LOCAL AND GENERAL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 24 April 1939, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL

No Publication Tomorrow. Tomorrow being Anzac Day and a compulsory holiday, there will be no publication of the “Wairarapa TimesAge." St. George’s Day. Today is St. George’s Day, which is observed as a bank holiday. Flags are being displayed from Government buildings in honour of the occasion. Territorial Bivouac.

A party of Territorials was in bivouac at Tauherenikau during’ the weekend, where operations were carried out covering various phases of training. . ’

Rain Continues. Further substantial rain fell in Masterton and district on Sunday, 1.11 inches being recorded at Solway. This brings the total fall since last Thursday to almost four inches. The parched countryside is.now well drenched. Harrier Trails Softened,

As the result of the recent beneficial rain the tracks used by harriers in the course of their training have become softened to an extent much appreciated by runners. This was very evident at the Masterton Harrier Club’s opening event on Saturday afternoon. Homing Harriers.

Speaking at the Masterton Harrier Club’s opening day function at the Masonic Hall on Saturday, Mr G. R. Sykes caused some amusement when he said: “I always think of fat. well-fed homing pigeons, who hover. around and then wearily make for home, when I see harriers out.”

The,lnternational Brigade. That the international Brigade, which fought on the side of the Government during the Spanish War, drew its personnel from all classes as well as all nationalities was made clear in .an address in Christchurch by Mr H. R. Bryan. His company commanders, he said, included an able seaman of the British navy, the son of a titled English family, a Welsh miner and an Oxford blue. His sergeant in the last Ebro offensive was a Jewish boy, aged 19, from the East End of London. Wood Chopping Contests.

“The public takes a very keen interest in wood chopping contests,” said Mr J. J. Lissette, speaking at the monthly meeting of the Wanganui A. and P. Show Association executive. “I thought it was a great mistake when the chopping event was deleted from last year’s programme. The matter of nomination before the show was raised, but Mr Lissette pointed out the difficulty, and said it was the usual practice to receive nominations on the ground on the day of the event. Treating Dredge Tailings.

Agreement with the policy of the Government that major gold-dredges should so treat the tailings left in their wake as to leave the country of some value after the gold has been extracted was expressed in an interview in Christchurch by Mr- James Malcolm Newman, an Australian mining engineer with extensive interests on the West Coast. He gave details of the working of Wellington Alluvial a New South Wales mining concern,., which replaced soil on top of the tailings it left'and used a bulldozer to level the soil. It was an excellent thing that the value of the land should be conserved, he said, and he fully agreed with the steps in this direction taken in New Zealand.

Demand for Factory Hands. A keen demand for girls for. factory work has taxed the capacity of the Christchurch Youth Centre and Vocational Guidance office in recent weeks. Mr N. S. Woods an official of the centre, said that although the demand was slightly ahead of the supply of such employees in Christchurch, the position was apparently not so acute here as in Wellington arid Auckland where the shortage of female factory employees could fairly be called serious, manufacturers, In many instances, it was reported, being quite unable to secure the required number of factory hands. In Christchurch the waiting list' of girl applicants for office and shop jobs was a big one, Mr Woods said, with the supply ahead of the demand, but in the domestic market the position was reversed. It was not uncommon for there to be 70 prospective employers of girls seeking domestic jobs, with not one applicant.

“Higher Learning.” “I regret to report that the American universities have in many instances, in their efforts to democratise their curricula, often with, the view to securing larger gifts either from legislatures or from private sources, made concessions which I do not commend to you,” said Dr Tyler Dennett, late president of Williams College, Massachusetts, in an address in Christchurch. “In moments of madness, American institutions of so-called higher learning introduced vocational courses in a great variety of practical subjects from salesmanship even to hotel-keeping. It was, presumably, a gesture of democracy, and accepted as such, but it has been singularly barren of benefit to democracy. Perhaps the standards of hotel-keeping have been improved but, while the modern American hotel has devised new and more refined standards of snobbery, its contributions to democracy are less obvious.”