NEWS FROM OVERSEAS.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVII, Issue 202, 10 August 1927, Page 5

NEWS FROM OVERSEAS.

CABLES IN BRIEF. The world’s highest' railway. 9006 feet, ascending Mont Blane, ’which has been in course of construction for 17 years, was opened and an official lunch held at a height of 8000 feet. The railway consists of iron standards, from which a car hangs and travels at eight feet a second. Sir George Lewis, solicitor, was knocked down by a railway train in Geneva and instantly killed. Sir George was recuperating from neurasthenia. After watching tennis he climbed the railings of an hotel and walked on to the line at the moment the Simplon express was passing at 60 miles an hour, his valet states. Deceased was one of London’s most prominent society solicitors. He acted in many celebrated cases. Recently a woman claiming to be a daughter of Orton, the Tichborne claimant, threatened to murder Sir George Lewis, whose firm acted for the Tichborne family in the historic case.

The faith conference at Lausanne has divided into three commissions. The press and the public are rigidly excluded. Some regard this as an indication that the conference has encountered shoals, which may lead to disagreement, but those in close touch declare that the commissions were created for the purpose of considering the possibility of concord on the Gospel nature of the Church and the Church's common confession of faith.

The London “Daily News’s’’ Paris correspondent says that, judging by models exhibited in winter fashion displays, the dressmakers definitely refuse further to shorten skirts. This, coupled with the Paris women’s equally definite decision not to revert to the sweeping trains of 20 years ago, has resulted in a compromise bringing peace with honour to both sides in the form of fur-trimmed plus fours, drawn into the leg well below the knee. They, will be worn wi|h a kind of short tunic, belted at the waist, side buttoned and furnished with sleeves and stiff high collars ornamented with frills of lace.

“The Times’s’’ Cologne correspondent reports that it is announced that as a result of negotiations between the Farben Industrie and the Btandard Oil Company, a new method of petrol relining has been evolved in connection with coal distillation. The chief value of the process is that inferior petrol can be converted into high quality by operations involving the use of very high pressure, it is understood the Farben Industrie is combining with the Standard Oil Company in commercialising the pro* cess. Further negotiations will bo conducted in the United States. Operations will be carried out on a la'ge scale at the Oppan factories. It is expected the petrol will be placed on the market early in 1028.

Germany’s enthusiasm to be prominent in trans-Atlantic flying is evidenced in the Hamburg-Amerika Line's proposal to inaugurate a service to New York. It has placed an order for the world’s largest and most powerful flying boat, which will be delivered in December, equipped with ten motors, each of 1000 horse-power, carrying 170 passengers and luggage.

The London “Daily Mail” says, apropos of the recent Paris convictions of Communist spies, that it is learned the information they were were convoying to the Soviet Em bassy was virtually important to the security of France and included plans and details of the latest French gas masks tanks and tractors. It is established beyond doubt that Moscow sent men and money to France to obtain -from State employees national defence secrets.

Three huge liners the Cunarder Aquitania, the White Btur Olympic ana the United States Leviathan arrived from New York within the space of three hours at Southampton on Sunday. It is the first time in the history of North Atlantic shipping that three vessels of such dir.ien sions have reached the port the same day.

The Matterhorn was the sceno of a tragedy which is astonishing experienced alpinists. Three Munich eiumney sweeps inexperiened and ordinarily clotnes carrying umbrellas, with out guides or ropes, attempted the ascent. Tne leadei fell Z4UO feet and was killed. His companions descetiued.

The newspaper “Dagens Nyheter,” published at (Stockholm, says that as a sequel to constant tuckering and humiliation Trotsky has bougnt a iiouse at Stockholm and is going to live there permanently.

Copenhagen reports that newspapers state that the Workers’ and Peasants’ Commissariat has discovered irregularities amounting to £2,500,000 in the Soviet's current accounts.

President Coolidge, at Rapid City, has approved the shipbuilding programme developed by the Navy Department, which is described as moderate.

The German Ministry of Finance has brought down a bill in the Reichstag indemnifying Germans deprived of property either through war action or the Treaty of Versailles, for which the requisite £50,000,000 will be raised by means of preference shares in the German railways now he G by the Government.