LOCAL AND GENERAL,

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 94, 22 April 1911, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL,

The executive of the National League has now formulated a policy which will be submitted to the general committee for ratification at a meeting to be held next week. Resolutions will be submitted on the questions of Sunday observance, liquor, gambling, and socialism. The executive is opposed to any unreasonable restrictions being placed upon reasonable Sunday recreation; it is opposed to national proMbitioa, and to local option, and in favour of the hotels being conducted under strict supervision; it is opposed to any further restrictions on the means at present enjoyed by adults of gambling, and is definitely against the abolition of the totoKiator ; the executive is also antisocialistic. In Chambers to-day, the Chief Justice (Sir Robert Stout) heard a petition l>y the tenants for life under the will of the late Sir Walter L. Buller, for power to sell the Papaitonga estate, Manukau. After hearing lengthy argument, his Honour said he could see no reason why the- request of the petitioners should not be granted. It would be beneficial to tlie life tenants and could not injure the children. The petition was granted, and costs were ordered to be fixed by the Registrar to come out of the property. Mr. M. Chapman, K.C., with him Mr. H. Buddie, appeared for the petitioners, and Mr. G. Fell for the trustees. Customs revenue for uhe week ending to-day totalled £16,744 19s 9d, in addition to beer duty £424 13s. For the corresponding week last year the figures were s Chwtoaw revenue £515,295 12s 10d, and beer duty. £190 194.

There is an increase of 511 names on the Petone municipal roll, which will be used next Wednesday. The total now stands at 3155 as against 2644 on the previous roll. A deputation from the Patea Harbour Board will wait on the Minister of Railways (Hon. J. A. Millar) at 11 o'clock on Tuesday morning, to discuss matters relating to the management of the Patea wharves. William M'Carley, who was accidentally shot at South Karori last Sunday, is progressing favourably in the hospital. The pea rifle bullet, which lodged in hie back, has not yet been extracted. Miss Young, the honorary secretary of the South Sea Evangelical Mission, will give an address in the V.M.C.A. Assembly Hall next Thursday evening, at 8 o'clock. Miss Young will speak on mission work in the Solomon Islands. The public are cordially invited. For the Harbour Board election for a member to represent the combined counties iof Bruce, Tuapeka, Clutha, and Maniototo, no fewer than 82 polling booths are necessitated. It is anticipated the cost of the election will be between £300 and £400 (telegraphs our Dunedin correspondent). At the beginning of the year the Labour Department sent to all factoryownei'G a schedule to be filled up for the purpose of taking a census of the employees working under their control for the year, and the amount of wages received by each worker in each month of the year from let April, 1910, to 31st March. 1911. The schedules were returnable on, Ist April, but a number of factory-owners and managers have not yet sent along tho forms to the department, although a penalty is provided for non-compliance. < Councillor Brocklebank has given notice to move at next meeting of «he Petone Borough Council — "t,hat the council's share of rates owing -on the leasehold portion of Hutt Park be paid." This matter has already been before the council, and on the last occasion the Mayor was asked to prepare a report. This he has done, and it will be presented at Monday's meeting. There are several questions which have had to be considered, and the principal ones are whether the council should pay rates on the whole of the leased land or only on a certain portion of it, and also whether two or three years' rates are due. Other minor matters will also be reported upon. At a meeting of the General Committee of the New Zealand Competitions Society, held last evening, it was announced that dates, commencing on 24th October, had been fixed for the Opera House and Town Hail, the competitions to be held in the Theatre, and the final gatherings in the large hall. Mr. Scott Colville, secretary of the Auckland Competitions Society, attended and gave the committee some helpful advice. He suggested there should be three tests for choirs— an 'anthem, a hymn, and a part song, and the prize should be awarded to the choir scoring the highest aggregate points all round. Competitions for Boy Scouts were also proposed, and part singing for school children. Messrs Hall and Walker, of Sheffield, through the firm's local manager, have offered a £5 5e cup for competition. Is the Karori Borough Council, as a council, opposed t6 the introduction of gas into the borough? There seemed to be such an impression, said Mr. Dasent at the ratepayers' meeting last evening, but that, he added, was not co. He explained the position at length, acad said that the Gas Company did not quote a price to Karori, but that offered to Onslow was 80 per cent, "more than the sum the Karori Council pa-id the electric 1 lighting department. Moreover, when the company came out into the open, in the negotiations it said it would not enter the borough unless given from six fo twelve street lamps, and thirty or forty in live years. In these circumstances the council did not feel justified in allowing it to enter the borough. The council was perfectly satisfied with ite contract, and, personally, he preferred electric lighting to gas. What is to be done in regard to the Hntt-road between Petone and Wellington ? asked the Mayor (Mr. Bunny), at Lower Hutt last night. The work, he added, had cost £300,000, nobody knew what it would cost by the time it was really completed, ,aud it was simply monstrous to expect the local bodies concerned to pay the sum, demanded by tho Government at the eleventh hour. In demanding £100,000 for the construction of the road, the Government was practically asking the local bodies to pay an amount equivalent to the original estimate of the whole scheme — road, land, and railway. Before the local bodies paid their proportion of the cost, an enquiry should be held, and it should be ascertained how much of the £100,000 was really chargeable to road formation. In his opinion not more than £20,000 to £30fOOO could really be charged to the road account. (Applause). Tenders are invited by Messrs. Crichton and M'Kay, architects, for workshops and stores for the Union S.S. Company, at Evans Bay. The engine and boilei house will be in brick, but the rest of the premises v/ill be in stee!framing, covered with iron. All will be- on cement foundations,. The engineering and boilerrnakers' shop will be 190 ft by 100 ft, and the various other buildings will have a frontage of 455 feet to the main road. Provision has been made for stores, carpenters, joiners, sawmillers, upholsterers, boatbuilders, patternmakers, and other shops, also a sailmakers' loft. The boiler will supply steam to the laundry and the roof water will be cauglrb in a tank to contain 26..000 gallons for laundry use. The buildings other than the powerhouse and engineers' shop, which is 50ft high, will be of two floors and all will be divided by fireproof walls. Tramways will be laid down to each shop. The equipment of the engineering and boilermaking shep will be of the mosb up-to-date description. A tall chimney stack is to be built attached to the powerhouse. A tilt at the legislation causing local bodies to invest their sinking funds with the Public Trustee was indulged m by the Mayor of Karori (Mr. C. I Dasent) last night. The average interest the funds had earned, he declared, was £4 12s 6d, £700 brought b per cent., and £500 brought 6 per cent. The last tramway extension loan and any future loans could only earn from 3^ per cent, to 3£ per cent in Government securities. This was a great hardship, and most unsatisfactory from thecouncil's point of view. He had said so when the controversy engaged public attention, and the Prime Minister, in replying to the criticism, said that tho Karori attitude was unreasonable, as the legislation benefited the country as a whole. "I explained." concluded Mr. Dasent, amidst laughter, "that the whole country, so far as I was concerned, was the Karori Borough." A parade of the Boy Scout Senior Cadets was hold last night, and ten new members enrolled. The total strength of the company is now 97. A territorial oihoer put the cad-els through company drill, and the lads showed commendable smartness. Crepe Frileuse for evening wear, 44in wide, in vieux rose, grey, electric, pink, mauve, and sky. In robe, lengths at 5 poraeaa per. robe.— Kirkcaidttj and Stains, Ltd.— Advi.

"No borough, in New Zealand is better equipped than the Karoi'i Borough Council for economic working, and the engineer can show results that compare with those of any local body,"' said Mr. Dasent at last evening's public meeting. Once again last evening an appeal was made by Councillor Piper for the appointment of a Registrar of Births, Deaths, and Marriages at Petone. He thought it an extraordinary thing that anybody who wanted a marriage license should have to make a journey to Wellington. "It is not the right way to encourage young people to marry," he said. The Mayor of Karori (Mr. C. 1. Dasent) told the ratepayers last evening that excellent progress had been made in the matter of collecting the rates, and latterly subsidy had been paid on every penny. (Loud applause). This year, he added, only £81 would need to be collected to again achieve this desirable result. The council had no overdraft. The performance by s the St. Anne's and Marist Brothers' cadets at the Town Hall last night was evidently greatly appreciated. The St. Anne's cadets' champion route-marching tea-m, under Sergeant Turner, gave a fine display of physical drill in a manner that reflected the highest credit on their instructors and themselves. At the conclusion of the "turn" the lads were loudly, cheered. "The best advertisement that Karori ever had was the opening of the uty, cemetery here." This statement, which was mad© by Mr. Dasent, (Mayor of Karori) at last night's public meeting, raised an outburst of mirth. " Well," he added, "that is where the most of our tram revenue comes from. Many. Karori people do not know yet that they have a public park. From our point of view, it is certainly the next best thing to a cemetery." (Renewed applause). At a meeting of the Petone Weefc School Committee last night, it was reported that negotiations with the jsclucation Board in connection with the erection of a miniature range at the school were now complete. The number of pupils on the school roll at the end of the last quarter was 403. The average roll number now is 397, and the average attendance 372. In his report, the headmaster (Mr. Bedingfield) thanked members of the committee for the courtesy) and assistance given him during last! year, and he concluded by making com-, plimentary reference to the staff genei rally. No-license matters were discussed at a 1 meeting held in Courtenay-place Congregational Schoolroom last evening, and re-> suited in the formation of a strong committee to conduct operations in the 1 East electorate in the coming campaign., The meeting, which was of an enthusiastic character, was addressed by, the Rev. J. Dawson, secretaay of the New Zealand Alliance, the speaker explaining the provisions of the Electoral Amendment Act of last session, calculated to guard against some of the abuses which, had characterised the taking of the local option poJl in the past. At the close of the address a committee or" over forty electors was formed, Rev. J. J. North being elected chairman, Mr. Wi, B. Strong secretary, and Mr. R. A., Parton treasurer. An executive was also elected to make arrangements for future operations. The peculiar feature of the Methodist Church (both in Australasia and the Homeland) is its itinerant system. All the changes of ministerial supply authorised by the New Zealand Conference have now been given effect to. Sa far as Wellington circuits are concerned, Revs. Josiah Ward (Trinity) and J. E. Clark (Karori) are the only two ministers of last year who now remain. The pulpit at Wesley Church is now ococupied by Rev J. G. Chapman (recently of New Plymouth), that at Thorndon (Moksworth-streefc) by Rev. C. H. Olds (who came from Masterfcon, where he had been supplying the vacancy caused by Rev. C. Porter's resignation) during the year of furlough which the conference granted Rev. T. Fee, and Rev. F. Rands (late of Levin-Otald circuit) has taken charge of the Kilbirnie-Islana Bay portion of the Wellington South circuit. Two excellent records of public service' were related by Mr. C. I. Dasent at Karori last night. The council, he said, was losing Councillor J. F. Spiers, who served the people for seventeen yeara, and wae tfia oldest councillor. The Town Clerk (Mr. W. F. England) had! served for sixteen years, and had! never missed a meeting. (Applause). A farmer in the North Otago district, who was summoned in a maintenance case in the Dunedin Police Court yesterday, gave some of his experiences as a result of the drought (telegraphs our Dunedin correspondent). It had been the worst season he had ever experienced in that district. Not one thing but everything had been a failure. H«( had had to sell cows which were worth £7 or £8 a head at the beginning of the season for 10s a head, which was jusb the price of the hide. He had been working sixteen hours a day an* wa-s- then unable to make ends meet. There were thousands of farmers with families in New Zealand at the present time who would have to live on £1 a. week For the last two years he had been unable to pay wages! to Efts son. and daughter, who worked fox- him on *he farm. Not a farmer had made money in the Oamaru district this year ; many had been ruined— in fact', they had only had enough rain there lately to lay the dust. As a result of a revaluation made, there as likely to be a very considerable reduction in the rating value of property in the Hutt Borough. In mentioning this fact at an address to residents last evening, the Mayor (Mr. E. P. Bunny) urged that all ratepayers should be treated alike. If th«re was a reduction in values in any particular locality, then every ratepayer in the vicinity should get the benefit of the reduction. The revaluations would probably result in a large reduction in the capital value of the Hutt district. In order to carry out its functions, th»' council must receive practically the tsamo amount of revenue as it was at present in receipt of. This c»uld be done without adding to the burden of the ratepayers, for, said the speaker, obviously a man paying a rate of Id in the £1 on a property valued at £1000 would not have to really contribute more in rates if his revaluation was reduced to £500 and his rate increased to 2d. He merely quoted the foregoing exampla in order to impress upon ratepayers the advisableness of seeing that they all got the benefit of a reduction in value, where one was made. You actually save money by checking your baggage through us. A' small fee for cartage at either end is all you pay. For that we collect, check, and deliver the baggage. .Enquire. N.Z. Express Co., Ltd. — Advt. It must be gratifying to tho councillors and the general public to find the financial position of tho city, as stated by tho Mayor <o be in such a satisfactory position. The result of the year's working aro none tho less satisfactory because a year ago Wellington expected hard tunes. Tho increased prosperity means an increased circulation of money, and with winter coming on ladies will be on tho look out for smart, new costumes. Such costumes may bo fotind in tho Mantle Depart meat, at C. Smith's, Ltd., Caba-staeet. bpecial lino rough Navy Serge Costumes, Norfolk styles, coat lined, stripe lining, skirt well cut, 50s; Ladies' Smack Tweed Costnmes, Norfolk styles, in gcev, fawn, i green, brown mixtures, 63s.— Ad^rti,