LOCAL AND GENERAL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 24 December 1942, Page 2

LOCAL AND GENERAL

To Minimise Panic. A scheme to minimise any panic which might possibly arise in theatres and other places of entertainment under emergency conditions has been adopted by the National Service Department as the basis of a plan of education of patrons of cinemas not only in Wellington, but throughout the Dominion. Mr Fuller, the assistant managing director of Theatre Management, Ltd., has been appointed by the department to tour New Zealand, at his own expense, to put the scheme into effect. It is estimated that it will become operative in Wellington early in the New Year, and after that, in theatres throughout the Dominion. Scarcity of Golf and Tennis Balls. Nothing probably could be devised to bring home to the sporting community the rubber shortage more vividly than the scarcity of the means to play their favourite games. Some Wellington houses which specialise in sporting material have been fine-tooth-combing the province for golf and tennis balls, with very little success, as they are just as scarce in the countfly towns as they are in the capital. Even re-painted golf balls; which have already done yeoman duty, are in demand, and long hits “into the rough” now mean an anxious search instead of a mere shrug of the shoulders, as in the good, easy days of golfing. Rail Travel Permits. A correspondent, J.C.R., alleges that unfair discrimination is shown in the matter of granting permits for railway travel under the scheme of restriction now in force. Invited to reply to this complaint, the Masterton Stationmaster (Mr R .A. Taylor) said that every application for a permit to travel was dealt with on its merits. Where anyone was refused permission to travel it was probably because insufficient reasons had been advanced to justify travelling. In cases in which permits were issued, the public did not know the circumstances of the various applications. Mental Hospital Work. Of 13 young women in the Nelson district directed to mental hospital employment, 12 have lodged appeals. When these appeals were being heard before the Manpower (Industrial) Committee, Dr. J. U. Williams, of the Mental Hosnital Department, Nelson, said that prejudice against such work was based on a complete lack of knowledge of actual conditions. They were much different from what was generally supposed. Mental hospital nursing carried good pay, with good working conditions. It was his experience that girls joining a hospital usually staved, liked the work, and leit only to be married. The committee reserved its .decision pending inspection of the hospital and conditions of work.

Declared Essential. The manufacture of furniture and bedding has been declared an essential industry. “Skilled labour in this country,” the Minister of Industrial Manpower, Mr McLagan, said yesterday, “has been reduced by more than 50 per cent of its pre-war strength, and consequently the greatest difficulty is being experienced in meeting the requirements of the armed forces and the minimum essential needs of the civilian community. Therefore, in order to ensure that production was maintained at least at its present level and that there was a reasonable productive basis to meet the post-war demands from returned men and others setting up homes, it was considered necessary to bring the industry within the scope of the Industrial Manpower Regulations, 1942.”