NEWS AND NOTES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XL, Issue 1860, 3 August 1918, Page 1

NEWS AND NOTES.

Large numbers of eonger eels were to be seen swimming close to the surface of the water in Lyttelton Harbour last week, and hundreds were speared from the Gladstone pier and the water edge. One young man is reported to have caught three dozen in an hour and a-half. The influx to the harbour of icy cold water from the thawing snow on the surrounding hills is thought to be the reason for the eels rising to the surface, the theory apparently being that the eels dislike the extreme cold, and find warmer water near the surface.

Everything at Windsor Castle in these times (says a London writer) is on the most frugal and unostentatious lines. The rations are rigidly adhered to; the meals are incredibly short; no wine of any kind or description is drunk, and 10 o’clock is the end of the day. There is no man in the United Kingdom harder worked than King George, and yet, despite it all, ever since his Majesty set the example of giving up wine, total abstinence has been the rule for himself and all within the castle.

“Every German who can shoulder a rifle has been put into the army,” said a Middlesex man, one of a party of 29 returned prisoners on arriving in London. “The result is that every prisoner who can crawl has to do work of some kind for the Germans. Men who have lost an arm each are selected in pairs to push coal-trucks; those who have lost two arms have a rake tied to them and arc compelled to drag it. No matter how badly maimed a prisoner may be, he has to do something. The only things plentiful in Germanv are work ami water.”

“By the time the war is ended, it will be proof conclusive that all interference and direction of trade by Government would in ordinary times he intolerable. In war time wo put. up with it, but no nation or country could survive the ordeal of Governmeat interference, nor indeed could it prosper, for there would be a continual ferment, and the stormy petrels would have the lime of their lives, and those in search of ‘sof€ jobs’ (as Tommy speaks of) would be the gainers. Trade, profession and occupation must be as free and untrammelled as possible within our Empire.” —Sir James Wilson, president of the New Zealand EarmerC Union, in his annual address.

Says the Christchurch Sun: .Men who have recently returned from the Old Land emphatically assert (hat there arc more Now Zealanders at Home than arc required for the purpose, and they speak of additional entrenching battalions and other companies of New Zealanders mixed up with the Tommies, whose services as individual colonial units arc not recognised. We hear nothing of them. All this means a great expense to the Dominion, and when we hear also of the anomalies existing in our methods of medical inspection —men being classed as lit and sent Homo only to he either returned or doing odd jobs in the Old Land that could easily be done by individual soldiers, we are firmly convinced that the Dominion is wasting hundreds of thousands annually in these various misapplied directions.

That horses are still holding' their own in the country districts, despite the introduction of petrol-driven tractors, was emphasised by Sir James Wilson in his presidential address at the Farmers’ Union Conference. Sir James stated: —“Farmers are told, on the one hand, we must keep up production, but this cannot be done without men to work the horses. If we are going to increase production after the war there will have to be more and more land turned over, and as yet we have not found jin economical method of tilling the land by tractors. It is to be hoped that the lull in the demand for horses, owing to the scarcity of men and the restricted area under crop, will not induce farmers to give up breeding horses; they will be more and more wanted in the future. At Horae they have used tractors largely, and at a great cost, simply because there were not horses to do it, though there —all honour to them —women have replaced men as teamsters. With the British it was not a' matter of cost that had to be considered, but simply of wheat for bread. Internal combustion tractors have been used in' great numbers, but have been found even there unsuitable for hilly country. Horses, therefore, will be necessary, and, if breeding is not continued now, we shall be short of traction power when we come to need it.”