MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS.

Hokitika Guardian, 6 May 1920, Page 1

MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS.

j (Imperial News Service). ! THE RAILWAYS. LONDON, May 4. The Ministry of Transport is formulating a comprehensive scheme of new railway control absorbing the smaller lines and generally increasing the efficiency and modernising of cross country communication maintaining the management and control of great companies under supervision of the Ministry. FINANCIAL. LONDON', May 4. The prosperous Peninsular Company’s banking corporation announces it will have a capital of live millions sterling in half a million ten pound shares and at present is issuing a quarter of a million shares at 2s Cd premium. •Several London banks and the Peninsular Company have applied for eighty thousand.

The Appeal Court decided that a bonus share distributed as dividends, is lintracenble as income and not subject to supertax. WAR GRAVES. LONDON, May 4. The House of Commons, when on the Imperial War Graves Committee Vote, discussed whether to adopt the commission’s proposal favouring uniformity of headstones in cemeteries or alternatively the relatives being permitted to follow their own designs. The House generally supported Mr Asquith who advocated the former idea without any distinction between 'officers and men. Mr Churchill said the Commission was considering the erection of a memorial in a cemetery nearest the scene • f the fighting whereon the names of die missing would he inscribed on a regimental memorial for a similar purpose. It was estimated the completion of the Commission’s scheme would take ten years, whereas independent headstones would not bo completed in the present generation. The Commission anticipated their headstones would last i hundred years. Dir Churchill added that about 2000 stones of remembrance, weighing 10 cons, inscribed “Thy name liveth for ver more,” would be erected in France .done. They Mould certainly exist for 3000 years preserving a memory of common purpose and would undoubtedly excite the wonder and reverence of posterity.

An amendment in favour of independent designs was negatived and the vote agreed to.

WAR GRAVES COMMISSION. (Received this day at 8 a.i11.) LONDON, May 5. The War Graves Commission expenses for the. financial year total-to 2,787,000 of which half a million falls on the Dominions and India. GO-SLOW POLICY. LONDON, .May 4. There is now what amounts to a “go slow” policy on many lines of railway. The explanation the papers give is that being disappointed at a failure by .drivers and porters on passenger trains to adopt the “ea-canny” system, the “extremist” section of the railwaymen in some districts have adopted a slowing down of work..

'Hie railway Superintendents are stated to be “watchful,” but they are not interfering in the least. The movement is now spreading. The new tactics take the shape of a more careful weighing of the goods, instead of the hitherto, usual rough calculations. Other men are refusing overtime. They arc leaving tho unloading of cars unfinished. The shunters at Sutherland perform a “Dead March” round long stationary trains. BANK OF ENGLAND. (Received this day at 9.30 a.m.) LONDON, May 4. It is intended to re-build the Bank of England, with seven stories, architectorally worthy of the world’s most valuable building site. Accommodation will be provided for several other large banks, thus relieving the congestion. At present it is impossible toeure an office within half a mile of the hank.

SENTENCED TO DEATH. (Received this day, at 9.30 a.m.) LONDON, May o.

At the trial of Fraser and Rollins charged with murder, cabled on February Bth., two women associates gave. King’s evidence. Fraser’s associate gave evidence that the men planned that she would entice Senior into the Park. They would follow and blackmail him. Rollins took Senior by. the throat and Fraser hammered his face with his fists and a revolver. The woman added that Fraser had been living on her earnings for eighteen months. Fraser and Collins were sentenced to death.

DISAPPROVED. (Received this day at 9.20 a.m.) (LONDON, May 5. In a speech at Birmingham, Lord Hugh Cecil denounced the suggestion published that day that the Supreme Council should be part of the permanent machinery of European diplomacy, side by side with the League of Nations. A more abominable proposal could not bo made . France must be, protected, but lielp must be given under the League of Nations . MR HALL’S APPOINTMENT. (Received This Day at 8 a.m.) LONDON, May 4.

Mr Hall who was appointed by the Holman Government to act ns Agent General for New South Wales lias arrived in London. Interviewed by tho Australian Press he said he had no further communication from the Storey Government. He was unable to understand the cancellation of his appointment. He had no wish to say anything which would advertise New South Wales as a country which did not respect contracts, but so far as lie knew, there was no precedent anywhere for such treatment. Questioned whether he contemplated action against the Government, he said lie believed the latter had the right to plead that tho King had the right to break a contract whatever its character. Such, a right was raiely, i 1 over, exercised, and certainly never in connection with' such an appointment as his.