LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Taranaki Daily News, 18 July 1921, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

A full account of Saturday’s football match appears on page three. Crowds, like individuals, possess temperaments, and the big gathering of neariy 15,000 people at New Plymouth on Saturday must have been in a kindly mood, as it is reported to be one of the easiest to handle in the experience of local traffic officials. Certainly there were excellent arrangements for coping with the influx of visitors, and all obeyed instructions in . the sporting spirit of the day. There were no accidents reported and the police state that the behaviour of the crowd was exemplary. Another overseas liner, the Shaw Savill steamer Kia Ora (8030 tons), arrived at New Plymouth on Saturday morning, and when berthed was drawing 18ft. 2in. forward and 20ft. aft. The vessel, which is ou her fourth visit to this port, is to load for England, her cargo including 30,000 freight carcases of meat and 6000 crates of cheese, besides a quantity of wool, hides and tinned meat. Loading operations will be commenced this morning and are expected to be completed by the end of the week, when the Kia Ora will sail for Wanganui. The Waitomo (U.S.S. Co.), which was expected to arrive at New Plymouth yesterday from Newcastle with coal, • owing to lack of accommodation at New Plymouth has been diverted to Napier.

At the meeting of the provincial executive of the Farmers’ Union at Hawera on Friday, the president, Mr. R. Dunn, brought up the question of the appeal now being made by the local Cooperative Society for money to be placed on deposit with the society for the purpose of enabling them to finance farujers in Taranaki who may be in need of it. Instead of inves.iug the money in institutions cutside the province where it will merely produce interest to the investors and will rob Taranaki of the necessary capital to foster production within its own confines he urged fanners in tbeir own interests, to support their own organisation and their own farmers, rather than send their money for- investment outside the province.

Mild sugar-cured bacon is being advertised for sale in Christchurch at from lOd to Is 4d per lb. An attempt to revive the once popular Timaru-Christchurch cycle road race is to be made this year. The position in regard to unemployment among returned soldiers in Christchurch is reported to be very serious. A newspaper reporter has discovered that Wellington is 4,000 dwelling-houses short of requirements. In the early part of the nineteenth century oil spouting from the earth was regarded as a nuisance and calamity, while to-day 70,000,000 tons a year is regarded as all too small a supply for the world’s needs.

“In Auckland they pool everything,” remarked Mr. J. AL Johnston at the Patriotic Society meeting on a recent evening. “They even pool their politics there,” he said, amid laughter. Mr. G. W. Davies: “Yes they had a Poole at Ponsonby once.” (Laughter.) The Manchester Guardian, criticising severely the panic-mongers who are demanding a reduction of expenditure on education, says: “After all, what does this proposal to suspend the Education Act mean if not this—that the children shall be required to pay for the war? Could any policy be less defensible? Could any better deserve the description of ‘lunacy’ which the Bishop of Manchester, who is also President of the Workers’ Educational Association, the other day applied to it? Adult men and women have not given the rising generation a very agreeable world to grow up in. Whatever may be done now, the boys and girls who are at school will be faced with problems which will demand for their solution every ounce of energy that mind and character can’ command. Surely we might at least give them what tools we can with which to hew into shape the chaos which we, and not they, have made?” With the solemn words, “It must not be again,” President Harding laid a wreath on the coffin of the first American soldier to die on German soil during the funeral ceremony held for 5000 war dead at a pier in Hoboken on May 23. His voice husky and his eyes brimming with tears, the President gazed at the row. on row. of coffins as he spoke. “One hundred thousand sorrows are touching my heart. It must not be again. God grant that it will not be, and let a practical people join in co-operation with God to the end that it shall not be. I would not wish a nation for which men would not be willing to fight, and, if need be, to die, but I do wish for a nation where it will not be necessary to as'k for that sacrifice. I do not pretend that the millenial days have come, but I can believe in the possibility of a nation so powerful in righteousness that none will dare invoke her wrath. I wisrh for such an America.”

The uncertainties and rumors—sometimes rather grim humors—of deerstalking where amateurs are concerned were illustrated by a story told to a N.Z. Times representative by Mr. C. I. Dasent (secretary- of the Wellington Acclimatisation Society). “Often,” remarked Mr. Dasent, “they shoot what they think is a twenty-pointer stag, 1 and find that it is only a six-pointer. That is to say, the horns have only six points, instead of twenty. And it is not often deer that you shoot. In the Hawke’s Bay district some time ago a . party of sportsmen rose early to find their camp and the surrounding hills shrounded in mist. They set out on a stalking expedition, and almost at once walked into what they took to be a stag with a specially fine spread of horns. They fired a volley and it fell, struggling vigorously—so vigorously that they dare not approach it for some time, lest it should get up and rush them. Eventually, however, the struggles ceased, and the stalkers then found, much to their chagrin, that they had shot their packhorse, the saddle of which, with two arms standing out on either side of the animal’s head, had in the mist made it look like a deer. They kept the story as dark as they could: but not so the liveryman from whom they had hired the horse. He was very angry, and mad? them pay some £l6 for -the animal and it was a very long time before they heard the last of the exploit.” Hasty people are seldom out of trouble, it is said. This is specially so in matrimonial affairs, if one may judge from the domestic dramas which unfold themselves in the Courts. Two middleaged people appeared- there on Thursday (says the Wanganui Chronicle), as the result of having known each other for a fortnight and then married. This happened four months ago. “How did you come to marry her?” asked the Magistrate. The lady had already been in the witness-box. The gentleman’s version of how he had been beguiled was simplicity itself. He had been introduced to his future wife “and she had picked on me as being a suitable man,” he said. She being a lonely female and he being a bachelor, he thought the idea of marriage was not a bad one. Both being willing there was n o delay. He soon found out, however, that his wife drank, in fact, that she was rarely sober. Judging from his description of her when she brandished knives and axes, she was a veritable amazon, although she did not look it in the box*. The lady was the complainant in the case, which was an application for a separation order. She made allegations of gross brutalityon the part of her new husband. The Magistrate refused to make an order, as he considered from the woman’s appearance that she drank to excess and therefore would be likely to consider) that everyone else was drunk. The N.Z. Rugby Union wish all newspapers to send advertising accounts in connection with the Springboks-Tara-naki match as soon as possible to the secretary, c/o McLeod and Slade, New Plymouth.

Picture patrons who were fortunate enough to see the delightful English picture, “My Old Dutch” in the prewar days will be interested in the announcement in this issue that another famous story is to be shown per medium of the “movies” at the Empire Theatre to-night and to-morrow. The present picture is “Darby and Joan” (by Hall Caine), the immortal story of a boy and girl who loved, and strove through life together as perfect man and wile. The human sentiment that made “My. Old Dutch” so popular runs through every foot of •’Darby and Joan.” jSeats can now be reserved at Collier’s.

All those who have a soft spot in their hearts for the old Rampant Lion will be pleased to learn that a meeting tor the purpose of forming a Scottish Society will be held at the Soldiers’ Club, New Plymouth, on Thursday, 21st inst., at 8 p.m. The convenors hope to see a large attendance. A final reminder is given in the auction columns of Mr. G. G. Black’s clearing sale at Puneaheru to-day*

“It has been suggested that we should eat margarine,” said Dr. G. J* Blacky more, in a public lecture in Christchurch on Saturday, “It is undoubtedly inferior to butter, and I think the suggestion that we should eat and give our children to eat margarine while this great butter producing country exports butter to the rest of the world deserves nothing but the strongest condemnation.”

“I doubt very much whether you would find in New Zealand one adult foot that is the shape Nature designed it to be,” said Dr. G. J. Blackmore in

a lecture in Christchurch. “It seems impossible to get in New Zealand boots of the nature that fit the natural shape of the child’s foot. We are contemptuous of the Chinese because of the way they deform their children’s feet, but there is more deformation in New Zea-

land in proportion to the population. The foot is a most beautiful piece of mechanism, and we often do our best to destroy that mechanism, and often sueced admirably.”

'Substantial progress has been made in repairing the devastation in Northern France. The population of 4,900,000 in 1914 had fallen to 1,900,000 at the time of the armistice, but to-day the figure is 4,100,000. The peasants have cleared 95 per cent, of the devastated soil, and

brought under cultivation 80 per cent.: 99| per cent., or 2024 kilometres, of the railway lines have been repaired; 80 per cent., or 2400, of the destroyed bridges have been reconstructed, and 76 per cent., or 702 kilometres, of the navigable canals have been put in order. Of the 52,000 kilometres of highways destroyed by the enemy, 30,000 have been rebuilt or repaired. The houses completely destroyed numbered 319,000, but of those damaged, 249,000 have been repaired and about 130,000 provisional houses have been erected. The Government has already advanced more than 28 milliard francs for the work of reconstruction, and has voted a further credit of about 10 milliard francs for this year. Industry, however, is severely damaged. The coal mines during the first six months of 1920 yielded only 6 per cent, of the pre-war tonnage, and more than 200 pits cannot be used, while a lack of funds is preventing the rebuilding of the dwellings of the workmen. Compared with 50,000 before the war, there .are now only 22,000 men in the mines, and of these 18,000 are on reconstruction work. The metallurgical industry employe only about 50 per cent, of the pre-war workmen, many of whom are also engaged on reconstruction, while the textile, wood and glass industries are in a similar position.

The Mercantile Gazette is apprehensive concerning the revision of the tariff. It thinks that when it is tinkered with, it will mean higher duties, for the simple reason that the Government needs more revenue, and the industrialists want more protection. There are not a few in the community who will endorse the opinion of the Gazette when it says:—“The Government could not be expected to assist in production, and not have some power to regulate pr’Zes. The country has had thorough experience of Government regulation of prices, and we fancy that it is not very anxious that this should be continued. The encouragement given to wheat growers and butter producers has resulted in the prices of wheat, flour, bread and butter being unusually high, relatively higher than in countries where the Governments refrain from interfering, and attend to their own business. Encouragement was also given to the poultry industry, and not so very long ago eggs were at 5s fid per dozen, and even no?v are at an intolerably high price. Protection to industries once started has to be continued indefinitely, and often the tariff has to be increased. The assumption that New Zealand can be made an

industrial country—that is, a manufacturing country, is erroneous, because the history of all countries shows that expansion has been dependent upon tha development of the key industries of coal aud iron.”