LOCAL AND GENERAL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 October 1939, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL

High Price for Tomatoes. Savouries cost money these days. A young Wellington housewife who needed a few tomatoes yesterday for a small tea party got three hothouse tomatoes for Is 3d—fivepence each. Clean Bill of Health. Mr T. A. Russell, borough inspector, informed a “Times-Age” representative today that Masterton continued to enjoy a clean bill of health as far as infectious diseases were concerned. A number of residents of the town are at present suffering from gastric influenza. Papers for Soldiers. Copies of the “Times-Age"- are -being forwarded daily to the libraries at the three military training camps, at Ngaruawahia. Trentham and Burnham. An appeal' is being made for gifts of books and magazines for the Trentham Camp Library. No Exemption for Soldiers. The Magistrate, Mr Bundle, stated in the Dunedin S.M. Court yesterday that he had been asked the attitude of the Court in proceedings under the Destitute Persons Act when the man concerned was in camp. The magistrate said that a member of an expeditionary force in New Zealand was not exempt from ■ appearing in person when required before any Court of Law. Infectious Diseases. For the week ended yesterday, 18 cases of infectious disease and seven deaths—six from pulmonary tuberculosis and one from septic abortion — were reported to the Wellington office of the Health Department from the central. Wellington area. The cases were as follows: —Pulmonary tuberculosis (9), diphtheria (4), scarlet fever'(l), erysipelas (1), septic abortion (1)1 and lead poisoning (1). Purchase of New Zealand Produce. A statement that the negotiations with the British Government for the purchase of New Zealand’s meat and dairy produce had not yet reached finality was made yesterday by the Minister of Marketing, Mr Nash.' He said that during the weekend cables had been exchanged with the United Kingdom with regard to the prices at which meat would be acquired, and that final decisions should be available in a few days. Petrol Supplies in Australia.

“There are no restrictions whatever on petrol supplies in Australia,” said Mr J. B. Scott, an executive of the Shell Oil Company of Australia for the past five years, who passed through Auckland on the Monterey en route to a new appointment in Trinidad. Mr Scott said there had been no suggestion of a petrol shortage in Australia, where additional storage space had been been completed within the past year. Tankers were still running to schedule, paying regular calls at Australian ports and maintaining the country’s fuel supplies. / Tourist Traffic.

The view that the blow struck by the war to overseas travel from Australia would have a favourable reaction on the tourist traffic to New Zealand was expressed by Mr H. Howard, Australian representative for the CunardWhite Star Line, who was a through passenger from Sydney by the Monterey. “The travelling public of Australia will be looking more than ever to New Zealand fo holiday voyages,” said Mr Howard, referring to the curtailment of sailings to Europe through Suez. “This should greatly assist the Centennial Exhibition, which was assured of good Australian support in any case.” Beef and Mutton Prices.

The adjustment of the beef and mutton prices by Auckland butchers had the approval of the Price Tribunal, said Mr F. Picot, Director of Marketing, yesterday. He said he wanted to rectify the impression conveyed by the statement given by the Auckland master butchers that the increase in retail rates of beef and mutton was being made without the knowledge of the Government. Mr Picot said that such arbitrary action, would be both unnecessary and illegal and would have led to the Auckland butchers being prosecuted. Special consideration was given by the Price Tribunal to the circumstances obtaining in Auckland, where retail prices had not followed the rise in the wholesale market. “New Zealand Illustrated.” A creditably high standard is set in "New Zealand Illustrated,” a centennial number produced by the Christchurch Press Company. Features of special interest are pictures of towns and settlements of early colonial days set in contrast, in some instances, with the same places at the present day. The changes the years have wrought in Christchurch and elsewhere are thus brought out most impressively. Other subjects appropriate to a centennial number have been found in Russell, the first capital of New Zealand, in West Coast mining townships of the early davs and in coaching and other details of'the life of that time. There are splendid pictures of Wellington, taken from the air—one of them showing very clearly the centennial Exhibition buildings and site —and of other towns, ports and forest, lake and river scenery in various parts of the Dominion. An illustrated article describes sheep station life in the sixties. A coloured plate has for its subject the restored Treaty House at Waitangi. The handsome architecture of the Canterbury Provincial Council Chambers as they appeared in 1872 is shown in a frontispiece.