NEWS OF THE DAY.

Colonist, Volume LVIII, Issue 14540, 18 October 1917, Page 4

NEWS OF THE DAY.

Pictures by Miss M. 0. Stoddart, Mr J. H. Nicholson and Sergeant S. Johns were sold at. the Suter Art Society's sketch exhibition.

There will be a cake competition, as advertised, at the Red Cross Carnival at tho Provincial Grounds on Monday. All exhibits are to bo at the judges' room, Provincial Hall, by 11 a.m.

A sub-committee has been appointed by the Motueka School Committee to arrange for a public meeting in Motueka in the interests of the proposal to establish a technical school in that district.

Captain Michael Hayes, of the Salvation Army, formerly of Nelson, who has just returned from England, where he was for some time in hospital through losing a leg in the Somme battle, will give a recital in the Salvation Army Hall to-morrow night of his two and a half years' experiences on fcwo of the battle fronts. He spent a considerable time in Egypt, and was through the Somme battle, and has :i most interesting story to tell of the fighting-line.

. "Behind the battle-line in France, church services are short," said Chaplain Blamires at the recent welcome home extended to him by his congregation in Wanganui (says the "Chronicle") "And," he >dded with a twinkle in his eye, "I must tell you that my church services are goins£ to he shorter in the future." (Laughter and {applause.) "The experience out there makes one realise that the services, the sermons and prayers could be shorter without losing any effect, and if there is any time; it can be made up with real good singing." (Applause.)

Mr 11. McCallum has given notice to ask the Minister for Public Works whether, in vie>v of the new boundaries of the Wairau electorate and the needs of settlement, he will proceed at- the earliest possible date with tho erection of the bridge over tho Wairau at the upper traverse, and complete the small unfinished portion of the main road to lophouse.

-Mr Robert Gilkison, a Dunedin solicitor and member of the Oity; Council, has volunteered to go to England at his own expense to undertake war work under the British' National Council of the V.M.C.A.

At Hornchurch Hospital centre where there are some 2000 New Zealand soldiers receiving treatment, Mr H. Fawcett, of Dunedin, is in charge of the V.M.C.A. Arts and Crafts Department. Classes for carpentry, wood-carving, and other branches of useful industry are in active session under Mr Dawe, a London architect, and Mr Tarratt an ex-student of South Kensington Royal College. This work commenced on June 26th with only six men, and by July 13th the number of men receiving instruction had increased to 114. Colonel lewsley has made attendance at these classes compulsory, and it is looked upon fa much the same manner as a parade for massage and electrical treatment.

The funeral of the late Private Oscar George Rowe. who died suddenly at Featherston Camp last Saturday, took place yesterday afternoon. Deceased was buried with military honours, lhere was a good muster of Territorials and Cadets, who were preceded by tha firing party from A Company, 12th Regiment, and the 12th Regiment Band. -Ihe bearers were members of tho Waterside Workers' Union, and the full' number of members of the union were present as a mark of respect to their late comrade. Representatives of the kelson bick and. Wounded '"Soldiers' Board, returned^soldiers, and soldiers in training also followed, and the' Mayor represented the patriotic societies The service at the Wakapuaka Cemetery was conducted by the Rev. Canon Wollstem, of All Saints' Church. There was a large gathering of tho public to witness the procession.

Sir Joseph Ward, ss Finance xVlinister, cannot afford to look ori our expenditure, present and prospective, in the casual off-hand manner affected by certain wild and woolly financiers (says the "Christchurch Press"). He tells us that the pensions and allowances now proposed are the best in the world, that if the war runs into another year after the end of this year, there'will be a further extension of our borrowing E^'^k ngmS the totai to probably £70,000,000 or £80,000,000, and he suggests that there must come a time when members must stop and review the position. He tells us very truly that if, after the war, we are not able tor "want of money to develop our resources, and if we are not able to encourage investment by easing off taxation, the classes who will suffer most wi.lL be the small wage earners—the' men who earn £4 a week and under

The womenfolk whY earlier in tho war took so much delight in sending whito feathers to young men are not now so much in evidence, but sometimes their peculiarities find vent in another form (says "Mercutio" in the 'new Zealand Herald"). An officer who lately has returned to New Zeaand arter 14 months' service in France ami who wears the returned soldiers' bad»-e was travelling the other morning in an AuckJand suburban tram, in which there also were a woman and her little child "Oh, mother, look at the soldier! ' exclaimed the child. "That is not a soldier my dear," was the reply, all the soldiers are in France." And the woman looked, and probably felt that she had said something clever

* r.? Id Hand" writes to the "Lyttclton limes":—"l read an article upon a supposed new method of economical potato cultivation in your paper but cannot say it is new, for! have seen this done fifty years ago; and whenever I got a new variety and wanted to make the. most of it, 1 put the tubers in a shallow box until they had sprouted i then broke off the sprouts and planted as 1 would do the tubers, getting a good crop from each. If the tubers were required for use of course they1 would have to be kept in the dark Another way when seed is scarce is to plant the peelings in shallow trendies Uip a strip, hoe out a shallow trench' each day laying the peelings 2Mn or 3m under the surface. When the row is finished, repeat the process. The I-mtch people have practised this for years but the average colonial is not put to the same practice of economy, and prefers the whole spud, as iie calls

|. Ihe columns.qf the American sporting IW. hav^been filled with Jauda.toiy notices of JVlajor : gener a i j,W\f% l: ?■ W/ 10 was ono of the iieiio& of Galhpoh ( sa y S the San Francisco correspondent of the Bunedin "Star") JS reco S»is° "mi the Bernhard J i eyberg^ of the Olympic water polo -team and a member of the Barbarian Rugby team of- San Francisco before the European war broke out. He had entered the University of California, and was nominated for their Rushy team when the call to the colours came to him Strange to say, when he enhste he was reported to have remarked: ]. expect I shall be an awful oowara. I have had no experience of that kind of thing." That ho should have made good" in such a remarkable vay has given the utmost satisfaction to his many friend? and admirers on tiie Pacific Slope

At an inquest .held at Ash burton (states the "Lyttelton Times") the coroner (Mr "Wyvern Wilson) said it was. the third inquest ho'had held in Ashburton, and it yvas the third time that death had been due to alcohol. It might only be a coincidence, he con-j tmued, and it might not, but he sincerely hoped it Avas. •The Cbristchurch -'Tress" states that a Fi-icsian heifer, the property of Mr W. M'Lachlan, of Doyleston, has established a wonderful record under official test by the.Dairy Produce Division of the Department of Agriculture. Jhe heifer, which was entered in the I umior two-year-old class, produced not less than 553.21b of butter-fat during the 12 months she was under the official test, thereby establishing a record for a Unesian of her age for the whole of iSew Zealand.

Meat, companies throughout1 the Jiorth Island have (says • a .Northern labour writer), as from the beginning or October, increased tlie pay of labour m freezing works by lid per hour or Is per day. This does not apply to slaughtermen or other workers en^a^ed °tt a piece-work basis. The Freezing Workers' Union applied to the companies for an increase some time-ago/ ana the companies agreed to grant it as from the opening of the 1917-18 season. Labourers in this industry now receive Is 6d an hour.

A wireless hero's log has been sent by an admiral in the Adriatic as an exhibit for the National War Museum. It was found in the wireless cabin of H.M. drifter Flioandi, after an attack on the drifter lino by three Austrian cruisers m the Adriatic, on- May 15, 3917. The .-wireless operator, Douglas Morris Harris, continued to send and receive messages, although tlie drifter was riddled by shells, until he was killed by a piece of shrapnel while writing in the log. The piece of shell perforated the log,;-and the line made by his pencil when he was hit .and collapsed can be seen on the page upon which lie was writing. The operator was found dead in his chair, lying over the log.

Mr H. E. Boote, editor of the "Australian Worker," in a recent article written when the end of the strike was at hand, dec'a red :—"Strike committees arp necessary, but the powers with which they are vested must be jealously circumscribed. \\e trust too much to 'leaders,' when it is mass control that is wanted. . . . Henceforth, no executive should have power to call a strike, or declare one off. Unionism must be democratic. It must be selfgoverning in the most literal sense. It must act from tfu; mass to the unit not from the unit to the mass. The unit errs; the mass never does, for it sits as its own judges, and there 's no one competent to impeach it."

It is surely somewhat unique for father and son to compete in the pamo race, but this happened at the Christ's College sports (says the' Christchurdi "Press"), when, in the Old Boys' Race, won by Mr O. Matson (the well-known stock auctioneer) from the 32yds mark his son, Mr K. D. Matson, was also a competitor, fjeing on scratch.

"Is there any way in which we can keep these met. with us if they want to S° to the fiont?" asked the manager ot the iNigirtcaps Coal Company of the Military Service Hoard at Invercargili. it appeared that one man who was being appealed for—one of the company's most export miners—had a stron^ desire to forsake the pick for the "rifle. liiere is no way in which you can keep such men," said the chairman 'l©v can't hold a man from going to die war. If lie doesn't want to so then you can keep him under the fear that it he leaves you he will be called into camp; hut the willing recruit cannot be withheld."