NEWS AND NOTES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 July 1939, Page 7

NEWS AND NOTES

VARIOUS ITEMS OF INTEREST. i, First-aid Lessons for Teachers. By the end of the present school term nearly 300 Taranaki school teachers will possess a complete knowledge of how to recognise and treat fractures, stop bleeding, apply bandages, and resuscitate the apparently drowned. Representing about 80 per cent of the teaching profession in the Taranaki Board’s district, they will by the end

of the year have imparted to the hundreds of children in their classes the ability to deal in elementary but invaluable measure with emergencies created by road and beach accidents. Designed to lead to a Dominion-wide ability on the part of every individual to assist in the reduction of avoidable fatal accidents,, the steps taken in the Taranaki education district to ensure that as many school children as possible will know by next summer the rudiments of first-aid are a story of unselfish co-operation and well-direct-ed enthusiasm. The genesis of the scheme was the desire of the Minister for Education (the Hon P. Fraser) to further efforts being made to reduce the high road accident and drowning rate. Fertilisers and Fruit Trees. “The fruit industry in New Zealand will never be successful until the system of culture is changed and attention paid to the use of the right basic fertilisers,” said Mr L. M. Estcourt, orchard instructor, of the Department of Agriculture, Wanganui. He added that he had been trying for years to convince the department that he had proved his theories by practical tests, but had so far been unsuccessful. “Surely it is a matter of common sense that trees and plants, just like the human body, must have 'the right vitamins,” Mr Estcourt said. “Just as the human body wastes when fed on the wrong classes of food, so do the fruit producing qualities of plants and trees waste.” Crippled Children. “If the community is not going to accept crippled children in industry, after we have trained, them, we will have to find some other scope for their activities, such as a craft home,” said Dr J. Leslie Will, who was re-elected president of the Canterbury Crippled Children Society at the annual meeting of the society. Dr Will said that the number of registered cripples in New Zealand was 2500 and the total probably exceeded 3000. He emphasised the need for finding employment for these children as they grew up. He gave a brief outline of the work being done by the society and'of the difficulty of deciding whether to spend the funds available on the education of the child or on necessary surgical operations. Maori War Flag.

An interesting story bearing on the Maori flag of pink silk that is preserved in a glass case in the vestibule of the Auckland Public Library was related recently by Mr T. Walsh in the course of an address to the Auckland Historical Society, upon the Waikato War of 1863-63. The flag, as an inscription on the case shows, was Captured by Major William Jackson’s Forest Rangers in a surprise attack on a Maori encampment in the Wairoa Ranges late in 1863. In giving an account of the guerrilla warfare which was waged between colonial volunteers and bands of Maoris in rear of General Sir Duncan Cameron’s main front, Mr Walsh said that a prominent part in the fighting among the bushclad eastern hills was taken by a small but truculent group of natives constituting the whole of the Koheriki hapu of the Ngati-Paoa tribe. Population Trends.

Populations in the future in European and American countries would be smaller than today, said Mr H. R. Rodwell, senior lecturer in economics at Auckland University College, in a public lecture. The decline in populations would begin almost immediately, the speaker said, and to plan on the assumption of increasing numbers would lead countries into mistaken policies. Was it wise, he asked, if Britain’s population was about to fall, to regard the United Kingdom as being capable of absorbing ever-increasing quantities of moat, butter, cheese, and wool from New Zealand In a country where numbers would fall, Mr Rodwell added, there would be more idults and fewer children. There would be a greater demand for luxury and near-luxury lines. Demand, therefore, would be less stable, more likely to fluctuate with conditions of prosperity, and production would be more rigid. The aftermath of the war had shown that the old “catch-as-catch-can” methods of the nineteenth century were no longer adequate. Deliberate action had been recognised as necessary to ensure that the goods really needed were those produced. A rapid extension of State intervention had been the result. Such intervention would have to be planned in the future, with due regard for falling populations, so that coming generations would not be burdened with unnecessary costs.