LOCAL AND GENERAL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 July 1942, Page 2

LOCAL AND GENERAL

Lodge Meeting Cancelled. The monthly meeting of the Masterton Masonic Lodge, No. 19, which was to have been held on Wednesday night, has been cancelled.

Tea Rationing. The possibility that by next month the Rationing Controller may be taking steps to effect some improvements in the distribution of tea was mentioned at Auckland on Saturday when inquiries were made in the tea trade concerning the effects of the rationing scheme. Merchants generally said they were highly pleased with the operation of rationing, the only defect being some unevenness of effect among consumers. That the same numbers of coupons should be redeemable on behalf -of young children, who drank no tea, and elderly couples, who drank a great deal, was unsatisfactory. Some merchants thought there was a strong likelihood of the controller taking an early opportunity of adjusting inequalities.

Anglican Synod. The annual Synod of the Anglican diocese of Wellington will open on Monday evening, July 13, with a special service at 8 o’clock, in the Cathedral Church of St. Paul. The preacher will be the Ven. Archdeacon W. Bullock. The business sessions will begin at 10.30 on Tuesday morning in the Sydney Street schoolroom with the presidential address by the Bishop of the diocese, the Rt. Rev. H. St. Barbe Holland. Synod will conclude, it is expected, on the Friday. Synod will be asked to approve a proposal by the Bishop for an increase of clergy stipends in the form of a general cost-of-living bonus. Synod will also be invited to consider and support a scheme by which the Church may make or regain contact with returning servicemen. Among the reports to be discussed will be the actuarial report on the Pension Fund which for the first time in its history shows a ratio of solvency of 20s in the £. Transfer of Coupons.

Whether the transfer of petrol coupons and the use of benzine in a vehicle other than the one for which the coupons were issued were breaches of the Oil Fuel Emergency Regulations were points raised in a hearing in the Eltham Magistrate’s Court. There was nothing in the regulations to forbid such action, Mi’ N. H. Moss submitted, when A. T. Gallie, sharemilker, Mahoe, was charged with four breaches of the regulations. Mr W. H. Woodward, S.M., who said he would take time to consider the points raised, adjourned the hearing till July 16, at Stratford. Electing to be dealt with summarily, Gallie pleaded not guilty to two charges of having purchased oil fuel at a petrol station at Kaponga, such purchases not being of a kind authorised by the Oil Fuel Emergency Regulations, 1939, and to two charges that, not being entitled to the possession’ of coupons in terms of the Oil Fuel Emergency Regulations, 1939, he tendered coupons to a vendor, T. A. Bennie, for the purpose of obtaining oil fuel.