LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16321, 10 January 1921, Page 6

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

v Entries for the Canterbury Horticultural Society’s sweet, pea. carnation and rose show, which will take place in the Art Gallery on Thursday and Friday, will close to-night at nine o’clock. The secretary will be in attendance at the. society’s office, 166, Manchester Street, to-day between 3 p.m and 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. The supply of mill hands in the AshI burton County is fairly plentiful just i now, and the men are in eager demand, i Tt is stated that harvesters will not he j so easily obtained this year as in previous harvests, men who have come to ! Ashburton for harvest work on more than one occasion finding that the demand for harvesters has been overestij mated by reports. For this reason, men | are this year inclined to “ fight shy ” j of the county. ! The Tourist Department lias had a ; record season this year, states a Press ! Association telegram from Wellington, j All branch offices have been kept ex- ! tremely busy and all tourist resorts , have been taxed to the uttermost. The : patronage of these places lias been chiefly by New Zealanders, who also I are utilising the services of the. Tourist i Department for bookings to a greater ( extent than previously. The number of 1 overseas visitors has not heen great, though on trie Department’s visitors’ j books can be seen a fair sprinkling of j names of world’s tourists. Australia ! has contributed most of the overseas j visitors, and there has been evidence that the pre-war popularity of New j Zealand beauty and health resorts ! amongst Australians is reviving. This ! year the West Coast lakes have been extensively patronised. i Tli© greatest disappointment met with bv Miss Henderson on her trip from India to New Zealand was to find that sh© was obliged to send back from Calcutta a young native teacher—a girl of eighteen -whom she had hoped to bring to New Zealand for extra training, especially in the conduct of schools of several standards run by one teacher. Miss Henderson could get no satisfaction as to whether the teacher would be allowed to land at Melbourne to tranship for New Zealand, and even on paying a guarantee of £2OO there was no certainty that everything would work smoothly. At ! Melbourne Miss Henderson found that, f the teacher could have landed, but tho ! matter was entirely in the hands of i the Customs officer concerned, and it j would have been unwise to bring her on j from Calcutta and risk a hitch. Miss : Henderson was greatly disappointed, 1 as the opportunity was one that could j hardly oncur again. She had intended, also, to bring a little native ba.Lv with' ■ her, hut sent the child back from Calj cutta also. J The matter of charging retailers for I fruit cases supplied with fruit Was ■ ngam discussed at some length by the j Fruitgrowers’ Association at its monthly meeting on Saturday evening. The chairman (Mr F. Cone) said that some merchants were charging for cases and some were not. If they were not unanimous the scheme would break down, if growers sent their fruit only to those merchants who advertised that they charged for cases there would bo no difficulty in the matter. The committee had discussed the subject fully and had decided to send men to the various growers to explain the position to them. Tt only meant “hanging together ” for a few weeks and the whole matte*r would be settled. In reply to n. question the chairman said it was useless approaching the retailers. They would not discuss the matter and flatly refused to pay for cases. Mr E. PhilpoL-Crowther, s visiting agriculturist from Australia, said that in Australia cases had to be. paid for. There was no trouble about it—if the growers were loyal to each otliei* they should settle the question very quickly. They had tho matter in their own hands—it was only a question of standing firm and the retailers»would have to pay for cases. At this stage further discussion of the matter was taken in committee and no report was made when open business was resumed.

Some strong comments on the sugar shortage were made at the monthly meeting of the Canterbury Fruitgrowers’ Association on ‘ Saturday evening. The chairman (Mr F. Cone) said that representation had been made to the Brim© Minister and the local members of Parliament but still the sugar shortage continued. Householders and jam factories were very short of sugar but the breweries seemed to get plenty. Mr J. Longton criticised the Board of Trade’s attitude in tho matter, stating it was absurd tor the board to say that sugar was available for jam making. The scheme by the association for the distribution of sugar bv fruit growers with jam fruit had been criticised but the same scheme had been in operation in Australia for the past two years. Householders at present could not even get two pounds of sugar. The fact was that people had been “ starved ” of sugar for twelve months and wo had not yet mad© up the shortage. Another member of the association stated that someone had been advertising twelve pounds of sugar with every twelve pounds of currants purchased. Mr Longton said this bore out his argument that tho present method of distribution was quite wrong. Some people had more sugar than they would use in a year while others could not get anv. Tt*\vas decided to wait upon Mr W. G. M’Donaid chairman of tho Board of Trade, and place tile position before him, hut Q? 1 subsequently discovered that Mr M Donald had returned to Wellington it wax decided to ask the New Zealand Fruitgrowers’ Federation, which will meet in Wellington in the near future, lo tako the matter up and make representations to the authorities concerned.

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