LOCAL AND GENERAL

Timaru Herald, Volume CLI, Issue 22297, 13 June 1942, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL

Just fur a Loot. “I want to see a packet of lupin seeds, please,” asked a woman shopper recently, as she placed her basket on a bunch of parsley in the gardening department of a large Wanganui store. "I am not buying it,” she added, as the assistant produced a docket. "I only want to see how to transplant them, as the rain has washed the instructions off the envelope I left in the garden." First Miss in 45 Years An attendance record which probably has few equals, that of Mr Eustace Russell, a member of the Council of the Southland Acclimatisation Society, was brought to light at the meeting of the Council of the Society this week. In apologising for unavoidable non-at-tendance at the annual meeting of the Society, held recently, Mr Russell said that it was the first time in 45 years that he had missed attending the annual meeting. Good Shearing “I don’t think it is fair that I should be held back when married men are being taken for military service,” remarked a shearer, a single man, this week when an appeal on his behalf by the Director of National Service was lodged before the Armed Forces Appeal Board in Invercargill. “This appeal has been brought about through no fault of mine.” The chairman (Mr J. R. Bartholomew) commented on the shearing and crutching carried out last season by the reservist and said he had shorn 12,425 sheep and crutched 23,000. “That is a good performance, and shearers are in short supply,” he added. Rotary Anniversary This month the Rotary Movement in New Zealand celebrates its 21st anniversary. It was largely introduced through the efforts of the late Sir George Fowlds in 1921. He had contacted Rotary in America the previous year, when he had travelled across Canada and the United States. The first clubs were formed in Wellington and Auckland, and the movement gradually spread throughout both islands. Before the end of the first year the first Rotary Conference in New Zealand was held in Wellington, thus making a record for any new Rotary territory in the history of Rotary International. Warning to Secretaries "Problems that have presented themselves in bomber areas bring to our notice forcibly the necessity for making full provision for the preservation of important documents and records, and the duplication of records where the originals cannot be removed to a place where war damage is improbable,” said the chairman, Mr G. W. Hutchison, at the annual meeting of the New Zealand branch of the Chartered Institute of Secretaries. Those who had not already done so should examine the position of their institutions immediately and take whatever steps were available to preserve the normal functioning of the organisation should damage occur. A Wide Discrepancy An investigation into the availability and cost of wool and the need for rationing is to be sought by the Couth Taranaki Farmers’ Union, which, at its annual conference at Hawera, decided to ask the Price Tribunal to condu t such an inquiry. The president, Mr W. A. Sheat, said the wide discrepancy between the price received by the farmer for raw wool and the price paid by the farmer's wife for knitting wool should be examined. It also seemed wrong that in one of the greatest woolproducing countries of the world there should be restrictions on the purchasing of wool. Commenting that it took fewer coupons to buy a woollen article than it did to buy the wool to knit it, Mr Sheat said the people should oe encouraged to buy wool and do their own knitting instead of being discouraged. “Churchill Auctions” Members of the executive of the appeal for book and art treasures which, with the Churchill Book, are to be auctioned in aid of the patriotic funds are themselves contributing to the interesting collection being ’ -jilt up. Among these contributions is a collection of valuable New Zealand books from J. M. A. Hott, and from the same donor three of the famous etchings on New Zealand executed by Charles Meryon when he was in the Pacific in the corvette Rhin. Meryon’s work always excited keen interest, and these are particularly fine specimens of his art and should bring handsome prices at auction. Mr Pat Lawlor, organiser of the appeal, visited Auckland and Hamilton, and in both centres strong committees were set up, with the Mayor in each case as chairman. Shortly the Mayor of Wellington will be calling a meeting of prominent citizens to form a general committee. Further suitable gifts for these unique auctions are solicited. Britain Carries On

A copy of an amazing chronicle ol British industrial effort, published under the title of "British Trade :.nd Industry,” has reached a leading Napier business firm. Self-styled a “survey of past achievements and future prospects,” the volume, in its 330-odd pages of dual-language .literature and photographs, traverses virtually the entire field of industry as it is carried on in the great factories and workships of Britain, and is a reminder of what British enterprise has done to unlock for all the treasure-house of the earth’s bounty. As the foreword says: “It tells of what has been done—and what will be done again. It can only hint at the varied activities of British manufacturers at this moment, under conditions of total war. That story will be revealed in full one day, and it will amaze’the world.” A grim reminder of war-time exigencies is provided by the publication’s warning: "The fact that goods made of raw materials in sfjort supply owing to war conditions are advertised in this book should not be taken as an indication that they are necessarily available for export.”