LOCAL AND GENERAL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 19 January 1942, Page 2

LOCAL AND GENERAL

Odd Fellows’ Dance. The Masonic Hall was packed to the doors on Saturday night, when a dance was held by the Masterton Odd Fellows’ Lodge. Barnes’s orchestra supplied the dance music, and Bro. B. Seddon proved an able M.C. The Monte Carlo waltz competition was won by Miss Curtin and partner. The supper arrangements were controlled by a ladies’ committee under the direction of Sister T. Rickards. Admiration for Armed Forces. High admiration for the heroism and valour of the men of the N-.Z.E.F. as recently exemplified in Libya and for that of the men of the Navy, the Air Forces and the mercantile marine, was expressed in a resolution adopted at a caucus of the Parliamentary Labour Party. Similar admiration was expressed for the devotion of the nurses, V.A.D.’s, and the members of the Women’s War Service Auxiliary serving overseas. Sincere sympathy was extended to the bereaved relatives of the soldiers who had laid down their lives for their country, as well as to the relatives of the wounded and the prisoners of war. Urgent Defence Works. Urgent defence works are absorbing many men employed by the Public Works Department in Canterbury, and as a result progress on civil operations is becoming slower. Equipment and materials, too, are being diverted to defence requirements. “Any job which is not urgent defence work has to take second place,” said Mr T. G. Beck, District Engineer. “In every respect we are using civil jobs as a reservoir from which to draw to meet military needs.” The two main civil jobs of the department in Canterbury are the Rangitata diversion race and hydro-electric power development at Lake Tekapo. In each of these the number of employees has been substantially reduced. The Rangitata job is in the final stages, and the Surrey Hills siphon has been almost completed. Only 60 of the 12ft. concrete pipes remain to be laid of a total of 723. The Teacher Problem.

The problem of maintaining an adequate teaching staff, which has been facing the Wellington Education Board for some time under war conditions, has assumed more serious proportions as a result of the general mobilisation of the military forces." The full effect of the recent mobilisation would not be known till the schools reopened on February 2, said the secretary of the Wellington Education Board, Mr W. I. Deavoll, on Saturday. The board had already been advised by 24 teachers that they had been caled up for service with the Territorials or the National Military Reserve. The board had a staff of about 200 teachers, most of whom were women. Eighty-eight men had so far been released for overseas service, and 87 were on territorial duty, with the prospect of many more being called up. The ballot among married men without’ children would further accentuate the trouble.