BRITISH AND FOREIGN NEWS.

Hokitika Guardian, 18 January 1926, Page 2

BRITISH AND FOREIGN NEWS.

[BY TELEORAPII — rEP. PEESS ASSOCIATION.]

CANADIAN POLITICS. OTTAWA, Jan. 16.

The most tense scene in the history of the Cnndaian Parliament was witnessed in the early hours to-day, when a Conservative amendment to the ad-dress-in-reply declaring a lack of confidence in the MacKenzie-King Government was only defeated by (three votes, 123 to 120. Since Pariiajnjent opened with the extraordinary spectacle of the Premier, without a seat, having to sit in the Strangers Gallery, the Government has made frantic overtures to the Progressives or Farmers Party from the west. These, however, split and five voted against the Government. While the Government is stunned, it will attempt to carix on, but the Conservatives who are jubilant, declare the Government’s fall cannot be long deferred.

FAMOUS HOTEL BURiW.

-• OTTAWA. Jan. 16. The original wings and great of Chateau Frontenac one of the world’s most historic and famous hotels, are to-day in ruins, as the result of an overnight fire, which Stroved the building. Fireproof doors kept the flames clear of the new sections of the hotel and the guests therein were never endangered. The damage is estimated at over two million; dollars. The city’s entire social life is disrupted as the Chateau was the centre of activities at. all times , especially during the sitting ot I,u lament. i-' 1 ' VAST power, scheme.

LONDON. Jan. 17

The Government has proposals to promote -a great national electrical scheme, in order to afford a cheaper supply ’of current. These were outlined hv Mr Baldwin at Birmingham. The Premier pointed out that Britain will be seriously handicapped industrially, if she continues to lag behind other nations in the consumption of electrical energy. Britain used two hundred units per head of the population, compared with nine hundred used per head in Canada, and over live hundred in the United States. He expressed the opinion that the latter figures should he reached here fifteen years hence by the cheapening of electricity through large scale production-, and distribution.

.Mr Baldwin declared that the present system of generation is too parochial, although it was efficient. The Government, he said, proposed to establish a Board, managed by practical men, similar to the Port of London Authority, to control the whole supply of electricity throughout Britain. This, hoard would co-ordinate the existing" stations, and would build new ones. It would.raise its own capital, and would: work on purely commercial lines. Tiny • surplus would go towards reducing the cost of the plant, when the interest on the sinking, fund had been paid off. The Government would initiate the scheme with a guarantee. It was not considered that a subsidy would be necessary. MAN WITH FRACTURED SPINE. LONDON, January 16. A case, described as unparalleled ill medical history, lias been revealed at Cardiff, at the inquest on a man named John Wild, who. after falling from a high staging and fracturing his sjjino ill two places, continued working for two hours afterwards, and then walked to the hospital, where he survived a fortnight. OBITUARY. Obituary.—Lord Carmichael; of Shelling.

ECONOMIC RESEARCH. •NEW YORK, Jan. 15

The officials of the Laura Spellman Rockfeller Memorial declare tiuit any announcement at present regarding the proposed reciprocal research scholarships in economics for Australian and American students would be premature, because nothing definite has yet been -decided. They stated that the visit of Dr Copland would offer an opportunity to discuss the matter in detail. Doctor George K. Vincent, Director of the Rockfeller Foundation, in a recent address to the Foreign Correspondents’ Association, pointed out the Foundation, in arranging facilities for' international study for nd research students, was anxious that conditions of the fullest liberty be maintained. He pointed out that the Foundation was in no sense desirous of limiting the scope of researches, or of acting in a paternal inuniier, or even of demanding the publication of the .studies made by the facilitated students. The Foundation was desirous only of bringing the researcher and the materials together in the interests of the advancement of knowledge and of the furtherance of human good.

It is understood that among American universities and colleges u G "hicli students may seek facilities'for study, are those of Harvard, Princetown, Yale, Columbia and Chicago, and also the Oherlin College in Ohio, which lately has become one of tho best-known schools for economic research.

ARSENICAL APPLES. LONDON, ’ Jan. 16. The London and Provincial Fruit Buyers’ Association meeting at Loudon, adopted a resolution as follows: 1 hut il the affection of apples by arsenic ot lead in injurious, the same drastic powers should he enforced as are used to prevent the important of diseased potatoes.” The conference urged the importance of the sanitary authorities inspecting the consignments at the port of entry.

■ COLLIERY DISASTER. VANCOUVER, Jan. 17. Telegrams from Fairmont, in Virginia, state that twenty miners were entombed for eighteen hours far underground in the workings of the Jamieson Coal Company, as the result ■ of an explosion. They were brought out alive. The workings were wreck: ‘ ed on Thursday night. The resqjtffe to-day communicated with sixteen other miners still entombed. Sewn- -7 teen bodies have lioen recovered, leaving six men unaccounted r or. ' f A MINERS’ ORDEAL. LONDON, Jan. 16. Entombed for four days and nights in a coal mine, and mourned as dead,

Join, Poole was rescued from the Wat-hiiiiii Colliery, near Rotherham. He said: “Mv lamp was buried, and I was left in total darkness. I had about 26 yards in which to move, but the roof was low and I had to remain m a crouching position. My only companion was my saw, upon which I Mievo. I have made holes in placing tunes to pass the time. I suffered most from thirst, I BU cked a stone to allay rt. Then came periods of semi-consciousness in which I thought saw hospital nurses passing and repnssing with shirts in their hands I "as perished with cold, and I wondered when my time for a shirt would come.’’

Poole was conscious when found. He recognised comrades among the rescuers. Then lie collapsed.