GENERAL CABLES

Grey River Argus, 15 February 1946, Page 7

GENERAL CABLES

CANADA’S LOAN TO BRITAIN OTTAWA, February 12. A British Treasury official, Sir Wilfred Eady, stated that Britain hopes for a balanced budget by 1950. Although out of the red on her current account, she would still have heavy arrears of accumulated liabilities to meet. Sir Wilfred, who heads the delegation negotiating a loan from Canada, declined to say how much Britain wanted to borrow. He said Britain would be compelled to withdraw from the Bretton Wood’s’ agreement if tht United States Congress rejected the proposed loan to Britain, because Britain could not possibly carry heavy international financial' obligations while putting its own house in order. Sir Wilfred pointed out that Britain had not expected to face peace owing the world £4,750,000,000 dollars. It had been estimated that the highest amount of reparations collectable from Germany would be 20,000,000 dollars. It is now believed that only half of that sum will be recoverable. Actually Britain, America and Canada presently were subsidising Germany and that would continue for at least, three years. The loan will be used to purchase Canadian wheat, flour,, trucks, frozen beef, wood pulp, fertilisers and agricultuarl and industrial machinery. Both loans will be consolidate!’, and they will be repayable in twenty-seven annual instalments, beginning in 1950 and interest will be at 3.05 per cent. FREEDOM OF SPEECH CHUNGKING, February 13. The Supreme National Defence Council has approved the repeal or amendment of all regulations restricting freedom of speech and other civil rights, thereby honouring General Chiang Kai Shek’s pledge given in his Political Conference speech on January 1.

INDIANS IN SOUTH AFRICA LONDON, February 12. Following a delegation to General Smuts from the Indian Congress, the South African Indian Congress after a nightlong discussion resolutioned to mobilise all resources and fight General Smuts’ Asiatic Bills, and claim the right to a hearing at the United Nations Assembly, and at the Security Council. One resolution rejected General Smuts’ principle of segregation as repressive and as a sacrifice of Indians “to appease extreme white reactionaries,” and proposed sending a deputation to India seeking a round table conference between Indian and Union Governments, failing which, India will be asked to withdraw her High Commissioner and- apply economic sanctions. Another resolution claimed the right to a hearing by the United Nations on the ground that the Union! Government proposals wore a breach of promise of equal treatment given to Indians when first introduced into South Africa, and also a breach of the 1926 agreement between the Union and India. CAIRO, February 13. Three representatives of the Kotla ■(lndependent jWaEdist Bloc) /Party have resigned from the Egyptian Cabinet, including the Finance Minister, Makram Ebeid' Pasha. CALCUTTA, February 11. Police arrested several students when 500 paraded in the city, demonstrating against the sentence passed on a member of the Indian National Army, Captain Abdul Rashid, whose sentence of transportation for life was comynuted to seven years’ imprisonment by General Auchinleck. The Moslem League organised the demonstration. A similar demonstration for the same reason was staged in New. Delhi by 2,000 Moslems, who roughly handled a party of British soldiers and some British civilians. LONDON, February 'll. More than 100 . persons were machine-gunned or burned to death in a wave of terorism whicn was attributed by the Polish Government to outlaws of the anti-Government i armed forces, says the Associated Press correspondent. The Government communique said the outlaws, dressed in a mixture of Polish, German, Hungarian and Russian uniforms, raided villages near Bialystok and Frzemysl. One hundred homes ■ were destroyed. The Royal Navy’s latest aircraftcarrier, Theseus, commissioned ’ on January 9 this year arrived at Portsmouth dockyard after being damaged in a collision with the dock landingship, Oceanway. The ships were anchored close together at Spithead when the Oceanway dragged her anchors in a gale and ripped a hole in the after starboard side of the Theseus.

Britain paraded her latest civil and military aircraft in a display for U.N.O. delegates on a. Hertfordshire airfield. Delegates, including Russian air force officers, saw the swiftest warplanes including jets, but the emphasis was on air liners Britain is developing. An official explained that the British expected her lateness in the field of civil aviation ultimately would turn out to be an advantage as British engineering, tested in wartime, brought genius to bear on developing aircraft for peaceful purposes. The British submarine Saga wirelessed Lloyds she had been in a collision with the trawler Girl Lena, which was sunk. All the trawler's crew were taken aboard the Saga. LONDON, February 11. Thomas McGlynn, 24. who was arrested on the sip Empire Mace and charged at Gibraltar on February 9 with the murder of Charles Greeney, 11, at Liverpool on February 2, will be tried at Gibraltar says Reuter’s Gibraltar correspondent. Greeney was found hanging at his home after a robbery. Four men in addition to McGlynn were charged with the murder at Liverpool. McGlynn’s trial will be held on February 15. Documentary evidence is being sent from Liverpool. The Australian Associated Press correspondent says that even M. Manuilsky’s formal proposal for a commission to go to Indonesia to investigate his charges arising from the presence of British troops there, and the subsequent contributors to the debate by Mr. Makin, Mr. Stettinius and Dr. Wellington Koo seemingly had not hastened the Security Council’s debate on the question. It was apparent that members of the Council now want to speak to the formal motion for a commission on much the same lines as already spoken on the substance of Mi. Manuilsky’s charge.