BRITISH & FOREIGN NEWS

Hokitika Guardian, 6 May 1927, Page 2

BRITISH & FOREIGN NEWS

[AY TELEGRAPH- -PEIt PRESS ASSOCIATION.]

ROYAL AIR FORCE. RUGBY, May L Tlio 159th summer exhibition of the Royal Academy of Arts was opened yesterday, and at the annual banquet last night Prince Henry was the principal guest. Several Cabinet Ministers attended, including the Air Minister, Sir Samuel Home, who, responding to the toast of “The Fighting Services,” said that in the past four years the Royal Air Force had doubled "its" strength in regard to number of squadrons. Its training was more intense, its equipment more powerful and, although only a little more than half the size of the greatest Air Force in Europe, its development was satisfactory. He referred in particular to the work being done by the Air Force on the north-west frontier of India, which had seldom been quieter. The Air Force was co-operating usefully there in defence work in wild and mountainous country in which flying would have been impossible a few years ago.

BIRTH PREVENTION. LONDON, May 5. Over eleven hundred delegates are attending the Women’s National Liberal Federation. By an over-whelming majority, they have passed a resolution in favour of scientific birth control, as providing the means for increasing the efficiency of the nation. Larlv Ackland said that there were people who were shocked that mothers should he able to choose how many people they would bring into the world, hut they could leave that to a generation which regarded the population as cannon fodder.

Miss I'.tmna Samuel aroused loud laughter b.v declaring that she was thirty years of age, and that the men and women of her age felt that people were living too long, and that, as they could not lie put to death, they he prevented from being horn, otherwise they would all starve in the streets.

The conference decided that birth control information should be made available at the Ministry of Health centres. There was a motion moved favouring allowances for children. Tin’s motion was defeated. l.adv Bonham Carter, in opposing the motion, pointed out that a dole for children would enable the profligate to multiply at the expense of tho thrifty. 'GERMAN ATP FEAT. BERLIN. May 4. For the first time in the history of aviation, there has lioen a successful long-distance flight made by an aeroplane towing an engineless biplane of 440 pounds weight, with a tow line 130 yards long, above the engined plane. LOAN OVER-SURSCRIRED. LONDON, May 5. The New Zealand loan was oversubscribed,