LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Taranaki Daily News, 23 September 1918, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

The Military Service Board will sit in New 'Plymouth 011 October 9, 10, and I], and in Hawera on October 5, 7, 8 10, 17, and IS.

In a political address at Carterton on Friday night, Mr. Hornsby, M.F., declared in favor of a referendum on the liquor question on the four issues defined by the Labor Party.

A donation of £1 from Mr. A. C. Upson brings the Ambury Memorial Fund up to £92 7s Cd, and the committee has decided to close tilie fund.

A Wellington message reports that the right wing of the 43rd Reinforcements safely reached its second port ot call on September 19, and the 36th Mounteds arrived at their destination, all well, on September 19.

The Woodville cheese factory paid out the high price of Is ll%d per pound butter-fat for its last season. The quantity of milk delivered at the factory was 4,4G4,1911b. It contained 170,695.44 lb fat, and produced 449,999 lb cheese.

Next Saturday is to be Golfers' Day at the Red Cross Mart. All .golfers are asked to assist by making contributions of home-ruade foods, etc., and any other saleable articles. A general meeting of all ladies interested in the work will be held at the Ked Cross rooms at 7.30 this evening. . An act of vandalism was perpetrated at the new bandroom on Friday night during the band's practice, wihen a stone was thrown through one of the windows on the eastern side of the building.,' The band was practising some hymns with a view to taking part in thd memorial service to the late Mr Qkey at Whitcley Church on Sunday morning. The missile narrowly missed striking one of the bandsmen. The men at once put down their instruments and gave chase. The perpetrator was seen fleeing from the locality, and the band intend to issue a warning that a recurrence of the offence will result in an example being made of the culprit. At Saturday's meeting of the Patea Freezing Company the chairman regretted that Mr A T Wills had resigned from the Board. He had been a director since the commencement of the company, and had given invaluable assistance to the company both financially and otherwise. He, however, held strongly to the opinion th;it the company should not appeal for exemption from military service for any of its employees. The opinion of a majority of the directors was opposed tc this view, and as some appeals were proceeded with he felt ine had no option but to resign. The Patea Company had appealed for only five men out of 170 employees, and in the case of butchers the position was difficult. The Court held them to be essential for the production of food, and as all otftei freezing companies were appealing for them, and granted sine die exemption (provided they remained in their present positions) it would have made the Patea company's position very difficult had they not also appealed as tliey did. Mr Wiils contended that the country required these men to fight for the Empire more than the Patea works reiquired them; they had a greater responsibility. He was quite certain Chat the company would have done without these men, aiid they were very necessary in France. The chairman contended that as an Appeal Board had been set up to decide those questions individual opinion should not count. It was for companies such as the 'Patea Freezing Company to place the plain facts before the Court, and then leave it for them to say whether these men could best serve their country as soldiers or as butchers. AftdV further discussion, Mr Alexander withdrew from the contest, and Mr Wills was then re-elected to the board.—Star. Tin: iin tfest motor tyres -ti r vsm'ous.-, .TW "fSKITISH CLINCH i' •• CKoss& jnade in the Empire's 'Jnrgef..'.«6)jiMf- note,

An aeroplane recently forced to land behind the British lines in France was piloted by a 17-year-old German girl.

Writes a Manaia boy anent the drilling at Home:—The drill is a great deal different to what it is in New Zealand and a chap may just as well come into this camp in mufti. For instance they take all the light men out and put theta as drivers. It does not matter how good a man may be on a gun, if he is not. heavy ho goes on to the driving. Here they train a man for one job only. "The Germans destroyed Eheims,' 1 declared Mr Hurst Seagar at Wellington on Saturday night, "not from any military necessity, but because of their jealousy of the great world-famous Gothic art works of France." He had read in a German magazine years before the war an article showing how great was that jealousy. An Auckland boy in a signalling camp in England has written a racy letter to a friend stating: "Never could I have imagined a, more beautiful country than this Southern England. All I have read in books about it or seen in pictures had not prepared me for such a place. To see the transformation from winter to spring and summer—well, if there is a more beautiful country it is surely Paradise on earth." • At the same time (ha admits to a colonial eye the place seems '"too well groomed," and would be better with some of Akarana's untamed beauty introduced.

In the Sunday Times appears an interesting item from the Amsterdam correspondent regarding a Berlin bank manager who was summoned for having illicitly purchased two pounds of butter. The accused was described as a veritable giant about eight feet high and weighing over seventeen stone. He was fined £3, although medical testimony was produced to prove that he could not subsist on the rations allowed. As he left the Court the man remarked that to avoid death Iby starvation he must face perpetual prosecution. Commenting on the controversy which has been excited in the British press over Mr W. M. Hughes (Prime Minister of Australia) and his speeches, the British Australian says:—"The Conservative papers are covering him with hysterical praise, and some of the Liberal papers', are bespattering him with equally hysterical ' abuse. The Daily News makes it ridiculous by screaming loudly because he had dared to 'insult free trade,' while Mr De Vere Stacpoole, in the Morning -Post, makes Australians smile by telling them of their Premier, 'a citizen of an Empire one and indivisible,' 'God has marked him as its first citizen, marked him so that the very children in the [street may know him,'"

The rabbit pest in various parts of the Auckland district is said to be increasing owing to farmers being absent on military service. In different localities grazing farms are supervised by neighbors during the absence of the owners, and in places vrhere the rabbits require constant attention to keep them within bounds the pest lias increased owing to the inability of the supervisors to find the labor necessary to carry out poisoning operations. A remit from the Franklin executive of the Farmers' Union to the Auckland Provincial Executive requests that the Government be asked to supply free poison for use on the sections of absent soldiers. So far as Franklin is concerned the labor of distributing the poison would be supplied by the neighbouring Rabbit Exterminating Committee.

The newly appointed Director-General of American Shipbuilding, Mr Charles Schwab, is chief proprietor of ttoe Bethlehem Steel Works—the American Krupps— and one of the richest men in the world. Although of German ancestry, the loyalty to the Entente of this self-made multi-millionaire has never been in doubt; in the early days of the war lie refused a bribe of £20,000,000 offered him by agents of the German Go- ( vernment, as an inducement to him to stop making munitions for the Allies. Mr Schwab followed up his scornful rejection of the proposal by placing his huge works completely at the disposal of the Allies. Born in Pennsylvania 50 years ago, "young" Schwab, as he is still called, had been a farm hand and a grocer's assistant, when one of Andrew Carnegie's managers called in the shop, and Schwab boldly asked him for a job. One of the German pilots who participated in the recent air raid on Paris, in an account in the, Berlin Lokal Anzeiget of his experience during the trip, sftys: "Suddenly the French put lanterns in our way Above and beneath us, ahead and astern, they hung quietly in the air, and with their blinding glare lighted up our planes: They are rockets with parachutes provided with very bright burning fuses. ■ Some special mechamsift enables them to remain steady for a full minute in the air. Sometimes dozens together appeared near us to show our machines to the anti-aircraft guns."

So little is heard of Bagdad nowadays, that special interest attaches to a report as to. conditions there, sent, by the British official press correspondent at the beginning oi last month. When the British Army entered on March 11th last yea-., Bagdad was to all appearances dead Now it is a bustling hive of humanity "Thousands of workmen pass through the streets early and late The main street is paved and lighted. There is a constant stream of traffic, and the sleepiest old women who haunt the streets have become adept at dodging the American motor-cars which through the streets A police force and a fire departraent have been organised. The oldfashioned lamp 3 in the streets have been replaced by electric lights. The water supplv has been improved and extended. Mosques have been repaired, roas have been paved, and schools, including a training school for native teachers,%ave Ven opened. The streets are now well-watered in dry weathr, and sanitary officials have penetrated the most hidden corners of the cit>. The municipal government has been made self-supporting, Two bridges have been thrown niross the Tigris river. These are some of the changes which have come with British occupation, and have come ouietlv unnoticed" Tt is difficult to lielieve that this experience of British ways will not have its effect upon intellisent people in Turkey, who know well enough what is Germany's way of treating the peonies of' occupied territory or subject lands.

After tin absence of nearly two years, Mabel 'Norm ami has returned to the screen in tlie gorpe.ons Ooldwyn feature. "Tilie Floor Below." Tn the picture Mabel is just as charrain? and irresistible an of yore, and filth on .ah now an actress of the hSgh&st brilliance Rhe has not forgotten how to bo the ehnrmins minx nf disarming ;winks. "The Floor Below" commences a three-night season at the Empire to-nigit. , If your throat is sore antt irritable 'take'KAZOL, it vrill give you relief. 1 \ >' *•' /