CABLE BREVITIES

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 148, 19 March 1931, Page 9

CABLE BREVITIES

The death is announced of Mr. James Stewart, Labour member of the British House of Commons for Rollox.

The unemployed in Britain now total 2,691,737, an increase of 57,163. This increase mainly is due to the temporary coal stoppages.

It now appears that the financial year in Western Australia will end in a deficit, of £935,000, instead of an anticipated surplus of £6OOO.

A deposit of the fossilised bones of a giant prehistoric animal has been discovered near Muckadilla in Queensland. The bones are being transported to Briebane for examination.

The Commonwealth Admiralty collier Biloela, lying in Sydney Harbour, has been sold to foreign buyers, who, it is believed, intend to refit the vessel for the whaling industry as a mother ship.

According to a message from Oslo several Antarctic whaling expeditions have been so successful that the ships are leaving for home before the end of the season. The whole catch of oil already has been sold.

In the House of Commons Mr. Pethick Lawrence, Financial Secretary to the Treasury, informed a questioner that the British Government would certainly not consider seeking ten years’ moratorium on Britain’s debt obligations to the United States.

Fate of Rebels. As a sequel to the recent Spanish rebellion, a court-martial is sitting at Huesca, 81 ofiicers and men being involved in charges associated with the Jaca rising. The court has sentenced Captain Sebiles to death and four others to life imprisonment

Costly, Clumsy Dole. Addressing local body delegates at Wollongong, the New South Wales Minister of Education, Mr. W. Davies, said that the dole system was costing £3,000,000 a year. The system was responsible for many impositions by which recipients obtained double rations. The money ought to be spent on providing work for the unemployed.

Bloodthirsty Rugby, Rugby football reformers in France ar, meeting, and difficulties, notably in the reluctance of many clubs to abandon money-making matches, which, although a travesty on Rugby, meet the spectators’ desire to see almost terrifying struggles. In the championship the opponents of reform threaten worse confusion by creating a third federation with the objective of the maintenance of the championship.

Survey of Depression. In the House of Commons, the President of the British Board of Trade, Mr. W. Graham, said that the Government was prepared to co-operate with the universities in making industrial surveys of the districts worst affected by the depression, beginning with South Wales. North-East England, Lancashire, and the Clydeside.

Collision in Fog. As the result of a collision between a bicycle and car on the Shannon road yesterday morning, Peter Baird, a married man, of Foxton, was admitted to hospital with a fractured leg and extensive abrasions, states a Press Association message from Foxton. The accident was due to fog and the bicycle skidded in loose metal.

-Wiome-niade” Plane Flies Successfully. Built bv two Maoris, Messrs. W. R. and P. Bennett, of Wanganui East, an aeroplane underwent successful flying tests during the week-end, reports a “Dominion” Special Service messsage. The machine was constructed from the wreckage of one owned by Mr. P. Coleman, which had crashed in the Manawatu district. It is stated that the machine as now constructed is an extraordinarily fast climber. o « » Dare-Devil Stunting.

Several Argentine airmen witnessed a remarkable display near London by. G. S. -Staniland. a well-known British pilot, in a new Fairey-Firefly machine, which probably is the fastest fighting aeroplane in the world. Staniland swooped almost to the ground at 380 miles an hour, then, turning the machine, sharply climbed, to 20 000 feet in ten minutes. An Argentine aviator, Captain Castex, also tested the machine, and although it was a strange craft to him, he, too, looped and stunteu with it.