GENERAL CABLES

Hokitika Guardian, 20 February 1928, Page 2

GENERAL CABLES

(Australian ifc N.Z. Cable Association.. PROFESSOR FARR. LONDON, Feb. 17. Professor Farr of Canterbury College has been elected to fellowship of the Royal Society. IRAQ’S POLICY. LONDON, Feb. 17. Muzahim Bey, Iraq’s diplomaticagent in London, has been suddenly recalled and is being replaced by the ex-Premier Jafar Pasha. Mirairahim Bey stated he favoured most friendly relations with Britain, but members of Iraq Cabinet knew he was against the mandate. Iraq should have complete independence against which the door was closed for another five years. As soon as he reached Baghdad he would establish a new Nationalist Party. .J MR AMERY WELCOMED. LONDON, Feb. 17. A representative gathering of British Dominion and Colonial administrators, financiers and industrialists, attended the Empire Producers’ Organisation luncheon., welcoming Hon L. C. Amery. It included Lords Glendyne, Clarendon, and Rodney, of the Cabinet, Messrs Bridgeman, Ormsby-Gore, and A. if. Samuel. ex-Cdlonial Secretary J. H. Thomas. Mr Coates cabled congratulations and stated lie hoped the tour would be productive of real value in promoting imperial unity and co-opera-tion. Morgan said the Empire producers regarded Mr Amery as the gi-catost advocate of Imperial preference in the Government to which they were indebted for sugar, tobacco, wine, and dried-fruits preferences, which vasißy stimulated Empire production. Such an expansion was merely a hint of the developments likely to follow a fullblooded policy. .Mr Amery, responding to the toastof his health, said lie returned with ten fold greater optimism, feeling that x new spirit was stirring the Empire to a> sense of common destiny, responsibility and idealism that would enable the Empire to triumph over all difficulties'and achieve a world-wide combination! with absolute freedom and effective unity. He paid a tribute to the amazing progress of the Dominions primary and secondary production, also to research, instancing New Zealand’s aim to create the world’s leading daisy research in memory of Mr Massey. FIXED EASTER PROPOSED. LONDON, Feb. 17. Mr Bourne moved a private bill to stabilise Easter Day on tlie Sunday following the second Saturday in April. He explained that the suggested date would meet the ecclesiastical wish, to avoid the risk of the Feast of Annunciation clashing with Passion Sunday. The Bill would not operate until the Government through the league of Nations, had sought agreement with western powers. Educational authorities everywhere favoured a fixed Easter as an advantage arrangement. Sir H. Slesser moved the rejectionHe said there was no justification for the change of a religious festival, which had existed for sixteen hundred years. Sir Jovnson Hicks said there was no intention that there should be two Easters, secular and ecclesiastical. The Primate informed him the Church had no dogmatic reason against a fixed Easter. The Primate had spoken in the Lords favouring a fixed Easter, secular and ecclesisatical, on educational grounds, provided it was not attempted without the consent of the Roman Catholic Church. The Government would leave the Bill to a free vote and take its passage .as authorising negotiations to obtain the ecclesiastical authorities consent.

Slesser withdrew liis amendment and the Bill was read a second time. PLANES COLLIDE. LONDON. Feb. 18. Two Air Force fighting machines engaged in mock combat, collided in mid-air near Folkstone. and crashed from nine hundred feet. The wings seemed to interlock and then the machines were seen spinning round out of control. One machine went on fire, and the pilot jumped clear, but apparently too late. His parachute failed to open and he was terribly injured and die as soon as he reached the hospital. ■ i he other pilot jumped out, and the parachute opened, but a strong wind almost carried him out to sea. F<tunately he was caught in some telegraph wires and was able to drop off unhurt. GREAT TRIBAL BATTLE. JERUSALEM, Feb. 19. A great tribal battle has been fought on the trans.lordiau frontier. Feisal El Dowisli. the Waihibi rebel, whose raids on Iraq in December reduced the villages to desolation, attacked the Beniskar tribe, following their refusal to pay tribute to lbnsuad. As a result of the fight the chief of the Benisakr and a hundred and twenty of his people were slain. 'lhe tribe counter-attacked bravely, resulting in Feisal losing more than a hundred killed. EX-DICTATOR ON TRIAL. • ATHENS. Feb. 18. After seventeen months imprisonment in a Creatan fortress, Pangalos lias been brought before a Parliamentary Committee of inquiry on six counts, charging him with illegally proclaiming himself dictator on January 4. and with holding an illegal election of the president in April. 1929. when lie was elected as the sole candi-"' date. Other offences include the arrest and banishment of prominent citizens. The ex-dictator immediately objected to the composition of the Committee, pointing out that it contained a member of the Cabinet which he overturned and also a member wild acted as counsel for the men executed under his dictntorsip.

The Committee privately considered this plea.

LIYERPOOL ENDANGERED. BY OIL TANKER AGROUND. LONDON. Feb. 18. The large oil tanker Yarand, constructed by Armstrong Whitworths last year, returning from her maiden voyage to New Orleans, loaded with 7.400 tons of benzine, is aground at the mouth of the -Mersey, and it is feared that she will break up, releasing the petrol, which will he carried up Liverpool on the rising tide. Tlie disaster is a climax of three weeks buffeting. She lost a propellor and her rudden after striking a submerged wreck in the Atlantic. An s.o.s. brought the assistance of a powerful tug, and she was under tow when a fierce squall broke the tow rope. She then drifted helplessly. The crew point out that they left New Orleans on a Friday, they encountered the first gale on a Friday, and on two subsequent Fridays they saved the ship by the barest margin, and finally foundered in sight of home on Friday. BRITAIN’S M M. 1.1 ON AIRES. LONDON, Feb. 18. There are 562 millionaires in Britain and Northern Ireland, according to the latest blue book dealing with Inland Revenue, which gives this number of supertax payers, who have incomes of fifty thousand sterling per annum or more.