NEWS OF THE DAY

Taranaki Daily News, 27 April 1934, Page 6

NEWS OF THE DAY

Veterans almost had a day out at the Paritutu Bowling Club's one-day tournament yesterday, when G. Ambury, aged 79, skipped a team whose ages averaged 71 years into the runners-up position. The team won $ll its games but lost on points to the other rink, which was unbeaten in the game?. The Kaimata Football Club this year is taking its practices seriously and members are keen to make the best showing in the Schneider Cup competition. Last night the members turned out in force for a practice, the equipment including a 1000 candlepower light. The light was placed in • fhe school house and by it members were able to see perfectly. Thieves who removed a full line of pyjamas, underclothing and other articles left out to dry in the garden of Mrs. G. V. Whitham’s house at the corner of Eliot and Buller Streets, New Plymouth, on Saturday evening left only a pair of underpants hanging by a solitary peg. The removal is thought to have taken place late in the evening as an occupant of the house returning at 12.30 a.m. on Sunday did not notice any clothes on the line.

Except for the sugar industry, conditions in Fiji, Samoa and Tonga were anything bqt prosperous, said the Bishop of Polynesia to a News reporter last night. Copra, the principal export, had fallen to such a price that only those who need not pay for labour to gather the crop could obtain any return, while in Samoa cocoa, a subsidiary export, had dropped from £BO per ton to £lO, though it had risen a little of late. Fiji and Tonga still sent a small quantity of bananas to New Zealand and Australia. Samoa also was developing trade with the Dominion, but generally the banana trade was nothing like so great as it was 14 or 15 years ago. The European trading establishments had found it necessary to economise wherever possible and retrenched staffs and operations were the order right through the islands.

If a resolution agreed to by 14 votes to 12 at the meeting of the Taranaki Acclimatisation Society last night is carried into effect, in 1935 the council will be elected on a different system from that at present in force. On the suggestion of Mr. A. F. Little, a president, two vice-presidents and six members will form the council as before, but three members and one vice-president only will retire rotationally each year. Supporters of the motion argued that the new system would do away with the possibility of an entirely new council confusing the affairs of the society by lack of experience and that, in any case, a new council was largely bound by the policy of its predecessor. Opponents declared that if any council had been so unsatisfactory as to warrant total dismissal, the inexperience of the new one would hardly count.

The dates of the Paparangi Dog Trial Club’s trials at Kai Iwi have been altered to May 7 and 8.

Much of the land owned in Fiji by the Colonial Sugar Company had been leased to Indians under fairly strict conditions, said the Bishop of Polynesia to a News reporter last night. There were few conflicts between the Fijians and the Indians, though there" was a good deal of jealousy by the Fiji natives of the Indians, '.'ho seemed to be able to do so much better than could the original holders of the land. Some Fijians were trying to raise sugar, and the bishop thought that in time they would prove as successful on the land as the Maoris in New Zealand.

This is an example of the element of luck which showed itself under the unfavourable weather conditions at the Paritutu Bowling Club’s one-day tournament yesterday. G. Ambury was in his final game with E. Spurdie (Waitara) with the scores even at the fourth head. Spurdie played the last bowl, which he drove down the green to hit the jack. The jack rebounded into the air and then seven or eight feet up the green. When the scorer determined the positions Spurdie’s shot had put Ambury seven up and in an almost unassailable position.

The May school holidays came just too early to suit the farming community, remarked Mr. W. N. Willans at the annual meeting of the Ratapiko Farmers’ Union last night. If the holidays were a fortnight later parents who so desired would be able to go away with their children on holiday. . Under present conditions that was impossible as milking had still to be attended to. He recognised that it would be difficult to make -the necessary alteration, and for that reason did not ask that it be made the subject of a remit to the provincial conference.

Mr. H. E. Blyde, president of the North Taranaki executive of the Farmers’ Union, has made mention at meetings of several branches of the union recently of the great loss to farmers caused by the careless fire-branding of stock and by bad flaying. It was estimated that £lOO,OOO was lost every year in the sale of hides damaged by carelessness. Mr. Blyde displayed two pieces of leather on one of which an area fully a foot square was ruined by a brand that went right through the hide. The other specimen was damaged by faulty flaying. Acid branding on some unimportant part of the hide such as the dewlap would obviate a tremendous loss to the industry, he said. Fanners were the only section of the community compelled to sell their products in New Zealand at a price below cost, remarked Mr. J. Edmonds at the annual meeting of the Ratapiko branch of the Farmers’ Union last night in urging that a remit be forwarded to the provincial conference asking that there should be a fixed price on the local market. It was only reasonable, he held, that farmers should receive a fair price as did other sections. Members agreed that the principle was sound, ->ut in view of the fact that organisation and stabilisation of local markets constituted one of the orders of reference to the Royal Commission just set up it was considered that the time was not opportune for the remit.

Although Fiji was a Crown Colony and the Governor of Fiji was a good deal of an autocrat, there was some attempt to have representation of the peoples governed in the administrative bodies, said the Bishop of Polynesia last night. For instance, in the Legislative Council there were three Indian members elected by their countrymen, and three Fijians nominated by the council of chiefs. One of the Fijian members had been educated at the Wanganui Collegiate School and at Oxford, and his brother was now completing his medical course in New Zealand. On the education board, of which the bishop is a member, there was a Fijian, and in other ways they were encouraged to aid in the Government of their country and people. ' According to Mr. Stanley Oliver, a prominent musical authority in Canada, who is on a visit to New Zealand, Montreal has just experienced the worst winter in living memory. For days on end, he remarked to a /Wellington Post reporter, up to 62 degrees of frost had been recorded, the temperatures being between 20 and 30 degrees below zero. There had been some compensation, however, he said, for the winter was tiie healthiest experienced for many years. He remarked on the warm climate of Wellington, and added that it was like summer after the cold of Canada.

Finality with regard to the entry of the Ratana—Maramatanga Rugby Football Club into this season’s senior Rugby .in Wanganui was reached at a meeting of the management committee of the Metropolitan Union this wek, when, on the casting vote of the president (Mr. J. Moye), it was decided not to accept the Native team. Mr, Moyes said that the whole matter had been thoroughly discussed and no useful purpose would be served by going over it again. He moved that the resolution on the books permitting Ratana to enter on the understanding that all matches in the first round be played in Wanganui, be res-' cinded, and that senior players at Ratana be urged to strengthen city clubs. Mr. R. I, Sewell seconded. Mr. A. C. Danielson objected to the ; resident ruling that the matter should not be discussed. It was a matter U importance to the game. It was also decided to rescind a motion permitting the entry of a junior team called the Wanderers, drawn from the unemployed. This action was supported by seven votes to three.

The Government motor-ship Maui Pomare, which arrived at Lyttelton this week from Apia and Niue, carried on her deck an interesting relic of the famous hurricane, which on March 16, 1889, wrecked several warships of various nationalities in Apia harbour, and from which the British warship Calliope made her memorable escape by steaming out to sea in the teeth of the hurricane. The relic is the rudder-post of one of the wrecked German warships, which, from the position in which it was found, is believed to be that of the Elbe. The rudder-post was recently recovered from tiie bottom of Apia harbour by the harbourmaster, Captain D. McClymont, who shipped it to Wellington. The post weighs one and a-quarter tons, and is of phosphor-bronze, a very expensive metal alloy much used in warship during last century. It has withstood all ravages of time and sea-water, and is in perfect condition, For what purpose the post has been forwarded to Wellington is not yet known.

A statement made by a correspondent in a Hawke’s Bay newspaper that rents in Napier are higher than in any New Zealand town with the exception of Wellington has moved the Napier Chamber of Commerce to wrathful protest. Such a statement, they consider, may have a bad effect w upon business in Napier. The matter was referred to at the last meeting of the chamber, when a letter was read from the Government Statistician, written in reply to an inquiry from a business man, and the Statistician’s figure? brought healing to the injured feelings of the chamber. “The statement (as to Napier’s high rents) could not have been, compiled from statistics provided by this department. Napier is fifth on the list of the larger towns of the Dominion, and there is very little difference between the index numbers for Napier, Palmerston North, Masterton, and Nelson—towns of similar size to Napier,” he stated. The letter added that the order of rent rates was headed by Wellington, followed by Rotorua, New Plymouth, Dunedin, and Napier. The decrease in the index number for Napier between August, 1931, and February, 1934, had been 16 per cent ■