BRITISH & FOREIGN NEWS

Hokitika Guardian, 9 February 1925, Page 3

BRITISH & FOREIGN NEWS

AUSTRALIAN AND N. 7 .. CAULK ASSOCIATION A BIG SCHEME. LONDON February S. The -Manchester Corporation has decided to expend ten millions immediately on a water scheme including the lengthening of Tlmhners Lake from 2] to J.) miles, widening it from a quarter to half a mile. This would entail submerging the village and parish church. The scheme will also necessitate the building of 74i miles of aqueduct whereof twenty-eight miles arc underground. The scheme would ultimately cost twenty million. TRADE REVIVAL. LONDON, February 8. 'Die “ Express ” says there is definite trade revival. The paper alludes to the exceptional demand for tonnage for Australian wheat whereof fifty steamers aggregating four hundred thousand tons were booked in a recent week. The ‘“Express”, points out that diversion of tonnage from the Atlantic to Australia is likely to affect rates of freight for the new Argentine crop. JAPANESE VIEW. LONDON, February 8. The Japanese League of Nations Association passed a resolution expressing the opinion that the building of Singapore naval base may produce an unfortunate reaction on the traditional , Anglo-Japanese friendship and allow a pretext for competition of armaments ( asserting the scheme will not harmonise , with the spirit of the League and nullified the effect of the Washington f Coni'ereuco I

ST PAUL’S CATITEDRAL. (Received IP is day at 10.25 a.ni.) LONDON, February 8. John Todd, the City Corporation’s surveyor who is responsible tor tlie declaration that St. Paul’s Cathedral is a dangerous building, interviewed, said eminent men who from time to time reported on the building had placed all their information at his disposal. After long and anxious thought all he did was to conclude he must act under the Dangerous Structures Clauses'of the London Building Act. Discussing the construction of the cathedral, he said Sir Christopher Wren was a mathematician, astronomer and physicist, but be was not a builder. When he started building St. Paul’s, Wren thought lie followed the traditional methods of building a cathedral. lie realised and guarded against the danger in his design. This was an oblique wall which, without the necessary support, would have rested on

the edge of piers, instead of piers

taking its weight evenly. Wren de- » signed and built properly, but probably, owing to constant financial embarrassment, he built the piers of inferior material, from which the whole ot the. present evil resulted. They could not take down and rebuild the dome, hut they could literally hold the dome in its present position, and make the piers good. Then they could lower the dome bodily one three-thousand part of an pneh. The dome could then take its new seating on the piers, this resulting in the stresses returning to the original position. This would ensure St. Paul’s enduring for a thousand years. LONDON, February 8. Mr Pakeman, Chairman of the Special Committee of the Corporation o f the City of London, which is dei'inc, with the question of St. Paul’ Cathedral, declares Air Todd’s statem-nt is made without the knowledge of the committee and it must be taken that the committee approves of his views.

A DICK EX’S MEMORIAL. LONDON, February 8

House No. 18 in Doughty Street, where Charles Dickens wrote “ Oliver Twist,” “Nicholas Xickleby,” and the rfiekwick Papers will be preserved as a. permanent memorial, synchronising with the 113th anniversary of the novelist’s birth. An appeal has been launched for ten thounnd sterling with which to endow the memorial, of which the freehold has been secured. The Dominion’s are being invited to support the proposal. SLAP AT THE CHINAMAN. MANILA, February "7. More than twelve thousand Chinese retailers are affected and will possibly be forced to leave the Islands as a result of the Supreme Court decision upholding the legality of. the bookkeeping law passed two years ago which prohibits books being kept in the Chinese language. An appeal to the United States Supreme Court is likely. PRUSSIAN PREMIERSHIP BERLIN, February 7. Herr Braun lias declined the Prussian Premiership.