NEWS OF THE DAY

Taranaki Daily News, 13 September 1934, Page 4

NEWS OF THE DAY

New Zealand was flooded with commissions sitting in odd corners like fowls in a barnyard and all that was needed was another commission to see what the others were doing, said Colonel S. E. Closey in an address on social credit at Stratford last night. A team recruited from the New Plymouth Salvation Army Band is to be entered in the junior competition of the northern division of the Taranaki Cricket Association. The new club has 14 playing members. Mr. P. E. Stainton has been elected president. L. G. Lukey, a former road cycling champion of New Zealand, passed through Taranaki yesterday on his way to Wellington on an attempt to break the cycle record for the AucklandWellington trip of 56 hours 5 minutes for the 476 miles. He left Auckland at 7 a.m. on Tuesday and hoped to reach Wellington at 9 p.m. yesterday. A middle-aged witness in a case at the Magistrate’s Court, New Plymouth, yesterday walked 22 miles to be present. He started at 4.30 a.m. yesterday and arrived at the Court at 10.30 a.m. when he came to give evidence Mr. W. H. Woodward, S.M, told the man he could sit down but he replied cheerfully: “It is all right; I think I can stand on one leg.” He did so in an examination which lasted nearly 90 minutes. A decrease of 75 in the number of diphtheria cases notified in the Taranaki health district is shown when the returns for the year to date are compared with the corresponding period last year. There were three notifications in August, making 29 since the beginning of the year. Other notifiable diseases last month were: Scarlet fever, six (24 since the beginning of the year); enteric fever, six (eight); pulmonary tuberculosis, one (22); influenzol pneumonia, one (five); erysipelas, one (four); puerperal fever, one (six).

Twenty-seven applications have been received at New Plymouth for subsidies under the No. 12 building scheme. Of these 19 have been approved by the Unemployment Board. Two of the houses have already been erected. It appears likely that there will be increased activity in the building trade shortly. In addition to a proposed new picture theatre, a building to have a two-storey frontage to the northern side of Devon Street central, between Egmont and Brougham Street is contemplated. The building will extend through to King Street.

Men’s felt hats cleaned and re-blocked tor 2/6. We also renovate suits, costumes, dresses, etc., at J. K. Hawkins, Dyers and Dry Cleaners, corner Devon and Liardet Streets. New Plymouth, 'Phone 685. We collect and deliver.

“It was in a store at Saskatoon (Canada) that I first saw the sign, ‘ln God we trust—all others cash!’ ” said the Rev. W. Gilmour in the course of his talk on the Dominion of Canada before the Wellington Rotary Club on Tuesday. A fine specimen of a Maori stone chisel was found recently by a relief workerwhile shifting sand on the Onetangi beach road, Waiheke Island. The chisel is six inches in length and an inch square. The handle is of rough stone, but the edge is as sharp as a razor and is perfectly finished. Bedded hyacinths at Brooklands are now at their best, although the recent severe weather has played havoc with the quality of the blooms. One bed in particular has claimed admiration from visitors—that facing the site of the old homestead. Hundreds of bulbs have come to flower simultaneously and the perfume is noticeable immediately the gates are entered. Between July 30 and August 20 notes of New Zealand trading banks in circulation declined from £6,170,000 to £3,986,000, states the monthly Abstract of Statistics. The issuing of bank notes is now the function of the Reserve Bank, and notes of other banks paid in are not being reissued, so that the note circula-’ tion of the trading banks will rapidly fall away to very small proportions. The aggregate net circulation of notes, including those of the Reserve Bank, fell slightly during the three weeks.

The new draft of electrical supply regulations was reported on by Messrs. J. C. Lancaster and G. Lauchlan at the Supply Authority Engineers’ Association conference at Wellington on Tuesday. It recommends that instructions for the treatment of persons suffering from electric shock shall be posted in conspicuous places in every power-house, sub-station, workshop and maintenance or construction truck. The draft also includes the first earthquake measures to be included in the regulations.

Delayed many hours by a strong southerly gale and breaking seas, the small coastal steamer John berthed at the port of New Plymouth at 10.50 o’clock last night after a severe buffeting off the coast. She had left Manukau Heads at 12.5 p.m. on Tuesday and thus took 34 hours over a passage which normally occupies less than half that time. The John thus establishes a new record on the run. The previous longest time taken for the trip was 29 hours by the Northern Shipping Company’s 296ton motor vessel, the Hauturu. There were no new developments on Tuesday in connection with the outbreak of cerebro-spinal meningitis in the Tolaga Bay district. Members of the family of Mr. Oswald James, now in Cook Hospital, are definitely suffering from the disease and are reported to have shown little, if any, change in their respective conditions. The keenest vigilance is being maintained by Health Department officials in the locality affected by the outbreak and swabs have been taken from a number of people in the neighbourhood for bacteriological tests. So far none of the swabs has shown a positive result under test and it is possible that the outbreak will be confined to those now in hospital.

With a splendidly timed left uppercut a young “lady” knocked down a young man at Greymouth early on a recent morning. It happened near the railway goodsheds, at about 1 o’clock. The “lady,” was was returning home from a fancy dress ball, is a well-known young Greymouth man. He was walking smartly, despite high-heeled shoes, when he was accosted by a man coming from the direction of Blaketown. “Hello baby, you’ll do me,” he said, as he prepared to bar “her” progress. His surprise can be imagined, for without hesitation the young “lady” delivered the uppercut that toppled over the molester. He then scrambled to his feet and made off, well satisfied that the women of Greymouth were more than a match for him. Advice that Cabinet has approved a grant for the reconditioning in New Zealand of H.M.S. Dunedin was given Mr. A. Harris, M.P, on Tuesday by the Minister of Defence, the Hon. J. G. Cobbe. The work will be carried out at the Devonport (Auckland) naval base and v/ill provide approximately three months’ work for a large number of men. H.M.S. Diomede was refitted at Devonport last year, that being the first occasion on which such a task had been performed in New Zealand. Previously it was customary for the cruisers to proceed to England for their refits. It is understood that the cost of refitting here will be approximately the same as if the work were done in a British dockyard. It is expected the work will be put in hand in January.

In reminiscent mood at the annual dinner of the New Zealand Company of Master Mariners at Wellington the Prime Minister mentioned that his father had a ship-chandlery business, and thus as a boy he had become acquainted with shipmasters, their ways and their language. In his twenties, said Mr. Forbes, he left the ship-chandlery business and engaged in farming, and he had been farming ever since. “They say that the one thing about a farmer is that he is always growling. Well, I have heard these ‘shell-backs’ growl, and I am certain they can lose a farmer in growling,” said Mr. Forbes. “I have been told that a farmer growls on the slightest provocation; and I have replied that if a farmer does not growl he is not in good health. After all, like the shipmaster, he has to put up with vagaries of the weather.”

A deputation from the Thames Fishermen's Union waited on Mr. W. Bromley, deputy-chairman of the Unemployment Board, on Tuesday. It was explained, that the fishing industry was in desperate straits at Thames. A number of men had left the industry and gone on to relief works. There seemed no prospect of any improvement. It was stated that in the company Mr. Ensor represented there were 45 fishermen who, after paying the wage tax and their bare living expenses, had nothing left to maintain their plant, which depreciated very quickly. It was • suggested that the men be allowed to earn £2 weekly before any tax was charged. Mr. Bromley said the only course the present legislation allowed was an application for exemption, which would no doubt be granted if the applicant were a married man. He did not see how an exemption of any amount for any class could be managed. He would discuss the representations with his colleagues and see if any help could be given to fishermen to prevent them going on to relief work.

After many years’ quiescence the goldfields of Marlborough—Wakamarina, Mahakipawa and lesser auriferous areas —have awakened in the past twelve months to a semblance of the life that flowed through them when their discovery was yet young, says the Marlborough Express. The search for gold has been stimulated by the high price ruling for the precious metal and the subsidy system inaugurated by the Unemployment Board. Gold was first discovered in Marlborough in the Wakamarina Valley early in 1864. In 1888 Mahakipawa figured in a rush that was typical of its predecessors. From the Wakamarina prospectors trickled over the mountain divide into the Onamalutu Valley and spread up and down the north bank of the Wairau River. As the Mahakipawa diggings were pegged out, late-comers and unlucky prospectors crossed another divide, following the auriferous reefs and alluvial ground into the Waikakaho. To-day in these same areas probably well over 300 men have been absorbed into the mining industry in Marlborough alone. Of these some 220 are subsidy men; the rest are engaged in independent ventures by companies or private individuals.