A TIRED COUNCIL.

Taranaki Daily News, 16 November 1921, Page 4

A TIRED COUNCIL.

We cannot commend the New Plymouth Borough Council for its attitude towards the British engineering firm which is anxious to establish works in the town to deal with the smelting of ironsand by hydro-electricity. All along it has taken up an unsympathetic—we were almost writing antagonistic—attitude towards the company; why, we cannot understand. The council—particularly the Mayor—appears to regard the firm as one whose proposals should be resisted at all costs. “I am tired 'of this gentleman” (meaning the representative of this important company), exclaimed the Mayor at Monday’s meeting. Why he should be tired is not apparent. Surely ordinary courtesy ought to be extended to a firm that is endeavoring to renew negotiations with the council. The town does not want tired men, who happen to be at the head of its affairs for the time being, to discourage enterprise in this way, but live men who will see the advantage of exploiting every possibility of doing business with the firm. The Mayor complains that Mr. Leggatt has not made a concrete proposal as yet. How can he when things in connection with the scheme have been in such an uncertain state as they have been of late, through the council’s own perversity ? Let the council itself get down to business and see what it can offer power for and what additional finance it requires to generate the power the company requires, having regard in making the offer to the general benefits following the starting of works more than to any immediate profits accruing from the sale of the current. The English firm cannot be buyer and seller also, and it is for the council to submit its bedrock conditions and quotations; then the company will have something to go upon. At present it has nothing, excepting the impression—-which is not unjustified, we regret to say—that the council is unsympathetic towards the project it has submitted. The fact that the company has shown a desire to reopen negotiations after the repeated snubs and set-backs to which it has been subjected, proves how * rui ■ Patea £314, Inglewood £241. The Patea meat works arc to be reopened shortly, the necessary finance having been obtained to enable the works to be carried on. This will be good news to many. Closing down, as was threatened, would have been a calamity to the district.

The annual conference of the New Zealand Waterside Workers’ Federation opens in New Plymouth this morning. About twenty-five delegates will be present from various parts of New Zealand, and they* will be officially welcomed by the Mayor (Mr. F. .E. Wilson). The conference is expected to last* about a fortnight.

The perfect witness has been discovered at last. “I may tell you my evidence is absolutely reliable,” remarked a. witness in the Palmerston North Magistrate’s Court; the other day. “I have a reputation for remembering facts. I am kiyown as ‘Pedigree Jim, the memory mar'/ei.’”

On a charge of alleged assault on a tram conductor in New Plymouth on November 10, Bert Wilkinson was arrested in Wanganui yesterday, according to advice received by the New Plymouth police last night. W’ilkinson will appear before the Wanganui court to-day and will probably be remanded to New Plymouth. “Wlio gave you the information first ” asked counsel of a member of the detective force when he was in the witness-box in the Supreme Court last week. His Honor interposed that the police could not be called upon to give the name of an informant. “It is a secret of State,” stated the learned judge, “and similarly a person could not go into a Government department and investigate it.” Fruit crops are not heavy this, season, but 1 promise a fair average crop (states the Tasman correspondent of the Nelson Mail). Black spot is not nearly so prevalent as in former years, and it is hoped that this condition of affairs may continue for some time, and in this way make up in quality for the quantity, which apparently will not be so great as was hoped earlier in the season. The question of the appointment of a director for the new technical college at Stratford was considered at a special meeting of the Taranaki Education Board yesterday. The original list of applicants numbering twenty-five had been reduced to four names and these gentlemen were interviewed by the board. A final selection was made but the appointment has yet to be confirmed by the Education Department at Wellington.

Two statutory first offenders for drunkenness were brought before Mr. H. R. Cattley, J.P., in the New Plymouth Court yesterday morniag. One was convicted and fined. ss, in default 24 hours’ imprisonment. The other was convicted and fined 10a, in default 48 hours’ imprisonment, he being an old offender, though a statutory first offender on the present charge of drunkenness. On a further charge of obtaining liquor during the currency of a prohibition order, he was remanded to appear before the Magistrate to-morrow. As the fine was not forthcoming he remained in custody. At h special meeting of the executive of the New Plymouth branch of the Victoria League on Monday afternoon, it was agreed to fall in with the suggestion of the Dunedin, branch, to hold' the annual conference in that city towards the middle of 1922. It was also decided that the Victoria League should entertain the wives and mothers of soldiers on -November 26. This has hitherto been done by the Women’s National Reserve which is now disbanded. A card party for members is being arranged for Monday evening, November 28.

The arrest was effected in Auckland on Friday last of a young woman who is said to have adopted a rather ingenious method of obtaining goods, chiefly drapery, by» false pretences. On May 21 last a Newton, draper received a telephone message purporting to tome from a well-known city resident. The draper was instructed to supply certain goods to a maid, who would call for them in a given time, the goods to be charged to the account of the city resident. Not suspecting a trick, the draper handed the articles to the supposed maid when she called. Subsequently when the account, amounting to about £l4, wa.». rendered to the person who was believed to have given the order it was repudi-

A runaway horse, which careered through Devon Street about eight o’clock yesterday morning, collided with a pedestrian in the course of the gallop. The animal, it* was stated, had bolted from the Old Hospital Road, and took to the footpath in the east end of the town. Mr. F. *E. Gadd, who was stepping on to the footpath a little above his business premises, failed to observe in®time that the horse, the clatter of which he had heard, was coming along on the path, and he was struck in the back and thrown somewhat heavily to the ground. The books he was carrying were scattered about the road and his bag thrown in the opposite direction. Beyond a somewhat severe shaking and a cut on the upper lip he was not seriously injured. The animal continued down Devon Street, passed under the scaffolding in front of the Modern Tailors’ premises without colliding with any portion of the structure and continued to the corner of Egmont Street.

The New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Co., Ltd., wish to draw clients’ attention to their Matau sale which they are holding in their Matau yards on Friday, November I'B, at 1 p.m. Full particulars of entries will be found on page 8.

The Bayly scholarship sports, which are being conducted by the Taranaki Rugby Union, will be held on the High School grounds on Saturday, December 3. —Advt.

We are in receipt of a copy of a valuable little book entitled “Electroculture,” being a treatise on the application of electricity to seeds in vegetable growing. The book embodies the result of experiments spread over nine years (and carried on in both coastal and tableland district) in the application of electricity to vegetable-growing. The author (A. Carr Bennett) claims that by intelligent use of the system here described no backyard will be too small, no soil too poor, to grow vegetables in such quantity and of such quality as will materially lessen a family's food-bill; while any man lucky enough to have half an acre at his disposal not only can grow all the’ vegetables needed for a large family, but can earn a' full living wage from the sale of the remainder. Successful market gardening, it is shown, depends more on the health and vigor of the seed (which electroculture stimulates) and on regular watering, than on the quality of the soil, so that areas of land hitherto considered unsuitable for intensive gardening can be in future utilised to the full. The system aims, not at cultivating large areas or employing elaborate agencies for stimulation’, but at getting the most by the simplest means and at the highest speed out of every square inch of ground. Our copy, which is fully illustrated and contains all the information necessary to introduce and work the system, is from the “8.K.,” New Plymouth.

There has recently been a marked hardening tendency on the price of cotton goods, and when such famous makers as Finlay’s, of Glasgow, and Horrockses, of Manchester, advance their products by 10 to 15 per cent, it is safe to say that every other manufa-cturer in the kingdom will follow suit. The moral of this is to buy cotton goods now without delay, preferably at the Melbourne, Limited.

Canned Meats manufactured at the Taranaki Farmers’ Meat Company’s Smart Road Works are now on sale. Ask your grocer for “T.F.M.” lib sheep tongues; 31bs anff Gibs ox tongues; IJlbs and (Jibs corned mutton and beef.