CABLE SUMMARY.

Otaki Mail, Volume 26, 10 October 1919, Page 3

CABLE SUMMARY.

NEWS IN BRIEF. Melbourne, October 8. Tho Commonwealth Government is offering a reward of £IO,OOO for the discovery of oil in commercial quantities in Australia. The Feacc Loan has closed. It is expected that it will be fully subscribed. Sydney, October 8. The Catholic Federation has decided to form a Catholic party to contest the State elections. In view of the shortage »f chaff, tho Government has asked the Commonwealth to remove the import duty on New Zealand chaff. Washington, October S. The total of American shipbuilding from the entry of the United States into the war is eight million tons, and the number of ships built 1468. London, October 8. Sis senior officers claim the bounty for inventing the tanks. Mr. Winston Churchill will give evidence concerning the rival claims before a Royal Com-missionjto-morrow. Mr Winston Churchill (Secretary for War), giving evidence before the Cornmissing deciding who is entitled to the bonus as inventor of the tanks, said that. Mr H. G. Wells, the novelist, had i dealt with the subject in articles. It was impossible to say if anyone in- ! vented the tank, but Swinton had j visualised the advantage of such a I weapon under conditions of modem j warfare. Mr Churchill gave the largest I share of credit in perfecting the tanks ’ to Sir E. H. W. Tennyson D’Eyncourt j (Director of Naval Construction). He ■ added: “If the war had continued till ] 1919, tanks would have advanced under ! great olouds of smoke." I The Ypiranga, with Germans from i Australia, has arrived at Plymouth en j route to Rotterdam.