LOCAL AND GENERAL NEWS.

King Country Chronicle, Volume IV, Issue 250, 13 April 1910, Page 2

LOCAL AND GENERAL NEWS.

The ceremony of turning the first sod of the East Coast railway was performed yesterday at Maire, on the Tauranga harbour by the Hon. R. McKenzie. A grand social in aid of the Catholic Church funds, is to be given on Thursday evening in the Town Hall, Te Kuiti. Dancing will commence at 8 p.m. Tickets may be obtained from almost any store in the town. Mr N. J. Ravn, Presbyterian Home Missionary, having accepted an appointment to Whakatane, has left for his new charge. Mr John S. Webber, who succeeds Mr Ravn at Te Kuiti, is expected to arrive on Friday and will conduct Divine service in the Hall on Sunday evening at 7 p.m. Lieut.-Col. Allen Bell, of Hamilton, who so actively associated himself with the movement for compulsory military training and formed the first league with that object in New Zealand at Hamilton, has been selected by the Defence Department to go Home for a period of training. Colonel Bell is the first officer selected for this service. It is officially announced that Sir John Dickson-Poynder, D.5.0., is to succeed Lord Plunket in the Governorship of New Zealand. Lord Plunket has been granted the Grand Cross of St. Michael and St. George, of which Order he is at present a Knight Commander, the honour being granted in recognition of his services while Governor of New Zealand. We would call special attention to the advertisement in this issue of the sale to be held by Messrs Whittaker, Whittaker and Co., auctioneers, Taumarunui, in conjunction with Mr A. T. Vickers, of Taihape. of the whole of the very fine furniture and effects of the late Dr Rowlands. The sale will take place on Thursday, 21st April, on the premises, Ohura, and it being absolutely an unreserved sale, settlers will be able to obtain some really good and serviceable goods. We would urgently request them rot to forget this s?le. The people of Kawhia, even in their isolation, are wideawake and over on the look-out for prominence. Since the conference of the Australasian authorities, which met in Melbourne last December to formulate a general scheme for linking up New Zealand and Australia with wireless telegraphy, the inhabitants of Kawhia have formed the opinion that their town possesses special advantages for such a purpose. The Hon. W. W. McCardle, M.L.C., on behalf of the people of Kawhia, has written to the Postmaster-General pointing out the relative positions of Kawhia and Sydney. The necessary electrical power, could, it is stated, be easily developed from two streams in t}ie neighbourhood. Proportional representation wpuld certainly give us a much more repre • sentative Parliament, and it would allay the bitterness of political partisr anship by allowing every party to secure its share in the national councils. Not the least advantage of the system would be that it would, for the first time, secure the effective secrecy of the ballot, for since it requires one central count it would obviate the declaration of the poll at small booths where, although electors .vote behind a screen, there can be no real secrecy in some places on account of th-s smallthp mimhpr nf voters.—"New

The following petition has been widely circulated in the Mahoenui and Awakino districts: "We the undersigned settlers do hereby request that the telephonic communication between Mahoenui and Paemako (a distance of 12 miles) be completed. The posts being already erected your petitioners realise that the cost to form the connection cannot be great. The benefit derived by the settlers and general public from the before-mentioned connection will be invaluable." Copies of the petition are being prepared for signature in Te Kuiti, and as the borough is the centre for the whole of that great stretch of country right to Awakino, it is to be hoped the petition will be very fully signed in this district. A Pukekohe correspondent to one of the Auckland dailies discloses a curious railway anomaly. He writes as follows: —"Until just recently I always paid 5s 4d for a second-class return from Pukekohe to Auckland, which is at the rate of Id per mile, together with the usual terminal charge for issuing a ticket; but a friend of mine informed me that by taking return to Papakura from Pukekohe, and then another return from Papakura (which is within the suburban area) to Auckland, I would save Is 2d, so I determined to try the experiment, and after putting the Department to the extra trouble of issuing two tickets instead of one, I found that I was carried to the city and back for 4s 2d as against the usual charge of 5s 4d. T will therefore advise all my friends in the Waikato to take advantage of the sub-fares as far as Papakura, and thus save Is 2d on a second-class and 2s 4d on a first-class ticket." It is announced by "Country Life" that a very interesting experiment is to be tried in the Blagdon reservoir, near Bristol —the introduction into it of a large number of trout from New Zealand. It is pointed out (writes a London correspondent) that this is a reversal of the earlier policy of sending out English trout to the Antipodes, where they have grown to such great size in some of the large rivers and lakes. It will be curious to watch whether the race of New Zealand giants will have the effect of increasing the size of the native stock. Doubt is expressed as to whether this will happen—or for more than a gen eration ahead —because the growth of fish is largely dependant on the food supply. But should it even so far succeed, an interesting result will have been arrived at. The Blagdon reservoir is already a well-stocked water. Speaking at the Public Libraries Conference at Dunedin Mr Mark Cohen deplored the withdrawal by the Government of the vote of £3OOO to country libraries. He took leave to say that no more fatal mistake was ever perpetrated than the cutting off of this vote. It was this small sum upon which the back-blockers depended fur the upkeep of their little libraries. If the Government were determined to practice economy, in the best sense of the word, there were a hundred and one different ways of doing it. For the person who went into the wilderness to make a home it was the duty of the Government to do more than was done for the dweller in the cities. Travelling libraries would serve admirably, and if it cost £SOOO to establish them, to give settlers in the backblocks an early acquaintance with the best literature, it was the duty of the Government to spend it. The vote, he said, must be restored. The experiment made by the Adelaide City Council of oiling various city roals has proved most successful. The city engineer (Mr J. Vicars) recently said: "I inspected the city streets on Sunday morning, especially those which had been oiled, and was very pleased to find that there was not a scrap of mud on them, even though we have had such a soaking rain. The oiled streets were all as clean as possible It was really surprising, as the oil had been sprinkled on those streets which were too dusty and broken up to be tarred Frome road, which has had a lot of show traffic on it, was remarkably clean That otherwise dusty thoroughfare had been oiled by the direction of the Mayor (Mr L." Cohen), who desired to make it as pleasant as possible for visitors to the show, and it has proved a great succesi. Although some of the streets ware oiled about six weeks ago, the sprinkling they received was smelling quite fresh. The oiling has been most successful, not only in keeping down the dust in hot weather, but also in preventing mud when it rains" Lord Plunket, speaking at Timaru, said: —How to increase our population was one of the most important problems New Zealand had to face. For defence purposes a larger population was required, and also, as the Mayor had delicately hinted, to pay the interest on the public debt. Looking after our children was one of the most useful means they could employ towards getting a larger population. As many New Zealanders as could be got were required, and they also wanted the right kind of stock from the. Homeland. Naturally enough, farmers here do not like to see their sons deprived of ihe land available here for settlement by men from overseas, but his opinion was that a more intense system of farming should be adopted, and if that were done there could be land for all. lie had been greatly struck when in the Nelson district recently with what could be done on small blocks of land of from 20 to 25 acres—land which hitherto had been considered of little account. It was found that this land would grow excellent fruit, and that a man could make a fair living off a very small area. It was amazing what was being done in the Nelson district in the way of fruit culture. The industry was going ahead enormously there, and the same remarks applied to Hawke's Bay. He felt confident that the same thing could be done in many other parts of the Dominion. Instead of a man requiring 500 or 1000 acres, 50 acres of very indifferent quality land would do for fruit farming. If they could only settle the people on the land in large numbers, it seemed to him they would solve one of the greatest problems