EVENTS OF THE WEEK.

Digger (Invercargill RSA), Issue 42, 7 January 1921, Page 8

EVENTS OF THE WEEK.

Southland has again been blesaed with fine weather for the Christmas and New Year holidays and the attendances at the various sports gatherings during the holiday period have constituted records. The Riverton people are generally fortunate in the matter of weather for their regatta on Boxing Day, and this year they had their usual good luck and a great crowd of visitors. The people don't go to Riverton so much to witness rowing events as to picnic, and have a day out, and the same may be said of Bluff on the first of January and Tuatapere on the same date. Tuatapere gets a fresh crowd every year; the people who have heard of Tuatapere, take the opportunity that a sports gathering offers to satisfy their curiosity. Those that journeyed out on New Year's Day were 110 doubt well satisfied with their day's outing. Tuatapere is the youngest of Southland 's towns and already bids fair,to oust some of the oldest in industry and population, and as for attract. iveness it is hard to better. It was aptly described a year or so ago as a hole in the bush. A very few years before that it was all bush. The first settler on the west bank of the Waiau was Mr Hugh Ersldne, who crossed the river at the mouth and pitched his camp at Papatotara twenty-eight years ago. It was some years after that before any settlers took np aiid on the east bank higher up the river. Mr Harry Ward selected the site of Tuatapere in 1894. With the advent of the road to the river at the spot where ^oh Drummond used to boat across occasional travellers for Papatotara and Clifden, settlement proceeded, and Tuatapere began to take shape. Mr James Templeton's store (known to the backblocksmen who used to purchase stores there as "The Crate"), was the first erection, but Tuatapere didn't move very fast until the railway arrived and the sawmillers started work on both sides of the river. Now twenty-six years after the first settler put his axe into the standing bush, Tuatapere holds the biggest axemen's carnival in the South Island, 3 not in N.Z. The sports ground is a natural clearing on the banks of the Waiau which three weeks ago was separated from the main road by half a mile of solid bush. The Sports Committee busied themselves and on New Year's Day motor car owners parked their cars on the Sports Ground. Whether the bush breeds big men or big men are attracted by the -ush is a point that perhaps a Government commission might decide, but at a Tuatapere sports gathering where chopping events are the principal feature a display of brawn and human strength, is to he s,een which could hardly be suipjassed in any part of New Zealand. After about eighteen months D'Annunzio has been laid by the heels and chased out of Fiume. Some rounds were loosed on the city and D'Annunzio saw the game was up, for it is reported that he escaped by aeyoplane. Fiume is a city of some fifty thousand inhabitants about half of which are of Italian origin and half of Slavonian. In the city proper the Italian element predominates. D'Annunizo raided the city with a force of five thousand and captured it, his intention being to hold it and hand it over to Italy. Unfortunately for D'Annunzio Italy was not in a position to take over thb town wi'-'iout offending the mighty League of Nations and D'Annunzio has been a sort of uncrowned, unlimited monarch since his ent-ry there. Four months ago he grew weary of waiting tor Italy to accept Fiume as a gift from himself, so he proclaimed the city as an independant autonomous commonwealth and gave it a constitution in verse. The con. stitution is no longer effective. Italy has been obliged to deal with D'Annunzio like a rebel, and Fiume's fate is to he that which was decided for her at the Peace Conference. D'Annunizo is peeved and is go. ing to return all his Italian decorations which he won in the late war. It has been suggested that a lunacy enquiry will close the episode. It is rather unkind to suggest that D'Annunzio is a lunatic ; he made a mistake and now looks foolish, but he is certainly a man of actiqn and in the unsettled state of Europe perhaps we haven't heard the last of the fighting air. man poet. One of the most promising items in the New Year's cables was the informat-ion regarding the exchange of opinions b,etween the three great Naval Powers concerning the limitation of armaments. We were hardly over the Great War and the abolition of the Germany Navy when Mr Daniels, Naval Secretary of the United States, alarmed the statesmen of Britain and Japan with his ambitious naval programme. Apparently the new president of the American Republic is favourably disposed to a reduction of armaments and

has sounded Britain on the subject. BrL tian's answer, we are told, has beeii "Yes,'' and Japan has signified her willingness to accept. With Germany out of the field in the present day naval matters, it should be an easy matter for Brf*: tian, America and Japan to come to an agreement. What the exact Americau proposals are we are not yet told, but from the unofficial pour parlers if a conference eventuates, and an agreement is arrived at, big navies may soon be a thing of the past and a surer foundatioa laid for a permanent and lasting' peace in agreement and concord. After a couple of years in the United States D.e Valera is reported to have arrived in Ireland. Prior to his arrival in America De Valera was serving a sentence of imprisonment from which be made a remarkable and daring escape. Tt would he a comparatively easy matter for De Valera to return to Ireland but a much more difficult thing for • him to escape out of Ireland again, so his presonce there may mean much. De Valera may have been won over to the cause of restoration of peace and order and the fact that it is reported from America that ha has lost a-ll influence over the inner circle of Sinn Fein extremist lends colour to this view. It appears that the extremists are splitting and if De Valera has Deen allowed to return in order to win the bulk of the people from the extremists his presence in Ireland may result in a restoration of peace and order and a satisfactory settlement of the Irish difficulties. Amongst the recipients of the New Year's Honours in Dr E. A. Boxer, C.M.G., of Hastings, Hawke's Bay, president of the New Zealand Returned Soldiers' Association. Dr Boxer served on Gallipoli and has been president of the Association almost from its inception. When the Prince of Wales was in New Zealand he (the Prince) becanre a nrember of the Association and no doubt, with his instinct for merit he could appreciate the efforts of Dr Boxer in his enaeavours to help the fighting men of this country. Dr Boxer has set a high ideal before the returned men and has worked unremittingly in their interests. Members of Conference who were privileged to hear Dr Boxer's speech on the occasion when he was last re-elected president will long rernember it. He is indeed worthy of the honout bestowed and returned soldiers congratulate him on having been singled out for well deserved honour.