BRITISH & FOREIGN NEWS

Hokitika Guardian, 5 February 1926, Page 3

BRITISH & FOREIGN NEWS

I.V TELEGRAPH PRESS ASSN., COPYRIGHT. FRANCE’S PEACE TERMS. BEIRUT. Feb. 4. fn reply to a request for direct peace negotiations, the High Commissioner told the Jcbel 1 Druses that they must first cease hostilities. General do Jouvennl’s reply states that after their am*- are laid clown, a National Assembly will b- formed to decide the future constitution. Jobc-1 Druses being given the choice of a separate administration. or membership of the Federal Government, in company with the Syrian TUdoration at Lebanon, France to be arbiter in case of interna! disputes. MINISTRY TWITTED. (Received this day at (.5 p.m.) LONDON. Feb. 4. In the Commons, in moving an anv.-nhnieul to the Addross-in-Ropl.v, Mr Philip Snowden, declared the legislative programme was not calculated lo reduce unemployment or stimulate industry. He advocated the public ownership of industry and twitted the -Ministry with its election assurance that it bad a positive remedy for the unemployment which had not decreased. though profits bad increased. Private interests bad to give way where communal interests were involved. Small petti-fogging methods would never provide a positive remedy, and all the measures in the King’s S|x-ecli would not reduce the unemployed by one. Any .scheme for the organisation of the electric supplv should be- under public ownership. Tlv-re was no greater monument to (lie- failure of agriculture than the .Minister’s latest white paper in which it confessed that the landlord bad become a. mere receiver of renis and a parasite on the community.

BRITAIN’S BIRTHRATE. LONDON. February I. Britain’s birthrate of 18.3 per I.OOf is the lowest in the world. Marriages are unchanged but families are a quarter smaller than in lf)13. principally through mal-uutrition and birth control. The death rate is 1.2 per 1,000. TRIPLE HULL AIRSHIP. LONDON, February I. A German engineer. Yon l.outzkov, is building a triple-hulled airship consisting of a centre parent ship and two smaller detachable ships connected by a gangway on either side to facilitate escape in emergency, or to act as feeders. EIGHT LIVES LOST. NEW YORK. Feb. 4. Figld. lives are reported to be lust when a storm sweeping the New Jersey coast overtook a- small craft.