DISTRICT NEWS.

Taranaki Daily News, 12 January 1917, Page 3

DISTRICT NEWS.

SOUTH TARAKAKI NOTES. (By Our Travelling Reporter.), Whilst in Eltliain on Wednesday I ran across Mr. C. J. Belcher, County chairman. He is a busy man nowadays. Before the war he was kept going, and now through haying two sons at the front "Poor old father" has to work longer and harder than ever. Tie does not mind that under the jjireunistancos, but his duties as chairman of the County Council, and also on the dairy factory directorate make him wish he could do without sleep to keep up with details. Still, he had time to show me a letter from his son, Aeklaud. The latter is an enthusiastic amatoiu photographer, so when, in Egypt, lie is not chasing a Turk or Arab, or anything of a hostile character, he unhooks the bayonet, buries frlie gun, and arms himself villi a kodak. He states tha,t the Turks have given the Australians ' and New Zealanders decent burial in Egypt. He also mentions that Private J. Kellilier, late of Eltham, fell in the battle of Roinnni on August 4, and ho (young Belcher) is hopeful of snapshotting that lar grave and sending the copy along to Kelliher's parents. The trouble was' ■that time was-short and the graves so numerous that he bad not yet struck young Kelliher's last sleeping-place. The South Taranaki Bacon Company's men made a move to-day reducing IJerkshires and Tamworths to a state of cold pork. The process did not interest me, but I was told they expected to get through about one hundred a day. Later on, when beef falls in jrice or the demand exists, they will kill cattle. In the meantime it is safe for a Jersey or Shorthorn to inspect the premises from a distance; not so.the Berkshire. Anticipating a shortage, the Eltham Dairy Company are storing then surplus butter and cheese in empty buildings, so that owners who previously received no rent through inability to let are now drawing revenue through German submarines, shortage of siuppiiur, by Admiralty commandeering, or pure cussedness of the Government.