OFFICIAL WIRELESS

Hokitika Guardian, 27 September 1928, Page 5

OFFICIAL WIRELESS

R, A. F. STATIONS. COMPREHENSIVE TOUR. SIR PHILIP SASSOON’S PLAN. (British Official Wii'eless.) I RUGBY, Sept. 24. - The Under-Secretary of State for the Air, Sir Philip Sassoon, will leave England by air on September 29th. to visit the Royal Air Force' stations in Malta, the Middle East, Iraq, and India. The route to be followed will he : Plymouth, Marseilles, Naples, Athens and Cairo.

From Cairo a visit will be made by air to the Air Force Squadron at Khartoum, after which the flight will continue: Annum, Baghdad, Basra, Persian Gulf, Karachi. The type of aircraft employed for the geater part of the tour will be a Blackburn Iris flying-boat, with three Rolls-Royce Condor engines. It will be manned by the normal service crew. This is the latest type of flying-boat adopted by the Ijfoyal Air Force, and it is desired to obtain experience of its capabilities on an. extended crifise under varying climatic conditions. Sir Philip Sassoon will spend nine days in India, and will inspect the air squadrons in that country. He will leave' Karachi on October 24th. for England in the Iris, which is due at Plymouth on November 6th. Oh the return journey Sir Philip Sassoon will visit Malta.

OPIUM ENQUIRY. PROPOSALS APPROVED. RUGBY, Sept. 24. The British proposal for a League of Nations enquiry in the Far East on opium smoking and smuggling was adopted by the League’s Fourth Committee by a majority, after being warmly supported by the British delegates. Dame Edith Lyttelton and Sir Malcolm Delevingne, and by representatipes of India, the British Dominions, and Siam. / As the expenses of the enquiry may exceed 200,000 francs, the .British Gohas offered to contribute 50,000 francs.

SIR HORACE DARWIN. RUGBY, Sept. 24. The death has occurred at Cambridge of Sir Horace Darwin, aged 77, the son of the late Charles Darwin, ’author of “The Origin of Species.” Sir Horace was a Fellow of the Royal Society and an authority on the iscitenoe of .aeronautics. He devoted much attention to the design’ of scientific instruments, constructing among others one for measuring, in thousandth parts of a millimetre, the cracks in St. Paul’s.