NEWS AND NOTES.

Hokitika Guardian, 30 March 1922, Page 1

NEWS AND NOTES.

BOLSHEVIK POTSON. PARIS, Feb. 12. “Attempts must first be made to get at the crews of the British and Fre.pch fleets, where the situation is quite favourable to Communist and Pacifist propaganda,” is the scheme proposed by Zinovieff, President of the Moscow International, in a circular sent out on the eve of the proposed Genoa Conference. This circular, addressed to the heads of *the Communist Propaganda Department in various European countries, lays stress on tile, fact that Communist theories have so far failed to gain ground among the British and French armed forces and declares that further efforts must he made. “Tn every case,” concludes ZinoviefF, with a probable reference to past errors, “this task should he left in England to British and in France to French members of the party.” FTLM BLAZE. LONDON, Feb. 12. Four iirenfen and a girl were injured through an explosion and fire caused by the burning of reels of kincmatog’raph film in the basement of the Famous-Lasky Film Service, Ltd., 166Wardour street AY., yesterday morning. With burnt faces and singed hair the four men were taken to the Middlesex Hospital. Their names were: Sta-tion-Officer Edward Linder (Great Marl-borough-street Fire Station); Charles Fawcett; Henry Stone ; and Arthur Shopland. Miss Daisy Sharpe, an em ployee of the firm, was treated for a badly cut hand. While Miss Sharpe was removing a film from its metal case for examination it hurst into, flame, apparently spontaneously. She was alone in the room. She rushed into a passage, and there, with her bare luind, she broke the glass of a private fire alarm, cutting herself in doing so. This alarm warned workers in another part of the basement, who hurried through the spreading fire into the street. The fire brigade, summoned by teleplume, quickly arrived, and firemen broke open the pavement and passed a hose into the basement. A large crowd watching the scene then heard a dull report and saw a great sheet of flame. 18 feet high, burst through tho pavement near the four firemen, who were hurled backwards and flung to the around bv the force of an explosion which had taken place in the basement, where intense heat had been generated by the burning reels of film. The fire was soon extinguished, but considerable damage was done to films and to the building.' A similar case of apparently spontaneous burning of a reel of film occurred some time ago in the sarnie buik -

SOUTH GEORGIA. LONDON, February 7. An officer in the mother-ship of a whaling fleet having its headquarters at South Georgia gives a striking description of the island, wher® Sir EShaokleton is buried. “It is not volcanic, as is generally supposed,” he says. “The whofe island is nothing but high, precipitous mountains, and there is very little level ground anywhere. Some of the points on the northeastern side, which nr e lower than most, are snow-free m summer, and are covered with coarse tussock grass (introduced mto Scotland as valuable for fodder), and moss, and that is all the vegetation of any kind. “We took Captain G. Wilkins, and Captain G. V. Douglas, of the Shackle. ton-Rowett Expedition, from Montevideo. Uruguay, to South Georgia; they went ahead while the Quest was iu Rio to make a study of Scrntn Georgia. Captain Wilkins i& making a study of the birds, the albatross, fr> particular, and took kinema pictures, which he hones will be useful to aeroplane designers. Captain Douglas if the geologist. Up to the time of our leaving be had not managed to fin! the coal which is supposed to ho on the island. He said he had found some interesting specimens. “The island is practically uninhabited. because there is nothing except five whaling stations. They have from 200 to 500 men on each during tV season, hut from May to October inclusive there are usually only about ten men to each station,. who spend the time cleaning and painting whan not digging themselves out of the enow. “One of the station managers ha? his wife with him. but she is the only woman on the island. While we were there there was hardly a day that. we did not have snow or sleet some time of the day. Though it was midsnmirier, in places the snow was 14ft to 15ft deep.”

WIFE’S HONOUR. NEW YORK, January 16. A woman’s dramatc journey into the snows of the Canadian wilderness in search of witnesses to defend her honour is described by the New York Times to-day, recording the departure for the north of Mrs Stillman, one of the principals in the famous Stillman divorce case. She is accused by her husband, Mr James Stillman, the millionaire banker, of misconduct with a- half-brood Canadian Indian guide, who is alleged to be the father of her youngest child Guy. Airs Stillman brought counter charges alleging misconduct with several co-respondents. Misconduct with the Indian guide iB alleged by the husband to have occurred at a summer hunting lodge in the Canadian woods of Northern Quebec, Several witnesses, who the defence alleged were suborned, testified to seeing Mrs Stillman and the guide in compromising conditions. To obtain evidence to overturn this testimony is the object of her journey into the Canadian wilderness. She is accompanied by her eldest son dnd one of her solicitors. They will

gq by railway from Quebec to La Tuque, which is the railway’s farthest north, and then propeed by sledge and snowshoes into the frozen wilds. CAPE COLOURED MEN’S UNREST. CAPETOWN, Feb. 12. Coloured people are organising a campaign throughout South Africa for the removal of the colour bar by the gi-apt gfi the Parliamentary franchise in all provinces to non-Europeans with the right to sit in Parliament. At the inaugural meeting at Capetown speakers declared that if there were no colour bar there would be no. strikes in the Transvaal. The hope was expressed that there might be no peace between the white and the coloured men till the bar was removed, as the coloured man was treated worse than slaves. A political leader of the Cape Malays declared that the time has come when the coloured people must follow on the lines of freedom in Ireland and India.