LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 198, 30 November 1910, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

To-day being St. Andrew's Day, the banks will observe a holiday. During the thirty-eight years in which trains have been running in Tasmania in no case have the State railways been responsible for the death of a passenger.

Councillor McAllum has given notice of his intention to move at the next meeting of the Tarauaki County Council thac an extra surfaceman be employed in the Omata riding.

Housjholders will be glad to know that the local bakers have decided to reduce the price of bread, and from tomorrow the 21b. loaf will cost 3y 2 d cash, with a half-penny added for booking.

The Works Committee of the Borough Council did not come to finality in the matter of the Mayor's loan proposals, at their meeting on Monday evening. Further estimates are being made up by the engineer.

The quarterly meeting of the Taranaki Licensing Committee is called for Thursday at noon, but it is unlikely a quorum of members will be present, in which case the meeting will be adjourned until Friday. The Postal Department advises that the outward 'Frisco despatch which left Auckland on October 22 reached London on the 26th inst. The Wellington despatch of October 21, via Brindisi, reached London on the 25th inst.

According to a Highbank settler, the grass grub has never made such damag-

ing inroads into crops and pasture as it has done this season in the Lauriston, Lyndhurst and Mitcham districts. Along the main roads, paddocks here and there are entirely denuded of grass, and even noxious weeds have been destroyed by the grub. At a meeting of farmers at Toko last week it was decided to accept the proposal of the Inglewood Bacon Company to extend its operations to Toko and Dougla3 on condition that the fanners took up shares in the company. Mr. Arthur Morton, chairman of the company, improved the occasion by producing application forms, and 250 shares were taken up in the room. The young colonial is credited with knowing more about the stud-book than the Bible, and this is borne out by the experience of a Sunday School teacher, who asked one of her pupils the meaning of "Absolution." The boy was the son of a bookmaker, and the paralysed teacher listened to .the following:—"Absolution, bay filly, three-year-old, by Newminister from Penitent; Penitent the dam of Penance. The colt has run Carbine to a head and bust x ees-self up a doin' it!"

The following is a list of the J. C. Wil-' liamson enterprises to visit New Plymouth next year: —The Royal Comic Opera Company (February 20), Katherine Grev-William Desmond Company (February 8), "The Whip" Company (June 12), New Comic Opera Company (May 8), "Jack and the Beanstalk" pantomime (August 7), and another for September 25. All of these, except the second, will put in a night here on the way from Auckland to Wellington, playing also at Wanganui and Palmerston". Writing to a resident of New Plymouth, a Napier man says: "The country round here is feeling the effects of the dry weather. You can see where the farmer has given up ploughing owing to the hard iiature of the soil. Other farmers are sowing in their oats—the crops have turned out so badly. The outlook generally is not cheerful. We may have the climate here, but you in Taranaki have the rainfall and the grass. No wonder they call it the 'garden prolific.' Ours is the 'garden stunted.' Taranaki, with its mountain condenser, cannot be beaten, from the standpoint of the dairyman and the grazier." As His Excellency the Governor is unable to accept the invitation to visit New Plymouth in December, the arrangements for the big function to entertain and welcome him will not be proceeded with. The ladies of the Park Tennis Club will therefore occupy either the suggested date for the gubernatorial function (December 15) or the following Thursday for the holding of their garden party at "Overdale," by kind invitation of the president (Mr! B. Cock) and Mrs. Cock. The ladies' committee will meet this evening, and will prolably call the lady members of the club together early, in order to launch the project fully, as there is no time to be lost. The affair will be planned on a big scale. Judgment was given for plaintiffs by default in the following undefended cases heard before Mr. H. S. Fitzherbert, S.M., at the local court yesterday morning:—R. Aroa (Mr. Nicholson) v. Benjamin Wikon Gillbanks, claim 14s 2d (costs ss); same v. Stephen John Barry, £5 19s 2d (£1 5s 6d); F. W. Lucas (Mr. C. H. Weston) v. Thomas Percy Graham, €2l 3s (£2 19s); G. E. Blanchard v. Catherine Wallach, costs only, ss; same v. Chris Johnson, 13s Id (55.). In the judgment summons case of J. Downes and F. P. Corkill (Mr. F. E. Wilson) v. C. H. Taylor, for £33 12s 6d, after evidence by defendant as to his inability to pay, His Worship said he could not make an order.

The Wanganui Herald says it has been informed by a member of the railway service that the service all over New Zealand is simply boiling with indignation at the terms which the Departmental heads were seeking to impose on it. The climax has come with clause 10 of the Railway Amendment Bill (No. 2), which the Government, is now Seeking to pass into law. The clause reads as follows:—''The Governor-in-Council may, from time to time, on the recommendation of the Minister, fix the amount of salary to be paid to an officer at any sum within the maximum and minimum limits of the class or grade in which such officer is placed, and such amount shall be the salary payable to that officer in respect of the office which 'ho holds, without annual increment." Roth divisions of the service are up in arms against this proposal, which they emphatically declare is an iniquitous attempt to violate the statutory rights already bestowed upon them by legislation previously passed. If it becomes law, it simply means that the Minister of Railways, at his own mere whim, can stop all scale increases which hitherto railway servants had been legally entitled to, and that notwithstanding that a railwayman's superior officer may have reported him as qualified to receive it. Not only that, but in defiance of what the classification scheme may say to the contrary, the Minister is'actuallv promised to be given power to fix the minimum salary for any class of work. The question of leave is another grievance. Under the present Act, railwaymen in both divisions are given certain annual leave as a legal right. The amending Bill proposes to abolish this rk'ht, and give the Minister power to fixleave '-by regulation," which means that he may give us much or as little as he chooses, perhaps none at all. Under the proposed Bill, too, all security is taken away from what are known* as casual hands. Their prospect of. being put on the permanent staff promises to become very visionary, for they may be dismissed at a moment's notice, on, almost any;

The Terra Nova left Port Chalmers for the Antarctic yesterday afternoon, and was given a great send-off.

The strawberry season (says the Auckland correspondent of the Wellington Post) is no\v> approaching its height, and from present indications the season should prove a longer and better one than last year. Some 8000 boxes are now being received daily by the Waitemata Fruitgrowers' Association, and it, is expected that towards the end of the month 10,001) to 12,000 boxes will lie handled daily. The llev. J. Mackenzie, of Christchurch, states that when he was in London recently 'lie was greatly impressed with Sir William Hall-Jones' courtesy and with the way in which he discharges the duties of High Commissioner, Mr. Mackenzie found that Sir William spared no pains in supplying New Zealanders wdth information or in showing them how they could obtain it with the least trouble and inconvenience.