MR. COATES TO INQUIRE

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 219, 5 December 1927, Page 13

MR. COATES TO INQUIRE

WORK AT SCORIA PIT MT. ALBERT DISFIGUREMENT (SUN'S Special Reporter.) WELLINGTON, To-day. The Prime Minister has promised to inquire immediately into the possibility of stopping work at the Mount Albert scoria pit, which is claimed to be causing disfigurement of the hillside. Mr. H. G. R. Mason reminded Mr. Coates in the House of the promise of the Railway Department that no more work would be done there except in trimming up. Mr. Coates said that arrangements had been made that the jagged faces and protruding parts shoved be removed. This would not be a disability, nor would it interfere with the improvements at the quarry itself. Cessation of the work there meant a 100 per cent, increase in the costs to the department in the recovery of metal, as compared with other pits, however, and although this was not the vital point, the Department would not accept the responsibility for the increased costs so caused on jobs for which estimates had been made. The Government itself had to take the j responsibility. “I will inquire and see if we can finish the matter up and get away with it,’* Mr. Coates said finally.

LABOURER LOSES £1 IN HOTEL YARD

PICKPOCKETING CHARGE After William McKearnan, a labourer, had been talking to Boe Griffis, aged 22, in the yard of a Devonport hotel, on the evening of the Takapuna race meeting he was £1 poorer. At the Police Court to-day Griffis ..as charged with stealing - £1 from tho person of McKeavnan. McKcarnan said that he met accused at the hotel, and he came up to witness and shook his hand. They went into the yard, accused continuing to hold his hand. Detective P. J. Nalder said he saw Griffis jostling a number of men and grabbing them by the hand. In the hotel yard he saw accused put his hand in McKearnan’s trouser pocket. In a statement Griffis said he had been at race meetings in tho North and South Island. The only work he had done was selling balloons at the Palmerston North Show. Accused pleaded not guilty and was committed to the Supreme Court for trial.