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Taranaki Daily News, 24 February 1931, Page 6

The cost of living has been greatly reduced in Hamilton as a result of a price war being waged between the various butchers of the town. Mutton is being sold at Id a pound, and beef at 4d a pound. Bread is still very dear. The assertion that 75 per cent, of the small farmers of the Dominion were not in a position to employ labour even at half the ruling rate was made at a meeting of the Greytown branch of the Farmers’ Union when unemployment questions were under 1 discussion. An aeroplane was used by a Hamilton picture theatre proprietor on Friday to carry a film from Wellington to Hamilton. The picture was screened at Wellington on Thursday evening and in Hamilton on Friday evening. The trip to Wellington occupied three hours 10 minutes and the return journey four hours 30 minutes.

A large Alsatian dog, attached by a leash to a young woman’s wrist, received a fright on Friday afternoon and commenced to run, dragging the owner along the street, says the Wanganui Herald. The incident occurred in Ridgway Street and was watched by. a crowd of shoppers. . Finally the animal dashed into a shop. The Waitara launch Rapanui was seen flying a distress signal in the Waitara roadstead yesterday, and some anxiety was caused. The o.v. Kapui immediately went out and towed the Rapanui to. port. Apparently while the launch was on a fishing expedition, the engine refused duty, and sail was hoisted to bring her back to Waitara. Anchor was dropped, but this did not prevent the boat from drifting, and to save drifting on to the beach, the people aboard signalled for assistance. The level of the water in the Mangamahoe Lake, after never having been within fourteen inches of the spillway, rose yesterday morning after heavy rain on the higher levels the previous night to within an inch of the spillway gap. Water was not allowed to flow over the spillway, however, but the gates in the Waiwakaiho were closed, as men were working in the Mangamahoe Valley below the dam scouring out the low head dam. The surplus water will probably be allowed to flow over the spillway to-day in order to scour out earthwork at the bottom of the spillway.

Dragged down by the low prices of butter-fat amj of wool, the man on the land is yet able to face his troubles with a jest, says the Marlborough Express. This was amply evident at the monthly meeting of the Blenheim branch of the New Zealand Farmers’ Union when a discussion on weed eradication was in progress. “One of my neighbours,” remarked a member, “had a terrible crop of Californian thistle growing on part of his land, and meeting him one day, I asked him how he was faring with it. ‘All right,’ he replied, ‘it used to be growing in two paddocks but now I’ve got it confined to one.’ ‘How did you manage that?’ I asked. ‘Shifted the fence I’ was the laconic reply.”

The fact that traincars were now made in Auckland instead of being imported, as was the case some years ago, was referred to by the chairman of the Auckland Transport Board, Mr. J. A. C. Allum, at the opening of the Sandringham tramline extension on Saturday. Mr. Allum said the only parts imported now -were the wheels and axles and the electrical equipment. It was the board’s policy to give every encouragement to local manufacturers. The uniforms of the board's staff were made from locally manufactured serge. One of the most moving incidents in Saturday’s Boy Scout anl Girl Guide rally at the Domain, says the New Zealand Herald, was the presentation to Lord Baden-Powell of a laurel wreath typifying the peace aspect of the movement and the influence the Chief Scout has exerted in the interests of peace. Lord Baden-Powell subsequently deposited the wreath at the Cenotaph in front of the War Memorial Museum as a mark of respect for the New Zealanders who fell in the Great Wax.