LOCAL AND GENERAL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 October 1943, Page 2

LOCAL AND GENERAL

Court Sitting. ’ Before Mr L. J. Taylor, J.P., in the Masterton Magistrate’s Court this mornmg a statutory first offender was convicted and discharged on a charge of drunkenness. Seed Testing Station. Concerning the Canterbury manufacturers’ request to have a seed-testing station removed from Palmerston North to Canterbury, Mr Hodgens, M.P. for Palmerston North, telegraphed to the Prime Minister asking him to leave matters unchanged till seen by Mr Hodgens. Mr Fraser replied that the question of a transfer had not at any time been considered and removal of the station was not contemplated.

Co-operation in Disputes. When urging the need to strive toward real co-operation between employer and employees, Mr H. C. Hassall, in his presidential address at the meeting of the Canterbury Employers' Association at Christchurch referred to the possibility of the association being able to assist in removing the causes of disputes between employer and employee. Disputes were inevitable, he declared, but much could be done if, when disputes were before conciliation councils, there were as representatives of the employees men and women actually engaged and working in the industry, and not panels of paid union secretaries, and on the other hand, reasonable, humane employers. If that could, happen they could at least try to banish the spirit which had existed for so long—both sides making up their minds not to see the other fellow’s point of view. Service Men and State Houses.

The opinion that the scheme under which 50 per cent preference was given to returned service men in the allocation of State houses was not working out as well as had been expected was expressed by the president of the Auckland Returned Services Association, Mr A. P. Postlewaite, on Saturday. He considered that the preference should be increased to 75 per cent at least. Under the scheme, he said, half the State houses available were allocated to returned men and half to civilians. It had happened that the number of ex-service men for whom the lack of housing was a hardship was always more than half the number of houses being allocated and this surplus was constantly growing. Although many civilians had been wailing for a long time for State houses, he thought their hardship was rarely as great as that of the married returned man who had come back with no home to go to.