Local and General

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 3, Issue 255, 8 January 1941, Page 4

Local and General

Boys' Band Practice. The Whakatane Boys' Band will resume practice on Ihursday, January 9th. Stranded at the Rurimas. A party of excursionists Avho were visiting the Rurimas Islands off Whakatane last Saturday were forgotten or overlooked by the boat which took them there and which had gone on to Whale Island. The upshot was that this group led n Robinson Crusoe existence for a night and a day before they were picked up, happily none the worse for their experience. Diving Board Barred. After having collected sufficient money for the erection of a spring board, on the landing near the Strand a group of local boys find themselves unable to proceed owing to the reservation of the abuttmenl they had in mind for the purpose of a landing sJage. The lads are naturally disappointed and are looking for some avenue which will enable them to carry out their project and provide the means for a little recreation in their leisure hours. The Greater Call. "We can't make omlettes without breaking eggs, and there is a greater call on the services of men as possible soldiers than in making ties and dressing gowns and, handkerchiefs," remarked Mr M. F. Luckie, chairman of the Wellington Manpower Committee, wherj a manufacturing firm appealed against the •calling up of its works manager and cutter for territorial service. "There has been a day when people went without these things, and Ave can do without them again if the war goes on much longer." The calling up of the man was deferred for three months to give the employees a reasonable opportunity of making arrangements to replace him I temporarily.

The Fifth Column

Commonwealth authorities are putting into operation secret plans for the biggest round up of spies and fifth columnists in the history- of Australia and the Pacific, in an attempt to stop leakages of shipping information. This was announced on Saturday by the Minister for the Navy, Mr Hughes, following further startling revelations of the uncanny information of British shipping movements possessed by enemy raiders. The quartermaster of the Rangitane, Edward Phillips, said that the men on the Rangit&ne were convinced that the information leakage was from New Zealand. "The knowledge that the Nazis had could not possibly have been available to the man in the street, and there will be another Roger Casement story when the full facts are disclosed," he said.