Busy times at kindergartens
The Dunedin Free Kindergarten Association teachers reported good attendances in all the kindergartens. The Christmas programmes had now started, and the children were busy making Christmas gifts. The students’ handwork display would be on view in Kelsey-Yaralla Kindergarten on Tuesday next. An enthusiastic band of fathers met at Kelsey-Yaralla last Saturday to erect the new fence kindly provided by Mr J.J. Clark. Mrs Clark during the afternoon served tea to the workers. St Kilda Fathers’ Club was also busy, both in raising money and in working to level the ground to make a lawn for the children. The Caversham Fathers’ Club members had been spending their Saturday afternoons in painting the outside of the kindergarten, while the garden has also been dug. Thanks were due to Miss Goldsmith for £1 towards furnishings for Caversham. The Reynolds Mothers’ Club had held a small sale and purchased a lawn mower with the money raised. Mrs Geddes entertained the children from St Kilda Kindergarten at her poultry farm one morning. Miss Darling applied for extended leave owing to illness. The collector handed in £21 in subscriptions. It was decided to appoint an assistant teacher as well as a floating assistant for 1925.
Road of national significance
The condition of the Main North road between Dunedin and Waikouaiti has long been a source of exasperation to its users. It constitutes a problem that the local authority immediately concerned, the Waikouaiti County Council, is wholly unable to solve. It is clearly out of the question to expect this body, with the small revenues at its disposal, to expend on this road, the users of which are mainly non-resident in the county. It may be suggested that the City Council might make a contribution at the present time, in view of the need for providing a suitable road for the influx of visitors to Dunedin that may he expected next year. But it would be much more satisfactory to see the whole matter placed on a permanently improved footing. No road
in the dominion is surely better entitled to be called a main highway than this north road providing access to Dunedin. — editorial
Chipping in for Royal Navy
The Appropriation Act, passed on the last day of the parliamentary session, contained a provision for the expenditure of £100,000 for the maintenance of a cruiser in New Zealand waters. In making this provision the Government cannot be justly accused of acting otherwise than in the interests of the dominion as well as in those of the Empire. An increase in the number of cruisers constitutes the principal requirement of the Imperial navy to-day. Great Britain’s reliance on sea-borne supplies is so great that at any given moment there are some 1400 large merchant vessels scattered over 80,000 miles of trade routes, and another 1400 loading or discharging in the different ports of the world. The trade routes must be protected, and New Zealand, with the security of her own share of this vast sea-borne trade at stake, is certainly called upon to make a reasonable contribution towards the cost of that undertaking. An expenditure of a-quarter of a million to that end on the maintenance of two cruisers is, in proportion to the country’s resources, not excessive. Mr Massey’s statement of the extent of ocean over which naval supervision is expected to be exercised from New Zealand will probably have surprised a good many people. For the blessing of the security which the navy has afforded them British people throughout the Empire have cause to be deeply thankful. — editorial
— ODT, 8.11.1924
Compiled by Peter Dowden