LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXV, Issue 4666, 25 February 1924, Page 2

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

The following schools in the surrounding districts were awarded certificates of merit for rural science work for the year 1923 : Puriri, Waihou, Manga Hi, Paeroa. Coromandel 1-likua . and Tairua.

A slight mishap befel the new American steam dipper dredge while moored in the Awaiti-Piako canal, on Thursday morning. Wind caused the long boom to sway slightly, shifting the centre of gravity and causing the pontoon to list. The boom then swung right over, and one side of the dredge was forced below water level. Had the spud arms, which arc provided to take the weight of the boom when swung to the side while working, been placed on solid ground instead of o.i mud die dredge would not have sunk. Little difficulty will be experienced in rightirg the vessel, as she is well provided with steam-driven pumps. It was intended to shift the dredge on Thursday to the Awaiti Stream cut, where the banks are more solid.

Details for the final plans for laying out 700,000 British war graves throughout the world, including 23 080 at Gallipoli, arc published by the Imperial Graves Commission. Out of 524 000 men buried in France and Belgium 130.000 arc unidentified, while J. 4,000 on Gallipoli are nameless Some 6000 bodies discovered in France and Belgium during the past two years have been reburied. Bodies are still being found in the Ypres salient on Vimy Ridge, and on the Somme battlefields, and it is expected that more will be found when the French begin to clear Bourlon Wood and Ti ones High Wood, .which at present are impenetrable owing to the thickness of the undergrowth and the presence of unexploded shells. Every effort is being made io turn the cemeteries on the west front into English gardens, and nine nurseries have been established to provide trees, shrubs, and flowering plants.

Chatting to the headmaster and deputy-chairihan of the Paeroa School Committee on Friday last at Te Aroha one of the bath attendants remarked that the Paeroa children were the best behaved and most courteous children he had had through the baths. The remarks were, unsolicited, and were addressed to two who were perfect strangers to the attendant.

The metalling of Gumtowil Road is finished as far as is intended to be done at present. The Orchard East Road is being graded and will be metalled as soon as this is completed. The unmetalled portion of the Kopu-arahi-.Orongo. Road has been formed and rolled, as also has been the Ngatiapua Road, where the work of metalling is now proceeding.

At a conference of Taranaki ami Te Kuiti business men, the chairman (Mr W. J. Broadfoot) expressed the opinion that in the tourist traffic they had an Alladin’s lamp. He knew of no primary industry tliat could coin Hie money' the tourist traffic could. The annual revenue of the Hawaiian Islands from tourists, Mr Broadfoot said, was £25,000,000, but they had wonderful accommodation and service, and this was what took the tourists there. An American had tokl him that he had been through to Honolulu, and that it had nothing co offer by way of attractions compared with what New Zealand had to offer, but that it certainly did provide excellent accommodation. New Zealand had the wonders and beauties of the Hawaiian Islands a hundredfold, but the question of accommodation was the difficulty. That was the key of the lock to the yrealth that would come to New Zealand by means of tourist traffic. It was essential that they' should have a chain of first-class hotels, the capital for the building of which he felt satisfied could be obtained from outside by giving as inducement the sites for the hotels in those districts which had the big attractions.

In a chatty letter to a Te Awamutu friend, a resident of Los Angeles, California. refers to the Ameican press, he says : “ You would get sick of the papers here —not a whit like the New Zealand journals. They’re all sensationalism and bunkum. If any jewels arc stolen here they-are always worth a million dollars. If they build an apartment house it is always a “mib lion dollar building.’ They’re all hkite and piffle. It’s a treat to receive the newsy, sane, and readable papers from New Zealand. I must send you one of the little small-town productions. They’ll make you laugh. They boost their own little village—when I refer to village I mean a place as populous as Hamilton —with a style so bombastic and chirpy that you wonder whether you have not picked up a miniature copy of the New York ‘Herald’ by mistake. Places hero tiie size of Te Awamutu have no local paper—at least I have not seen any.