LATE CABLE NEWS

Hokitika Guardian, 20 November 1929, Page 2

LATE CABLE NEWS

ONLY TEMPORARY

PERMANENT EMPLOYMENT

. LONDON, November 8. At Australia House there is such a thing as temporary permanence, or permanent' temporariness; The employees there, at any rate, are wonderiiig exactly what the word temporary means.

It came out at a mass meeting that several of the staff have been employed at Australia House for periods of from ten to 20 years, and are still rated as temporary employees, without superannuation. They receive not the Australian public service pay, but the rates prevalent. The meeting decided to cable to the Australian Labour Government urging it: to reopen the case -for placing them on the same basis as Australian public servants regarding superannuation. Mr Marr, Honorary Minisr ter in the late Government, during his recent visit received a deputation, hut nothing further has been heard of it.

SYDNEY WHISTLE.

HEARD IN ENGLAND.

LONDON, November ?.

“ I will certainly listen to the short wave broadcast of the Melbourne Cup race,” Mr W. H. Cook/of Twickenham, and formerly of Sydney, told the special representative of the “Sun,” “though I fear that the time will be a little early for reception. The best results are obtained about 7 a.m. “I hear regularly the knock-off whistle at T Wynyard Square railway works at 5 p.m. (Sydney time.)

“ I only bnow that Mr Longstaff (the London representative of Amalgamated Wireless) is married because I heard Sydney frieqds congratulating him over the wireless a fortnight ago.”

LABOUR SHORTAGE

FRANCE IMPORTS 10.000 MEN

LONDON, November 7

Ifi consequence of the acute labour shortage, France has signed an agreement, with Rumania for the importation of 10*p00 Rumanian workers, who will be employed in metallurgical industries for a ytear, and will then be replaced by others. \ This is the first agreement of the kind in modern industrial' history.:

AnotheV consequence of the labour shortage it that the Compagnie. General Trans-Atlahtic is ordering six large cargQ' steam'prs. to be built in Britain..

GUY FAWKES RAG

OXFORD, STUDENTS* FUN.

LONDON, November 7.

Australian Rhodes Scholars, although not participating in, the plot, watched the best Guy Fawkes Day rag that Oxford has yet seen.

A motor van was suddenly driven into a crowd of revellers, 'and immediately burst into flame. A volunteer fire brigade vainly attempted to put out the fire, which defied chemical extinguishers, and also hoses, by which students and police were liberally douched. The smouldering, mass was eventually removed by shovels. It was then discovered that a group-of undergraduates had bought an ancient motor van from a milk vendor,'loaded it with tar-soak-ed wood, and ignited it as a, burnt offering to Guy Fawkes.

BEAUTY GOES; TO GAOL

HAD PRINCES AT HER FEET

LONDON, November G

“ She won a beauty prize from 50,000 competjtors and was inundated with all sorts of\ flattering offers. French noblemen offered marriage, Indian princes offered jewels, firm producers offered engagements. She was too' nervous to take advantage of all this publicity, but the flattery developed an inordinate vanity, biie wanted to surround tiprself with beautiful clothes, although her humble Social station would never allow her to wear them.”

Thus spoke counsel defending Maude Hall, a 29-year-old shop.assistant, who Was charged iri a West London Court With stealing 118 \’obes valued at £3OO from: Barker’s showrooms in Kensington. A detective: found six robes in her possession when she left work. He found 112 others' in her home. All had been taken during two' months. She won the. prize when she was 23 as the best type of Grecian beauty. She was sentenced to three months’ imprisonment.

CALLED MANNEQUIN

COUNTESS GETS DAMAGES

LONDON, November 7

“Potmen and billiard markers, I suppose, may be, and generally are, persons of the best reputation hut for a daily newspaper to suggest that a well-known peer has taken a potman’s job is libellous,” was Sir Patrick Hasting’s argument before the King’s Bench when the Countess of Errol) sued six provincial newspapers, which reported that she was becoming a mannequin. The Countess in evidence agreed that mannequins followed a respectable and honourable calling. She gave the newspapers an opportunity o? correcting the report. The defendants pleaded that the report was not libellous, but the jury awarded her £2O damages against each defendant.