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Taranaki Daily News, 29 August 1933, Page 6

An amusing and touching story was told by Bishop F. A. Bennett while he was addressing the children at the missionary festival being celebrated in the Foresters’ Hall, Napier. A short while ago a party of Maoris were _ attending confirmation service, at which one Maori lady subsequently admitted she had walked bare-footed 14 miles to attend. She was asked why she had come without shoes. She replied: “I've only one pair of shoes, and if I wear those out no one will buy me any more. But if I wear my feet out, they’ll giow again.” A word, but scarcely a kindly one, had Mrs. Elizabeth R. McCombs, Labour candidate in the Lyttelton by-election, to spare for the Coalition Cabinet, when site opened her campaign with an address to electors .at Lyttelton.. She had been criticising the steps taken to deal with the unemployment problem. “When I think “of the Government and unemployment,” she said, “I remember that there are 10 Minister of the Crown—and that every one of them has 12,000,000,000 brain cells, all unemployed!” When the Bluff Harbour Board .learned that the Commonwealth and Dominion Line was building a new vessel for trade with New Zealand, it wrote to the company requesting that the ship be named Port Southland or Port Bluff. The board has received a letter from the company thanking it for its friendly gesture, but advising that a decision, had previously been reached to call the new ship Port Chalmers, which in addition to honouring Otago’s port was the name of a very old vessel in the company’s service. The Bluff Harbour Board’s request had, however, been noted for future reference.

An Exchange Teachers Reception Committee has been formed in Wellington by teachers who have spent a year or more on exchange in some other country so that teachers coming on exchange to this country may be met, welcomed and entertained. The League of Empire has done this work in Great Britain for many years. It has now bought a house in London and provided nine bedrooms which will be let to overseas teachers in London on exchange. The league intends to continue its work of arranging European tours for overseas teachers while they are in England.

A decison to co-operate with the Wanganui Harbour Board and other bodies in an effort to reinstate the November or December wool sale in Wanganui, was made by the Farmers' Union last week. Mr. W. Morrison said that the first sale this season in Wanganui would be on January 19. That would mean that it would be February before any proceeds were paid out. Wanganui was the fifth wool-selling centre of New Zealand and quite a good sale could be made there in December, if not in November. "There is no disputing the fact that this is a wool district, and an early district,” said Mr. J. R. Franklin. “And Wanganui is fifth in importance as a selling centre in New Zealand.”

The New Zealand cross-country championship, which took place at Wanganui on Saturday, was followed by the largest crowd Wanganui has ever known to keep up with harriers. Easily 100 cars followed the runners by road and watched them from various points. Fortunately recent rain had laid the dust, otherwise the competitors would not have appreciated the spectators. There were also many bicycles and pedestrians, and clusters of people waited at various points to see the runners go by. Despite the large amount of traffic there were no mishaps, although on one occasion, when a car moved off near a fence while a passenger was taking his seat, the; sudden movement threw him on the fence. No serious injury, however, resulted. “The West Coast Centre is to be congratulated on its fine body of athletes and its fine management of the race today,” said Mr. R. McVilly, president of the N.Z.A.A.A., speaking at a dinner held by the harriers at Wanganui on Saturday night. “The victory your team has achieved to-day is an indication of what can be done by a band of sportsmen working together to push the sport along in the particular district they represent. It Is the first occasion upon which the centre has won the New Zealand cross-country teams race and. I congratulate them.” A speech was demanded of Mr. J. W. Savidan, winner of the race, who also congratulated the officials on their management and upon their course. “In Weller the centre has a boy of which it may be proud,” he said. “If he is not overtaxed he should go far.” ' After the manner of all such movements, the New Zealand Legion, according to its president, Dr. R, Campbell Begg, is the victim of a “whispering campaign.” “The statement has been made that the Government has army tanks stored in the four centres, and that the legion is to be an auxiliary force to work them,” Dr. Begg informed an 'Auckland audience last week, “and that statement was made by an M.P.!’’ The president said the audience could imagine the chairman of the meeting taking his place in the front of the tank, or another member garbed in a Klu Klux Klan hood, with two slits for eyes, masquerading the city streets at night. The movement he added, had as much status as, and a great deal more democracy than, any party in New Zealand, and the attempt being made in some quarters to convert it into a military organisation was part of the same whispering campaign and an attempt to disrupt it. There was no more potent weapon than the whispering campaign—the most contemptible, misrepresenting and viperish form pf attack that could ba launched.' ,