LOCAL AND GENERAL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 23 October 1942, Page 2

LOCAL AND GENERAL

Salvation Army Street Day. In the Salvation Army’s annual street collection in Wellington £577 was raised.

Hadlow Sports Postponed. On account of wet weather the Hadlow School sports, which were to have been held in Masterton this morning, have been postponed until next week. A definite date has not yet been fixed. The Mareo Case.

Expectations that the Statutes Revision Committee of the House would be able to sit during the Parliamentary session on the two petitions for the reopening of the Mareo case have not materialised. Endeavours were made to arrange for a sitting, but they were unsuccessful. It is expected that the committee will not be able to consider the case till early in December, when the House resumes.

Subsistence Allowance.

An increase in the subsistence allowance of 17s 6d a week paid to soldiers living out of camp was urged by Mrs Grigg (Opposition, Mid-Canterbury) in notice of a question to the Minister of Defence, Mr Jones, in the House of Representatives yesterday. Mrs Grigg asked that the allowance be raised to the amount paid to persons billeting soldiers, which was £1 15s a week. “It is impossible even for a man living at home to be kept on 17s 6d' a week and many men are boarding and pay £2 and more a week for board,” said Mrs Grigg in a note to her question.

Sugar Beet Research. The Sugar Beet Research Section of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, which is testing sugar beet at Lincoln, with the object of producing seed suitable for New Zealand conditions, has completed its sowing operations for this season. Two and a half acres of the experimental plots at Tai Tapu have been sown at the rate of 30,000 beets to the acre. Most of the sowing has been done by women assistants, and some of the seed used has been obtained from Britain and the United States. Selected beets which were tested for sugar content earlier in the year have been planted for seed at Lincoln and Tai-Tapu.

Bricklayers’ Award. Complete agreement was reached by the conciliation council which sat in Wellington this week to consider the dispute in connection with the Dominion bricklayers’ award. The hours of work are to be 40 a week. The minimum wage for journeymen is to be 2s lOid an hour, overtime to be paid at time and a half for the first four hours and double time thereafter. Eight paid statutory holidays are included. The country work provisions of the award have been brought into line with those in the carpenters and joiners, builders contractors and general labourers’ awards. It was agreed that the case should be brought before the Court of Arbitration yesterday for approval and making into an award. This was done. The provisions of the award came into force yesterday.

Health of i roops. The health of the troops serving in the Dominion with the defence forces had been good and could be considered satisfactory, states the report of the General Officer Commanding, Lieuten-ant-General E. Puttick, for the year ending May 31, 1942, presented to Parliament. It states that epidemic diseases, though rather heavy in some camps, had been mild in severity, the main ones being influenza and mumps. The daily incidence of admission to hospital for the whole Dominion had been 2.68 a 1000, which, taking into account that men were admitted to hospital for ailments which in civil life would be treated in the homes, could be considered as most satisfactory. A summary of work performed by the New Zealand Dental Corps' states that the fillings, extractions, treatments, provision of dentures and remodelling and repairs of dentures totalled 283,246,