LOCAL AND GENERAL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 8 March 1939, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL

Flooding at Kopuaranga. The Masterton County Council decided at its meeting yesterday to proceed with the erection of a bridge on the Waingawa to Camp Road and to interview settlers regarding the diversion of the creek on th western side of the road. Masterton County Bridges. Advice was received at yesterday’s meeting of the Masterton County Council that the State Advances Corporation was now prepared to advance the council the remaining £lO.OOO of its loan of £14,500 for the renewal of twelve bridges in the county. Fine Arts Bursary. Miss Gillian Gooder. a pupil of Wairarapa College, who last year passed the Fine Arts Preliminary examination, has received word that she has been awarded a Fine Arts Bursary, tenable at the Canterbury College School of Art. Miss Gooder will be leaving for Christchurch within a few days. Stewart Island Cable. Repairs have now been completed to the Stewart Island submarine telephone cable, which has been out of order since January 9, and telephonic communication between Invercargill and Half Moon Bay has been restored. Telegraph traffic is now being conducted as usual over the cable. Heavier First-grade Eggs. First-grade . eggs will be slightly larger in Auckland as the result of a change in grading which has come into operation. The change has been made by the Auckland Egg Marketing Committee, the body controlling prices and grades of eggs. The change will bring Auckland first-grade eggs into line with those sold at Wellington. The weight fixed represents an increase of Joz to 1 15-16 oz. Large Brown Trout. One of the heaviest trout taken in Lake Rotorua for many years was caught by Mr B. Reid, of Auckland, when fly fishing oil Hamurana on a recent evening. The fish was a brown trout weighing 141 b 2oz, and it took 35 minutes to land. An excellent specimen, it was 2ft 7in in length and Ift 7in in .girth. Pumping on Hulk. The Northern Company’s old hulk Eure, formerly a French warship stationed at Noumea, which was discovered to be leaking the other day, has been working under pumps for some days. She has been beached in shallow water in Shoal Bay, but it was found necessary to move her to even shallower water a few days later. Social Security Tax. Correcting a statement recently published about the social security charge on wages, the Commissioner of the Land and Income Tax Department, Mr, J. M. Park, stated in Wellington yesterday that salary and wages paid after April 1 but in respect of a period beginning before that date would be taxed at the rate of 8d in the £l. Income other than salary or wages derived during the year ended March 31, 1939, would be liable at the social security charge rate of Id in each Is 8d (or Is in the £1), payable in quarterly instalments.' Model Aeroplane’s Flight. Something of a. record flight for a model aeroplane was created in Auckland. The model was made by Mr li. Court to send to America, and he was giving it a trial flight, when it disappeared and he was unable to locate it. The rubber motor stopped 30 seconds after the model was launched at Ellerslie, but the glide carried the .model out of sight over Mount Eden. The aeroplane was last sighted three-quar-ters of an hour after its flight started, as it disappeared into a cloud in the vicinity of the Zoo. Warmth in the South. “They told us in Auckland that we would freezze down in the South Island,” ■ said Captain F. K. Klebingat, master of the American yacht Navigator, which arrived at Lyttelton the other day. Captain Klebingat said that the weather was cold and miserable while the vessel was in Auckland. Conditions were a little better at Picton. “But this is the first hot weather we have struck since we have been in New Zealand,” he said, referring to Lyttelton. He added that as they came from California they all preferred the hot weather. Hospital Accessories. A Wairarapa resident who has been a patient in the Masterton Hospital for nearly six months and who has just left the institution expresses his deep appreciation of the kindness and consideration that he received from the members of the nursing staff. “They are a fine lot of women, he writes. “They say there is no place like home, but the man who wrote that song did not know the Masterton' Hospital. There is one thing I would like to point out. If there is anyone with plenty of money to spaie they could do a good service by making it possible to improve the mugs, basins and bottles, which are getting rusty and are an eyesore for the sisters and nurses, though they never complain. A rusty mug alongside a nice bunch of flowers doesn’t look too good.” Motor Taxation. The Municipal Association is continuing to make representations to the Government for an increase in the amount of the allocation • of motor taxation to municipalities. Reference to the matter was made by the president of the association, Mr T. Jordan, in his report to the conference. "I have long felt that the delay in dealing with our request came not from the Minister of Transport, but from those who control the country’s finances,” said Mr Jordan. "This view was confirmed by a letter from the Minister of Finance on November 14, 1938. We had written to the Minister of Transport requesting an answer on the question of the allocation of this tax. and the reply came from the Minister of Finance. He told us that there was little prospect of any change in the present conditions owing to the fact that the whole proceeds of motor spirit taxation were required for highways and roading expenditure, and for the annual charges involved. ’Nevertheless,’ the Minister concluded, 'the request of your association will be kept in mind when motor taxation in its relation to other financial matters is again brought under review. I am not content to leave the matter there,” added Mr Jordan “We are surely entitled to our share of what is available for highways and roading expenditure, and we have never had it.”

Over 16,000 new schools have been built in Russia in four years.