CHRISTCHURCH NEWS

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 19946, 2 November 1934, Page 5

CHRISTCHURCH NEWS

ITEMS FROM THE CITY CHRISTCHURCH, November 1. Personal: Mr C. R. Russell, a member of the Advisory Council of the New Zealand Broadcasting Board, is visiting Wellington to attend a meeting of the council. Mr B. S. Knox, town clerk of Lower Hutt. and formerly a member of the Christchurch City Council staff, is visiting Christchurch to take part in the Liedertafel’s jubilee. To attend the annual conference of the Associated Chambers of Commerce, which opened at Christchurch to-day, Messrs A. S. Burgess, A. E. Rankin (.Wanganui), J. Pearce Luke, J. T. Martin and H. S. Fairchild (Wellington) arrived from the north this morning. Temporary Captain F. W. Wilson, M.C., Lieutenant R. H. Bell, and Lieutenant E. W. D. Unwin, of the First Battalion of the Canterbury Regiment, have recently been notified that they have been successful in passing examinations for promotion. Mr B. F. Anderson, Intelligence Section, and Mr J. B. Andrews, D Support Company, have passed their examination for first appointment to commissioned rank. Building Permits: In all, 73 building permits were issued in Christchurch last month, compared with the 51 for October of last year, and the total value of the buildings was £45,777, compared with £21,222. Of the permits issued last month, seven were in the inner area, and the total value of the buildings concerned was £22,161. Since March 31, 391 permits have been issued in Christchurch, the total value being £170,937, compared with 359 of a total value of £112,075 for a similar period last year. Cathedral Anniversary: Fifty-three years ago to-day the Christchurch Anglican Cathedral, completed after many years of effort by the church people of the diocese, was dedicated. The day, which is also All Saints’ Day, is celebrated each year with special services, and this morning there was a celebration of Holy Communion by the Dean, the Very Rev. J. A. Julius. The precentor, the Rev. F. R. Rawle, will conduct evensong this evening and the service will be followed by a lecture on church music by Dr. S. H. Nicholson, formerly organist at Westminster Abbey and now director of the School of English Church Music at Chislehurst in England. Harbour Delegates: The delegates to the conference of the Harbours’ Association, which is meeting in Christchurch, left this morning for a motor tour round the port bays. The outing was for the whole day, the business of the conference having been suspended until tomorrow morning. The return to Christchurch was made via Tai Tapu, a stop being made at Otahuna for afternoon tea at the invitation of Sir R. Heaton Rhodes, M.L.C. This evening delegates and their wives were entertained at a social at Frascati.

liurunui Electorate: Representatives of the Rangiora branch of the New Zealand Labour Party and the North Canterbury Labour Representation Committee, who met at Rangiora, agreed upon the nomination of a candidate to contest the Hurunui seat at the next general election. The name of the candidate will be placed before the Representative Committee for approval at its meeting on Thursday night next, after which the name will probably be made known.

Disagrees With Leader: “Although I am a member of the Labour Party, I do not approve of the attitude taken up by its Parliamentary leader, Mr M. J. Savage, in opposing the Agriculture (Emergency Powers) Bill,” declared Mr Morgan Williams, cf Kaiapoi, to a reporter. Mr Williams is to be the official Labour candidate for Kaiapoi at the next general election. “The Dairy Industry report upon which the Bill is based is in my opin-

ion a v/onderful report,” said Mr Williams. ‘‘l consider there is so much in that report in line with the objective of the Labour Party that I am sorry to see Mr Savage take up a hostile attitude. There is no question that the report of the commission has in it a strong element of Socialism. The Labour Party is supposed to be a socialistic party, and so it is curious therefore that it should oppose the recommendations in the report.”

Higher Standard of Recruits: “The general standard of recruit seeking admission to the police force has increased greatly,” said Mr W. G. Wohlmann, Commissioner of Police, to a reporter. Mr Wohlmann said that every man accepted in the past 12 months had passed a proficiency or higher examination.

“Some of the recruits have been university men,” he said. "One had a degree in engineering, another was a chemist, one had passed several examinations in accountancy, one or two had diplomas, and several had matriculated.

“To some extent,” he said, “the depression has contributed to the class of recruit offering because of the closing of some avenues of employment. But the chief reason is that the police force is now more attractive for ambitious young men. Such men and those with a spirit of adventure and a bent toward that form of service to the State, which maintains traditions of safety, liberty and well being, find the work of the police an attractive profession.”

Church Music Authority: With the main object of making contact with and trying to assist the choirs affiliated to St. Nicholas’s College of England Church Music, Dr Sydney H. Nicholson, M.V.0., M.A., Mus.D., F.R.C.0., is visiting New Zealand. He is at present in Christchurch. Dr Nicholson is founder and director of St. Nicholas’s College, and was formerly organist and Master of Choristers at Westminster Abbey. In an interview with a reporter, Dr Nicholson was asked whether congregational singing in England was a growing practice, or whether the choirs tended to monopolise the singing. He replied that he thought congregational singing was well encouraged in England. and that choirs did not monopolise it to any undue extent. He had not yet had an opportunity of forming an opinion on this point about New Zealand, but he considered that congregational singing in Australia, which he has just visited, was very : bad.

He said that in Australia, choirs were very much larger than in England, in proportion to the size of churches, and there was a tendency to draw all musical persons into them, with the result that the singing of the general congregation suffered.

Shortage of Cigarettes: Aeroplanes were used to-day to rush suplies of cigarettes from Christchurch and Dunedin to other points of the South Island, owing to retail stocks being exceptionally low. Retailers, mindful of the fact that prices would be substantially reduced to-day, worked on very small stocks, and to-day the demand for cigarettes at the lower lower wholesale rate was unprecedented. Even in the city there were some tobacconists who could not satisfy their customers with the particular brands they desired, and it was some time before the retail orders could be met. The more or less general reduction in price amounts to one penny a packet. This reduction has been brought about through the lowered Customs duties, which operated from to-day. An unprecedented amount was taken from bond this morning.