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Hokitika Guardian, 24 June 1920, Page 2

The public support accorded the effort to have an Electric Power Board set up for Westland is very satisfactory. It is announced in this issue that more than the required number of names have been received, so that the prayer of the petition to the Governor-General should be effective. The petition still has some days yet to remain open, and will be presented to the County Council .at the meeting to be held twelve days hence. Thereafter the petition Will go forward through the proper channel to the Governor-General, and in due course no doubt authority will be given for the constitution of the proposed power board. It is very pleasing to find this initial work so well forward, and it is understood this is mainly owing to the interest the public took iii the matter. There were very few objections raised to the signing of the petition we understand, and as against these few there were N many ready instances of ratepayers to do anything to facilitate the introduction of electric power to the district. In different farming communities this was noticeable, the people having realised how the power could be adapted to so mansy ready uses about the farm. For industryl purposes available power will be in demand to a considerable extent. It will be for the body to be created, the members for which will require eventually to prepare a scheme to go before the ratepayers for final adoption. There is the desire to move as quickly jas possible as far as the preliminaries I are concerned, and apparently time is not being lost to that end.

) . The near approach of another session the Sew Zealand Racing Conference heralded by the publication of the usu , list of notices of motion Injuring i j alterations and additions to the rules | racing, and a perusal of the same i ■ veals that the delegates will have mai i important subjects placed before the ! for deliberation. A new rule dealii i with the licensing of trainers and joe ; eys is again numbered among the ii “• po 1-tan t questions that will be su mitted to the conference, and this w be proposed by the president, at the 1 quest of the stipendiary stewards. T 1 proposed new rule reads: —“That < licenses be granted by a licensing cor mittee of the conference and issued 1 the secretary of the conference.'’ Tin follows the consequential amendment ■sub-section 1 reading as follows: J each annual conference six persons she be elected to constitute, together wii the president, a committee to be calk the Licensing Committee, with power i grant (or to refuse) licenses to trainer jockeys, and apprentice jockeys sul ject to such conditions as the commi toe may, by by-laws or regulator (which they Are hereby authorised t make) prescribe.” At three previov sessions a. propoesd new rule on the? lines lias been defeated, but since th last vote was taken much has arise tending to strengthen the position c those agitating for an alteration, an there is good reason to expect suppor on this occasion from many quarter where hostility or indifference previous ly ruled, particularly as the propose has the support of the jockeys them selves. The proposal to appoint race course detectives is again to lie sub mitted. and that is evidently regal-dec as a. burning question in certain quarters. One notice of motion on the matter' takes the form of asking the Minister for Internal Affairs to con sider the appointment of such officer? as is the case with totalisator inspec- “ tors. The Dunedin Jockey Club is once again on hand with a motion for raising of the minimum weight in all handicaps from 6st. 71b to 7st, and there is a good reason to hope, with a greater chance of success of the same being ! carried into inflect than in previous years. This minimum-weight question has also apparently been claiming the attention of the weight-adjusters and the president at their request, will propose that at each meeting there be two handicaps of a minimum weight of not less than 7st. 71b. A series of new rules and amendments to those existing is to be proposed by the president at 'the request of the deputation of jockeys.. One of these reads:—“lf the highest handicap weight accepting for any handicap is less than 9st.. it shall be raised to that weight, and the other acceptors equally.” Another proposed new rule reads: —“At no race meeting between May 7th., and August 31st., inclusive shall the last race of the day be fixed for a later hour than four o’clock. The position as to the jockeys association is likely to come up also, and this question in particular will add a special interest to the conference which is to sit on the second week in July in Wellington.