LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 268, 22 April 1915, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Two picture shows in Auckland hare closed down during tho last six weeks.

A Gazette Extraordinary issued last' night further prorogues Parliament until May 26th.—PreBS Association.

The Hawera slander case, Carroll v. Garden, has been ado'jurned for a week, Defendant pleads privilege and justification.

A Wanganui Chinaman named Poon Sing was lined £2O in the Magistrate's Court for being in possession of opium, fit for/smoking.

In addition to the fifty men at present engaged on tho Opunake railway works, the Star is informed that an additional fifty are being sent from Wellington at once.

A new X-:ray apparatus is to be purchased for the New Plymouth Hospital. This was decided on at yesterday's meeting of the Board, the cost of the apparatus to be ,£3OO.

The Taranaki Hospital and Charitable Aid Board decided yesterday that a rate of Is in the £IOO be struck on all local contributory authorities for the year 1915-16.

A meeting of supporters of the Thursday half-holiday was held at New Plymouth last night. The committee reported on what had been done and the committee's report was approved.

According to a public statement (says the Waitara Mail) Messrs Borthwick and Sons expect their shipment of meat from Waitara this season will be 25 per cent, more than for any previous season.

The Handelsblad of Amsterdam declares that tho difference between the German army and German diplomacy is that the army is uniformed, while the diplomacy is uninformed.

The Kakaramea Co-operative Dairy Company have just paid out a bonus of 3d per lb butterfat to suppliers, representing a total sum of £2OOO. The company has now paid out Is 3d per lb butterfat altogether for the year.

On the motion of Mr. J. H. Quilliam (Govett & Quilliam) before His Honor Mr. Justice, Cooper probate, of the will of James Frederick Lepine, of New Plymouth, deceased, was on the 14th instant granted to the executor named in tho will,

Mr. Morton, chairman of-the National Dairy Association, and Mr. J. B. Murdoch, representing the South Taranaki dairy factories left for Wellington yesterday morning for the purpose of interviewing the Premier and the shipping companies in regard to the present serious blockage of cheese shipments.

We in the quiet peace of England do not understand what a hell there is out there. Hell! It is a word used to des-. cribe the conditions by every man who comes to see me from the front or who writes to me. I have talked with men who have seen it and one of thein. as a prisoner, saw with his own eyes 41 of the civil population of Louvain shot to death. —Bishop of 'London.

The following letter has been received by a Glisborne paper •—Sir,—The country lady who sat in her motor car in front of a club at 0 p.m., and for five full minutes blew a continuous blast on her electric horn, might kindly note that this laudable practice to recover husbands ceases after 0 p.m. in this town.

In connection with a case in Wellington where a dairyman was making a profit of £2 per day by supplying watered milk, the City Council passed a resolution that hia license be not renewed, but that no action be taken for three months, to allow him to dispose of his business. This step was taken as it was considered that the fines imposed in the Magistrate's Court were insufficient to check the evil.

The ladies who in past years have, rendered such good services to the Pukekura Park by collecting the annual subscriptions, have again undertaken the work. The annual subscribers may therefore expect a visit from them during the next few days. The Board this year, in view of the many demands on the public owing to the war, have decided not to have a Park Saturday collection.

That'our streams are considerably improved from an angler's point of view is shown by the record of Mr. "Dick" Birch, of New Plymouth. For the season he has landed 60 trout aggregating 274 lbs. This gives the splendid" average of about ,'lf lbs per fish. All the fish (with the exception of four or five) were taken from the Waiwakaiho stream. Included in the catch were a 13 lb trout and several in the vicinity of 10 lbs.

An unusual difficulty has arisen in connection with the election of the New Plymouth Hospital and Charitable Aid Board. The letter containing the nomination papers of Mr. D. H. McDonald as a candidate representing the Waitara and Inglewood boroughs miscarried and nomination was not received in time. Mr. McDonald is the only candidate for the seat, and it is now necessary for the local bodies interested to arrange to have Mr. McDonald formally elected to the board.

It is not often that a steam wagon or lorry disappears. Such, however, appeared to be the case of the Strakor wagon bought by the Stratford council a fewyears ago. When one member asked at the. council meeting yesterday where the lorry was no one could tell him. The chairman said the lorry had been sent away to be overhauled and offered for sale. One sale had almost been effected, but the transaction was not completed, and further communications to the firm had not been answered. It was decided to send an urgent wire, and councillors smiled with satisfaction when, later in the day, an answer was received. It was not, however, very satisfactory. It stated that the lorry had not been sold, but gave no clue to its present whereabouts. Thus the council does not yet know where its steam lorry is.

A great future, for New Plymouth and the province of Taranaki is predicted by Mr. ]<\ Kollett, agricultural editor of the Auckland Weekly News, who is now visiting New Plymouth. Mr. Rollett says the time must come when the settlers of Taranaki will not be content with nibbling at the land, which will be cleared in a more comprehensive manner than has been done yet. Direct communication with Auckland by the Main Trunk railway will bring the provinces of Auckland and Taranaki into a closer relation. New Plymouth pleases Mr. Kollett as a sound and progressive town and with the inevitable expansion of the province's potentialities, the town of New Vlymouth will grow and prosper in sympathy.

A correspondent signing himself "Fitter," writes to the Wellington Post suggesting that as there appears to be a shortago of skilled mechanics in the Old Country for the making of munitions of war, !New Zealand should send a contingent of, sny, 500 mechanics to Great Britain. He points ou: that tlie contingent coiild he got to Kngland within six weeks from the date of sailing, and that there arc a -number of mechanics in New Zealand who are skilled in making timefuses and the more intricate munitions of war so badly needed. He urges that his suggestion should bo given a.trial.

. The present Taranaki Hospital and Charitable Aid Board met for the last time yesterday, for the election of new members takes place next week. An interesting review of the progress of the hospital was submitted by the chairman and several matters of importance were dealt with. Several members spoke of the work of the Chairman (Mr. F. C. J. Bcllringer) and the secretary (Mr. C. M. Lepper) in complimentary terms, and the following resolution was carried: "That the chairman be thanked for his very full and explicit annual report and for the very great amount of time and care he has given to the affairs of the Board. Also that the exceptional manner in which the secretary, in addition to what may bo considered his actual duties, has always studied the interests of the Board, be placed on record." Mr. Bcllringer and Mr. Upper returned thanks for the resolution.

Mr. V. H: Beal, vice-chairman of the West End Foreshore Committee, speaking at the social gathering in tfie Bungal6\v last night, referred to the initiation of the movement only a few years ago to beautify Kawaroii Task. The place looked anything like a park or Ijoliday resort, being a wilderness of lupins and stunted trees, with a path running thorngh it, except, of course, for the magnificent belt of pohutukawas. When a few of the West End residents got busy in their spare time they were dubbed "fools" by the knowing ones, but they had not been deterred, and now they had growing up under their hands what .promised to be one of the pretties: and most popular seaside parks in New Zealand. Their return for their labor, and their revenge for the slights of their detractors, lay in watching the crowds of men, women, and children who frequented the p-.rk on every fine day, and particularly on Sunday afternoons.

An American correspondent of The Times, describing the present state of Belgium wider the German heel, saya the Belgians are prisoners who shame, outwit, and pinprick their gaolers in a kind of warfare more efficacious than sniping, in which both sexes and all ages have become expert through a merciless apprenticeship. Any Belgian, unless he be a Belgian official, who.has dealings or social relations with a German is proscribed by his class.. Should a German ollicer sit down at the same table in a cafe or restaurant with a Belgian, the Belgian takes another scat. If an officer enters a tram women draw back so their garments will not touch his, as if they would escape vermin. One officer who lost bis temper on such an occasion exclaimed : "Madame, 1 shall not contaminate you !" Her only reply was to look at the officer's coat ami draw a little further away. In the smaller towns, where the Germans are billeted in Belgian houses, ( of course the hosts must serve their unwelcome guests. "Yet we manage to let them know what is in our heart,'' said one woman. Some try to be friendly. They say they have wives and children at home, and we say 'How glad your wives and children would be to see you. Why don't you go home?'" The German officer and every German aoidier in Belgium is the mouthpiece of propaganda for the policy which succeeded that of Louvain, after "torrorisation had accomplished its purpose." They tell the Belgians at every opportunity that the English and the French can never come to their rescue. The Allies are beaten ; Paris and Warsaw will soon fall,;the Suez Canal will soon be in Turkish hands. It was the English who got Belgium into trouble; the British who are responsible for the idleness, the penury, the hunger, and the suffering in Belgium to-day. The British used Belgium as a cat's paw ; then they deserted her. But the Belgians remain unconvinced.

In the Admiralty the Churchill yoTithfulness and impulsiveness are watered down by the serene composure and Basicity of Admiral Lord Fisher and Admiral Wilson, two greybeards who thoroughly appreciate their thunderous young colleague, and who, with him, make a .magnificent team of administrators (writes the London correspondent of the Sydney Sun). The Fisher influence is feit through every department. When Prince Louis of Battenberg was there, if a thousand mines were required, the head of the supplying branch would be summoned, and they would be ordered. According to an old Admiralty custom, the head of the branch would promise them in three months. Rarely was anything done in less time. Under the Fisher regime, the order is accompanied by the fixing of a definite date, seldom ■more than a fortnight. If an official were so purblind as to protest, there would be the addendum, "the mines in a fortnight or there will be another head in your department." It is this system which has brought Mr, Graeme Thompson from a subordinate position to the post of Director of Transports in less than three months, and which secured for him the mention in Mr. Churchill's speech in the Commons, Mr. Thompson is still under forty, a Scotsman, though born on the Welsh border. He was educated at Winchester and Oxford, won a high place at the usual 'competitive examination, and entered the Admiralty as a higher division clerk in the transport biv.-.'Hi. Here Mr. Churchill found Mr. Tlumtr- on when he was plagued by inability to rapidly organise the onefifth of the British mercantile marine tonnage required to shift a million men at home and abroad. Personal contact persuaded Mr. Churchill of the superintending clerk's initiative and organising talent. So that to-day his income, which was £(!00, is doubled, and he holds a position that hitherto has always been filled by at least a Rear-Ad-miral of active mentality. The Fisher-cuin-Churchill-Wilsou touch is also to be discerned in the suspension, if not tee abolition, of the old system of court— Miirtial. For example, a very -hftuiguished commander of a very famous ship in a fairly recent engagement was adjudged not to have used his big guin .siiiiicicn<iy. When he reached pott anil reported and s 11 the facts were sifted, he was not a-ib'l to rejoin his ship at once. He is, in naval parlance, "on the bsaeh," which is i'ic laval way of baying that he is on half-pay and is Hot attached to a ship.

It is stated by the Chriatehureh Pteal that wholesale prosecutions aro pending for failure to attend drill on the pal* of members of the Territorial Force. Despite the fact that there aro 700 members on the roll of the Ist (Canterbury) Kcgiiucnt, of whom 410 attended the Bal-e-aim camp, only 277 attended a recent battalion parade. The company parades are reported to be equally as poorly attended. It is stated that 120 men are to be .summoned to appear before the Court for being ohs-.'iit without leave, and that absentees from a further battalion parade to be held on 27th April will also be prosecuted.

Lord Kitchener, according to a story told by Harold Begbie, was told one day (before the war) by Mr. Lloyd George that recruiting in Wales would be far quicker if the men could servo under a Welsh general. "But where is your Welsh general V" demanded Kitchener. "Wo had better discuss thai with Colonel Owen Thomas, who has come with rae, and is now in your waiting-room." Kitchener gave orders to have the visitor admitted. As soon as he saw hint he said, "You were in South Africa, ?" "Yes, sir," replied the colonel. "Well, you're now brigadier-general, .commanding the Welsh army ; you'd better go and get to work at once."