LOCAL AND GENERAL

Waipa Post, Volume 32, Issue 1787, 27 July 1926, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL

Fire last night destroyed a wool-dry-ing room and a store in the fellmongery at owned by Mr Alex. McDonald. About forty bales of wool, valued at £BOO. were destroyed. The building was insured for £2OOO. It may be of interest to our readers to learn that confusion may arise in addressing letters to settlers in the Tokanui district because there is another district of the same name in Southland.

On Sunday morning next the colours of the local troop of Girl Guides are to be dedicated at St. John's Church, the historic edifice where colours of many organisations of a military nature have in the past been dedicated. Next Sunday's ceremony is therefore appropriate.

Members of the local Druids' Dodge, Pride of Te Awamutu, took part in an interesting contest last evening. It was,a ritual competition, for a trophy donated by Mr A. E. Patterson. Nine members competed, and a very close finish resulted between Past-Secretary R. Metcalfe and Bro. M. H. Williams, the former securing the honours with a margin of three points.

In reply to Mr J. R. Hamilton (Awarua). the Postmaster-General (the Hon. W. Nosworthy) has promised to look into the question of caning for tenders for the erection of telegraph and telephone poles. The member had ujrged that the present system of placing the poles in position by the Department's own men was a needlessly expensive one, and that the State would benefit greatly if the work were done by contract. Mr J. R. Hamilton (Wallace) gave notice last Friday of his intention to ask the Minister of Finance whether he would give the 'State Advances Department authority to grant advances for the repayment of loans on behalf of deceased person's estates which were being administered by the Public Trustee. Mr. Hamilton added that at present where a loan was being called up by the Public Trustee on behalf of an estate in which he was administering the State Advances Department would not grant loan s for that purpose because the loan was held by another Government department. When Mr Hosking, a Palmerston ' business man, was returning home on Wednesday, he remembered that he had left £lO in notes in the till, and decided to return for the money. It was lucky for him that he did so, because on Thursday morning he discovered that the premises had been burgled and that of 9s 5d change that had been left in the tittl, only Is remained. The thief had entered the shop by the back door after breaking a window to unlock it, and on departing, left the door open. Nothing else had been missed from the premises.

Apparently the people of Morrinsville are still looking to Te Awamutu to produce the plans of the Morrinsville swimming baths that were originally borrowed by a party of three from Te Awamutu, including a clergyman. Following receipt of a letter from the Te Awamutu Chamber of Commerce stating that nothing is known of the plans or of anyone from Te Awamutu borrowing them, the Morrinsville mayor at the Borough Council meeting, thought it might possibly be a Te Aroha deputation who -,had taken the plans. The engineer (Mr R. C. Branch) was emphatic that the party was from Te Awamutu. Cr. Chapman said a certain minister at Te Awamutu, since removed to another district, had taken keen interest in sport. It was decided to endeavour to get into touch with this minister. The new Minister of Public Works will take office amid a chorus of approval. Mr Coates has waited a long time before making this final appointment, and he has left the installation of Mr K. S. Williams, the member for Bay of Plenty, until very close to the opening of the session; but now that the appointment has been announced there will be little criticism of the Prime Minister's choice. Mr Williams has been selected without any reference to length of parliamentary service, and he enters the. Ministry as a young man, two facts that are in his favour. He is a "backblocks' farmer and a man well experienced in local administration. The portfolio of Public Works is an important one in this country, and it is a matter for congratulation that the man who will have charge of this department is conversant with the needs of the country districts. Mr Williams is the type of man to whom the public can look to carry on the doctrine enunciated by Mr Coates when he took over this department; the cessation of the practice of feeding -constituency cupidity as a means of securing votes. —Southland "Times."

The appearance on the Post and Telegraph Department estimates of an item of over half a million for the maintenance of telegraph and telephone lines was the signal for considerable discussion in the House on Friday, when several country members called attention to the necessities of their districts in 'that connection. A reduction in the charge for country telephone lines was strongly urged,. The Minister stated that he was considering a reduction in the toll fees over long distances, but at present he could not see his way to do anything about the shorter distances. There was an enormous demand from all districts for telephones, and money was still being borrowed to meet that demand. The item of £515,150 was agreed to, as was the item of £140,000 for the motor service and workshops of the Department. An instance of the interest that is being created by the probable introduction in New 'Zealand, of summer time legislation was provided a few days ago, when the president and the •secretary of the Wellington branch of the British Medical Association waited on the Minister of Health (the Hon. J. A. Young) and placed before him the views of the branch on the Bill. It Avas .pointed, out by the deputation that the Wellington division was wholeheartedly in favour of the Bill as a health measure The 'extra daylight obtained by all workers would be beneficial, while in the case of children nothing could do them more good. In the United Kingdom iSir Arthur Newsholme had characterised the Bill as the greatest aid to health that had been adopted in the present age.

The Te Awamutu Electric Power Board meets on Friday next. ' A reminder is given of the farewell social to Mr E. Taylor at Kihikihi this evening. The local residents who Graved the elements yesterday to he present at Arapuni, where the big explosion to bring down hundreds of tons of rock at the the mouth of the diversion tunnel had a most uncomfortable' trijp, despite the efforts of the.car drivers who had much experience of bad roads to assist them in negotiating the four miles of unmetalled road between Pukeatua and Arapuni.

One of the Te Awamutu visitors to Arapuni yesterday afternoon to see the big, 'explosion took three photographs of the explosion—one as soon as he could distinguish the big mass of water and rock being blown skyward, one when the debris was at its peak, and the third before'it had returned to water level again. He says that he had time to take a fourth photograph had he Iso wished. This should give a good idea of the duration of the explosion.

Control boards will only be able to look impotently on at world market movements, obeying the law of supply and demand. If they attempt interference they will get tangled up in the machinery and perhaps grievously hurt. The only price which needs and is capable of readjustment is the price of land. But the man on the land refuses to do any writing off of his capital invested in that way, although in his agitation for stabilisation of prices of products, through control boards or otherwise, he proclaims aloud to the world his own urgent need to face his real enemy, inflated land value. —Dunedin ''Star."'

(One of the officials at . Arapuni, •chatting after the explosion, remarked that he 'was standing some hundreds of yards away from the site, on the Te Awamutu side of .the river, and upstream, and it Avas the first time in his experience that he had seen the ground actually moved by the effect of an explosion. He had, of course, felt earth vibrationls as a result of quakes or explosions, but positively the earth visibly moved as a result of the explosion yesterday. It may be added that the charge used was approximately two and a half tons of high-power explosive, so the displacement must have been tremendous.

Quite, the best story going the rounds (says the Bulls correspondent of the "Advocate") concerns a Martonian who advertised in an Auckland newspaper for a, tady help, and finally selected, from a number of applicants, a person named "Whisker." The stranger duly arrived, and was met on the railway station. The Martonian's first question was, "Are you one of the Bulls 'Whiskers.' But once again that unfortunate name caused discord and misunderstanding, for the northerner "took the huff" and caught the next train back'to Auckland; Tlie Martonian is still advertising for a lady help! The first car to reach Te Awamutu from the Taranaki districts since the storm was a latest-model Rover owned by 'Mr Pearson, of Auckland, who was accompanied by a friend, Mr Parry. A Waipa Post representative, speaking With Mr Pearson this morning, learned that there were at timea. 'hair-raising experiences in dodging slipg.' : ''Ue likened the sensation of ploughing through flood waterts 'to being on a submarine. Rain fell in torrents, and the roads were covered several inches deep for many chains at a time. Mr Pearson added that he had completed a trip of 1670 miles so far. and hoped the last hundred miles to Auckland would compensate for the two 'hundred miles of excitement before reaching Te Awamutu last night.

The first question that needs attention from the Government is a larger measure of administrative economy and this will not be effectually gained by the adoption of any policy of merely pouring excresences in expenditure. Extensive savings can come only from wider action, in which planning and reorganisation of the departments controlled by the Government are carried out in the interests of economy and efficiency. Such a course will need more than an ordinary amount Of political courage. The. easy plan is to postpone the evil day, but the cern of a few years ago for more' rigid economy and more business-like administration is again becoming apparent, and the position calls for the careful and immediate attention of the House.—"Lyttelton Times."

The man who pioneers and fails to achieve financial success is not necessarily wrong in his ideals, or in the application of them. Speaking a,t Professor Riddet's lecture at Matamata last week, Mr E. C. Banks told how the late Mr J. C. Firth, the original owner of Matamata, believed—as is now well known-—that pumice soils needed consolidating. He therefore imported an enormous roller, which was being hauled .to Matamata by a traction engine when it sank in the ground before Matamata was reached, and could not be again moved. It was ultimately cut in three pieces and removed separately. One piece Avas used by the Matamata County Council as a road roller. Often the man who blazed, the trail might fail, tut others succeeded because paths were made through the wilderness and the way of the 'late comers was thus* made more easy.

Though things are by no means in the flourishing condition we would like the man on the land is beginning to rise above the troubles which followed in the wake of the speculators, whose criminal greed .caused land values to soar sky-high, compassing the ruin of many a new land-holder whose life-work was shattered when he was compelled to "walk off" owing to prohibitive prices for their land. There are many still hale and hearty who remember the days when 4d per pound was paid for butter-fat, and wool went for a song compared with presentday prices, and these old-timers have seen the revolving wheel of time gtfing •forward and not back. The agricultural and pastoral industries have been revolutionised, and the cost of living has reached a high level, and though the standard of living may recede, it will always remain high enough to provide a constant demand for farm products.—"Pahiatua Herald."