HERE AND THERE.

Taranaki Daily News, 9 July 1918, Page 6

HERE AND THERE.

By "Rambler." One couldn.'t help but being half knocked over when doing the Hawera Show. This bias was caused by noticing the rootis display in comparison with those at the New Plymouth Show. They were not so good, although the Hawera district is much richer as regards land. Fertilisers evidently come out on top,. It is apparent that South Taranaki farmers are losing a good many hundred toss of hay each season through not thatching their stacks. lam sure it would pay them well to do so. There are plenty of rushes on the damp parts of the plains for thatching. It iB Baid that a well-known Hawera man intends standing for the Pates seat at next election in opposition to the sitting member. Land is humming in price in South Taranaki. The Moratorium Act is regulating the existing mortgages, but when its day is done what about the money market? Sir Joseph Ward says the Government is going to keep down high rates of interest, but unless paper is discounted by the banks for farmers and business men and the whole tanking system is revolutionised it will take some doing. In going around the towns and villages of Taranaki one is forced to chronicle that the New Plymouth borough takes the cake for the worst footpaths and roads, barring places like Whaagamomona and Ohura. The district from Wangsnui to Hawera was referred to by the Minister for agriculture at Hawera in glowing terms, but he never commented on the large holdings in this area which ought to have houses and families on instead of bullocks and sheep. The Livingstone Estate, commonly called Tokaora, ii an illustration of what cutting up large holdings will do. There ait> over a hundred human beings on thjs estate now which formerly had as residents what could be counted on one hand.

Dried mill: men are on i;e warpath, but with machinery unprocurable, soldiers wanting .heese, and about thirteen tons of coal per twenty-four hours consumption to run c. factory—well, it requires thinking out,.