DOMINION ITEMS

Greymouth Evening Star, 7 September 1945, Page 2

DOMINION ITEMS

TRANSPORT 'REGULATIONS WELLINGTON, September 6. Two war-time- transport regulations have been revoked, according to a notice appearing in the Gazette this evening. Under these regulations, certain provisions applying to motorcyclists and motor drivers in civil life were removed from those serving as motor-cyclists or as drivers in the armed forces, including the Home Guard. Now that the regulations have been revoked, such cyclists or drivers will have to comply with the requirements placed on civilian motorists. Another Gazette notice revoked four orders under the Emergency Reserve Corps Regulations. These orders dealt with the enrolment of E.P.S. and Emergency Fire Service members, and' conditions of their service. j j x The Gazette also states that a Customs import prohibition order dealing with the importation of wireless equipment has been revoked. FLAX INDUSTRY WELLINGTON, Sept. 6. The receipt by the New Zealand Government of £150,000 within the last few days from the British Government, on account of losses in the New Zealand linen flax industry, was reported to the House of Representatives by the Controller and AuditorGeneral (Mr. C. G. Collins). He said the industry had been carrying on at considerable loss, and under an agreement, with the British Government, losses were to be shared by it and the New Zealand Government in proportion to the value of the flax shipped to the United Kingdom and sold in New Zealand. The payment by the British Government was approximately 90 per cent, of its share of losses up to March 31, 1943.. Mr. Collins’s report said the question of the British Government’s bearing part of the loss on the realisation of capital assets was submitted to the British Ministry of Supply m 1943, and had been agreed to in principle, leaving the exact terms to be decided later. In view of the closing down of some factories, this matter had again been raised with the British Ministry.

INVESTITURE CEREMONY WELLINGTON, Sept. 6. By command of His Majesty the King, the Governor-General (Sir Cyril Newall) held a ceremony of investiture in the Town Hall, Wellington, last evening. Awards and decorations were presented to 58 members of the three services, commissioned and other ranks. The citations, read before each decoration was pinned on the breast of the recipient, were a cross-section of Now Zealand military history in the present war and a reminder of the courage, initiative, and skill of the men who added lustre 1 to her arms. The citations to Army awards recalled the unfaltering courage shown in Greece and Crete and the Western Desert and in Italy. Those for the Air Force took the minds of the gathering back to the days of Singapore and then in the European theatre, the mounting of air strength, until the time when British and other Allied aeroplanes flew over enemy territory almost at will. There was one decoration for an Air Force officer who had made a gallant escape from Hong Kong and received what is for this arm of. the forces a rare decoration, the Military Cross.

ALLEGED ESCAPEE AUCKLAND, Sept. 6. A sequel to an incident at the Auckland Hospital on August 2, when a prisoner receiving medical attention decamped in his pyjamas, was the appearance in the Magistrate’s Court, before Mr. J. Morling. S.M., of Roy James Whelan, aged 35, a labourer, charged with escaping from lawful custody. Senior-Detective Trethewey called evidence to show that the accused, who had been arrested on the previous evening on a charge of theft, was under guard at the hospital on August 2. He was kept in a portion of the institution known as the cells. Early in the afternoon he was taken to the X-ray department on a trolley by male' hospital attendants, accompanied by a constable. Accused, who was dressed in his pyjamas, was left in the passageway awaiting his turn to bo X-rayed. A few minutes later, Ire jumped’ off the trolley and disappeared from view past some curtains. The constable on duty did not see which way he had gone. The accused was seen in Grafton Road and then in Park Avenue, where he vanished between two houses. Evidence was given by Constable Fell, of Takapuna, that he saw the accused at Milford on August 21, and arrested him. The accused pleaded not guilty and was committed to the Supreme Court for trial.