GENERAL NEWS

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 82, 26 March 1908, Page 4

GENERAL NEWS

Probably tho pulse of the average ' reader was unaffected on reading > cablegram from Adelaide that an iin- | portant deposit of nitrate of soda had , beon discovered in the far north. But , the ''strike'' means much to the farming community of Australasia. Nitrate of soda is a valuable, ijiiick-ncting manure, greatly used For top-dressing especially for grain crops and grass. Formerly, the chief supplies were obtained from India, and latterly from Chili, from large deposits whnse origin is still something of a mystery. The world's supplies are very limited, and are fast being exhausted. The substance, however, is the Australian discovery will attract of such high value as a fertiliser that world-wide attention. It ranks with -sulphate of ammonia in being the most expensive of fertilisers, but if the South Australian supplies prove, extensive and serviceable, prices should become much easier, especially for New Zealanders. who require fertiliser* for I heir light soils and "bad'' lands to make them'remunerative. Evidently before there can lie peace and goodwill in the Newcastle mining district there will have to he found a means—by electrical machinery or otherwise—to spank a sense of responsibilty into the coal-pit bovs (says the Bulletin, apropos of the recent strike o! hoys in the Dudley colliery at Newcastle). These lads,' fresh from school. sull'ering—many of them—from the first 1 consequences of the cigarette habit, hav 1 the power now, for the sake of the 1 merest whim, to stick up the collieries 1 by a strike. When a pit-hoy win- 'is 1 backing a pony, and lays in an extra ' s't'ock <of cigarettes, there may be a strike until he and his mates have '' smoked them. To have the fate of a big industry dependent on the reckless ' whims of a few boys is intolerable, and

demands some remedy; an effective spanking machine is the best the Bulletin can think of. Tho Tuapcka Times reports a sensational accident. As Mr. A. McPherson's waggon, driven by .1. Perrow, was descending the Beaumont side of the Big Hill about 8 o'clock on Thursday nig'it the brake tailed to act, and the waggon, loaded with about live tons of merchiudise, got way on and forced the horses into a gallop. After going some distance one of the leaders fell and brought down the others of the team, and th,i lieavily-ladcn waggon was brought to a standstill by running on to them. Two horses wore killed outright, and one had its leg broken, and had to be destroyed. As the team consisted of nine horses, the confusion in the darkness can well he imagined.

1 A decision of importance, in that it was practically an interpretation which affects all employers of labor, was given by tho Arbitration Court at Wellington. A bricklayer was charged with having employed 'a laborer to do bricklaying work." This, the union submitted, was n breach of the award, which stipulated that, only bricklayers and apprentices should be employed. It was shown that the man had been paid the wages stipulated by the award. The Court held ] that the position taken up by the union was untenable. Any man working under any award could employ any person he liked so long as the wages provided in the award under which he was working were paid. A blacksmith could he employed as a butcher,- a milkman as a baker| whether the m.en were competent or incompetent, provided the stipulated wages were paid. The " clironomegaphone,'' a Parisian invention, is a combination of the cinematograph and the phonograph. Pictures are thrown on a screen, and as the figures move their speech is reproduced.