LOCAL AND GENERAL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 29 July 1940, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL

Heavy Frosts in Masterton. Over the weekend Masterton experienced two heavy frosts. Yesterday morning 7.3 degrees were registered and this morning 13.8 degrees. Patriotic Donations. The County districts Red Cross Committee acknowledge with thanks the receipt of gifts or donations from the following institutions: —Opaki and Kopuaranga Women’s Institutes, Tinui Girls’ War Effort Committee, and Kopuaranga dance committee. Car Converted. A car belonging to Mr Frank Morton, of Perry Street, Masterton, was unlawfully taken from its parking place in Chapel Street on Saturday night some time between 7.30 and 10.30 o’clock. It was later recovered undamaged in the neighbourhood of the saleyards. Christianity at Stake.

A message of encouragement and hope in what he termed a very grave and fateful hour was contained in a pastoral letter by the Bishop of Wellington, the Rt Rev H. St Barbe Holland, M.A., read in all Anglican churches in the diocese yesterday. Bishop Holland said the destruction of Christianity was threatened and urged constant prayer and watchfulness.

New Pipe-laying Method. Unusual methods are being adopted by the Public Works- Department in laying pipes to drain swamp land and areas recently developed near Westport. Concrete pipes three feet six inches in diameter are being pushed through a big railway embankment adjacent to Harney’s road. This is 72 feet through and the pipes are covered by 15 feet of soil. The pipes are eight feet long arid are being pushed through the embankment by two 25ton hydraulic jacks. Men work inside the pipes clearing- their passage. It is estimated that the job will take 12 days to complete.

Sunday School Concert, The annual concert by pupils of St Matthew’s Sunday School will be held on Wednesday evening in the Parish Hall. It is timed to commence at 7.45 p.m. and there will be two hours crammed full of entertainment. The teachers and scholars have been very busy working up the plays and other items and altogether a most enjoyable evening will be had by all who come. The price for admission is one shilling for adults and sixpence for children and the proceeds will help to make up the amount which the Sunday School gives each year for the Missionary work of the Church overseas .

Forty Hour Week. The possibility that workers might be called on to make greater sacrifices in the national war effort than those imposed by the Budget, was suggested by Mr M. Moohan, national secretary of the New Zealand Labour Party, when addressing a meeting of the Rotorua branch of the party. In addition to taxation measures there were other efforts that might be demanded of the workers, Mr Moohan stated, in suggesting that the 40-hour week might have to be suspended in certain industries. The measures that the Government might have to introduce to meet the war emergency were likely to be unpopular, even with party members.

A Patriotic Suggestion, Through the Feilding branch of the Farmers’ Union, a well-known member who expressed a desire to have his dame withheld at the moment, proposed that the sheep-farmers of New Zealand should give to the British Government the 5 pei- cent deferred funds on last season’s wool clip, the gross amount being estimated at about £750.000. The secretary of the branch. Mr C. V. Jewell, said he had been approached by the member, who had offered to make his donation up to £lOO. It was thought that it would be a generous gesture and one worthy of the sheep-farmers of the Dominion if they were to forgo their withheld 5 per cent on last season’s clip and present it to the Imperial Government for the purchase of some form of war material, such as aeroplanes. The member had pointed out that several of the British States and members of the Commonwealth of Nations had already acted in this way. New Zealand’s Pottery Clays.

For general pottery work, if not the highest class white work. New Zealand is fairly well provided with the necessary clays, according to statements by Mr A. F. Adams, of Canterbury Agricultural College, in an address on "Ceramics in New Zealand” to the Canterbury branch of the Institute of Chemistry. Pure residual china clay had not yet been found in New Zealand, Mr Adams said, but some white sedimentary clays of suitable substitute qualities were to be found north of Auckland. Many fire clays were also found, usually in the coal areas, north of Auckland and on the West Coast. Other general-purpose clays were found at New Plymouth and at Kakahu, and brick clays were common. Comparatively recently, felspar suitable for use in the manufacture of porcelain had been recovered from decomposing Nelson granite, and this could be used if necessary instead of felspar till now imported largely from Scandinavian countries.