MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS.

Hokitika Guardian, 10 September 1923, Page 1

MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS.

AUSTRALIAN AND N-Z. CABLE ASSOCIATION, RESOLUTION BY WOOL BUYERS. LONDON, Sept. 7. At a meeting of the Wool Exchange British and Continental buyers resolved, unanimously, to pledge themselves to resist to the utmost the abolition of the one pound per hund-red-weight draft on wool. Sir William Raynor, President of the Colonial Wool Buyers Association, presiding, said that the draft- allowance did not entail a loss to the growers because the allowance, together with the freight and expenses, was calculated on a clean scoured reckoning and the price assessed accordingly. Sir John Higgins had started propaganda to abolish the draft and some astounding figures had been put forward, representing growers’ reputed losses, by allowing the draft. The statement that the draft cost pasloralists six million pounds in wool yearly was obviously unfair but it appealed to the growers who are now giving considerable support to Sir John Higgins’ scheme for holding up the supplies of raw wool with the apparent intention of raising prices and hampering the consumer. There is a strong conviction and fear in the winds of financial houses that brokers and all sorts engaged in the Australian trade liere that the underlaying agitation for the abolition was a political move of sinister meaning.

HISTORIC DIARIES. LONDON, September 7. The will of Mistress Morrison, widow Chinese Morrison, lias been proved at £38,443. She directs that her late husbands’ diaries and papers which have been read by Mr Capper (late Assistant Editor of “The Times”) fie placed with him with a view to his editing them. Failing him, and no other being found, the whole of the papers are to be deposited with the Mitchell Library, of Sydney, and kept from the public for twenty-five years, because they contain much of an intimate nature, and if they fell into unscrupulous hands, it is feared that much harm could be done. The will states tliose diaries form a valuable record of history in the Far East contemporary with the late Dr. Morrison’s times. His collection of Chinese porcelain, furniture, curios, and jade is to be equally divided between the three sons, with a request that, if they do not retain them, they shall give them to the Public Museum at Melbourne.

LABOUR DRESS. LONDON, September 8. The Trades Union Congress, by 3,000,000 votes to 800,000, has resolved to continue the publication of the “Daily Herald,” at least till the end of the year, if £12.500 is raised this month. SOFT WOODS NEEDED. VICTORIA (8.C.) Sept. 7. The Empire Forestry Conference, under the chairmanship of Lord Lovat, has concluded. Mr Owen Jones (Australia) emphasised the necessity ot conserving tho world’s sott wood supply. lie seconded a- resolution asking tbc Empire to conserve and augment its timber supply by growing coniferous timber.