BRITISH & FOREIGN ITEMS

Hokitika Guardian, 31 January 1924, Page 3

BRITISH & FOREIGN ITEMS

[Reuters Telegrams.]

EMIGRATION BOYS. LONDON. January MO

Sir J. Allen lias found a number of suitable boys and is ascertaining bow many are agreeable to migrate to New Zealand.

Harris, a member of the New Zonhml Parliament lias arrived to take up duties in connection with the I'.x'nibitmn Advisory Committee. CHAOS IN CHTXA. LONDON, January 30. A Pekin correspondent says chaos reigns, supreme in Obina. I lie country is no longer an organised state but a series of weak pi ini ipalitics in which neither Treaty lior moral obligations to foreigners are respected. Tin* position is steadily drifting into an impasse in

which the interested powers will be compelled to supplement relations with a fictional Fokin Government, with direct dealings with tie facto rulers. Such action would probably divide tin* eounfn into spheres of interest, and lead to international complications. The position, however, is l»y no means irro-

niedinble. I'nily among powers it ml a joint policy designed to secure the observance of foreigners rights mid treaties would co fur to relieve the situnti.ii, even if it did not result in an iinproveinent of the general political position.

AIBSHiP SCHEME. LONDON, Jan. -I). It is understood that the new Air minister. General Thompson, is considering the airship scheme, and Commander Burney is confident regarding • the outcome. Tie believes that I’arJimnent will iliseuss it in February. If the scheme is ratified, the rc-npeniug of the Cardington Works at Bedlord will follow. It was in these works That the largest wartime airships were built. The first now craft are to be ready in eighteen months. The* now type will be girderless steel strips instead of strengthening the frame-work, it nil providing n stronger and more * rngid hull than the Zeppelin. Commander Burney appeals to Australia and New Zealand to insist that Britain shall retain Wrangel Island as a strategic base for an alternative aictic route to the Antipodes, via _ the Pacific, possibly including Hong-Kong. and Singapore. It is pointed out that a Canadian base would not ho advisable, owing to tbe difficulty of crossing the Bookies. The plans now ready .n|i,ee Britain in a pre-eminent position in nil-slip const melon, and they are only waiting the word “go. . There have already been received business inquiries from three foreign countries.