LOCAL & GENERAL.

Wairarapa Daily Times, 12 January 1932, Page 4

LOCAL & GENERAL.

The Okarito wash-up for <9 hours dredging yielded 61oz. 4dwt. of gok • A Hawke’s Bay sheepfarmor, finding it impossible to sell his heavy English car, says the Tribune, has converted the back into a lorry and he now comes to Hustings in comfort with four bales of wool behind and returns with a load of posts. He arrives home, having done his business, feeling that the trip has paid for itself.

In the House of Commons on 11th November, Big.- Gen. Clifton Brown (0., Newbury) asked for the money value of butter imported from sources outside the Empire during each of the last three months for which information is available) and, from countries it has come. When Mr. Runciman, President of the Board of Trade, gave figures showing that £6,636,400 worth of butter had come to Great Britain in three months this year from Denmark, Russia, Estonia, Sweden, and Finland, Gen. Brown suggested that steps should bo taken to stop these imports. Mr. Runciman said he would confer with the Minister of Agriculture.

Thousands of square miles of North Island soils are carrying on the surface the produce of ancient volcanic eruptions, and these showers of debris have an important effect on farm production and the health of stock. Two volcanic showers consisted of elements which have certain chemical deficiencies, and for 30 years have caused trouble to stock raisers through what is popularly called “bush sickness.” In the course of a very thorough survey of the disease of bush sickness, conducted by the Cawthron Institute chemists and officers of the New Zealand Geological Survey, the volcanic showers which have ,so greatly influenced modern farming in the North Island are enumerated. At least three great centres of volcanic activity have been concerned, and the soil survey only notes those where ash showers were deposited on what is the present surface, thus constituting the parent material from which the soils have been formed.

Copra prices are at an exceedingly low level at present, and are serious,y affecting the prosperity of Pacific islands, particularly the Cook group. Where, not long ago, copra was bringing ltd to 2d per lb., now the price was about Id, said Judge H. F. Avson, Resident Commissioner of the Cook Islands, who arrived yesterday on a two months’ trip to New Zealand. Like other countries, he said, the Cook Islands were feeling the effects of economic depression. At present prices of copra, Judge Ayson said, the native producer who grew his own coconut, found his own labour and did his own cutting and drying, made approximately 2s a day. European planters, naturally, found that the cost of production was more than the return they received, and one big European plant, which produced about 200 tons of copra a year, had closed down. The orange market was also in a very precarious position, mainly owing to the Australian competition.

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The Ulimaroa, from Auckland, arrived at Sydney this morning at 6 o ’clock also the Mararna from Wellington, at 7 o’clock, and the Sierra, from Auckland, at 7.30 o’clock.

A unique incident occurred on a tennis court in Masterton yesterday during a match between two boys, when the server acidcntally killed a sparrow with the ball as it flew across the line of flight.

Trobably for the first time in the Dominion, husband and wife were on the bench at the Gisborne Police Court yesterday morning, when the presiding Justices were Mr. and Mis. W. 1,. Goffe.

The chopping events in connection with the forthcoming show of the Paliiatua A. and P. Asociation are arousing considerable interest, and there is every likelihood of a sawing event being added to the programme.

The Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon. G. W. Forbes said yesterday that the question of a special session would be gone into by Cabinet this week. He said that the date probably would be in March, for if a session had to be held it must be held before the end of the financial year.

Now that the local streams are low Maoris are busy spearing large eels. Yesterday one weighing 271bs. was caught in the Waipoua River. Another was seen in the same hole estimated to weight anything up to 401bs. and an endeavour is to be made to catch it. Eight eels, recently caught, all weighed between 20 and 301bs. All of the large eels Avere found to have swallowed trout up to lib. One was found to have swallowed a hedgehog.

A promise that he would inquire into the dismissal 'of returned soldiers from the Addington Avorksliops was made b> the Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon. G. W. Forbes, to a deputation from the Returned Soldiers’ Association, which waited on him yesterday afternoon. A similar promise was made to a request from the Disabled Soldiers’ Re-estab-lishment Committee that the granting of an economic pension to those in receipt of a small wage would be continued, and that wages be subsidised from the unemployment fund.

Sixty-four drums containing aluminium cable, imported by the Public Works Department from Canada, will be shipped' back to Winnipeg by the steamer Canadian Challenger from Dunedin. It is understood that the cable, Avhich was landed in New Zealand some time ago and conveyed to the Waitaki hydro electric Avorks, is not suitable, and it will be replaced by another shipment. The consignment is at present stored on the Victoria whaif. A further shipment of aluminium cable will be landed at Dunedin early next week from the steamer Canadian Transporter. The cable was shipped at Montreal and is consigned to the Waitaki works.

What was described by Detective J. Walsh as “a dissertion on road sense,” was (given by a witness in the Magistrate’s Court at Wanganui during the hearing of an inquest (reports The Chronicle). The witness, in describing a. man as a careful pedestrian, claimed that there were two classes of careful pedestrians. There was the ordinary careful man and the extraordinarily careful man. By the former he meant a man who would hoar a car sound the horn but would give no sign that he took any notice of it or had heard it. The extraordinarily careful man would

either ; look up at the car, step back, or stop. Counsel for the defence also had his ideas on the matter, and said that every child was taught that when it found itself in difficulties in crossing a road it should'stand still and not move backwards or forward until the traffic had passed. It was the first thing one learnt when arriving in 'London, he added. „ Towards the end of Novembei *o county council of Zetland had before it letters regarding the plight of the

inhabitants of Foula, one of the Shetland Islands. It appeared that the shop formerly open on the island had been given up. some time previously, and as a consequence everyone was running short of meal, tea, sugar paraffin, and other necessities; one letter went as far as to state that the people weie on the point of starvation. One member of the -county council suggested that the island should be evacuated, as had been done in the case of St. Ivilda. The council decided that it could take no action, and recommended that the people should do something among themselves to ensure supplies of food-

stuffs. Later news was that the island’s motor boat had landed three weeks’ supplies; sometimes, however, the island is isolated for six weeks, The people had no thought of deserting the island, as their crops are good, rents are cheap, pasturage is abundant, and the type of sheep superior to that of many others of the Shetland Islands. Since the Health Department’s ban

was lifted Motuihi has been the most popular resort in the Hauraki Gulf, and there is only one thing on the island that does not now welcome the great crowds of Aucklanders w r ho flock to its sandy beaches during the holidays. The 1 objector is the island goat, an animal curiously marked in black and white. “Billy” is supposed to be tied up when j there arc visitors; but he generally manages to get loose, and then the youngsters have an anxious time, for he has a nasty way of ‘‘butting in.” One lad left the island with a rooted objection to the whole tribe of goats, and black and white ones in particular.

After a delightful swim he was putting on his boots, and was struggling with a lace that had lost its tag and was • too conscious of a piebald menace ap- j proaching from the rear, a menace with ' a malignant look in its eye and a businesslike lowering of the head. Just as the little fellow was mastering the lace j the goat caught him fairly and squarely, and the most surprised boy on the ' island picked himself up several yards further on and chased a fleeing goat.

The stilts, the long-legged wading birds which have frequented the swamp areas along the Napier-Taradale road since the earthquake, appear to be getting more friendly every day. Prior to February last these birds were to be seen in large numbers on the swamp lands near Petane; but since the muddy waters near Taradale have become fresh they appear to be shifting camp to those areas. For months past users of the Taradale road have made friends with a lonely bittern, which is no longer disturbed by the noise of passing traffic and spends its time dozing in the sun in the fresh shallow water. This bird is becoming as popular with the habitual users of the Napier-Tara-dale road as “Pelorus Jack” was with the sailors on the Cook Strait ferry steamers.

, It is believed, a Palmerston North Press Association mesago states, that the man reported yesterday to haye been found drowned in the Manawatu Eiver, is Sam Dennis, of Invercargill, aged 82. This information was furnished to the police by a resident of Palmerston North who read the description published in yesterday morning’s papers. Dennis called at his house on Saturday morning and declared that he was destitute and hungry. He told the householder that ho came from Invercargill and was two years of age when he arrived in New Zealand. He added that he had been in Auckland SO years ago and further said he lived with Bishop Selwyn, assisting him translate the New Testament into Maori. He said lie had no relatives in the Dominion and that his father, who served in the Royal Engineers, had been drowned in Auckland.