DOMINION NEWS.

Taranaki Daily News, 30 June 1921, Page 2

DOMINION NEWS.

ALLEGED EMBEZZLEMENT. By Telegraph.—Press Association. Wellington, June 29. William Little, clerk in the employ of the Government Labor Department, was charged at the Magistrate’s Court to-day with the theft of money to the total value of £ll5 10s. His duties were to collect factory registration (fees. It is alleged that he collected £359 during eleven months and paid in only £143 Us. Accused, who pleaded not guilty, was committed to the Supreme Court for trial. Bail, in £2OO was granted. A BRIDGE COLLAPSES. Auckland, June 29, Just as a char-a-banc with forty passengers passed over the Swanson Road bridge, at Henderson, it collapsed into the creek eighteen feet below. Nobody was injured. Another char-a-banc crossed immediately before, both being part of the largely attended funeral of a man killed at a sawmill. STOKER’S FRAUD PUNISHED. Auckland, June 29. In the Supreme Court, Leslie Douglas, who, representing himself as a naval officer, obtained £4O from a widow by false pretences, after replying to a matrimonial advertisement, was sentenced to one. year in prison and three years’ reformative treatment. THE RONA REFLOATED. M Wellington, June 29. The refloating of the Rona was smoothly accomplished at 9 a.m. About 180 tons of coal were taken, out and kedges placed astern last night andthe ship moved 35 feet at high tidee; As the tide rose this morning the ship was warped off ’by her own gear and brought to the Queen’s Wharf by tugs. A diver’s survey is to be made. The ship’s pumps were able to keep the water down. The extent of the damage is unknown as yet. ASSESSMENT NOTICE Auckland, June 29. Attention is drawn to the fact that in the preliminary notices issued by the Commissioner of Taxes under ths Land Tax in February, the super-tax is stated to the 33 1-3 per cent., whereas the schedule of last season’s Act presented the same rates as under the 1920 Act, namely 59 per cent. The question is raised, what statutory authority exists for alteration.