LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1391, 18 March 1912, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Tho Victoria, with English and Australian mails aboard, arrived in Auckland last evening. The Wellington portion rif the mails will come to hand by the Main Trunk express (his afternoon. 'J.ho case in which tho Government is priKcedinpf iigaiust the Colonial Sugar Helming Company, tho Merchants' Association of New Zealand, and certain mercantile etimpanies, members of that association, for allied breaches of the Commercial Trusts Act, 1010, in respect of preferential discounts on the. sale of sugar, is to enmo up for hearing on Jlav next, 111 tho Supreme Court at Wellington. Messrs. JJiiddlo, Button mid Co. of Auckland, will appear for the Colonial Sugar helming Cov., ami Messrs. Young nml J ripe, of Wellington, for the Wellington merchants concerned. The State Guaranteed Advances Department has had a record year's business It hiul loans totalling nearly ten miliums sterling (li&trimit;d among its private and public clients, settlers, workers and local bodies, on January 31. Tho financial year ends on .March 31, so that definite figures are not yet available, though it is already clear that a record will lx> established. To-day will be observed as a Government holiday in honour of Ireland's patroll saint. The municipality, the banks; and insurance offices will also observe a holiday. Speaking nt the Adelaide Autujnn Show luncheon on March 9, the president, Mr. Kounsvcll, remarked that colonisation was having a great influence on politics and the social advancement of the world, fortunately .'for South Australia they had not had people of other nationalities thrust unon them in large masses. Practically only two nationalities had settled in South Australia, British and Germans, and a siilendid blend they made. (Cheers.) Out in" the agricultural districts one could see the result of the blend, for British and Germans had intermarried extensively. Among his own Cornish relatives, English, Irish, Scotch, and Germans had intermarried. (Laughter, and a voice: Which make the best blend:) lie could not say yet, but some of their grandchildren were repeating tho process. (Laughter and cheers.) A movement has boen started by influential groups of Australians (which include leading members of tho Royal Geographical Society) to secure the erection of a bronze statue of Flinders, the explorer and navigator, in the heart of tho city. The dean nml chapter in St. Paul's Cathedral have consented to the statuo bein? reared at the cathedral, corner of Swanston and Flinders Streets. The proposed statuo will represent Hinders in naval uniform, standing, sextant in hand, on a high granite pedestal, on four sides of whieli will be plaque-s representing (1) Flinders and Bass in the Tomb Thumb; \i) AY reck Keef, departure of Flinders; (.'!) the Investigator and Gecgraphe meeting nt Encounter Bay; and (■)) tho Investigator entering Port Phillip Heads. It is hoped that the movement now inaugurated will be 'so successfully pushed during tho present year that by the beginning of 1913 it will be possible to erect the statue. The fire brigade was called out to a small fire in a six-roomed house belonging to Robert Malison, at 7 Windsor Place lust evening. Tho fire, which had spread from a curtain set alight from a candle was speedily put out by the. brigade. Mr. H. Salmon, manager of tho Dunedin branch of the Bank of New South Wales, leaves Dnnedin on April 10 for a trip to the Old Country. He and Mrs. Salmon leave by the Maungnnui, and join tho,new Orient liner Orama in Australia. They will bo absent from the Dominion for about nine months. Mr. Salmon has spent thirty-eight years in the bank's service, of which seventeen years were in Queensland, six years in Western Australia, three years in New South Wales, and the balance of twelve years in Dunedin. It is now something like twenty-three years since he has had extended leave.