ITEMS OF INTEREST

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume 52, Issue 3292, 26 July 1943, Page 8

ITEMS OF INTEREST

First Pair of Telephones The first pair of telephones used in New Zealand has been presented to the Otago Early Settlers' Museum. Soldier Readers Ten thousand books are now beingissued each month by the library section of the Army Education and Welfare Service in the Southern Military District. Army Education Work More than 600 soldiers are regularly attending trade courses at various technical colleges in tlye South Island under the auspices of the Army Education and Welfare Service. Eating Argentine Meat “I have been amazed to find that the Home Guard is being fed on canned meat from the Argentine,” said Mr A. P. O’Shea, Dominion secretary of the New Zealand Farmers’ Union, in Wellington. “I have been shown a 61b can of Argentine meat, and was assured that similar cans had been distributed to the Home Guard. This surely calls for an explanation from the Government,” he added. The Best Immigrants Maintaining that children are not only the best but the cheapest immigrants. • that human beings are the greatest- asset of any land, and that the future population of New Zealand by New Zealand-born is not assured, the Dominion conference of the New Zealand Farmers’ Union in Welling-

ton decided urgently to request an immediate investigation of the economic, social and commercial reasons for the decline in the birth rate.

Improvements to Lifeboats The. annual report of the Marine Department describes improvements which have been made to ships’ lifeboats for the greater security of the men who may have to use them as a result of enemy action. “Lifeboats have been provided with bilge-rails.to enable persons to cling to upturned boats.” the report says, “and with canvas hoods over the fore part, and side weather cloths for protection of the occupants from seas and weather.” The Birth Rate Earlier marriage was put forward by speakers at the Wellington diocesan synod as a counter to sexual laxity. With few dissentient voices the synod expressed alarm at the present tendency to late marriage, and the falling birth rate, urged all members of the Church, for both moral and national reasons, to do all in their power to encourage early matrimony, and requested the provincial committee for public and social affairs to consider possible action in the matter. Proposal for War Risk Funds The proposal that as a gesture, war risk funds held by the Government at the end of the war be paid over as a gift, for British property-owners who had suffered severe losses, and made terrible sacrifices, was made at the Dominion conference of the New Zealand Farmers’ Union in Wellington, when consideration was being given to a Southland remit that urgent representation be made to the Government for the cessation forthwith of the levy on property for war risk insurance. American Demand For Greenstone So great is the demand by Americans for greenstone curios and ornaments that Auckland retailers have been finding difficulty in coping with it. One jeweller said that greenstone was in short supply and when he was able to obtain a consignment it was quickly exhausted.