Māori ABs depart on tour

The New Zealand Maori Rugby team left for Sydney by the Marama this afternoon to connect with the Narkunda, by which vessel the tourists will travel to Marseilles. Messrs W.T. Parata and H. Harris are travelling with the team as joint managers. In England, Mr Harris will represent New Zealand at the Imperial Rugby Conference and as representative of the New Zealand Olympic Games Association, Mr Harris will confer with officials of the British Olympic Association on matters of common interest. The New Zealand Rugby Union tendered a farewell to the tourists this afternoon. They received an enthusiastic sendoff. In addition to £2000 paid by the French Rugby Union, the English Rugby Union has guaranteed to the French Rugby Union £250 for each of the 15 matches now scheduled to be played in England and in Wales. [Missing Credit]No Caption Provided India: a missionary’s view Miss B. Beckingsale, now a veteran missionary in Eastern Bengal, returned this week to her home in Dunedin on long furlough. Miss Beckingsale went out to the New Zealand Baptist mission in Brahmanbaria, 300 miles north-east of Calcutta 30 years ago, and has been engaged in the work of that mission ever since. In an interview granted to an Otago Daily Times reporter yesterday Miss Beckingsale had much of interest to say about conditions in India generally and about the work of her own mission. In Brahmanbaria there is very bad feeling between Hindus and Mohammedans. Mohammedans are in a majority of about 75 percent, and fear of them keeps the Hindus very quiet. “If it were not for the British,” said Miss Beckingsale, “there would be some dreadful fighting.” On the whole the natives trust the British, and though men from Brahmanbaria were conspicuous in anti-British deeds of violence in the Ghandi movement of a few years ago, the great mass of the people do not want to see the British go. Both sides are exceedingly touchy; they want swaraj (home rule), but each is afraid of the other. In the Brahnmbaria district the Hindus, who are in the minority, have most of the English education, and consequently hold the bulk of the Government positions. The Mohammedans are afraid that, under swaraj, the Hindus would wield the greater power, while the Hindus, on the other hand, fear the aggressiveness of the Mohammedans. Miss Beckingsale agrees that the relations between Britain and India, as a whole, have improved a great deal of recent years, and it is a fact that the rioting between Hindus and Mohammedans has increased British prestige. Gandhi had a great vogue in Brahmanbaria, as in other parts of India, a few years ago. He is still looked upon as a sort of saint, but they no longer believe that his methods are the ones that will bring them swaraj. More rails to Normanby At the meeting of the City Council on Wednesday evening next, the Tramways Committee will recommend the duplicating the North-East Valley line from Calder’s loop to the Normanby terminus. The cost is estimated at £5850, and it is further recommended that as the North road is to be paved by the works department during the forthcoming summer season, work on the tramway track be completed before the commencement of the paving. Billboards ‘do not pay’ In an interview Mr S. Hurst Seager, president of the Now Zealand Institute of Architects, did not mince words in his condemnation of advertising hoardings. “Hoardings do not pay the advertiser. The only notice the passer-by takes of a hoarding, especially if he sees it day after day, is of a hostile character. In the end it is the consumer who pays the cost, anyway. And he is in the anomalous position of paying for the disfigurement of his own countryside.” He mentioned the case of a firm in Christchurch which had erected a hoarding that stared through a fair vista of trees. He showed them a photograph of the scene, they agreed immediately that it was an eyesore, and had the hoarding removed. — ODT, 24.7.1926

Māori ABs depart on tour

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