Unemployed fill a vacancy
Our Wellington correspondent wires that Mr J.M. Dickson has had interviews with the Prime Minister, the Minister of Railways, and Mr McLean, departmental engineer, regarding the position that has arisen in regard to the Government grant for work in connection with the straightening of the Port line at Pelichet Bay. Mr Dickson has just received the following letter from the Prime Minister which makes the position clear: “With reference to your representations regarding the Dunedin reclamation, I have to inform
you that the methods by which the Harbour Board carry out the reclamation will not affect the payment of the subsidy of £3300 recently promised by the Government provided that the board employs during the period of the reclamation the same number of unemployed men that would have been engaged by the board in the prosecution of the work under the original scheme, involving the utilisation of material from Black Jack’s Point.
The Government subsidy was promised on the definite understanding given by the board’s representatives that the object the board had in view in carrying out the work at the present was to find useful and profitable work for the unemployed. This is, of, course, an essential condition in connection with the payment of the subsidy by the Government.”
Save the wallabies
The question of protecting
wallabies was brought forward by a member at the Waimate Acclimatisation Society’s meeting. “If we don’t protect the wallaby,” said Mr H. Wilson, ‘‘we will have none left in a few years.
All sportsmen agree that they are getting fewer in numbers. Besides local sportsmen, parties come to Waimate for the sole purpose of hunting the wallaby from Timaru, Oamaru, Dunedin and other places. Just recently I went out with a party and we shot four does, each carrying young. If others are being shot like that, it will not be long before the wallaby is a thing of the past.”
Otago Museum benefactors
Mr Willi Fels has written from Wellington to the Rev A. Cameron, Chancellor of the University, stating that Mr I.S. De Beer, who is at present in London, has presented £1000 towards the cost of the showcases and fittings for the new ethnological wing at the Museum.