BRITISH & FOREIGN NEWS

Hokitika Guardian, 19 January 1926, Page 3

BRITISH & FOREIGN NEWS

Australia & N.Z. Cable Association.] PUR I EYING CAMPAIGN. LONDON, January IS. A section of Commoners is organising a purifying press campaign for the coining session, including ban on divorce court reports. The secretary of the National Union of Journalists (H. Richardson) challenges the reformists to find corruptive, indecent incident passages in any English newspaper, and adds that the court eases arc reported with such delicacy nowadays that only the sophisticated can appreciate the significance of the statements.

SOVIET AMBASSADORS. PARIS, January IS. Rnkovsky, who was recently appointed Soviet Ambassador, in expectation of restoring Eranro-Russian relations, ■ins caused deep official resentment by an extraordinary outburst in which lie lectured Alsace-Lorraine should, by right he restored to Germany. It is expected that the French Government will demand his recall. NEW BOAT. I.ON DON, Jan. 18. The Union Company of New Zealand has ordered a four thousand ton freighter from a Clyde firm. SNOWSTORM. LONDON, Jan. 18. A snowstorm lasting twelve hours •ovored the South Coast to a clefth of twelve to twenty inches.

SHATTERING EXPLOSION. BE RUIN, Jan. 18

A shattering detonation, due to an ■xplosion of gas and petrol, aroused the residents of Monbit District of Berlin early this morning. A four--itorcyed house collapsed like a pack of cards, burying the occupants under 8 feet of debris. The whole street was the scene, of wild destruction. A motor car was hurled some distance away and smashed to pieces. All windows in the neighbourhood were broken, window frames hanging in the street fronts. The Fire Brigades working feverishly were threatened by further collapse of loosened masonry. The explosion was caused l>y an escape of gas which became ignited, the flames spreading to a chandler’s shop where it set fire to a barrel of benzine, the House was inhabited by 25 families and forty persons hare so far been

■xtrica ted from the ruins. Of those live arc dead and twenty seriously injured.

OPENING OF IMMENSE DAM. CAIRO. Jan. 18. Khartoum streets are lie (lagged, and large crowds assembled to meet Lord and Lady Lloyd when the High Commissioner formally opened Makwar dam, a gigantic engineering feat, designed to fertilize several million acres of desert between the Blue Nile and White Nile, to facilitate extensive cotton growing. AEROPLANE BURNT. NEW YORK. Jan. IS. A lire in Detroit damaged, beyond repair, a triple engine metal plane with which Wilkins planned to make the flight across the North Polo. The plane, was one of ten destroyed. The entire experimentad plant of the Stout Metal Airplane Division of Ford .Motor Coy. was badly damaged. CHINESE FINANCE. PEKING. Jan. 18. The Finance Minister. Cheneliintao has resigned. His resignation reveals the acute financial .stringency of the past decade. The present resources are apparently exhausted and local troubles arc feared at the Chinese New Year, unless funds are secured somehow. The situation does not affect properly secured Chinese bonds.