GENERAL NEWS

Timaru Herald, Volume XCVIII, Issue 18084, 10 July 1923, Page 7

GENERAL NEWS

Napier’s electrical power producing plant is valued at £91,594 10s Bcl.

There is reported to be an acute shortage of sugar at Masterton.

Mails which left Auckland on June 6 via Vancouver arrived in London on Julv 7.

The Timaru Borough Council decided at its meeting last night to grant AIOO to the Sailors’ Best Building Fund.

Half-yearly telephone subscriptions must be paid by noon on Monday, July 16, otherwise defaulters will be disconnected.

The value of Napier’s tramway system, including all the plant and buildings, used in connection therewith, is £70,591 3s lid.

No fewer than eight judges, with their associates, are at present in Wellington —the largest number gathered together in the Empire City for- some time .past.

In reply to a question by Cr. Guinness at last night’s meeting of the Timaru Borough Council the Mayor ,said that nothing had been heard yet from the Department in regard to the War Memorial site.

The Timaru Borough Council has decided to appeal against the pidginent of Mr. E. D. Mosley, S.M., in giving judgment for the plaintiff (Mr Boulton, of Wanganui) for articles alleged to have been lost from the bathing sheds on Caroline Bay..

“It has all the appearance of a potato garden that ' lias been prepared for planting in the spring,” said Cr. Arnold at last night’s meeting of the Borough Council wiien referring to a part of Otipua Street, near the end of North Street.

A young man entered a refreshment room at Wanganui for lunch and sat at a table where. there were no menu cards (says the “Herald”). When the waitress came round, the first question he put to her was: “What have you got on to-day?” The young lady promptly replied: ‘ ‘Wliat’s that got to do with you?”

Cr. Sliirtcliff stated at last night’s meeting of the Timaru Borough Council that the business of the Electric Light Department was going on so satisfactorily that he confidently expected that it would be possible within the next few months to give electric light consumers in Timaru a reduction on Ihe present charges.

The log and journal kept by Captain Cook’s astronomer on board the Resolution between January and September, 1778, was sold by auction at London last week for £385. Midshipman Munkhouse’s log relating to the Endeavour from May 1768 to November 1769, fetched £IBO.

The rarest stamp in the world, the British Guiana one cent, of 1856, was found by a schoolboy in British Guiana. There was no space for it in the boy’s album, and he sold it for 6d. It afterwards went to Scotland, and was bought by the late Phillip , von Ferray. Last year is was sold to Mr Arthur .Hind, of Utica, for £7343—a record price.

The Geneva correspondent of the London “Daily Express” says the German economic penetration of Switzerland is becoming’ a serious danger. Herr ’Hugo Stinnes and other magnates have bought up several Swiss chemical anu cotton concerns, and are now attacking the paper industry. They have bought the AiJia Company, owning the biggest paper pulp factory in the country.

The presents bestowed upon the Duke of York and his bride showed more originality than those forthcoming on the occasion of his grandfather’s marriage. Ring Edward told Lord Fisher that his wedding presents included 800 cloth caps of the double-peaked type fashionable for men in 1863. He and Queen Alexandra also received about 1000 silver teapots, and something like 1400 cruets.

The Timaru Borough Council decided at its meeting last night to place before the ratepayers proposals for three loans aggregating £48,000, made up as follows : —Watlington drainage £7OOO, water reticulation £31,000, kerbing and channelling £IO,OOO. The Mayor said that the earliest the loans could be placed before the ratepayers would be August 15. Cr. Anstey expressed the hope that all the proposed loans would be carried, as, they .were for useful and very necessary purposes.

** , A' motor collision occurred shortly before 3 o’clock on Sunday afternoon, at the corner of Dean Street and Colombo Street, Christchurch, between cars driven by Mr William Dobbie,_ of Bealey Avenue, and Mr Arthur Shirtcliff, of Timaru. Mr-Bobbie stated that he was going west along Dean Street at about seven miles per hour, and he was unable to see the other car until too late to avoid an accident. His car was badly damaged, but the other one was able to drive away. No one was injured.

Probably in no part of the world can such extraordinary tree growth be shown with Pinus Fnsignus trees as in New Zealand, states the Nelson “Evening Mail.” Mr T. Hunt, on his property at “Highfield,” near Wakefield, recently felled fifteen large trees. ThesH&are certified as being thirty-six years old, and the yield in sawn timber from fifteen trees was 22,000 feet, or enough to build a large house. Mr Herbert Hunt, on the. adjoining farm, felled several twenty-year-old trees, which averaged 750 feet per tree. These trees, with timber, firewood and seed, netted their owner over £5 per tree.

Writing to a friend in Wellington, a prominent farmer and trader of Rhodesia describes interestingly the political conditions obtaining in that portion of the British Empire. The writer is evidently not impressed with, the present condition of affairs in South Africa in that respect, or with the outlook towards Imperial relationships. He does not think that General Smuts’s proposal regarding dominion status is in the interests of the Empire. He writes: “We know here what Massey, or: Borden, or Hughes means when they talk of dominion independence, and they do not mean the same as Smuts at all.

. . If people in Rhodesia did not know much about Mr Massey or New Zealand before last year, they know all about them now.”

A meeting of retailers, convened by Messrs E. Porter and J. W. Souter, was held in the Y.M.C.A. Rqoms yesterday morning to consider a suggestion to close for two hours on Wednesday afternoon on the occasion of the match between the Maori representative football team and the South Canterbury representatives. Owing to the short notice given of the mooting the attendance was not as large as could have been expected, about 15 business men being present. The Chairman stated that iho meeting had been called in order to arrivo at some decision regarding tlio Wednesday afternoon closing, so that business people and the public would know whether the shops would be epen or closed. The subject was fullv dismissed, and tlio opinion was held that sift there was not a fully representative meeting the. matter of closing or orher-wis-.e should be left to the individual, v/if.h the generally expressed feeling I ha t. '//bare possible employees should be given the opportunity of seeing' the match.