LOCAL AND GENERAL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 December 1941, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL

Wage Increase Sought. Unanimous support to the Hutt and Auckland railway workers’ claims for an all-round wage increase of sixpence an hour, with preference to lower-paid workers, was accorded at a special meeting of the road services ’oranch of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants held in Wellington on Monday night. Fatal Fall. A former employee of the Public Works Department was killed when he fell down a flight of stairs in an Auckland hotel about midday yesterday. The victim was John Tansey, aged about 45 years. It is presumed that Mr Tansey, who was found dead on the landing halfway up the stairs, struck his head in falling. His relatives reside in Christchurch. Military Reserve. The reorganisation and expansion of the National Military Reserve was announced yesterday by the Minister of Defence, Mr Jones. He explained that this would involve the formation of a number of entirely new battalions and the expansion of some of the existing independent companies into battalions. Recruiting for additional personnel would be undertaken on a voluntary basis from men between the ages of 46 and 55, including men without military experience. Pride in Record.

Pride in the record of old boys of St Patrick’s College, Silverstream, in the armed forces, was expressed by the rector, the Very Rev Father J. Kennedy, S.M., on behalf of the college at the annual prize-giving yesterday. Though the college was only just closing its eleventh year, 240 exstudents were now serving with the armed forces, said Father Kennedy. There were 22 in the Royal Navy, 135 in the Army and 83 in the Royal Air Force. Two former members of the staff were, chaplains in the Middle East and an Old Boy lay master was a pilot officer in the Royal Air Force (now reported missing). Of this total, seven members of the Royal Air Force had given their young lives for their country. Ten others had been wounded, three reported missing, six were prisoners of war and one interned in Algiers.