LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Waipawa Mail, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8200, 28 June 1919, Page 2

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Only one Waipawa applicant was successful in the Te Kura ballot at Napier, Mr R. Davis. A very much curtailed railway service will be brought into operation on Wednesday next, owing to the coal shortage. Official notification is published in our advertising columns.

The new session of the cabinetmaking class in connection with the Waipawa Technical Association will commence on Monday, July 7th. Intending members can apply to W. Smith (director) or J. Riddles (instructor) .*

The Auckland branch of the Returned Soldiers’ Association reaffirmed the principle of political action and instructed the executive to take further steps to try to change the constitution of the New Zealand Association in this respect.

Good range in Dress Materials, Velveteens, Silks, Blousings, now showing at Hood Bros.*

The Hawke’s Bay County Council has decided to hold a conference of delegates from the Eijst Coast local bodies on Friday, July 11th, 1919, at 11 a.m. at the Hawke’s Bay County Council Chambers, Browning street, Napier, to discuss the questions of a’ “local body scheme” for harnessing Waikaremoana.

The snowstorm on Wednesday night played havoc with the telegraph and tejephone wires throughout the district. Between Waipukurau and Dannevirke the train service was dislocated considerably, owing to the difficulty of getting the tablet signals through. On the Waipawa-Onga road quite a number of telephone posts were broken off by the weight of the snow.

On Tuesday afternoon Mrs H. M. Rathbone presided over a meeting of ladies who had assembled to arrange for the forthcoming school ball. It was decided to hold the ball on two nights in August; the first night for adults, the second for children. The next meeting of the committee will be held on the last Friday in July, and it is hoped that all ladies willing to assist will be present. Full particulars will be advertised later.

Sir James Allen has informed the Wangauni Chamber of Commerce that Cabinet has considered the, suggestion that the Saturday half-holiday be made universal throughout the Dominion, but could not see its way at the present time to authorise the suggested legislation. What is apparently a good payablecoal seam has been found on Mr W. Seifert’s property on the Sandon road, about a mile from Feilding. At the present time a number of men are engaged in opening up the seam, and the coal, which is apparently of good household quality, will be put on the market in about a month.

Gill Bros, give a final reminder of Mr Todd’s sale, which takes place on the premises on Monday, at 12 o’clock sharp. To those furnishing and the public generally this sale offers an exceptional opportunity to furnish at auction prices. Most lines are in oak and have been tastefully bought, and as Mr Todd is leaving Waipawa every line to the highest bidder are their instructions.

A request for an assurance of his support of a bill enabling women to sit in Parliament was made to Sir William Fraser yesterday by a deputation from the Auckland branch of the National Council of Women. In reply Sir W. Fraser said the promise made by Mr Massey that a measure on the subject would be brought down next session was an individual promise and did not bind members of the Government personally. He had grave doubts as to whether the proposal was practicable. The Minister indicated that he was unable to give the pledge asked for. The New Zealand Post Office, in accordance with the arrangement authorised by the Imperial Board of Trade, will accept parcels of foodstuffs, and clothing, and materials, and articles for mending clothing, for the relief of distress in enenm.v countries. The parcels must be supplied by way of gift, and must not exceed in weight lOlbs. each, and they must be addressed to the Emergency Committee for the assistance of Germans, Austrians, and Hungarians in Distress, 27, Chancery Lane, London. The postage will require to be prepaid. The Hon. W. D. S. MacDonald, Acting-President of the Board of Trade, interviewed with reference to the Board’s scheme for standardised boots, stated that the position is that the project cannot be proceeded witli until further legislation has been provided. Existing legislation, said the Minister, does not confer sufficient power to operate the scheme in the form which, as a result of circumstances that have arisen, it is necessary that it should follow. The Board, after consultation with representatives of the New Zealand Boot Manufacturers’ Association, has decided upon a comprehensive range of samples, but further action must be held over until the necessary Parliamentary sanction can be obtained. Sergeant G. J. Fama, of Wellington, who returned to New Zealand by the Maunganui, was in Germany a good deal after the signing of the armistice, and having (as a member of the Diggers’ Pierrots) to visit all the towns in Rhineland where the New Zealand troops were located had exceptional opportunity of observing the people there. “What surprised us,” said Sergeant Fama, “was to find how well dressed the people of Germany were. The men and women of Cologne were dressed just as well as the people of London, and with more care and style than you would find in Wellington. Paper clothes! No, not a bit of it—everything of the best. How they got them isanother question, but they were not badly off for clothes at all. There was no doubt about the food shortage—we saw that in many ways.” A meeting of the Waipawa branch of the Hawke’s Bay War Relief Association was held in the Borough Council Chambers on Thursday afternoon. Present: Messrs H. M. Rathbone (chair), J. Caughley, W. Cuthbertson, D. McLeod, T. A. Hogg, J. Milburn, and C. H. Critehley. Mr L. McKay was re-elected the branch’s delegate on the executive of the Association. A large, number of applications for assistance w'ere considered and dealt with. In three cases (two from Takapau and one from Waipawa) grants of £25 were made and the executive was recommended to grant another £25. An application from' a Hawke’s Bay man wdio is taking up land in the south for assistance in paying his first half-year’s rent was referred to the executive with a recommendation that if the application cannot be granted the executive should endeavor to induce the Land Board to advance the money. Several small grants up to £lO were passed. “Boots and common clothingstuffs” (says the Board of Trade in its coal report) “have shown the highest rates of increase in price, averaging about 75 per cent, for the mining fields in general, being lower in the south than on the West Coast and in the north, where the evidence showed the rise to be about the same (about 85 per cent.) This figure represents, however, the rise in average prices, not in the average expenditure on clothing, since there is available no means of accurately weighing the items according to relative amounts used. The prices of working clothes, socks, flannels, etc., as testified to by representatives of the Miners’ Federation, have increased over all the fields on the average about 62 per cent, (ranging from over 70 per cent, in the Waikato to about 55 per cent, on the West Coast). The price of suits of clothes has increased about 40 per cent, in each locality. A reasonable estimate of the increase in total expenditure on boots and clothing at pre-war amounts would be from 60 to 65 per cent. at. the most. If this estimate is at fault it probably slightly over-estimates the rise.” Special Values this week in Men’s Overcoats, Suits, Trousers Shirts Tweed and Felt Hats, Hood Bros.*