LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 174, 26 August 1909, Page 2

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

The Education Department ha« at length decided that the West Knd I school committee is entitled to the ,C7O subsidy claimed in connection with the erection of the school gymnasium. The committee's share of the cost was about 100. raised by (school concerts and other such means. Messrs. E. (Irifliths and Co., Xew Zealand representatives of Messrs. .Mills and Sparrow, the well-known British produce merchants, have secured on open consignment the coining season's output from the Thames Valley and Te Aroha dairy factories. The'firm has handled these butters for some year.? past, and the renewal of the arrangement is very pleasing to the agents.

I Mowing at J)unedin to tile retreiif. 1 !- nient policy of the Government/ the Hon. J. A. .Millar tjiaid th<? period of depression waa passing away, and the Government was to-day .€3,000,000 better oil that it was last year, lie personal.}' ! had -hopes that in the future conditions would have improved to that extent that the Government would be justified i,i taking back many of those who had been retrenched, The Education Board has received ah intimation from the Inspector-General of Schools that the Board's proposal to erect a building for technical and ! school classes on section 225, town of Inglewood, has been approved, subject lo an assurance that steps will be taken by the Hoard'-to secure legislation providing for the transfer of the freehold of the property to the Board. The Board ha* given the iiecessarv assurance. 1 i

At the .Magistrate's Court yesterday Edward Elliott was lined 5s ami oo hl7s) lor riding a bicycle on a footpa'li 'ii Devon street. The Fit/.roy To.vn Hoard, represented by Air. li. C.'lltighcs, also brought on a couple of by-law caics. Lustathus Crilliths and lleorge l\i!>!>v 'iwtli .pleaded guilty to diaries of riding cvclcs on footpaths in the Fltzroy to\r!i district. It being a country district, and sparsely populated compared with Ihc borough, his Worship inflicted lilies of lis (Id on each defendant, but each Was ordered to pay solicitor's feu, CI : Is. and costs, 7s. Seventy years ano Tauranga was a mission station, and so f, )r a decade. 1 lien Maori wars bewail, and Hie little settlement wa.s nothing nioi'c I hail a military camp for a long time. Gradually tlie war fever died, anil the village began to grow steadilv. The special settlements of Ivatikali and T<Puke accelerated the growth con«ider:il>ly. but snbsecitientlv a. period of depression, affecting the whole colo-iv occurred, and Tauranga did not escape.' lint all that is past and done with now. mill enterprising colonists have provided the genial town with gasworks nil ils own. ft looks i'unyard to freezing works, railway line, and a water service and is very optimistic concerning its future. Pcttol pumping-engines capable of i iiirowing SIM) gallons of water a minute '. lave been iuvented for itsc at fifes. '

''We must regret," says the committhe Ilawke's Bay Employers' As sociation, in its annual report, "that during the past year a eonsideraole number of cases for breaches of awards have been brought before the court ; against employers and workers. The j majority of these breaches were entire■ly unintentional on either side, and | might well have been settled without ony reference to the court. Such cases must of necessity set up a continual feeling of friction and irritation ue* tween the employers and workers, and we are strongly of the opinion that some better scheme for their settlement I might easily be devised. Wc would strongly appeal to tall employers and workers to work together as harmoniously as possible, and thus minimise all cause for friction." Longevity is common in Sweden and Xorwav. Thus in the former country mortality, which in 1880 averaged only 17 per 1000 inhabitants, in 1906 had ; fallen to 14. Infant mortality s'hvank from 112 to 82 per 1000. In Norway the rate showed a reduction from. 16 to 13

per 101)0, and that of infants from 95 to <OO. For these two Scandinavian rates the hygienic habits of tlie population arc responsible—public ba.ths, the admirable organisation of hospitals, which receive the ricli as well as .the poor, the cleanliness of habitations, and .the widespread precautions that obtain . among all classes. Again, there is the public atti Hide towards inevitable sicknesses. Swede anil Norwegian both have faith in recent scientific and medical discoveries. Consequently -each contagious case becomes a public matter, aJid individual liberty is never placed in opposition to the general welfare. -l'atlie Frcre*, tlie celebrated firm ol kiiicniatograph film manufacturers of Paris, have submitted a scheme to the lion. Thomas Mackenzie, -Minister for Health and Tourist Resorts, for advertising the industrial and scenic resources of the Dominion per medium of the kiuematograpli. With characteristic enterprise, tlie firm concludes its message witli the following appeal:—"Now that it is necessary for the colonic* to live hi closer spiritual touch with the Mother

Country, it is to everybody's interest to know something of other countries by J the best metins possible, and each State owes it to its own welfare to seo that it is not left behind in the storm of publicity which is about to burst around the colonies, which have hitherto been, we might almost say, unknown among the great nation* of the world, and this I through the medium of the greatest adI vcrtiser ever known —the kinel.atograph."

We arc told (says the Sydney Evening News) that New Zealand is povertystricken; that her people are oppressed by a lioitvy burden of taxation; that, in spite of prohibition and local option, : fehe drinks too much. We are also assured that her population is decreasing i'V reason of emigration to the more favored and prosperous Australian States. It is, in fact, widely asserted that our enterprising neighbor is financially, soeiayy. politically, and in most, other directions in a bad wayPremier, however, when in Sydney, flativ contradicted all ihese rumors, and emphatically stilted that there was no ground for' such calumnies with regard lo the young Dominion. And (the N?u« continues) we believe that Sir Joseph Ward was thoroughly justified in this repudiation of hostile criticism —New Zeaanders are not the kind of people to suffer deterioration. Their climate, their national record, their superior type of politicians, .absolutely forbid any supposition of the .sort. And, at any rate, their representative in England has taken the lead of Australasia, as evidenced by bis speeches, in statesmanship anil patriotism. The King, in the conversation which followed on the 1 audience given to Sir Joseph Ward, also gave the Premier a message for the Dominion, expressing the "Royal satisfaction with its progress and its patriotic aspirations. Edward VIF. and -n? advisers may not know everything, bui ' they know enough withhold • ongratulations and appreciation from any 1 decadent State.

June 1 was a red-letter day—and a very 1 red one, too in the annals of France, for it was 'the thirtieth anniversary of the day on which the hope of the'Bonapartists fell under the spears of eighteen Zulus. Little did these savage warriors' realise how momentous bad been their murder of this pale-faced youth. Not, petfiaps, since the world was electrified by the news of Napoleon 111/s capture at Sedan had Europe experienced such a thrill ws was given it by the tidings of -his son's death. Born three years before the present Kaiser—whose playmate he was at 'the Tnileries in 18li7—the Prince Imperial would now have boen in his fifty-third year, ami—who knows?—lf he had returned laurelcrowned from Zululaml, perhaps Napoleon IV. That, in addition to the prestige of his name, the Prince had the quality of personal courage, so fascinating to the French people, is clear from the narrative of Sir Evelyn Wood, who saw much of him in Zululand, "The young Prince," he wrote, "impressed me very much by his soldier-like ideas and habits, and was unwearied in his endeavor to acquire knowledge anjl military experience. The. Prince accompanied Colonel Redvers Buller on some patrols, and on his return home from one, on May 12, 1 observed at dinner: 'Well, yon have not been atssegaied yet?' 'No; but while I have no wisli" to be killed, if it wen i to be I would rather fall by assegais than by bullets, as that would show we WeiT at close quarters.'" Tie had hi? wish a few days later, when he fill "fighting like a lion"—as one of his arsailauts afterwards said of him—under eighteen breast wounds.