LOCAL AND GENERAL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 11 June 1938, Page 6

LOCAL AND GENERAL

Featherston County Bridges.

“Put in your claims for the four bridges and I will give you the maximum I can,” remarked the Minister oi Public Works, the Hon R. Semple, at yesterday’s meeting of the Featherston County Council, when a request was made for a £3 for £1 subsidy on the cost of constructing four 1 back country bridges, two on the White Rock Road and two on the WainUi-o-Ru Road. Two Duelling Pistols.

A pair of duelling pistols, complete with the necessary pieces, and encased in a wooden cabinet, have been presented to the Hawke’s Bay Museum and Art Gallery on behalf of the estate of the late Mr G. J. Black, of Gisborne. Defined places in the cabinet are occupied by flasks containing pellets and wads, mallet, ramrod or tamper, and other accessories. The pistols are muzzle loaders.

Skilled Tradesmen Scarce. “One of the big reasons for unemployment today is that many young men lost the chance in the depression years to become skilled tradesmen,” said the Minister of Mines, the Hon P. C. Webb, at a conference of local body representatives in Auckland, which discussed means of providing relief work. Mr Webb said that there were 5000 men employed in various ways in the building of houses. The Government’s housing scheme was restricted through a scarcity of skilled tradesmen. It could absorb 10,000 skilled tradesmen. Shortage of Carpenters.

At present there is a pronounced shortage of competent carpenters in Palmerston North, and the position, according to the principal of one building firm, is the acutest it has ever been. At the same time there is so much work in progress that it has absorbed all casual labour. This naturally has placed a premium oh the services of skilled men. Inquiries reveal that since the beginning of the year building has increased to such an extent that month by month the difficulty confronting firms in obtaining enough labour has grown greater. “Ugly Ducklings.”

“Ugly ducklings,” was the description given to the technical colleges by Mr A. L. M. Perry, of the Christchurch Boys’ High School, in an address to the Canterbury School Committees’ Association. The colleges gave a “sort of hotch-potch trade and academic education,” he said, and it was sometimes hard to realise what they were trying to do. It was not generally realised that 67 per cent of the pupils of the Technical College left befqre the end of their second year. He contrasted technical education in New Zealand with the. specialised trade schools and technical schools in England.

Musick Memorial. Further donations to the Musick Memorial Fund, bringing the total subscribed up to £644 15s lid, have been received in Auckland. The fund was established to provide a fitting memorial to Captain Edwin C. Musick, master of the Pan-American Airways flying boat Samoan Clipper, and his crew, who were lost when the machine crashed near Pago Pago in January. The trophy will be awarded for the most outstanding contribution to safety in aviation, in the British Empire or the United States. Designs for the trophy are expected to arrive from England within two months, and a selection will be made immediately. The finished trophy will be on view in Auckland before the end of the year. Thousands of Goldfinches.

Wearied by a long flight, thousands of goldfinches alighted in the nine-acre paddock of Mr S. Y. Towgood, No. 1 Line, Wanganui, recently. The birds had little energy left, and could only flutter a short distance. “I have never seen anything like it,” said Mr Towgood. “There were thousands of them, and they were very tired. They reminded me of a lot of moths fluttering in the grass on a summer evening. The paddock chosen to rest in has been shut up for some time, and has long grass.” The birds stayed all one day, and when recovered they departed. The next day a flock of about 100 alighted in the same paddock, apparently stragglers, more weary than the main flock. What is a Bonus?

Bonus is defined by the “New Zealand Banker” as a Latin word meaning “good.” In England it has a wider significance in that it means not only good but something useful. The journal reports that the staff of the Bank of New Zealand recently received “something good and useful” in the form of a 7| per cent bonus. It is remarked that as a rule the staffs do not always widely advertise the extent of the benefits had and received, and the story goes that three wives of officers of a certain bank were having morning tea when one remarked joyfully, “Aren’t we luck to get this 6 per cent bonus?” “Six per cent?” said another; “my husband told me it was only 4 per cent.” The third spouse replaced her cup carefully in the saucer, and remarked with a grim look, "What’s all this about a bonus?” Lord of Language.

“For many of us. Shakespeare’s greatest title must remain that he was, above all, a great lord of language.” said Mr Norman Birkett, speaking at the recent Shakespeare Festival. “When the critics have finished their work, when his various qualities have been appraised —his gift of pure creation, his immense and varied knowledge of the thoughts and feelings of men, his all-embracing and understanding sympathy, his saving and redeeming humour—he yet remains for many a great lover of words, the creator of immortal speech and those magical phrases which once heard or read remain in the memory and imagination so long as life shall last. It is this last power, beyond all other powers, that exalts him and separates him from the rest." Where Freedom Begins.

“The struggle for freedom; what do these words mean?” asked Mrs E. V. Parker in her presidential address to the English National Union of Teachers. “The word ‘freedom’ has a magic and an inspiration of its own. Poets have glorified freedom. Heroes have fought and died for it. Yet the struggle for freedom, as history describes it, has in the main been a blind and chaotic battle in the mist, in the course of which men have again and again exchanged one tyranny for another. Why has this been so? May it not be because, ‘clamorous in his demands for freedom for himself, man has never thought of giving freedom to the child; and the result has been that generation after generation has grown up, and still grows .up, hardened, narrowed and materialised by dogmatic pressure, dominated by false ideals, incapable of self-disci-pline. unworthy of freedom and unfit to enjoy it?’” ■ 1