LOCAL AND GENERAL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 24 January 1939, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL

Nev/ Zealand Piping Championship. At the New Plymouth Caledonian sports on Saturday, Pipe-Major Murdo McKenzie, of Masterton, won the New Zealand piping championship for strathspeys and reel.

Sanders Cup Race. Contrary to the general opinion that Vanguard was only a heavy-weather boat, she proved herself every bit as good a sailer in a light breeze in winning the fourth race in the Sanders Cup series at Bluff yesterday. Dewar Polo Cup.

At the end of February the Dewar Cup will be competed for by Gisborne, Rangitikei, Wairarapa, and Hawke’s Bay polo teams, and late in March the Dominion tournament will be played at Feilding. It is possible that an Australian side will visit New Zealand this year or in 1940.

New Private Company. The following company registration appeared in the “Mercantile Gazette” this month: —Self Help Properties, Ltd. Registered as a private company, Dec. 23. Office, Taranaki Street. Wellington; capital, £15,000, into 15,000 shares at £1; subscribers, Wellington:. Lucy N. Sutherland, 14,999, G. T. Turrey 1. Objects: To purchase or otherwise acquire for investment or resale property and to traffic in land, etc. University Athletes.

Though final arrangements have not been made, it seems certain that 12 athletes, also a rowing eight and perhaps swimmers from various Austral-, ian universities will tour New Zealand during the Centennial year, said Mr Eric Halstead, former president of the Auckland University Students’ Association, who-' returned by the Niagara yesterday. He said that the Australians would pay their own expenses, but New Zealand students would have to provide billets. New Zealand Polo Ponies.

“I have a great opinion of New Zealand and Australian horses, which I think as good polo ponies as you will get,” said Mr R. Skene, international polo player, who arrived from Sydney by the Niagara en route to the United States to take part in a series of matches. One of the ponies he will use in the United States will be a New Zealand-bred mare. Though he had never played in New Zealand, Mr Skene said he had played against the New Zealanders visiting Melbourne for the centenary in 1934. Duty on Curios.

Boy Scouts, who had spent most of their pocket-money on their holiday in Australia, expressed disgust yesterday on landing at Wellington at having to pay customs duty on the boomerangs and other curios and souvenirs they had brought back with them from the Sydney Jamboree. When asked by the Customs officers if they had anything to declare, they displayed their treasures, not for the most part of very great monetary worth, and were informed they were dutiable and would have to be paid for at the rate of 25 per cent of their value. Toll of the Motor Car.

Australian transport authorities are deeply concerned at the heavy toll of the roads in holiday time, according to Mr H. H. Sterling, Wellington, who returned yesterday by the Awatca from Sydney. He said that the death and accident rate on the highways during the holidays had given the Australian authorities considerable cause for worry, and the New South Wales Minister of Transport, Lt-Col. M. F. Bruxner, had deemed an active campaign necessary to counter highway fatalities. He was now setting out to educate all road users, whether motorists or pedestrians, and to enforce more stringently than at present the code of highway regulations. Onions for Australia.

Onion growers in New Zealand will benefit through the shipment of consignments to Australia this season. It will be the first time for a number of years .that any considerable quantity has ben sent to the Commonwealth. The first small shipment left by the Niagara for Sydney, and further supplies will be sent by subsequent vessels. The demand has arisen through a poor crop in Victoria, the principal onion-growing State in the Commonwealth, because of drought, proving insufficient to meet the country’s needs A further shipment will leave Auckland by the Awatea, and there will be a large shipment of some thousands of bags by the Wanganella on February 2. Consignments in the course of the season will be sent to both Sydney and Melbourne. - Dominion Character.

An analysis of the New Zealand character was given by Mr J. W. Shaw in an address to teachers from all parts of New Zealand, who are assembled in Napier for the annual summer school. "Hatred of affectations and dislike of people who ‘throw their weight around’ are among the characteristics of New Zealanders,” Mr Shaw said. "They have initiative and ability, characteristics of a young country, distrust talk, and do not thrust themselves forward.” Mr Shaw said that art did not occupy a high place in the nation’s standard of values, because people concentrated their development along practical and materialistic lines. Discipline was distasteful to the average New Zealander, but he had proved that he could accept it as a means to an end.

Abandoned Sheep. Four or five years ago a pastoral venture on the Campbell Islands ended in failure when the lessees of the sheep station that had been established there found themselves in difficulties. The ordinary necessaries of life wore becoming luxuries, and the problem of getting the wool clip to the mainland had become so acute that it was decided to abandon the project entirely. The men were brought back to New Zealand, and the stock was left on the islands to its own devices. Enquiries concerning the probable fate of the sheep and their numbers made today produced little information. It is considered, however, that the sheep will eventually die off. Even when they were being carefully tended the birthrate barely kept pace with the deathrate, and it is thought that after running wild for four or five years their total will already have been greatly reduced. The stock, strictly speaking, belongs to the mortgagees, a Christchurch syndicate, most of whom are deceased, which secured a lease of the islands, but sub-let them to the party which farmed the property for some years. The lease has now reverted to the Crown. The Campbell Islands lie 290 miles south of New Zealand, and are part of the Dominion. They are about 30 miles in circumference.