LONDON TOPICS.

Auckland Star, Volume LII, Issue 72, 28 March 1921, Page 7

LONDON TOPICS.

XAYAL PRIZES AND PENALTIES. CFrom Our Special Correspondent.) LONDON, February 10. Xew Zealand, which sent co many men to swell the R.N.V.R, will ta_e s'peciai ' interest in a decision given yesterday by • the Naval Pr _c Tribunal. There is a large amount at stake, says the "Times" . —an amount which the taxpayer, even )' in these days, might not readily desire tjto deprive the men who held the seas [when the fate of an Empire was in the '■ : balance. Lord Phillimore, who, as • , president, delivered the judgment of the ' j tribunal, laid emphasis on the practice jof the Prize Courts in the early days of the nineteenth centry. It was the principle then to make a negligent captor 1 pay for the loss of a wrongly-captured vessel. That was a matter of penalising lan individual. Since then, by an Order- | in-Oouncil, prize bounty hae been paid . to a general fund for the benefit of the naval forces. The circumstances of modern warfare made such an arrangement equitable. In the cases with which the Tribunal has had to deal so far there was admitted negligence and error. In one of them a neutral vessel was sunk in a collision, after she had been seized, > through the bad navigation of a British warship. In the other cases two Dutch ships were ordered by the Admiralty to go to Kirkwall. One was sunk and the other damaged by German submarine attack. The neutral shipowners, in all three instances, preferred successful claims in the Prize Court. That meant that the damages should be paid by the Exchequer, and the Tribunal, in construing a section in the schedule of the Naval' Prize Act. 1918, has found the | Prize Fund, not the Exchequer, to be • ! liable for these "costs, charges and exr I penses." j INTERNATIONAL COLD STORAGE. I The report of the International Cold i Storage and Ice Company for the year - ended December 31 states that the gross ; revenue for the year represented the : largest sura earned by the company, viz., E £114333 (against £51,986 in 1919). It is proposed to pay a dividend on the ordinary shares of 7J per cent., less tax. For 1919 no dividend was paid on either preference or ordinary shares. BRITISH AVIATION MISSION. A British aviation mission, consisting of officers, artificers, and mechanics, will j leave England shortly, for Japan, where they will give instruction in naval and : military flying, and also in the handling of airships. It is no secret that aeroI nauties are in a somewhat backward I state in Japan. A French mission visited the country early in 1010, and I did good work in developing the miliItary air force, but »the Japanese are particularly anxious to expand their naval flying service, a branch in which, in their view, tlie British excel. It will be remembered that British naval officers, notably Captain John Ingles, ' helped to found the modern Japanese Navy a generation ago. and it is therefore appropriate that our flying men should be called upon to assist in establishing Japanese naval aviation. , SIR JOHN FINDLAY. Under the title of "A Great New Zealander" the "Times," on Monday, gave a vivid and highly laudatory history ot Sir John Findlay's life and work. '■Whether in or out of office, Sir John Findlay, the leading K-C-. in the Dominion, has been the deus ex machina whose intervention has often turned the course of events into new channels, sometimes with far-reaching consequences, not only to New Zealand, but to the Empire." It recounts the part he played in drafting the scheme put forward in 1911 by Sir Joseph Ward, and declares that although the proposals were not accepted, "the seed sown was not all wasted." Interviewed 'on his arrival by our correspondent, Sir John expressed himself as highly pleased with his voyage — all the' way by water — and said he thought it the most restful way for the New Zealander to take the trip Home. By special invitation Sir John was enabled to land and see some of the housing scheme of the Panama Canal works, and had a very fine motor drive over an excellent concrete road along the course of the old de Lesseps canal, now infested with crocodiles. On the way across the Atlantic they experienced an extraordinary change of temperature. In twenty-four hours there was a drop from 08 deg. Fahrenheit, down to 28 deg — four degrees below freezing point. HARRY LAUDER ON WURRK. The Gospel, accor-r-rding to Harry Lauder, as preached by him in a kilt, yesterday, to the Rotary Club and incidentally to the American Ambassador and the Emir Feisul. "Wurrk," said Lauder, is man's best friend and not his enemy. Leisure is a very pleasant garment to look at; but a bad one to wear. "But there must be a limit to work. The only limit I know is when i am tired and cannot wauehle. (Can ye spell that word, Mr. Reporter? W-a-eeh-ech-le.) "As there is a limit to work so also is there a limit to capital. There must be something morally wrong in a system which makes the shirker's reward the same as the worker's. "Half the world is on the wrong scent I to-day in looking for happiness. It imagines that happiness consists in getting and having, and being served hy others. Happiness consists in giving and serving others. "Wnat the world needs to-day is statesmanship founded on goodwill, reconstruction based on mutual understanding, a real live effort at the attainment of a world peace." "The world," he added. "ha 3 been hungering after peace for generations. Jlt could not be accomplished by a bro- ! therhood of man, which he believed could |be found in the League of Nations." I Harry took himself seriously as a British, or rather, as the American Ambassador said, as an Anglo-American institution. He said he never regretted having given some of the best years of his life to America. "Mind ye," he said, "they paid mc for it. Ay, man, that is more than some of them can say here in London."