A Bright Outlook

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 10, Issue 13, 19 August 1946, Page 8

A Bright Outlook

Among the questions asked a New Zealand woman lecturing in England at public meetings on this country and the conditions prevailing here, was one by a potential immigrant who would not be suitable, according to a letter received by the brother in Wanganui of the speaker concerned. The question was: “How long do I have to live in New Zealand before I can draw the unemployed pension?”

Singapore Experiment Obliged to abandon a geological survey of Singapore Island when she was evacuated early in 1942, Dr. Elizabeth Alexander, who was engaged in radar research, in the Dominion during the war and who has left by the Ruahine for England, hopes to resume her hobby shortly. Interviewed prior to her departure, she recalled that before the war with Japan she had placed rock specimens in stainless steel packets in a mangrove swamp to determine the effect of weathering and to attempt to prove a theory. All her notes on geological research had been removed by the Japanese, she had heard, but she hoped to find her specimens when she returned, and to. resume her investigations into rock formations on the island.

New Road Machine

Before the war France possessed a magnificent network of roads but five years of war have destroyed the greater part of them. The work of repairing them has been held up chiefly because of a lack of manpower and so the Road Union of France arranged the demonstration of a new American machine in the Vendome region. This machine, which costs 10 million francs, can work at the speed of approximately 1100 yards an hour. It carries, spreads and presses 50 tons of materials (tar and shingle) a day and can entirely relay a road, —anti-skid and of first class quality. With three or four workmen the “BarberGreen” can do the work of a hundred roadmen and it has the added advantage of eliminating periodical tarring with its consequent waste of manpower.

Fiji’s. Hostel Needs,

“In his speech at the opening of the Fiji Legislative Council the other day the Governor, Sir Alexander Grantham, drew attention to the urgent need for hostel accommodation in the islands for the increasing numbers of passengers in aircraft calling there,” said an Auckland businessman just returned from Suva. “The Governor said the matter was one for private enterprise and let it go at that. In view of the shortage of building materials in Giji, it is extremely doubtful, in my opinion, whether private investors would be able to provide accommodation unless they receive immediate Government assistance. In other words, the Fiji Government will have to do more about the matter than express a pious wish for early action.”

Brigadier’s Capture A story that went the rounds of the N.Z. Division about the capture of Brigadier Keith Stewart by the Germans at the River Arno crossing in Italy is no doubt too good to be true but is at the same time too good not to be told again. It was said that Brigadier Stewart left his brigade headquarters to visit the headquarters of the Maori Battalion, which was then under his command. Guided up a wrong fork of the. road near the front he overshot his destination and his jeep was last seen beetling through the Maoris’ forward defence lines into “Noman’s Land.” The story goes that he was watched with some wonder but without a finger being lifted to stop him by two Maoris lying in the most forward position. As the jeep whizzed their brigade commander out of sight for the next eight or nine months one Maori turned to the other and said: “By korry, that brigadier, he the very brave man, eh? Jerry just around the corner, too.”