STRATFORD.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LX, Issue 143783, 6 May 1912, Page 3

STRATFORD.

(From Our Resident Agent./

May 4.—The Electric Supply Company’s new 20U-h.p. Diesel engine had a trial run to-day and took to the work like an old hand. On- tho evening of the 16th there fe to be a semi-public inauguration of the new power, to which the Borough qnd County Councils and all shareholders in the company are to be invited. I understand that Taranaki petroleum is to be the fuel.

Local motorists are getting a bit anxious on the score of the threatened petrol famine, and are locking up their supplies. There seems to be a sort of freemasonry amongst them that permits of emergency borrowings unannounced -and sometimes 'undisclosed. A frioud of mine missed a tin from his stock tho other day, and would have been more annoyed but for the fact that the borrower had taken kerosene by mistake, a mistake that it seems would give his engine a bad fit of indigestion.

There was an unusually big crowd of farmers in town to-day, and the comparatively late hour to which their stay was protracted betokened lighter work in tho milking sheds. A good number of railway construction men from Whangamomona and from tho Mt. Egmont line helped to make Broadway lively.

Tho County Council sat to-day to consider the new Local Government Bill. If the views of councillors should happen to tally with those to bo expressed later by tho House, tho authors of tho Bill will not know it when it gets through, if over it does. It certainly seems to contain a quite remarkable number of objectionable features. The most obvious and the most objectionable is its bureaucratic tendency. AVe are travelling fast enough the’ downward path loading to government by an official class.

Every endeavour is being made by tho local officers of tho Defence Department to make military training as pleasant as possible to the young Territorials. On Thursday last a march-ont had for its objective tho pleasant public gardens at Ngaerc, whore afternoon tea awaited tho victims of militarism. On tho homeward trail stern discipline relaxed and popular songs cheered the way. Properly managed, this compulsory training bids .fair to ho the best legacy the Ward regime has left us.