NEWS FROM NEAR AND FAR.

Evening Star, Issue 14002, 8 March 1909, Page 8

NEWS FROM NEAR AND FAR.

We understand that the hearing of the claim brought- in the Supreme Court by Mr Arthilr Barnett against,the Drainage Board, arising out of the heavy downpour of rain last December; will be adjourned till after Mr Barnett's return from'tfiS'l-jld Countrf i ■ ' t

Mr Edison' 6 long-promised new storage battery, with the details of which! he has been occupied for some time, is, says ihe,New York correspondent of 'The Times,' about to be practically demonstrated. For a long time the inventor has been engaged in perfecting such a device for automobiles, and this has been th-t subject of frequent premature announcements in the Press. The new battery, however, is for use on street car. systems. He 19 satisfied a car will run a whole day without recharging. He expressed the opinion that the use of the new battery would revolutionise surface car traffic. He predicts that street car lines will employ none but cars equipped with the new batteries when he has. demonstrated their commercial value. The tracks will be without either overhead or underground wires,.or rails for the, transmission, of current, and comparatively cheap' sta-" tions will only be necessary where the storage batteries may be charged after they have exhausted their store of current.

At a pnblu' meeting held on Wednesday evening at Taumarunui the members of the Town Council in a body placed their resigrations before the ratepayers in consequence of a deadlock which has occurred in the government of the town- Taumarunui is a native township." with leases of twenty-one years' duration granted to Europeans.' The town is governed under the Native Conncil Towi,ships Act, 1905, by a European Council, which, with the exception of having power to levy a very limited rate, has little or no authority. All the land is managed by a Native Land Board, and applications for financial assistance out of rents received by the Board towards the carrying out of such urgept measures as water supply, drainage, and public lighting, and migrants of land for other necessary purposes, have met with no response from the Government. The result is that in the Council's opinion the progress of TaumaTunui is absolutely hindered and their work '.s useless. The Council also considered it most unfair that Europeans having 6Uch short leases as twenty-one years should be expected to pay in rates towards the improvement of tho town to tho advantage entirely of thot native owners without the latter paying anything. The result of the meeting was that the Council consented to continue in office for a further three months, and that the ratepayers in the ! meantime should petition the Government, but the chairman of the Council stated that no further rates would be made under the existing circumstances.

Wilbur Wright (eays Fred T. Jane in ' St. James's Budget'; is responsible for something like a 6lump in submarines, and it h_ extremely probable that the aeroplane vail play havoc with them and also with mine iieleas. From Ihe air the sea is singularly transparent, and once submarines *re spotted they become harmless, because the slowest of ship's can easily move awav from them The prophets all say that the'--fly-ing machine will render the battleship use•e.v, but, taking one thing with another, it is more likely to give it a fresh lease of life. However, the practical flying machine has just yet to arrive, and that I fancy is rather further off than most people imagine. There if, a tendency to draw conclusions from the lapid evolution of the motor car, and forget that, after all, the. motor car is only a very swift and light adaptation of the traction engine (not very much, altered with some types of car!). There; is no heavier-than-air sky traction engine for aeroplanes to evolve from—the path has. to be felt all the way along. The Belgrade correspondent of the ' Pall Mall Gazette' says that never in the criminal annals of Servia have so many malefactors been pardoned as since King Peter ascended the throne. Of the sixty-four criminals who have been freed, however, thirty-four are in prison infirmaries, and their sentences would have expired about the time of their convalescence. They are all blind, aiuYtwo of them have passed into their second childhood. The rest are either too old or too accustomed to prison life to appreciate liberty. The Servian Press finds fault with Peter for being." kiln,d." to these helpless people, while "the youiig political prisoners, who are better fitted "to face the world and who have wealthy relatives to assist them, have no prospects of release."

Mrs Barnado. at the twelfth annua! meeting of the Gordon Habitation of the Young Helpers' League, mentioned that a boy, formerly a Stepney shoeblack, who had been an inmate of Dr Bnraardo's homes, was now a government official in China earning £1.200 a year.