LOCAL AND GENERAL

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 64, Issue 4534, 9 February 1942, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL

Always regarded as foregone conclusions, the by-elections for the Hauraki and Temuka seats on Saturday last resulted in the return of Messrs A. S. Sutherland and Mr J. Ackland, both being nominees of the Nationalist Party, which had previously held the seats. Mr Sutherland’s majority was 2596 and that of Mr Ackland 2626.

In the matter of the National Savings campaign, Te Awamutu put up a praiseworthy record last week and, incidentally, accomplished “the hat trick,” in that for the third week in succession the quota was subscribed. Last week the amount of £575 16s 6d was subscribed locally, being £92 16s 6d in excess of the quota, £483. It is worthy of note that on Friday and Saturday last the deposits totalled £3OB.

They were talking about the Maori soldiers. A man back from Crete and Greece was speaking of their wonderful fighting, and particularly of their initiative. “Why,” he said, “one of them on sentry go heard a rustling in some bushes some yards away. Immediately he called, ‘Halt’; then up with his tommy-gun and tut-tut-tut went the instrument of death. Then the sentry remembered something he had forgotten, and called out, ‘Who went there ’ ”

This did not happen in the Te Awamutu district, but it was near a military encampment “somewhere in New Zealand.” The soldiers were skirmishing over a farm. Shots were being exchanged with the “enemy” and many “casualties” were taking place. Suddenly there was a cessation of fighting, and silence reigned supreme. Then a brawny officer approached the owner of the farm. “Excuse me, sir, is it safe to go through that paddock with the bull in?”

“We have sent no fewer than 249 doctors and 400 nurses to care for our men who may be wounded in battle or may fall sick through the rigours of army life,” said the Minister of Health, the Hon. A. H. Nordmeyer, last night in the course of a national broadcast on health services in wartime. The Minister said that these medical and nursing services were better equipped to-day than they had ever been for dealing with sicknesses that might befall our armed men.

Satisfaction at the fact that 12 members of the recently appointed Rehabilitation Council had served in the Armed Forces was expressed at a meeting of the Dominion executive committee of the New Zealand Returned Services Association. It was considered one of the most urgent problems was the provision of the best dairying stock for those men who desired to take up farming, and the association had inaugurated a scheme for the collection of gift calves of the best breeds.

It was rather a surprise to hear the London 8.8. C. announcer say on Saturday morning that New Zealand had yet to send military and naval experts to the Pacific War Council. This comment emanated from Washington, where it was announced that the Council had already functioned. The surprising feature is that it had already been announced that Mr Nash is accompanied by a LieutenantColonel, who is attached to the New Zealand Artillery—a graduate from the ranks of our union secretaries ! «

“This petrol restriction business gets me whacked,” declared a Te Awamutu business man this morning. He had spent the greater part of last week at Rotorua, and motor cars were almost entirely conspicuous by their absence. Returning on Saturday, however, they found cars parked in all directions at the Matamata races. “Why,” he added, “the number was so great that you would have thought there was no such thing in existence as the petrol restrictions.” Under the leave system lately introduced, a number of “our boys in khaki” are at present visiting their homes in Te Awamutu and district.