LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1348, 27 January 1912, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Concerts sometimes pay. The receipts for tlia concert given iu the. Wellington Town ll,ill ljy Jlr. John M'Cormack totalled over ,£450. The Auckland receipts were just over .£4OO. At the conccrl? given in the Exhibition Hull, Melbourne, and the Town Hall, Sydney, the receipts averaged ,£630 per concert.

The formal opening of tho new Marist, Brothers' School in Hawkestone Street will take place nt 3 p.m. to-morrow. His Grace Archbishop Redwood will preside.

Mr. W. S. Short, Assistant lender-Secre-tary for Public Works, is to return from Christchurch this morning. Of late ho has been acting as a commissioner, under the Public Works Act, in hearing a number of cases concerning the respective liabilities of adjoining local bodies, in regard l.i |ho upkeep of boundary roads and similar '.natters, For tho nest two or three weeks Mr. Short will bo engaged upon work of the same character in tho North Island. Cases await attention in Auckland, Wellington, and other districts. Ono of the loses relates to a dispute between the Karori Borough Council and the Makara County Council as to allocating the cost oi maintenance of the main Karori and South Karori Roads (Makara), and of the bridge over the South Karori stream. Mr. Short will sit to hear the parties to this dispute in the joint com-mittoe-room at the old Parliament Buildings on Monday next. Parties in these disputes are allowed representation by counsel, but Mr. Short sits as sole commissioner. The advent of the free-place pupil at the secondary colleges has apparently destroyed the incentive to scholarship competition. It was mentioned at the meeting of the Wellington College Governors yesterday that it would be necessary to review the condition governing the award of four exhibition scholarships, or tuitions, provided from a bequest of =£1500 from the wound-up estate of the Mutual Investment Society, as there was no competition for them. The chairman of the board (Mr. A. de B. Brandon) said that it would be necessary to apply to the Supreme Court for an order to vary the conditions. It was agreed to refer to. a scholarship committee tho question of preparing a report and drafting recommendations on the subjcct for the consideration of tho board. Some objection was raised by Mr. Robert Lee at the meeting of the Wellington College Governors yesterday to the system in vogue of making appointments to the teaching staff on the recommendation of tho headmaster (Mr. J. I'. Firth). Mr. Lee thought that tho Board of Governors ought to take a larger Stand of the responsibility than would appear to be .actually the case. His views were supported by Mr. W. 11. Field, who asked "what sort of a mess" the Wellington Education Board would be in if appointments were made on the recommendation of the head teachers of the schools concerned. Eventually, Mr. Lee gave notice of motion to have a Standing Appointments Committee set up to deal with applications for positions in the teaching staffs of the boys' and girls' colleges. There being no applicant for the position of lady teacher in experimental science at the Wellington Girls' College, Mr. Robert Lee, at the moeting of the college governors yesterday, asked why a man could not be appointed. A smile wont round the board table when someone remarked that the last male teacher at the college, the French master, bad married Hie lady principal. Further consideration of the question was deferred. The Newtown School was fumigated yesterday with formalin, under the supervision of the Public Health Department. By this means it is hoped to reduce sickness during tho coming term to a minimum. A man, who is wanted on a charge of theft as far back as May last, was brought to Wellington from Auckland yesterday. Ho will appear at the Magistrate's Court this morning. The charge against him is that he stole .£3 in money from Frederick Bird. The Stratford-Te Koura railway is being, well pushed on from the Tarnnnlri side, and wi.th the completion of the ten-mile section extending from Te Wera to Pohokura, tho line from Stratford (writes pur travelling correspondent) now runs some thirty odd miles. In addition, the Whangamomona tunnel, thirty chains in length, is almost finished, and it is expected thatiballust trains will be running into Whangamomona by tho end of another three months. The relaying of the line between Stratford and lviore is also now almost completed, but compared with other lines the road is exceedingly rough, and the jolting passenger cars are reminiscent of the present Picton-Blcnheiin railway service. As the result of the long spell of dry weather experienced on the East Coast, the Tokomaru Freezing Works have had to cease operations, owing to the shortage of water. The fresh water supply used by tho works was drawn from a dam constructed in the Waihi' Creek, above the works. The dam, which formed a reservoir, has a capacity for 30,000 gallons oi water, but with the continuous dry. weather ths creek lias dried up, and consequently no fresh water is available for the works. A number of butchers came down by Sunday's steamer. Efforts are now being made to draw-a supply of water from the Waima Croek, several chains further away from the works. Speaking of the success attendant on the production of. tho plays of Shakespeare in recent years, Mr. H. B. Irving, after discanting on the elaborate manner in which they were now produced, voiced another reason for the popularity of the Bard's works. "There are some people," said Mr. Irving, "who won't go to the theatre to see anything other than Shakespeare. I cannot understand their attitude quite myself, but it is so. With them Shakespeare means respectability. Curious, isn't it?" The tide of public reprobation in England is slowly but steadily rising against the prostitution of public honours to the exigencies of tho party war-chest. The price at which tho various grades of honour could be purchased by subscriptions to the party funds has been variously whispered for many, many years. Gradually, the muttering is coming out into the open, and being heard more loudly. In "Pearson's" Mr. James Douglas does not hesitate to put down the scandal in black and white. He not merelv states the well-known fact that knighthoods, baronetcies, and peerages are purchaseable, but there is oven a tariff for these titles. The market price, he says, is approximately Kniehthood. <£15,000; Baronetcy, ,£30,000; Peerage, .£IOO,OOO. Ho tells the story of a wealthy man who was confidentially informed that he could buy a peerage for <£80,000. The party agent was to get a commission of five per cent, for carrying tho negotiations through. The man got his peerage and then refused to pay! Mr. Douglas even ventures to draw up another table of the 96 new peers created during the last ten years: — Earned peerages, 49; bought peerages, 37; doubtful, 10; total, 96. The venality of these methods, he declares, is making a title tho sign of dishonour rather than honour.

The report of the Letterpress Printers' Machinists' Union to be presented at the half-yearly meeting notes that the union has regained the support and confidence of the lithographers, and they have approved of the demands as drawn up by the conference held in Wellington on August 7, S, and 9, Jflll. The lithographers' one renuest was that they should not lose their identity, which was approved by the Hoard of Management. "Apart from this," says the. report, "wo have been in communication with tho bookbinders and compositors with a view to federation, knowing that both time and money could ta saved if this were effected. These three trades have nruch in common, and have to meet tho employers at different periods, with sometimes the same differences. How different with tho employers, who have one federation or union, which nieets all sectional action of our disorganised unions in all parts of tho Dominion, and thereby cripples any attempt at conciliation locally. Wo are of opinion that until a federation is built up • by tho workers wo shall bo hopelessly beaten."

Particulars regarding to-morrow's church services will bo found on Pago 2 of this .issue. <