NEW ZEALAND NEWS.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 14 September 1917, Page 5

NEW ZEALAND NEWS.

AMATEUR BILLIARD CHAMPIONSHIP. WON BY WARREN. AUCKLAND, thi s day The final of tl6 New Zealand Amateur Billiard Championship between E. W. barren and W. E. Hackett resulted: Warren 2000, Hackett 933. The winner's exhibition is the finest given by an amateur in Auckland. His best break was 209. A TRAM FATALITY. DUNEDIN, this day. The man who wa s killed on the Roslyn-Kaikorai tramline, "was Frederick John Silibard, aged 67, married, with no children living at Kaikorai. A NEW ZEALAND CASE. In the current number of the "Lone Hand" magazine a remarkable story is told of an aero-gun invented in Christchurch which became the property of the enemy by methods typically German. The narrative comes from Messrs. Izard and Lougham, writing on behalf of a client, Mr. Hugh McGloin. In. the June (1915) number of the "Lone Hand" appeared a paragraph headed " Special Zeppelin Aerogun," describing the gun as consisting of two guns fired in directly opposite directions, one discharging the projectile, the other water, clay, etc., thus neutralising the recoil and adapting the gun for firing from any .unstable platform, such as an aeroplane. The paragraph stated that this gun was used by the Germans on Zeppelins. It now appears that Mr. Hugh McGloin actually invented this very gun many years ago, and going to London offered it to the British AVar Office for £20,000. The offer was declined. Mr. McGloin improved the weapon, and in March, 1915, again offered it for sale to the British War Office. The model remained at the War Office until November, 1915, and was ffien politely declined, being shipped back to New Zealand on November 26.

Now, Mr. McGloin naturally wants to know how the enemy became possession of the gun which tne War Office in its wisdom didn't use. The conclusion, the Christ'chureh "Star" points out, is clear: Treachery somewhere in the War Office. The foeTTas his agents everywhere, and these agents have ways and means of circumventing British officialdom. The galling fact is equally clear that officialdom somewere lacked sufficient sense to recognise a useful invention when it saw it. But that was ever the way of the British War Office until the grim lessons of war compelled its reorganisation.