GENERAL CABLES

Hokitika Guardian, 26 September 1928, Page 5

GENERAL CABLES

< PARACHUTE RECORD. (United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright). PARIS, September 25. Captain Willy Coppons, a one-legged Belgiah Air Attache in London, claims to have made the world’s record parachute descent from an aeroplane, a distance of 6540 yards near Villacaublay. He landed uninjured. , AIR MAIL. AMSTERDAM, September 25. The first air mail liner which left here on September 13th arrived at Bandoeng (Java) on September 25th. t - ' * • - KAISER’S BIRTHDAY. LONDON,' Sept. 24. The Berlin cOrretspdndent of the Times reports that the Kaiser Bank Association has opened a fund to celebrate the Kaiser’s seventieth birthday, on 27th. January, on behalf of “that prince who year in and year out, from dawn to dusk, has only thought, ~ worked and cared for the Fatherland, and upon whose head mountains of abuse and calumny are still heaped.” GEARLESS CARS DEVICE. LONDON, Sept. 25. * Details of the new automatic gears for motor cars (cabled on September 6th.) show that they are controlled from the steering wheel, in which there is a quadrant marked “Reverse,” “Neutral,”' “Low,” “Medium,” “Normal,” “High,”, to whidh a lever i? moved,, depressing a new pedal to make each change. The device is at present limited to Armstrong-Siddeleys thirty and twenty horse-power models, costing respectively £SO and £35 additional.

RUSSIA’S VIEW. OF KELLOGG PACT. 1 LONDON, September 24. The Times’s Riga correspondent repotrs that M. Verosliiloff, Oommisar for War, speaking at KiefF, said that the Soviet had never considered \ the Kellogg Pact seriously. It had signed it merely for tactical reasons, to prevent other Powers from accusing the So vet of “Red Imperialism.” He added that the danger of war was real. The Soviet Government had not exaggerated that danger when it had decided to strengthen the fighting forces. Without her Red Army, Russia would not exist for a week. He regarded the techinical equipment and training of the Red Army as equal and perhaps superior to that of Russia’s neighbours.

SERBIAN CRISIS. OVER THE OROATIANS. BUDAPEST, Sept. 24. Messages from Belgrade state a Government boycott was organised recent* ly by the Croats, by withdrawing railway goods waggons from Croatia, thus preventing the merchants from forwarding consignments. The authorities have also begun the withdrawal of telegraphic and postal facilities. The position is daily becoming more acute. TREASURY WINDFALLS. FROM LARGE ESTATES. (Received this day at 11 a.m.) ’LONDON, September 25. The Treasury has received three more great windfalls to-day. Viscount Hambledon. late head of W. H. Smith, bookstall holders, leftan estate of nearly two arid threequarter millions sterling. James Walker Oxley j a retired Leeds banker, recently died at the age of ninety-four. He lived a retired life and people generally were unaware of his great riches. He left £2,774,541, of which the Treasury gets £1)126,000. Mayor Hugh Frederick Gretton, late of Bass Brewery, left £1,474,000, of which the Treasury receives £520,000. Gretton, who composed a will of ninetv words, 'bequeathed everything to his brother, who is a member of the House of Commons. The Marquis of Lincolnshire left £77,486 sterling.' . " - , '

PLENTY OF OIL. AMERICAN DOCTOR’S VIEWS. LONDON, Sept. 25. “Although the American estimate of 1926 suggested the world’s oil supplies would be exhausted in six years, a new process of ‘cracking,’ whereby crude heavy oils are transformed into motor fuel, enables the supply to be sufficient for three thousand years,” said the American, Dr Gustav Egloff, at the World Power Conference. He added that “cracking’’ was producing over five billion gallons of petrol from petroleum. • They could also “crack coal, oil shales, asphalt, peat, tars, vegetable oils, fish oils, producing an average of fifty per cent, fuel and several by-products. Even if motors increasing at the present rate, leached seventy-five million, requiring forty billion gallons of fuel yearly,' there was no need to fear a shortage. He suggested that European countries should construct “cracking” plants and store at least one hundred million barrels of fuel for use in national emergency to produce motor fuel and explosives.