LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIV, Issue 4573, 11 June 1923, Page 2

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Mails which left Auckland on May 8, via Vancouver, arrived at London on June 10. Tenders are called for the position of caretaker and cleaner of the Paeroa District High School in this issue. Yet another, change is being made by the Post and Telegraph Department in the collection of the rentals for telephones. For ; the past while rentals have been collected monthly, but-for the three months, July, August, and September,, the rent is to be collected in advance, due on July 1.

Of the tenders received by Mr E. E. Gillman, architect, Paerpa, for th? erection of a cheese factory at Orini for the NZ. Co operative Dairy Co., Ltd., that of Messrs Martin and Young, of Hamilton, at £2720 was accepted, and for the Wharepoa cheese factory that of Mr W. Marshall, Paeroa, at £1956.

The weather locally during he week-end was particularly unpleasant. A north-easterly gale was blowing from Friday evening until after, sunrise to-day. The rainfall for the past 36 hours was very light, only registering 1.35 inches, as compared with 3.62 inches recorded at Waihi. The Public Wor,ks office reported that no damage has been done locally. It is believed that a minor slip has occurred on the East Coast railway line.

The Mayor of Waihi (Mr W. M. Wallnutt) and the Town Clerk (Mr J. J. Ritchie) left by train for Wellington on Friday atfernoon to interview the Prime Minister and Minister for Public Works in connection with the Council’s request for a r,efund of the sum of £5OOO withheld l>y the Treasury Department, from gold duty to _(he borough for the Waihou and Ohinemuri Rivers improvement Scheme. The Public Works Department will, at the same time, be asked to take over the Walmsley stone crusher plant, at a cost; of £2OOO, and the Mayor will also discuss with the authorities matters relating to assistance for prospecting for gold in the district and pther points bearing on the mining industry?*

Sir Horace Plunkett, in a recent address delivered beforp a meeting of farmers at Omaha, U.S.A., gave this tu'-n to the idea of co-operation: “ I am convinced that the failure of farmers to study and practise cooperation is the chief cause bf excessive middle profits. It is npt essential that, farmers should sell, their own produce to the consumer, but it is essential that they should be so well organised that,, if they cannot get, their food to the consumer with a reasonable charge for distribution they should be able to establish distributing agencies of their own. Until they do this producer, and consumer will bpth be fleeced.”

There is a good deal to say in favour of the scheme endorsed by the Education Institute in Wellington r.eeently to provide for the payment of school teachers on their classification and not on their school, says the Dominion. At the present time teachers desirous - of, and entitled to, promotion are continually forced to move from school to school regardless of the effect of the changes in the work of the school and the training of the children. Changes in moderation arc sometimes desirable, but under the existing, system they are carried to excess. The Hylton,,scheme, as it is called, will not avert, changfes, but it will minimise while affording teachers the opportunity for advancement on a fair basis. The principle of the scheme should meet with general approval, and its adopttibn would remove a very serious weakness in the existing system of transfers and promotion.