to requests made by a deputation representative of the Waitomo County Council, which asked for assistance in the maintenance of the Te Kuiti-Mangapehi Road, upon which the traffic had increased enormously as the result of the operations of the new State coal mine at the latter place, the Minister of Public Works (the Hon. H. T. Armstrong) said that the trouble lay not so much in the •provision of money but in men and materials. In regard to the willow problem in the Pio Pio district, he said that on going back to Wellington he would sst in operation the provisions of the Rivers Erosion Bill, and the removal of the willows would then become - under the aegis of the Catchment Boards.