DOMINION NEWS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2314, 6 October 1908, Page 3

DOMINION NEWS.

[Press Association.]

PALMERSTON N., Oct. 5. At a meeting of local members of tho police force held 'here to-niglit, a resolution was unanimously carried protesting against tlie present Police Provident Fund boing merged in tho Public Service scheme.

WELLINGTON, Oct. 5.

Judge Sim leaves for Auckland, via the West Coast, to-morrow to open a sitting of the Arbitration Court at Auckland at 9 a.m. on Thursday. The strike of Wellington bakers ha s been formally declared off. There are not many of the strikers now out <of work. CHRISTCHURCH, Oct. 5. At a meeting of members of the local police force held to-night to consider the Public Service Superannuation Bill, a motion was adopted to the effect that the police should be allowed to retiin their own Provident Fund, but that if they had to accept the new proposals that they should be repaid what they had paid into the Police Provident Fund. The Clarendon Hotel was burglariously entered between closing time on Saturday night and “ opening time this morning, and £3 in cash was taken from the register, also several bottles of liquor were stolen. The fog signal at Godley Head, Lyttelton, came officially into operation to-day. Before he began a lecture at the Choral Hall last evening, Mr. W. W. Collins, a former member of Christchurch, nude reference to a recent incident that occurred at the Magistrate’s Court at Patea. A witness who had asked to be allowed to make an affirmation having been committed for contemnt of Court for insisting on his right. The following resolutions were carried unanimously by the audience —That the gross abuse of authority on the part of the Patea Justices who committed a witness for contempt because fie obiected to taking the oath, and that in compelling a witness to make the oath in spite of lus objections that he had conscientious objections to so doing, and also in forcing him to swear upon a book in which he did not believe, the Patea Justices not only treated the oath itself with contempt but acted contrary to both the spirit and the letter of the Oaths Act of 1890. It was further resolved to forward copies of these resolutions to the Minister of Justice. . Tables showing a comparison ot the sections and fares in Christchurch with those in Auckland, Wellington, and Dunedin were presented at the meeting of the Christchurch Tramway Board to-day. The tables showed that the average length of sections m Christchurch was shorter than those in two of tho other centres and consequently the cost fare charged per mile was slightly higher. The concessions given, however, placed tlie Christchurch passenger on a considerably bettor footing than in any e, tto otter ocl . 5. Air Koning, representative of the Royal Dutch Packet Co., interviewed the Union (Steam Ship Co. and the Huddart-Parker Co. to-dav and arranged for the establishment ct through hooking for passengers and cargo freights from New Zealand o Sydney or Melbourne, tlien by the Royal' Dutch Co.’s line of. steamers to Tiva Mr. 'Koning informed a ‘‘Times” reporter tint passenger and carao prospects in New Zealand did not" warrant his company extending their service to the Dominion at p esent hut owing to tho possffiUties of 4e country it might possibly do so in no distant future.