There is to be provision for a licence fee for killing, and for the killing without a licence fee in certain circumstances. The Governor-General may also make regulations defining areas within which it shall be unlawful to liberate opossums, for the licensing of dealers in skins, for returns of opossums killed by any person, and for the payment to Acclimatisation Societies of portion of the fees, royalties, and fines paid under the Act. Holders of licences may not enter upon private lands.
Group seeking Pacific tax haven
London: November will see the departure, headed by Mr Rhodes Disher FRGS, of a mixed party, all professional or businessmen, including clergymen, and some taking their wives and families, who are seeking a blessed taxless isle in the South Seas, where they intend to live a happy, simple life, ‘‘forgetting taxes and by the taxmaster forgot”. The leader has been inundated with applications from thousands of other disgruntled taxpayers. The party have purchased the schooner yacht Medora, commanded by Captain Charles Kerry, a notable mariner who has rounded Cape Horn 13 times. They will journey until an island is secured. Meanwhile they will live aboard in perfect freedom. One golden rule is that politics are banned.
Coroner urges driver licensing
At the conclusion of an inquest concerning the death of a returned soldier from injuries caused by a motor collision, the Gisborne coroner, Mr J.S. Barton SM, said he had visited the scene of the accident and found, according to the evidence, by the marks on the roadway, that the speed of the car could not have been less than 25 miles an hour. This was not a safe speed, and the car was not being driven as it should have been. The driver was a 14-year-old girl. There was an anomaly that, while engineers were required to show qualification for running stationary engines, a child of 14 years was allowed to drive around the streets in a car of 40 horsepower. The driver of the car had not shown the discretion due from one controlling a motor car, but when the driver was a girl of 14 years, it was not reasonable to expect much discretion. His Worship took full responsibility for making the verdict an open one. He wished, however, to add the following rider: “In my opinion it is urgently necessary that the Gisborne Borough Council should legislate, firstly to provide a system of licensing drivers of motor cars, licences to be issued only to adult persons, each of whom prove to the satisfaction of the council his or her ability to handle or drive a motor car in borough traffic; secondly to prohibit under penalty the driving of a car by a person other than a licensed driver within the borough.”
Momona boy wins potato prize
Representatives of the Otago Expansion League paid a visit to Momona last night to present prizes to the winner and runner-up in the potato-growing competition. The competition was won this year by George McLeod, Momona, with 90 marks out of 100. — ODT, 13.10.1920.
