Motor Litigation.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 December 1938, Page 6

Motor Litigation.

If civil cases arising from motor collisions could be abolished, +he number of judges on the supreme Coqrt Bench could be reduced. This opinion was expressed by Mr Justice Reed at the Nelson session. “We who have experience in North Island towns find that days are taken every session with those cases,” said His Honour. “To find sucn an area or district no such case is very gratifying. If collision cases could be done away with there could be a reduction in the number of judges.” Demolition of School. The Newton East School in Belgium Street, which some years ago was one of Auckland’s leading primary schools, and which was recently sold by the Education Department to a private contractor for removal, is now being demolished. The school was built in 1877, and after many years of usefulness was closed by the department in 1926 owing to the industrial growth of the district and the departure of many families to the newer suburbs. Pupils were transferred to Newton Central. For some years the old school was used as a work centre for unemployed women, and in one of the classrooms the France Street Mission held church services on Sundays. New Zealand Plants. During his visit to New Zealand Dr. C. J. F. Skottsberg, the eminent Swedish botanist, who has left on his return to Europe, took the opportunity of examining many indigenuous plants in public and private collections and ir their natural habitat. He was particularly interested in those species of Antarctic origin, whose near relatives he had studied in South America and elsewhere. While in Auckland he spent some time in viewing the collection o. rare ferns owned by Mr J. Prickett, m Birkenhead. Some of these, he sata he would have travelled a long way tr see. Dr. Skottsberg showed much enthusiasm when he discovered in a we paddock on the road to Albany an insectivorous plant with white flowers and red forked leaves. This plant is related to the sundew family, and is no, uncommon in some localities nea. Auckland. Soldiers of Germany. “I have never been more surprised than I was when I saw the physique of the average German soldier,” said Mr J. Green, a Dunedin business man. who arrived at Auckland by the Mariposa from San Francisco after spending several months touring in Europe. Mr Green said he had been led to believe that the German soldier was war material of the highest type, but although he had seen innumerable tram loads of them during the recent concentration on the Czechoslovakian bolder he had formed the opinion tha they were generally flattered by what had been said of them. An astonishing number of them, he said, were shortsighted. He had seen more German soldiers wearing glasses than without them, and the majority could not compare in any way with the finely trainee, and exceptionally fit Czechoslovakian soldiers he had seen. The Nazis he had seen who really evoked his admiration for their physique were young members of the Hitler Youth Movement. British Investment. The influence of British investments in the overseas Dominions on Empire trade and security was referred to by the Prime Minister, Mr Savage, when invited in an interview last evening to comment on a cabled message from London reporting Brigadier-General Sir Henry Page Croft as having stated that nothing was being done to stimulate the movement of capital to the Dominions. "At one time, said Mr Savage, “it was said that tiade follows the flag, but now everyone realises that it follows the investments.” “It is just common sense,” said Mr Savage, after reading the statement by Brigadier-General Croft. “The investment of British capital in the Dominions is the foundation of migiation, defence, Empire trade and Imperial unity. It definitely lays the foundation of migration, for the same reason it makes the defence of the British Empire possible; it definitely expands the trade of the British Commonwealth; and it definitely makes for Imperial unity all round. The Britain of the future will be spread throughout the Dominions.”