GENERAL NEWS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2637, 20 October 1909, Page 2

GENERAL NEWS.

Conversing with a New Zealand “Times” representative concerning the missing liner Waratah, Captain TMoffatt, qf the steamer Ta.inui, which arrived at Wellington from England: last week, said that as soon as the Tainui left Capetown a special man was put on the lcok-out night and day, but not a trace of the vessel nor any wreckage was observed. “We came along our usual course,” said the captain, “and it would be as -likely to pick her up along that course as anywhere else. \ve experienced nearly continuous easterly currents. Sometimes they were a little northerly and sometimes a little southerly. Strong westerly winds prevailed from the'Crozets to south of the Leeuwin. Then ,it blew fresh from the north-west. While coming across the (Southern Ocean snow fell during 10 days.” No Polar lights had been seen, but the weather was at times very tempestuous.

“I know that this is God’s own country,” said Mr John Foster Fraser in Dunedin, “because so many New Zealanders have told mo that it is. But the one disadvantage of travelling is that one goes to other countries, and in every country I have, visited I have been assured that it was God’s own country. I have been on the plains of Canada, and they told me there that all other 'countries -that claimed to he God's.own country were, really counterfeit. Plenty of people claim that England, that Ireland,, that France were each God’s own country. In my experience every .country -.on the i face, of the earth is God’s own country, just as the people make it God’s own country,”'

The Auckland correspondent of the “Lyttelton Times” states that a proposal has been made by the Imperial Export Company of Toronto to establish a six-weekly service direct between Canada and Australasia. Steamers would leave from Montreal in summer and from Halifax in winter, and if the company can secure a Government subsidy of £20,T00 a year for three years only the service may be “regarded as an accomplished fact. This would free the Dominion’s Canadian trade entirely from the grip of the American trusts, which now control the service and practically block trade heavy freights running as high as 45s a ton. A report that still higher rates were to be charged js said to be partly responsible for the new oroposal.

Under the Shops and Offices Act, a shopkeeper who sells tobacco, cigars, anti cigarettes must not sell such articles after the hour fixed for clqsirtg of tobacconists’ shops. Mr Aldridge, Inspector cf Factories, Wellington, suggests in his report that this should he made to apply to all trades —for example, a confectioner who sells a small line of groceries may’continue to sell such groceries after the hour fixed by requisition (where such exists) for closing grocers’ shops, or a grocer who sells ironmongery may do so after the hour fixed for closing of ironmongers’ shops. Speeding to' the Baptist Conference the Rev. J. J. North claimed two prominent British politicians.as Baptists. Mr Lloyd-Gforge, he said, was still proud to lie a member of a Little Bethel, and Mr Will Crooks, the Labor M.P., who was. to visit New Zealand shortly, was a Baptist deacon.

So rank is the growth of some of the crops in the North Otago district that farmers- are making use of back deliveries to check it, by cutting off the tops of the growing crops. Whether this will he a success is problematical (says the “North Otago Times”). The method has been tried in previous years, but with the result that while the heads were more numerous they were- reduced to about half the size of grain grown in the usual way. This may have been due to the season or to the time of cutting, but it may be as well to mention the fact. _ Experience teaches, and experience, in some instances, at all events, has given the result as stated.

Many people in. New Zealand-should-be interested to hear about the prospects of the Australian wheat yield this season. One of the leading millers of the Commonwealth. Mr J. S. Brunton, stated quite recently that he anticipated a record crop if only 'the weather continued favorable. He estimated that the Queensland . crop would' yield 4.000,000 -bushels, while in New South WalesJ where the area of land under wheat this year was 34 per cent, greater than in 1908, he anticipated that the total yield for the State would reach 28,000,000 bushels.- Taking the whole of the Commonwealth, he estimated the total value of the wheat crop this season at between .fifteen and sixteen ..millions sterling. The exportable surplus, he thought, .would be about 1,200,000. tons. ' .. •