NEWS AND NOTES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVII, Issue 2864, 28 March 1925, Page 1

NEWS AND NOTES.

An old West Australian gold digger called at a provincial newspaper office the other day, and, tossing sonic quartz samples on to a reporters’ table, remarked that he had discovered gold-bearing stone within a. radius of 38 miles of Wanganui. The culverts made of slabs of reinforced concrete which have been put down in various parts of Palmerston North have proved to be unreliable in several instances, and when carts nr other heavy traffic pass over them, they have caved in and crumbled to pieces (slates the Manawatu “Times”). “Tt has been stated,” said a (lax worker to a Southland “News” representative, “that flax workers are leaving the flax industry in order to lake positions as ploughmen at 1"2 to £2/10s a week. Don’t you believe it. You will not lind a flax' worker take to the plough unless he is compelled to do so by lack of work in his own line, and at present the flax trade is very busy. The £2 to £2/lOs was spoken of as if it were such a big wage that il was attracting flax workers f rom their own employment, but £2 to £2/10s is such a wage as the flax worker would scorn utterly. Tie can earn without any trouble 16/- ~ day, which would leave him clear a far greater sum than the maximum £2/10s, spoken of as the ploughman’s wage. I know flaxcutters, novices at the game, who can cut two tons of flax a day. where the flax is good. That is equal to 22/- a day. A good cutter would cut three tons or more. When one remembers these facts, the assertion that flax cutters are taking to the plough will appear in its true light—utterly ridiculous.”