NEWS OF THE DAY

Taranaki Daily News, 18 September 1934, Page 6

NEWS OF THE DAY

One ■ hundred passengers, including members of the Taranaki Rugby representative team, returned to New Plymouth by the Auckland excursion train yesterday. The borough engineer reported to the New Plymouth council last night that one of the tar-boiling tanks in the Lemon Street yards caught fire last week. It was found that a large fire extinguisher had been removed from the yards. The engineer had placed the matter in the hands of the police, it was reported. At Purangi the combined cold winds and frosts are having a bad effect on the grass and the milk supply is smaller and poorer in quality than it has been for several seasons past. The creeks and streams are getting very low, and pastures are making very little growth. The Automobile Association (Taranaki) wrote to the New Plymouth Borough Council last night expressing appreciation of the council’s action in painting white lines in Devon Street and hoping that the council would extend the lines to other parts of the borough. A six-roomed house on Egmont Road occupied by Mr. and Mrs. E. Robinson and their three children, was totally destroyed by fire recently. Mrs. Robinson awakened to attend to her baby and noticed the glow of fire. It was soon discovered the house was blazing in several places. Mr. and Mrs. Robinson and the children only escaped in time, managing to rescue a little clothing. The failure of the eldctric lights made escape difficult and salvage almost impossible. The New Plymouth Borough Council last night endorsed the application of the Nelson City Council to the Prime Minister for legislation deleting from section 17 of the Transport Law Amendment Act, 1933, the provisions enabling a member of the Transport Co-ordination Board to sit on the board during the hearing of an appeal against the decision of a licensing authority of which he is a member, and permitting the Transport Co-ordination Board to determine any appeal without hearing any person or taking any evidence. A great deal of work had been done in August in the way of fitting condensers and other devices on the tramcar traction motors and compressors in an endeavour to improve reception and cut out interference for radio listeners, reported the tramways manager to the New Plymouth Borough Council last night. The work had been done in close co-opera-tion with the Post and Telegraph Depart-* ment. Opportunity would be taken, as the weather improved to push on with the welding of bonds. This work was well in hand and would not take long to complete. There are many reports, authentic and otherwise, as to how Rugby football started in New Zealand. Mr. Alex Takarangi, who represented the native race at a social gathering the Wanganui Referees’ Association, stated that when the pakehas were 'chasing the Maoris in the early days the respective sides mutually created periods of leisure. During one such, break it was decided to play a game of Rugby. “I believe there was a battalion on one side and a tribe on the other,” said Mr. Takarangi. “It was said to be a good game. Ido not know who won, but that, I really believe, was the start of Rugby in this country.”

The Taranaki representative Rugby team returned by train from Auckland yesterday morning after a successful northern tour in which Waikato and Auckland, the Ranfurly Shield holders, were both defeated by substantial points margins. Many Taranaki Rugby enthusiasts journeyed to Auckland to see the last match of the season and had every reason to be pleased with the showing of the Taranaki side. The team manager, Mr. J. Rowe, spoke in the highest terms of the team’s conduct off and on the field, and referred to the hospitality of both the Auckland and Waikato unions. There were no casualties in either match, the football played being hard but clean. When speeches to propose or reply to toasts at the Rugby referees’ smoke concert at Wanganui veered to the subject of lower grade Rugby and the need for an improvement of the standard, a novel suggestion was made by Mr. P. Stott, states the Chronicle. He said that points should not count above everything in the game, and he would like to see the cup awarded to the team which played the best Rugby throughout the season. A trial could be made with, say, the fourth or fifth grade next season to see how the scheme worked out. If it was satisfactory and created an improvement it could be applied to the higher grades.

There is a great deal of luck in the discovery of a Rugby player who proves himself later to be equal to the best All Black standard. Replying to the toast of “The Visitors” at the Wanganui Rugby Referees’ Association’s smoke concert on Saturday night, Mr. F. C. Atkinson told of how two famous players had been “spotted”—Cliff Porter and J. Mill. A member of the New Zealand Rugby Union saw a match at Levin and was on the look-out for likely players. Nobody knew that he had that mission. He was just a visitor. He singled Cliff Porter out and referred his name to the “powers” at Wellington. Something the same occurred so far as Mill was concerned. An official was entrusted with the mission of looking for likely players on the East Coast, with instructions to keep his eye open for a half-back for a Maori team. His choice fell .on Mill, whose name was handed in.

Strong opposition was expressed by the New Plymouth Borough Council last night to the proposals in the petition presented to Parliament by Mr. H. G. R. Mason on behalf of the Waitemata County Council asking that legislation be introduced to enable rates to be levied on 19,839 acres, the property of the Auckland City Council, 14,562 acres of' which was used for waterworks and the balance park lands. The council agreed with the view of the Auckland City Council that the matter was one of great importance, “as if the long established principle of non-rateability of waterworks and forest properties was abrogated at Auckland as a result of the petition there was no doubt that legislation of a general nature affecting all municipalities would be bound to follow.” Copies of the resolution will be forwarded to the Prime Minister and Mr. S. G. Smith, M.P.

The annual meeting of the Pukekura Park Tennis and Croquet Club will be held in the Club Pavilion to-morrow evening. Members, intending members and friends are invited to attend.”

According to Mr. W. A. Waters, Palmerston North, who has just returned from Australia, the rainfall records of the past 100 years were broken during the recent spell of bad weather at Sydney.

A letter was received at a meeting of the Southland County Council last week from Mr. P. A. de la Perrelle, M.P. thanking councillors for expressions of sympathy regarding his recent illness. Mr. de la Perrelle said his health was improving and he hoped yet to be able to render further service. For the year ended March, 1934, the number of patients treated at the Southland Hospital was 2039. The average number per day of beds occupied was 104.9 and the total maintenance cost per occupied bed was £162 2s. The average number on the staff was 78. For Gore Hospital the corresponding figures were 650, 30.9, £l7l 2s and 29. Extensive damage was done to the front of a car driven by Mr. W. F. Short, New Plymouth, when the left wheel struck the side of a bridge on the Main South Road near the Warea store yesterday. The axle was badly broken and the wheel was twisted at right angles to the bonnet and forced back to the rear of the bonnet. The steering column and the windscreen were also broken.

A stamp 329 years of age is in the possession of Mr. Martin Gerken, Maitland Street, Invercargill, states the Southland Daily News. Issued by Barbados in 1605 and printed in black and white, measuring about 1J inches by li inches, it shows in the centre a ship in full sail, bordered by a floral pattern. Unfortunately the lower comer is missing but otherwise the stamp is in perfect order.

Two lucky finds of ambergris are reported from Mason’s Bay, Stewart Island. Messrs. Jennings and Simpson, of Awarua Plains, who have been spending a holiday on the island, found at Mason’s Bay two pieces of ambergris, one weighing 12oz. and the other If the old high prices for ambergris had still been ruling the find would have been a very valuable one, but prices have dropped sharply during the last few years. At present prices the finders will receive about £l6 each.

In another fortnight the extra halfhour of daylight will be provided by the official inauguration of summer time, for under last year’s Summer Time Amendment Act the annual putting forward of the clock by half an hour takes place on the last Sunday in September, in this case September 30. Summer time thus recognised will continue until the last Sunday in April, forming a period of seven or eight weeks longer than in the past, when daylight saving used to begin on the second Sunday in October and end on the third Sunday in March. It is many years since a worse spring has been experienced in the back regions of the Rangitikei county, states the Wanganui Chronicle. Harsh southerly winds and falls of snow have done a great deal to undo the more or less mild winter. It was stated by a resident of the back areas of the Erewhon Riding that it is 20 years since that region experienced so much snow. He said that it snowed almost jontinually for a week on one occasion, an alternating from snow to sleet preventing the total fall from lying. The extraordinary abundance of repertory theatres in Moscow was referred to by Mr. Henry Hayward at a meeting in Auckland. Onrthe authority of Dr. E. J. Dillon, he stated that Moscow, with a population 16 times that of Auckland, had 1500 repertory theatre societies. Auckland had only 15, whereas if the proportion were the same as in Moscow it would have 150 of such societies. Mr. Hayward stated further that 471 performances of the plays of Shakespeare, who was the second most popular dramatist in Moscow, had been given there in a year, while in New Zealand there had not been a single one. Three whales only were taken at the Whangamumu whaling station last year, and those were caught during the filming of a moving picture. The whaling station m Tory Channel took 41 whales, giving a yield of 205 tons of oil. The total catch from the two stations in the previous season was 18 whales only, yielding 92 tons of oil. The decreased operations were due to inability to dispose of the previous season’s production, stated Mr. L. B. Campbell, Secretary of Marine, in his annual report. He understood that sales had during the past year shown better results, and it was expected that the operations during the current season would be on a larger scale.

“The much-criticised Ottawa Agreement has been of great benefit to New Zealand,” said Mr. T. A. Duncan, who was recently re-elected a producers’ representative on the Meat Board, in an address to farmers at Brunswick. “Had it not been for the severe restriction of over 2,000,000 carcases on Argentine mutton and lamb our prices last season would not have been anything like what we received.” The speaker outlined the functions of the Meat Board and expressed the opinion that although the future of New Zealand’s meat trade with Britain was under a cloud, .he believed that if the Dominion played the game with the Mother Country and sent wellgraded meat, restrictions wftuld disappear with the return of better times. Medical men at Christchurch, says the Press, do not consider that the cablegram from London discloses anything that is very new or startling about progress made in radio-biology. One prominent man said that such work had been going on continually for some years, and was better known in science as bio-physics. Speaking very broadly, radio-biology could be defined as a study of life by means of rays. The use of radium and X-ray in endeavours to alter such conditions as were found to exist with cancer came within the scope of the science. Through the use of rays, it was possible that a great deal would be discovered which would be invaluable, but at the same time there was no immediate prospects of radiobiology achieving some of the things which had been promised of. it. However, this branch of science had already been put to most important use by geneticists in the study of inheritance. Colonel S. J. E. Closey, chairman of the national executive of the Douglas Social Credit Movement of New Zealand, who has been addressing successful meetings in South Taranaki and other parts of the North Island, will address a meeting at New Plymouth to-night, which is advertised. Col. Closey, who gave extensive evidence before the Monetary Commission, will refer to that commission’s report and :s in a position to give first-hand information thereon. Tekla Dean (Mr. W. Middleton) at New Plymouth yesterday was fined £2 and costs 10s for failing to pay the emergency unemployment charge deducted from the wages of two employees. The information was laid by the Labour Department

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