Getting Balclutha switched on

An effective display at the Otago A. and P. winter show featuring Central Otago apples grown at...
An effective display at the Otago A. and P. winter show featuring Central Otago apples grown at Treliske Orchard, Ettrick. - Otago Witness, 9.6.1915.
A movement is on foot in Balclutha to establish a system of electric lighting in the town.

With that object in view a public meeting was held on Monday night, when several suggestions were ventilated.

Proposals to obtain power from the Clutha River at Rongahere (25 miles from Balclutha), or the Kaihiku Falls (nine miles from the town) were put forward, but an expert explained that the cost of transmission from power stations in those localities for a small system, such as Balclutha would require, would be prohibitive.

A suggestion to obtain the lighting from the electric plant at the Finegand Freezing Works found most favour, and a committee was appointed to prepare an approximate report of the number of lights desired, and an estimate of the cost of establishing a system, and submit the information to another public meeting.

As the Balclutha Borough Council has an agreement with the Balclutha Gas Company giving that company the sole right of street and public lighting in Balclutha for a term which has yet to run for 11 years, anything done in the matter of electric lighting cannot have municipal assistance.

If the prospects of the electric lighting are deemed favourable probably a private company will be formed to further the movement.

• In connection with the suggestion of the Dunedin Presbytery that all hotels should be placed out of bounds as far as the men of the Expeditionary Forces are concerned, the Minister of Defence and the officers responsible for the control of Trentham camp feel strongly that a general aspersion against the conduct of the troops when on leave is utterly without foundation (says the New Zealand Times).

Wellington sees more of the soldiers than any other city in the dominion can do.

Many hundreds of them are in the town during the evenings, and the cases of insobriety are few and far between.

The later recruits admittedly are better behaved in this respect, taken all round, than early drafts were, and the camp authorities are finding the maintenance of a high standard of conduct and discipline a comparatively easy matter.

• Mr R. McCallum, M. P., speaking at the send-off to the troops for Trentham on Saturday at Blenheim (says the Marlborough Express) made passing reference to the talk of ''shirkers''.

The true ''shirkers'', he said were not those who were willing enough to go but were debarred by home duties, but the men of broad acres and big bank balances, who would not come to the front when the call came for funds for the starving Belgians, the various patriotic funds, and the Hospital Ship Fund.

The names of these ''shirkers'' would go down in infamy to posterity.

There were many such: let them come forward if they would not be for ever disgraced.

• There is no record of a man having eaten the whole of his weekly rations. And little wonder.

Listen! (Official ''Sale of Rations'' speaks): 1¼lb of fresh meat or 1lb (nominal) preserved meat, 1¼lb bread, or 1lb biscuit, or 1lb flour, 4oz bacon, 3oz cheese, ½lb fresh vegetables, or 2oz peas, beans, dried onions, or dried potatoes, 5/8oz tea, ¼lb jam, 3oz sugar, 3oz butter twice a week, ½oz salt, 1-20oz mustard, 1-36oz pepper, 2oz tobacco or cigarettes a week, 1 box matches a week.

Fresh vegetables should be purchased when possible, and in the event of this not being possible, peas, beans, and dried vegetables with lime juice (1-10 gill) may be issued.

During very cold and inclement weather a full ration has been issued daily to men in the trenches. - ODT, 4.6.1915.

 


• COPIES OF PICTURE AVAILABLE FROM ODT FRONT OFFICE, LOWER STUART ST, OR WWW.OTAGOIMAGES.CO.NZ


 

 

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