He said there had always been a strong feeling in the north against the influx of Austrians.
Near where he resided there was one camp of 150 Austrians, and in the whole Mangonui County there were between 1000 and 1200, of whom only 37 are married.
He estimated that in the province of Auckland there were between 3000 and 4000 Austrians on the gumfields.
"I object,'' he said, "upon moral grounds to thousands of men coming here without any women with them. The records of the north will show that I have good reasons for my objection. To my mind this means the absolute ruin of the Maori race, because there are so many opportunities of procuring intoxicating liquor.''
• Captain Ronald Amundsen has resumed his preparations for an expedition to the North Pole, which were suspended on the outbreak of the war.
A short time before that event the Norwegian Storthing voted £12,000 as a subscription towards the expenses of the enterprise, but, having regard to the war, Captain Amundsen did not accept the money.
He thinks, however, that the time has now come to make arrangements to start this summer.
He proposes to leave Point Barrow, North Alaska, and to drive with the ice over the Polar Basin.
He will not use his old vessel the Fram, nor aeroplanes, but a specially constructed motor ship of about a hundred tons.
He intends shortly to publish a detailed statement dealing with the herring fisheries on the western coast of Norway.
• Mr C. A. Pearson, describing some incidents in the history of the recently-deceased London paper, the Standard, said: "When the paper passed under my control it was conducted on curiously old-fashioned lines. There was an extraordinary system of beer tickets in force, too. These tickets were given away by a highly-conscientious gentleman, who received a salary of 30s a week. He stood at the portals of the Standard office, intent upon seeing that no deserving person went away without a beer ticket. The drayman in charge of a load of paper, the boy who kept the coat of the visitor from brushing against the wheel of a hansom cab, the messenger who brought a letter, would all receive a mysterious-looking blue ticket, which entitled its possessor to half a pint of beer at any public-house in the neighbourhood. These beer tickets were redeemed on Saturday mornings, and cost the Standard about £800 a year.''
• Mr A. Garland (Waimate) is of the opinion that the best and most economical way to deal with the small bird nuisance is for the County Councils to employ men to go round the country poisoning here and there.
Selecting a favourable locality, he says, the birds should be fed on good wheat for a few days, after which the poisoned grain should be fed to them.
Their suspicions thus dulled, the birds would take the poisoned grain freely, and would be killed in large numbers.
If this system were adopted, the County Councils, who were now spending thousands of pounds on the destruction of small birds, would no longer require to purchase eggs and heads, and £50 a year would cover the cost of poisoning in the manner he suggested, and besides the very substantial saving in cash, a great many more birds would be killed. - ODT, 6.6.1916.
• COPIES OF PICTURE AVAILABLE FROM ODT FRONT OFFICE, LOWER STUART ST, OR WWW.OTAGOIMAGES.CO.NZ
