DOMINION TELEGRAMS.

Taranaki Daily News, 27 June 1917, Page 5

DOMINION TELEGRAMS.

«» EAST COAST 'RAILWAY. By Telegraph—Press Association ; Napier, Last Night. The last pile of the vest shore bridge was driven to-day at a public ceremony, attended by representatives of most 'of the local bodies. The bridge will be comK?ted by January next, and is to carry the East Coast railway, as well as vehicular and pedestrian traffic. Mr. A. E. Jull, chairman of the Harbor Board, suggested that there was a very great .demand, and a legitimate demand, for the East Coast railway. In the course of his speech he stated that railway lines had been lifted in Britain, Canada, and the United States, and the material sent to the Western front where it was urgently required. What was there, he asked, to prevent this country from lifting Otago Central railway, which only paid 6s per cent., and putting it down where it was most rVeeded? The Minister of Defence and the Minister of Railways, through whose electorates that TairVay ran, would be the first to recognise the need of taking up the line and putting it where it was needed. (Laughter.) "I give you this," concluded Mr. Jull, "as my contribution to the ceremony." PRINCE OP WALES' BIRTHDAY. Wellington, June 26. His Excellency the Governor sent the following telegram to his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, on the occasion of his birthday:-"On behalf of myself and the Government and people of New Zealand I desire to tender to your Royal Highness our respectful congratulations on the occasion of your birthda v." (Signed) Liverpool. His Royal Highness replied by telegraph as follows: "My most grateful thanks to yon and the Government and people of New Zealand for your kind congratulations on the occasion of my birthday." (Signed) Edward. , OUR MEN AT THE FRONT. LETTER FROM GENERAL GODLEY. Wellington, Last Night. "I have received reports of the work of Brigadier-General Chaytor and the New Zealand Mounted Brigade in Egypt from General ," says General Godley, in a letter to the Minister of Defence. "I have inst come back from the Somme, where I went to see Bapaume '. and the country beyond it. and to inspect the New Zealand stationary hospital, which I had never yet been able to visit. The latter has extended lately J into three houses, one of which is an officers' hospital. It seems to me to be run extremely well, and the officers, some of whom I knew, seemed to be comfort- ! able, and expressed satisfaction with [ their treatment. It is the most interest--1 ing country between Albert and Bapaume. Yon cannot imagine what a picture of abomination and desolation it 1 is. Nothing as far as the eye can reach but a waste of shell craters, one touching the other, the whole country being brown and treeless, with no habitation in sight. One can just make out from 1 what is left of the timbers where the ' villages of Pozieres and Le Sars once " stood, and that is all."