LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16684, 16 March 1922, Page 6

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

The economy practised by the Health Department was shown on Friday in the city in regard to the hiring of motor cars (states the Auckland “Star”). It was noticed that when the Minister of Public Health visited the public hospital with the chairman of the board, tho chairman did not travel at the expense of tho Minister, but that the hospital car was requisitioned for the trip, and the Minister travelled by that car. This, of course, is broad as it is long, the people have to pay every time, but formerly the Minister would have got two or three cars, nnd taken all the members of the board with him. However, times have changed, and much economy is practised nowadays. Business people will take heed of an unscrupulous effort which was made last week to secure money from a city firm by false pretences (states the Auckland “ Star ”). The person concerned struck upon rather a novel idea, but it failed to get past a clerk employed at tho office, and the stranger can be said to have been lucky in not being handed over to the ponce. He conveyed a message by telephone “from Whangarei,’’ that one of his employees was stranded in the city, and that he would be pleased if, on his calling at the office they would hand him the price of a return fare to Whangarei. The person duly called, but the clerk in the meantime, suspecting that it was a ruse, communicated with the tele»phone exchange, and ascertained that the message received had come from the city and not from the northern township, with the result that the individual was, instead of being handed the easy money, confronted with the knowledge thus gained, but unfortunately was not detained.

That New Zealand-grown apples are increasing in favour in England is proved by the large quantities that reach Wellington almost daily for oversea transhipment (states the “ Dominion”). The s.s. Kaitoa, on Tuesday, from Mapau and Motueka, brought GOOD cases for the New Zealand Shipping Company’s Peshawur, which l\as been fixed to sail on Saturday morning for London. The ferry steamer Nikau from Nelson yesterday brought a fruit cargo for transhipment to the Federal steamer Leitrim.

Recent cablegrams have mentioned that the Imperial Government is disposing of the airships that had been retained for tho suggested Imperial air services, the reason given being lack of response on the part of the Dominion Governments. Replying to a question on this subject on Tuesday, th© Prime Minister said that he certainly could not recommend the New Zealand Parliament to provide a very large sum of money for experimental air services. Th© airships had mado some wonderful journeys, but they had not 3 T et reached the stage of development when regular communication between Britain and Australasia by air would be a practical proposal. The record of recent accidents was an answer to any claim of the kind. A fact to be remembered, said Mr Massey, was that an airship making the journey from Britain to New* Zealand or Australia could not have summer conditions on both sides of the world. The airships should prove their capacity to maintain services over shorter distances —between Britain and Egypt, or Britain and India—before heavy expenditure on round-the-world services was proposed. He was prepared to believe that aerial communication might be established throughout the Empire in years to come, but the time was not yet.

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