LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Taranaki Daily News, 28 February 1922, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

The Forestry Department is conducting experiments in various places with a view to arresting drifting sands, which are becoming a menace to many parts, particularly on the Mokau-Awa-kino coast.

Before Mr. H. R. Cattley, J.P., in the New Plymouth Magistrate’s Court yesterday, a man Avho was arrested for drunkenness on Saturday afternoon was convicted and discharged, being a statutory first offender.

In the international code book there is no word for “ladies.” H.M.S. Chatflam had occasion to use this word when signalling the harbormaster (Captain Waller) yesterday, and with the ingenuity for which sailors are noted, the improvised word “she-males” was substituted. The commodore apologised for this seeming flippancy when explaining the position to the party which went aboard yesterday and said that the matter was not meant for a practical joke.

Mr. R. Masters, M.P., has been in communication with Mr. F. W. Flannagan, Valuer-General, as to the probable date of his visit to Taranaki in the capacity of a commission in connection with farmers’ mortgages. Mr. Flannagan stated that he was leaving for the Waikato on the 24th inst., and hoped to conclude his business in that district in about a fortnight, and would advise Mr. Masters of the date of his visit to Taranaki upon his return to Wellington.

During the latter part of the session Mr. W. T. Jennings suggested that relatives of deceased soldiers be given certificates as well as the soldiers who returned. The member for Waitomo has now received word that Cabinet is considering the suggestion. Mr. Jennings also asked the Minister in Charge of the Pensions Department whether he would state why military pensions were refused to the widowed mothers of soldiers who died from wounds on the ground that those widowed mothers were receiving the old-age pension? The reply to hand is that each case will be reconsidered on its merits.

Mr. G. H. Bell, of Oakura, has just received word that his Jersey cow, Sylvia of 0.K., is the gold medal winner in the four-year-old class for the highest amount of butter-fat in New Zealand for 1921, her record being 692.491b5. fat, 11,926.'61b5. of milk. This is the second occasion on which this wonderful little cow has won the gold medal. In 1919 she Avon it as a two-year-old, producing 556.911b5. fat and 9774.21b5. of milk. She did not compete in 1920. It is the intention of her owner to again put Sylvia of O.K. 'under test, as he considers her capable of a much higher record even than her last.

The rain which fell in the New Plymouth district on Sunday and continued more steadily yesterday is most welcome after several weeks* dry weather. To farmers it will spell a further continuance of a good supply of milk, which will serve to make the concluding stages of the season more productive than was expected. Altogether the season has been a splendid one. but the rain is timely. Town dwellers, whose parched gardens have called for the hose and whose lawns have rapidly, taken on a brown tint, will also welcome the heavy downpour. Our Inglewood correspondent writes: An appreciable fall of warm, freshening rain has fallen in the Inglewood district since Friday evening, enough to lay the dust on the highways and freshen the pastures for the cattle. Farmers mostly express hopes for more of the same warm growth-promoting weather. Speaking at Dargaville last week, the Hon. J. G. Coates, Postmaster-General, stated that the operations of the Post Offices this year would show a profit of £160,000.

Of 45 land agents who were licensed in Hastings in 1921 only 21 have renewed their licenses this year.

“We think all cemeteries will be finished in five years,” Captain M. Mullineux remarked in a lecture at New Plymouth last night, dealing with the care of soldiers’ graves and the establishment of permanent cemeteries on the battlefields.

The Star states that the six flourmills in the Dunedin district are now at a standstill. They cannot get wheat to grind, and it is expected that there will be none available for a fortnight, when the first of the new crop may be to hand. An inquiry of Oamaru brings the answer that, for want of sunshine, the wheat is taking a long while to ripen. There is no shortage of flour, but millers have wages running, and would naturally like to see work going on.

The Nauru Island phosphate industry, which is controlled by the British Phosphate Commission, is reported to be progressing satisfactorily. The New Zealand commissioner, Mr. A. F. Ellis, of Auckland, who returned last week from a visit to Australia, states that during 1921, the commission’s first full year of working, the shipments of phosphates totalled 394,000 tons, of which slightly over 20.000 tons came to New Zealand. The business, he said, was going ahead quite smoothly. The details of the year’s operations will be published shortly.

At the Wanganui Court on Friday, a young man, an ex-Post Office official, was charged with on April 6, at Patea, failing to deliver a letter addressed to a Patea resident. Detective-Sergeant Cameron said accused w r as a postman at Patea. The letter had come into his hands and had been taken to his whare, where it was found after accused had left Patea. The letter contained a cheque, but was intact, so that there was no suggestion of theft. Accused had been two years in the Department, but had since resigned. He went to the war at the age of 17 years and had a good record. Accused admitted having the letter, but* forgot to deliver it. In answer to the Magistrate the detective stated that the letter had been in the whare some time before the next occupier discovered it under some oilcloth on the table. It seemed to be more an act of neglect. The Magistrate said that he would take into consideration the circumstances and only fine accused £2, with court costs Is.—Chronicle.

The successful handling of the large crowd which attended Wirth’s Circus on Saturday night is a tribute Jo the lawabiding nature of the New Plymouth public and to the organising ability of ■the borough chief inspector, Mr. R. Day. The behaviour of the people was in striking contrast to that of the usual crowd, and to the experience of Messrs. Wirth Bros, in one or more of the North Island towns visited on their present tour. Early in the day arrangements were made to form four queues, and by 6.30 some hundreds of people were in line. At 7 p.m., when the sale of tickets was commenced, the lines extended well into >St. Aubyn Street, and in less than an hour over 4000 people were admitted to the tent with no evidence of crushing or jostling. Although several members of the police were present with the borough inspectors they were not called upon to assert their authority.

Remarkable evidence of the devastation caused among the surrounding rimu forests by an eruption centuries ago is afforded by a landslide which has oe curred. within the last few weeks near Rotorua. The erosion of a river having undermined a high bank, a slip on the cliffside reveals rimu trees about 3ft. in diameter buried under 30ft. or 40ft. of pumice soil. The trees are piled upon one another as though swept down by a huge flood and then buried. The wood is in excellent condition, and is being used by neighboring farmers for fencing. The tree's buried near the surface on the high land have long ago turned into charcoal, but those in the moist soil protected from the atmosphere are silent witnesses to the awful power that must have swept them into the valley in a huge pile, and then filled in the valley with volcanic ash. At Waiotapu, on the Taupo Road, 30 miles from Rotorua heavy rains and floods have laid bare a buried rimu forest and exposed about 6ft. of upright •trunks, which are so petrified that they turn the edge of an axe and cannot be cut.

Three motorists who set out to return to Inglewood from the Whangamomona show on Saturday had an exciting and not too pleasant trip. One brake was not working when the trip was started, and after covering about 20 miles a breakdown occurred, and the other brake and reverse gear were out of commission when the journey was continued. The roads were fortunately dry and in good order, but once the car had started on a down grade it was impossible to stop, and the only way to steady the descent was by going into low gear. Rattling round hairpin bends and turns on a steep down grade with only the clutch and two gears working was found to be a hair-raising experience. The road through Matau, Purangi and Tarata was found to be in good order, and the only mishap was when progress was checked by a colli- • sion with a cow. When the descent of the Tarata zig-zag was started the lights commenced flickering off and on like morse signals, and the darkness added greatly to the excitement. More by good luck than by good management level going was reached without accident, and then the lights failed completely. All efforts to repair them were in vain and the trio finished the last eight miles into Inglewood on foot, finally arriving at midnight, after seven and a half hours on the road.

A “settling down” process is going on quietly in connection with farming properties purchased at boom-time prices. The Eltham Argus knows of one instance in which a farm was sold at considerably over £lOO per acre. The occupier finds that he cannot possibly pay the interest on such high-priced land The vendor has no desire to go back and work the farm himself, so he has come to an arrangement the practical effect of which is that the occupier now holds the farm on terms that has reduced his purchasing price to £67 per acre, at which price he may “pull through. Similar negotiations arc on the tapis m connection with other farms and may he brought into operation about June OP July. It is nothing but arrangements of this kind that will save some farmers from having to go back on the land and themselves work properties thev thought they had disposed of. It is possible that in some cases interest on land sold may be on a sliding scale, varying in accordance with the price ot butter-fat. It is beyond all shadow of doubt that unless mutually satisfactory arrangements tire arrived at there will be numberless “flittings” from Taranaki farms. In many cases the men who sold their farms are well up in years they are too old to resume farming and they must compromise with the mortgagors.

“We have in the House of Representatives some thirty .farmers. The Government is entirely in sympathy with the aims of the farming community, and the latter is getting far more from this Government than it ever had from any before it. I believe we ought, as a union, to think twice before we enter the thorny path of party politics.”—Mr. W. J. Polson’s reply to an inquiry at Gisborne as to his opinion on the union’s taking up political action.

It has been suggested that the Government should take advantage of the recent improvement in the London money market to float at once the additional loan of £1,OCX),000 for which authority was taken last session. The Prime Minister stated on Saturday, however, that Cabinet had not altered its decision to wait until the end o-f the financial year. It had the money required for current needs, and it v as more than likely that the London money market would be even more favorable later on.

The attempt to make the first nonstop flight from Wellington to Auckland by the H.D.9 aeroplane, which came from Timaru, had to be abandoned owing to petrol supplies running out. A landing.was made at Levin, and in doing so some damage was done to the undercarriage. The machine was flown by Mr. Park, and with him were Mr. R. Wigley, director of the New Zealand Aero Transport Company, and Mr. B. C. Ryder. Mr. Park had intended to renew supplies of petrol at Wellington, but conditions were so good that he de-

cided to continue straight on. The weather, however, changed, and bad flying conditions were experienced, with a result that the stop was made. No serious damage was done.

“It is actions of that sort that make people fell bitter against Germany, especially as reparation is apparently not forthcoming,” said Chaplain-Captain M. Mullineux, M.C., when, in the course of a lecture at New Plymouth last night, he screened some illustrations of the shattered towns of France, showing numerous cathedrals and once splendid buildings in a state of wreckage. “In these days,” he continued, “people are apt to criticise France’s attitude towards Germany, but if we had lost 4000 towns and villages absolutely laid in ruins, and if many of us had been cast out of our homes by German shellfire, we should probably adopt the same attitude.”

A hint that some of the evidence was rather irrelevant was given by Mr. Justice Chapman in the course of a somewhat lengthy case in the Supreme Court at New Plymouth yesterday. “I thought the object of the evidence was to convince me of something,”-he said, “but as I don’t understand the evidence it is a good way off that.” When the time drew near for the usual adjournment, counsel asked if he would call another witness in view of the lateness of the hour. “Call a dozen if you like,” said His Honor. “It will be rather lengthy,” was counsel’s warning statement, to which the judge retorted that “they are all lengthy.” When the day’s sitting was finished counsels’ addresses remained to be heard. In intimating that he proposed to take these this morning His Honor said: “Remember there is someone else waiting.” Farmers, don’t lost your milk for the sake of a ha’-p’orth of “Sinus.” One can of milk rejected by the factory manager would pay for many a bag of “Sinus,” the champion milking machine, (separator and dairy cleanser. Clean milk can be positively assured by the use of “Sinus” at such a small coat as to be almost negligible. Ask for it.