LOCAL AND GENERAL

Waipa Post, Volume 44, Issue 3180, 21 May 1932, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL

All appreciable increase in production over the corresponding month of the previous season has been experienced by the Kakepuku Co-operative Dairy Company. The advance payment has been fixed at 9d a lb. butterfat, the distribution amounting to £396 16s sd. In April last year, when the monthly advance was at the rate of 7d a lb., £253 14s 7d was disbursed.

The value of the game of Rugby football as a test of character was emphasised by the president of the Merivale Football Club, Christchurch, Mr A. E. White, at a jubilee dinner last week. "If he plays the game on the field a man will play it off the field as well," he said. "After you have played football with a man for a season or two you can tell whether you may trust him or not."

Boarding allowances to primary school pupils who are unable to attend a school within convenient distance of their homes will be discontinued, according to intimation received by the Wellington Education Board from the Education Department. Payment is to cease as from the end of the present term.

The hutment scheme, in operation by the Otorohanga County Council for housing its relief workers _ engaged on country roads, was considered by one or two speakers at the ten-acre farm meeting in Otorohanga yesterday to be more attractive than that outlined by Mr Cockayne, and that men suitable for farming would be loath to abandon that system to take on the new one. However, Mr Cockayne maintained that a little examination of the new plan would soon convince hesitant ones.

The Dominion executive of the New Zealand Farmers' Union in Wellington on Wednesday decided to hold the annual conference on 6th, 7th, and Bth July, the executive to meet on the first day. It was further decided to recomSmend the provincial associations to nominate only half the usual number of delegates. The president (Mfr W. J. Poison) said it would have a large sum in travelling expenses, and would result in reducing the conference expenses by two-thirds. The amount would be reduced to about £IOO.

The Waikato Show Association has arranged to establish Women's Institute courts at their forthcoming winter show. A -shield offered by the above association will be presented to the institute branch making the most comprehensive and artistic display. Exhibits may include needlework, preserves, cookery, home-made wine, arts and crafts ; « potted meats and vegetables, soap, butter, garden produce and thrift. Te Awamutu members are asked to leave their exhibits at Mr Wynyard's office before next Friday.

The undue burden the wool industry was carrying in shipping freights was referred to by the president of the New Zealand Farmers' Union, Mr W. J. Poison, at the meeting of the Dominion executive last Wednesday night. He said that the meat -and dairying interests had pressed for cheaper freights, which had been granted at the cost of increased freights on wool. "The poor old sheep," he said, "is carrying the burden to-day, the freight Home being as high as Id a lb, which is outrageous. It is not fair that the sheepfarmer should be forced to carry such a burden."

The Te Awamutu Co-operative Dairy Company supp-iers will participate in an advance of 9d a lb. for butter-fat supplied during April, in addition to a id bonus to shareholders.

At yesterday's meeting of Te Awamutu Electric Power Board a total of £137 10s was written off as bad debts. It was explained that the bulk of this amount is due by consumers who have since gone bankrupt, and some by persons who have " flitted " from the district.

The ordinary monthly meeting of the Waipa County Council, to have been held on Monday next, will not be held until Wednesday, which is the date of the statutory annual meetings of all county councils. On that occasion, after the business of the annual meeting has been disposed of, ordinary business will be considered.

The local Orphans' Club, which will commence its 1932 session this evening, has received an invitation to attend the Devonport Club's social evening on Saturday, 4th June. Te Awamutu Club, by the way, has an accession of 33 new members this season, and the resignations were less than half that number.

Mr A. Livingstone, of Whatawhata, who, on the re-count of valid votes, was successful in the contest for the Auckland Harbour Board as representing the Waipa, Raglan, and Wa'ikato counties, is a Waipa county councillor, and represents that body on the Waikato Hospital Board.

Counterfeit Australian florins, dated 1927 and 1931, have come tfftder the notice of the banks. They can easily be passed and be accepted as genuine. They are lighter than the real coins by about a quarter. The nitric acid test is unreliable unless the base metal underneath is exposed.

Answering a question by Mr Lethbridge at Friday's meeting of Te Awamutu Electric Power Board, the secretary-manager said that since the Board's insistence on genuine Australian hardwood poles not one of them, totalling some hundreds over the past four or five years, had proven faulty to the extent of having to be replaced.

Building activity is much more animated in Te Awamutu and neighbourhood just now than was the case at this time last year. Though there is no suggestion oft a "boom," locjal building contractors appear to have work in hand to keep them going for a few weeks at least. New houses and additions and alterations to older homes are the chief features. The fall in prices, both material and labour, are factors 'in the activity. After having successfully farmed the property for over fifty years, Mr James Taylor has offered the greater portion of the well-known "Bardowie" estate to the Government for cutting up under the Unemployment Board's small-farm scheme. At the monthly meeting of the Cambridge Borough Council the property was strongly recommended for the purpose.

Mr F. Lye, M.P., who has just returned to Cambridge after touring the Hawke's Bay province, informed an Independent representative that the countryside of the PJast Coast was looking exceptionally well at the present time. Of late frequent rains had brought about an abundance of feed in the pastures. Farmers bad stated that not for many years had grass been so plentiful at this time of the year.

Our paragraphs in recent issues re the low prices for gold offered by hawkers and their suggestion to prospective sellers that they were acting on behalf of the Government has had some effect, for the hawkers have "moved on," and an Auckland firm, declared to be reputable with an established connection in the Dominion of over 25 years, has opened a depot in Te Awamutu, for the purchase of old gold trinkets, jewellery, coins, etc., at top market prices.

Another of the series of very popular staff- dances at the Tokanui Mental Hospital was held on Thursday evening, and it proved even more successful than the preceding one. There was a large attendance of guests, and to music supplied by Patterson's Syncopators dancing was kept up merrily until after midnight. Mr G. Dalton contributed an enjoyable extra. A spot waltz competition was won by Miss D. Brill and partner, and a Monte Carlo competition by Miss Ferguson and partner. The arrangements for the pleasure of guests were complete in every respect.

Although the primary schools will resume on Monday after the first term holidays, no instructions have yet been received by the Auckland Education Board regarding the age at which new pupils will be admitted. A clause in the Finance Act passed during the recent session of Parliament raised the permissive age of entry from five years to six years, the change to be effective " after the passing of this Act," which became law on May 10.

A waggon attached to a goods train from Frankton was derailed yesterday afternoon shortly after three o'clock about one mile and a-half from Ngongotaha. About a quarter of a mile of the permanent way was damaged and the line was blocked for several hours. A breakdown gang was soon on the scene and the line was clear for traffic this evening, but the inward and outward Rotorua expresses were delayed. The track was repaired shortly after 6.30.

Mr E. H. Oudaille, a prominent settler in the Otorohanga district, is one of the " doubters" about the feasibility of the small-holding plan as outlined by Mr Cockayne at the Otorohanga meeting yesterday. Mr Oudaille contended that an almost identical plan was evolved, and put into operation in the late 'nineties of last century by the Hon. R. J. Seddon, and it soon proved an absolute failure. He asked: Are we going to start the same thing over again? Personally, he found it most difficult to obtain suitable labour for fencing work. It would would appear that many men absolutely would not leave the towns for outback locations.

Empire Day will fall next Tuesday. So far as official recognition is concerned the occasion will be embraced in the public holiday on the birthday of King George V., which will fall on Friday, June 3.

" Rather ominous, that thirteenth year," laughingly said a member at yesterday's annual meeting of Te Awamutu Electric Power Board when the chairman's honorarium was further reduced. " Yes, and this is Friday," added another. In the course of a chat yesterday with Mr A. H. Cockayne, that gentleman mentioned as an interesting fact that at the present time there are some 75,000 farms in occupation throughout the Dominion. It should be possible, he added, to place a further 60,000 small-holders on the land.

Yesterday morning Master Jack Mensforth, son of Mr W. Mensforth, of Mangapiko Street, had the misfortune to sustain a fractured right forearm through the engine back-firing while he was cranking a motor car. Medical examination showed that the arm was broken in two places. He was taken to Hamilton yesterday to have the arm X-rayed.

A story somewhat suiting the times was briefly expressed by a man who stepped from one of the hote.s in Te Awamutu the other evening shortly before 6 p.m. He had a puzzled look on his face as he left the building and then, giving expression to his thoughts, he mumbled, " He's talking about miracles—he said something about one thousand pounds."

" It seems to be a splendid scheme for the dairy farmer to get more or less permanent and cheap help on the farm," observed a district farmer when the Government's new scheme for placing unemployed men and their families on ten-acre farms was under discussion at the Town Hall last evening?

Mr C. Langkilde, a prominent Otorohanga settler, stated at the land settlement meeting there yesterday that the plan expounded by Mr' A. H. Cockayne, assist-director of Agriculture, should be as successful in New Zealand as it is in his native country, Denmark. People in New Zealand should support the plan in every possible way.

An unrehearsed comedy was enjoyed by a group of patrons at one of the Te Awamutu theatres the other evening. A well-known business man had taken precaution against the cold temperature by concealing a hot water bottle neatly below his vest. But during the evening the container somehow twisted into an upsidedown position and the stopper proved to be faulty. The rest of the story need not be told, only it is not safe to mention hot water bottles to the gentleman concerned.

Low prices continue to rule in the London market for butter and cheese. This weeks official quotations are 94s to 95s a cwt. for finest, compared with 97s a cwt. last week. Cheese prices are also easing. Each week rates for New Zealand have receded about Is a cwt. for white and coloured. This week prices are down 2s for Canadian as well as New Zealand, but even at "the present New Zealand rates of 56s for white and coloured, the prices compare favourably with those for buffer.

It takes a very smart dog to kill a hedgehog, but a sporting dog owned by Mr Bert Higginson, of Featherston, has rather a novel method of destroying these animals. After finding the hedgehog he carefully picks it up with his teeth and carries it to the nearest water pool, into which he drops it. The hedgehog immediately uncurls itself to swim, when the dog pounces on it and bites its head, death being almost instantaneous.