LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Manawatu Herald, Volume L, Issue 3919, 16 March 1929, Page 2

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

The local D.H. School, present holders of the MeKelvie 'Shield, sent the pick of their primary school athletes to Sanson to-day to defend .the trophy against district school team's. The Vatican Government has officially decided to issue Papal coins, .on the decimal system, of four kinds —gold, silver, nickel, and copper. The image of the Pope will be on the obverse, and the Papal arms, inscription, and date of the pontificate on the reverse.

The next Hospital Boards Conference will be held at Timaru in 1932. The |C'onference on Thursday approved of the principle of better facilities and inducements being provided for the annual (medical examination of men and women over forty.

The mew that men were often called by God to serve the community was expressed by Canon Percival James in an address to the Council of Christian Congregations at Auckland on Tuesday (reports the “New Zealand Herald”). “I admire the Hon. A. ,J. Stallworthy for his statement that he feels he has received a divine call to office,” said Canon Jajmes. “I know him as a man of deep religious feeling, and with a man like that, if lie did not feel it a divine call, then he has no business to accept the oflijee.” The ,J. M. White Triplex special racing car, driven by Lee Bible at Daytona Beach (U.S.A.) on Wednesday in attempting to beat .the world’s speed record of 231 miles an hour set up by Major H. 0. D. Segrave, crashed into the sand dunes and was wrecked. Bible was killed. A photographer was struck by the car and cut in two. The triplex was travelling at over 200 miles an hour at the time.

Mr. H. G. R. Mason, Labour member if or Auckland Suburbs, has been nominated for the Auckland Mayoralty. There are now three candidates, the others being Mr. 11. E. Valle and the present Mayor, Mr. Geo. Baildon. Mr. Mason was educated at Wellington College, where he iwas dux in 1902.

When approaching Wanganui from, Marton on Thursday, a heavy goods train clashed into a car driven by T. Brown, of ißapanui. The car -was smashed beyond repair, but the driver jujmped clear. He was taken .to the Wanganui Hospital with a severe scalp wound and abrasions, and suffering from shock.

The Wanganui branch of the Labour Party passed a resolution that the branch expresses the utmost confidence in Mr. 11. E. Holland as chairman of the New Zealand Parliamentary Labour Party, and deprecates any outside attempts by interested persons who are trying to create a split in the Labour Party as represented in Parliament.

How Major Segrave’s £20,000 Golden Arrow came to he built is itself a romance. The man financially responsible is Oliver Piper, the wealthy managing director of a cement icomlbine, a friend of Segrave’s, who has never driven a mo-tor-car and never seen a motor race. One day he heard Segrave saying wlvat a pity it was that Britain had lost the record, .adding that he believed he could regain it if he had a free hand to design a car. Piper said: “I have the completest confidence in you, .major. Why don’t you get on with it!” Piper states: “I had the money. He had the brains. He got on with it. There it is. It is worth it, because all Britain think's we have given the Americans something to beat now.”

White figures on a blue background 'will !be the pattern for the new motor-car nuimber plates this year. No definite date has been yet fixed for the start of registration, but the day will shortly be announced. This year’s plates, which are of bright design, have been ■made in Wellington by the same firm as produced the last lot. The new motor registration period commences on June Ist this year, the alteration having been made to facilitate the distribution of the num - her plates. No plates will be issued without the owners taking out their third party insurance at the same time. The total cost of registration, including the insurance for private owners only, will be £3 2s od.

What is probably the most important land transaction ever put through in Invercargill was completed last week, when Mr. W. E. Hazlett, second son of Mr. W, T. Hazlett, and (well known as a member of the 1928 All Blacks, purchased from-Mr. James Logan his interest in the Bur,wood and Mayora stations, together with the stock and plant thereon. This is the largest property in Southland held under one lease, and extends from the main Mossburn-Te Anau road to the Greenstone River at the head of Lake Wakatipu, a distance approximately equal to that from Invercargill to the Bunvood homestead, which is about 75 miles. The area of the property is approximately 160,000 acres, and is mountainous country, practically all of which has to be mustered on foot. The new purchaser intends to reside on tlho property, the management 'of which is a “big man’s” job and will occupy all his time.

“Mercury Bay affords the finest sea fishing of any place I have yet tried,” said Mr. Zane Grey in an interview at Whitianga prior to his departure for Tokaanu after a sue - cessfnl season in Mercury Bay. “I doubt if anywhere else in the world, and certainly on no water now known to anglers, could three rods account for 110 big game fish in eleven weeks,” continued Mr. Grey. “Our score seems very high for only three fishermen, and very few swordfish were wasted, as we gave them to the market fishermen. Mako sharks are also plentiful. It is indeed well to kill them. Swordfish on this coast are amazingly plentiful, and I see no reason why 'they .should not always be so, as they spawn before they coune to these waters. My own regard for New Zealand and its beauty and its sport cannot better be expressed than by my intention of returning l’or a longer and bigger expedition, and next time to bring my family with me,” concluded Mr. Grey.

The lot of the whitebait is an exceptionally hard one. From the -moment the “run” colmliUenees until the last of his shoal has fled seawards, this particular fish may be netted indiscriminately. In addition to having to pass through life evading persons armed with open pillowslips and other makeshift nets, he forms the staple diet of hungry trout. Consequently, he may, before long, be relegated to the same class as the moa and the dodo. Such, at any rate, is the fear of Mr. J. Anderson, Hawke’s Bay delegate to the Hatchery Conference held in Wellington, if not expressed in so many words. In several rivers, he stated, the whitebait has been the main food supply for trout, but matter’s were reaching such a pass that the time would come when “our children’s children” would 'be told of a fish of that name which was once to be found in the streams of this country. Mr. E. Ilcffprd, chief inspector of fisheries, said that whitebait were an important factor in maintaining big trout. • He thought that the taking of whitebait should be regulated. When regulations were being framed trout fishing would be borne in mind.

iSince the census of 1921 the popula'tion of Australia has increased by 901,(143 persons, representing an average rate of slightly .more than two per cent, per annum. Of the total of 6,336,777 persons, 3,241,530 are males and 3,095,247 females.

Prompt action has been taken by the Government in connection with the commencement of the construction of the uncompleted section of the Bast Coast railway. Following a meeting of Cabinet yestei’day, the Prime Minister informed a reporter that authority had been issued for the transference to the work of a number of men employed on the Rotorua-T'aupo railway construction, which was being stopped. The hutments used by the men were also to be transferred.

An Auckland telegram states that St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, St. Matthew’s Anglican C’hurch, and the Leslie Presbyterian Orphanage will benefit to the extent of .€I7OO under the terms of the ■will of the late Miss Charlotte M. MeLaehlan, who died, on Thursday. The will provides for £IOO for the Leslie Presbyterian Orphanage and similar sums for St. Matthew’s Church and the Maori Mission administered by St. Andrew’s Church. The balance of the estate, amounting to £I4OO, goes to St. Andrew’s Church.

On Thursday evening, an accident occurred on Rangitikei line, as a result of which, Mr. Sidney Doy was admitted to the Palmerston hospital, and now lies in a critical condition sugering from a compound fracture of the skull. Mr. ,Doy was returning home from Palmerston N'orth on his motor cycle and when turning in at the gate of his parents’ residence on Rangitikei line collided with Mr. Edward Noft’ke, who was riding a push bicycle towards Palmerston North. Both cyclists were travelling at slow speeds hut were thrown violently from their machines. Mr. Boy received a violent 'blow on the head from the handlebars of his motor cycle iand was rendered unconscious, while Mr. Noif'ke. sustained a severe cut .above the right eye and a bad bruising. Discussing political matters in a press interview at Wellington on Thursday, Mr. McLeod, late Minister of Lands, said that it was highly amusing to read the reasons being put forward by Sir Joseph Ward and his friends as to why he had fallen down upon his election promises and .pledges to produce money immediately for. lending at 4f per cent, through the State Advances Office. “All the talk of something unexpected and unforseen having transpired in British financial circles is of course political moonshine,” he said, “as Britian’s financial difficulties and problems have been well known to all taking more than passing interest in international finance. Ascribing ignorance of these matters to Sir Joseph Ward, heralded as he was during the election as a wizard of finance, is anything but complimentary to him. The amusing part, however, is that those most prominent to-day (including the president of the Farmers’ Union), in making excuses tor Sir Joseph, are also loudest in criticism of the late Government because it did not reduce interest rates by a stroke of the pen.”