LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 9271, 25 June 1908, Page 3

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

« Mr J. J. Thompson has given £2 to the Mayors Coal and Blanket Fund. At a sitting of the Lyttelton. Police Court this morning, before Mr G. A. Lewin, J.P.,' a first offender was convicted of drunkenness and let go without penalty on hie undertaking to leave the town. • Mr C. M. Gray. M.P., to-day received a telegram from the Hon J. M'Gowan, Minister of Justice, stating that the oontrac\for a new Magistrate's Court at Ohristchurch has been let to" 'Mr H. Green, the lowest tenderer. At one stage of the proceedings in the Arbitration Court this morning a see-saw alternating examination of witnesses was in full swing sby the Union and employers' representatives. This was brought to an abrupt close by His Honor saying 6halrply : I really cannot allow this cross-examination and re-cross-examination, and re-examina-tion, and re-re-examination." The values put upon personal property by the owner and by an outsider are notoriously divergent, and an instance of this came before the Arbitration Court this morning" in the carpenters' dispute. Various witnesses called by the Union had expatiated at length up.on the value of their kit of tools the amount being stated at anything over £5 or £6. " What is the average value of your carpenters' kit of tools?" asked Mr Chick of a wellknown builder. "Scrap-iron would be the value of some of the kits," replied the witness pointedly. "I think," said Mr Chick in the carpenters' dispute, " that the Union will agree with me that it is desirable to have the holidays alike in all trades, and that therefore it will approve of the deletion of Anniversary Day from the carpenters' holiday." An emphatic and vogorous " No " came from the Union representatives at this stage, and one of them added that the Union would be quite willing to increase the holidays as much as the employers likes — a suggestion which was received by the employers' representatives with an unsympathetic silence.