LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Taranaki Daily News, 19 February 1919, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

The National Disputes Committee in the coal trade met on Monday to consider the Blackball trouble, and both parties stated subsequently that they had nothing yot to report. At the sitting of the Arbitration Court in New Plymouth, which commences on Friday of this week, an application will be made for an amendment of the New Zealand typographers' award in the direction of an increase of pay or war bonus or a decrease of hours. In dealing last night with the necessity for increased egg production, Mr. E. C. Jarett, Government poultry expert, who addressed a meeting of the Tarauaki Egg Circle, Baid that during the pagt year one and a half million Chinese eggs were imported into New Zealand. Land agents' licences were granted at the Magistrate's Court yesterday by Mr. A. Crooke, S.M., in favor of A. B. Gibson (Mr. A. A. Bennett), Walter V. Young (Mr. F. C. Wilson), and Messrs. Humphries and Davies, all of New Plymouth. Mr. P. Fraser, M.P., is expected to visit New Plymouth shortly, probably within the next month. He is at present engaged in other places in connection with the campaign of the New '/.v "d Labor Party, and is coming here in tuiinection with the same organisation. The shoring of houses in Auckland is causing serious inconvenience to would be tenants and allowing for slackness in tiie building trade no improvement is expected in the near future. A returned Masterton soldier states that the whole of the horses used by the New. Zealand Mounted Rifles in Egypt and Palestine, have been purchased by the Indian Government. "He worked twelve hours on the Sunday and his pay for the day would he •18s," said a witness in the Masterton Police Court the other day, when referring to a bricklayer's work. A motorist, whilst drivir-;- towards Napier, via the Breakwater r.,ad, had a narrow escapo from a serious accident on Thursday afternoon. As ho was rounding the bend between the Breakwater and Coote road a boulder from the cliil' above suddenly crashed right through the hood of the motor car, narrowly missing the driver. The Wanganui Harbor Board's new dredge Knione is to be delivered in Xew Zealand by the Admiralty at a cost of £570(1. The vessel is to be insured for £BO,OOO. The chairman of the Board (Mr Bignell) has gone to Greymoutli, Westport, and Lyttclton, with "a view to ascertaining what plant is available in the way of cranes, etc. Whilst excavating in their coal yards in Weymouth Street a day or two ago, Messrs. Hoskin Bros, made an interesting iind, digging up a nix-chambered revolver—a relic, no doubt, of the troublesome times experienced in the early days of European settlement in Taranaki. The revolver is rusted with ago, and will. ;. acceptable, be presented to the museum. A meeting of the Shu- Motor Cycle Club was held at the Soldiers' Club on Monday evening, Mr. P. Bary presiding over a large attendance. Sixteen new members were elected during the evening, and a great deal of preliminary work in connection with the formation of such a club accomplished. Arrangements are being made to hold a hillclimbing test on March 2. •'Where's the polling booth V asked in all sincerity, was the question put to several people standing in the Magistrate's Court just after the luncheon adjournment yesterday. The questioner seemed quite taken aback on entering the room and on looking round saw no signs of the customary provision for vote-recording. And he was equally surprised when told that the booth was in Egniont Street. Local bodies should! really consider the advisability of sending individual notices of polling places to electors. Speaking at the Science Congress in Christuhurch, the president of the Xew Zealand Institute, Dr L. Cockavne, said New Zealand was above all a'farming community Many of Nature's secrets of 100 years ago were now the priceless possessions of man. Those, when more generally applied than at present, would make our fields yield a much greater return. That would be a great advance, but without the discovery of further fundamental principles, now unknown, agriculture would only reach a stage far from perfection. Our scientific duty as a nation was not only to apply to the best of our ability our present knowledge, but, by means of purely academic investigations, to discover further fundamental principles on which the greatly-improved farming of the future would depend. Miss Elizabeth Asquith, the ex-Prime Minister's daughter, who is announced to have been betrothed to a Roumanian Prince, was busily engaged in electioneering activities when the, last mail left England. She made her debut as a Liberal speaker in Devonshire, and, according to all accounts, she must have been very clever and effective. It would, indeed, be surprising if Mr Aaquith's daughter were otherwise. Although she is a very keen Liberal, she has no illusions about what is practicable and what is impracticable in politics, At one meeting she unfolded with feigned admiration one of those programmes which appeal to Socialist minds the more strongly the more they ignore the practical conditions of life Having very vividly outlined the new order of things in a way which rather puzzled the audience as to her real views, she let those views be seen by adding, as a concluding sentence: "That isn't government; that's Heaven." An officer back from the fleet «ives a description of how the German battle licet was taken in custody and conveyed to Scapa Flow The most striking thing lie said, was that at the mouth of the Forth the weather got a bit thicker and although he had a prettv good view of them against the light and abreast of I bom the mist was very annoying just when he was so keen to see evervthin-' J hen came a curious passage: "A mmneryman who was on the foretop with me and was also peering hard across at the Huns said as the fog bank thickened Tt w, rft Y nt V t! '" Wns -' ,,st lil;e this at Jutland W and then you could *ee them.' I sft .d: 'Surely not so closer And he answered: 'No, of course, not so «M« .•i l . nC » erthou * httoßee «.em n.m. . 0 i 2° P ° inted Ulem o,lt bv name, sax he thought them fine ships and wound up, as every sailorman do's: I It fair beats me to think how thev Zw'» nd "' em all like this, like lamW" He says that when the Card.ff came ,„ B i s , lt !cadi U)em .„ hat Thursday morning some of the men sa d to him: 'You know the saying, sir -'A little ship shall lead them'"The epitaph on the event was said by a midslupman arterwards when the "German fleet was shepherded into Scapa Flow"Some Tag for theJEunß.- J