LOCAL AND GENERAL

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 64, Issue 4561, 17 April 1942, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL

A somewhat unusual situation was disclosed in a letter received at this week’s meeting of the Otorohanga County Council from the New Zealand Counties’ Association. No business can carry on year after year with continuous deficits, the letter stated The Counties’ Association had been in this position for a number of years and had only managed to carry on by securing a loan from a registered union of county council employees.

The Home Guard has no authority to dig trenches on the sides of roads unless so ordered by the Minister of Defence under emergency regulations, the Otorohanga County Council was advised on Monday by the New Zealand Counties’ Association. Unless trenches were authorised, counties might be liable for accidents which resulted, and they were advised to ensure that orders to dig trenches on public roads were signed by a military officer.

“A lot of people don’t like gravedigging; they reckon they will be there soon enough,” remarked Mr M. F. Maze, chairman of the Pleasant Point Town Board, at a sitting of the Timaru Manpower Committee. Mr Maze emphasised the difficulty of replacing an employee who acted as sexton at Pleasant Point, and for whom the Town Board was appealing. The committee dismissed the appeal on the condition that the reservist was not called up before June 1.

In view of the impossibility of purchasing china cups in Te Awamutu, or anywhere else in New Zealand for that matter, it is interesting to record that the number of cups in daily circulation by the Railways Department is never less than 15,000, many of which are broken through misuse and carelessness., Those which simply disappear form a very large proportion of the losses which require replacement. The cost of the crockery in the last two years has increased by 70 per cent.

The New Zealand Society for Closer Relations with Russia recently subscribed £6OO for medical aid to Russia. Of this total, £450 was disposed of to Mrs Churchill’s Aid to the Soviet Fund, and £l5O to the New Zealand Federation of Labour’s Russian ambulance fund. The Society has received the following cable message from .Mme. Maisky, wife of the Soviet Ambassador to London: “ Sincere thanks for splendid sum raised for Mrs Churchill’s fund. This is greatly appreciated.”

Tea-drinking and football-playing were two New Zealand traits that were always in evidence, said Captain W. L. Rutherford in an interview on his return to New Plymouth from the Middle East. Every time a lorry halted in the desert the meh made tea, and often the billy was boiling before the truck stopped, he said. Their love of Rugby football resulted in games being organised anywhere they could find a patch of ground large enough to play on, even if it was only desert sand marked out by signal flags and only half the dimensions of the regulation playing field.

The position of one-man farmers who have been serving with the Home Guard and are now being called up was considered by the Auckland Provincial Executive of the Farmers’ Union. It was the general opinion that such men would render better national service by continuing in their dual capacity of Home Guardsmen and producers than by serving in the Territorial Forces alone and of necessity allowing production to fall. It was felt that it was the duty of all such men, whatever their personal disinclination to appeal might be, to enter appeals and leave the decision as to what they should do to the tribunal appointed for that purpose.

Another example of American Army “rush” methods during the unloading of military equipment in Australia comes from a Dunedin man who has just returned from the East. While he was in an Australian port American tanks in crates were being unloaded from a ship. The Australians were carefully taking each case to pieces and placing the tops and ends in separate heaps. An American officer watched proceedings for some time, and then demanded petrol. A gallon of spirit was put into each tank after the tops of the cases had been, removed, and American soldiers then got into the tanks and drove them out through the cases. What wood was left was hardly worth picking up.

The difficulties encountered by farmers in obtaining delivery of lime for fertilising purposes were discussed at a meeting of the Auckland District Council of. Primary Production. Member stated that in cases delivery was several months overdue. A representative of the industry who attended on the Council’s invitation said there was plenty of lime in the country, and adequate machinery and labpur to produce it. “ Railway transport is the major difficulty, as the large percentage of lime as to be transported by rail, and there is a definite shortage of waggons,” he stated. If farmers could be induced to spread the period in which they sought deliveries the position could be relieved.