NEWS FROM OVERSEAS.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVII, Issue 206, 15 August 1927, Page 7

NEWS FROM OVERSEAS.

CABLES IN BRIEF It is announced in England that three regular corps, of Dragoons Lancers and Hussars will in future constitute a single corps, designated Cavalry of the Line. The Yeomanry regiments retain the three corps system. A motor and tram collided on Parramatta road; Sydney,. Two men in the motor-car. John Costello and William McFadden, were killed, and five injured.

The War Office states that there is no intention at present to reduce the British Rhine army which now consists of 7500 men, though it will be gradually reduced in accordance with the terms of the peace treaty.

Britain’s £7,000,000 battleship Rodnev. the world’s largest, left the Mersey, where it was built, for Portsmouth, for her gunnery and speed trials The keel was laid in 1922 and the vessel was launched in 1925. She carries nine 16-inch guns.

An explosion at midnight on Saturday wrecked the office of the Criminal Investigation Department. Elizabeth street, Brisbane. The explosion was of tremendous force and strewed the streets in the vicinity with iron and masonry. Luckily no one was injured. The cause of the explosion is a mystery, but is supposed to have been in a quantity of explosives stored on the premises.

Mr A. J. Cook, miners’ secretary, in a rallying speech in Durham, appealed to the miners to co-operate in a movement to smash the Eight Hour Day Act. He declared that human endurance had reached its limit, and this was an occasion not for patience but for action. It was a choice between starvation wages or closing the pits and compelling the nation to pay miners a living wage He was not willing to await tbo advent of the Labour Government. They might starve before that happened. He was organising a revolt from Lands End to John o’ Groats in order to rouse the workers, to united action.

Official statstics for 1926 in England and Wales show a considerable decrease in convictions for drunkenness. The number of convictions last year was 67,126. compared with 188,877 in 1913. PulJic houses have dwindled 1 by a third since 1895. but the number of clubs has doubled. Convictions for drunkenness dropped nearly 8000 last year. There is a public house to every 489 persons, compared with one to every 370 persons in 1908 Drunkenness from methylated spirits has decreased 12 per cent, in the past year. Deaths from alcohol have dropped from 2153 to 499 since 1913. It is estimated that the decrease in the number of public houses in the present year will be 530.

The annual figures just compiled by the British Ministry of Agriculture show a reduction in acreage under crops and grass and in the number of horses, but an increase m cattle, sheep and pigs. Forecasts, based on conditions prevailing at r,he begnning of this month, anticipate an increase in the wheat crop, but a decrease in barley and oats on last year. A further increase in the acreage of sugar beet is recoaled, and a total of 221,700 acres larger than 1926 and fully four times that of 1925.

The “Daily News’ ” Paris correspondent reports that a notorious Italian bandit, Sante Pollastri. who for years evaded the European police, was arrested after a desperate ■struggle, and Signor Mussolini lias demanded his extradition. Assisted by a S>ng of criminals, to whom .ie paid high wages. Pollastri specialised in French and Italian jewel robberies, in the course of which, it is alleged, ten murders were committed. He at first denied his identity, but confessed when confronted by members of his own gang, of whom 30 were recently arrested.

The short Bristol Crusader type of high-speed seaplane, which is to form one of the six machines to be sent to Venice in connection with the British entry for the Schneider trophy was publicly seen for she first time on Friday last The machine is a monoplane with a Bristol Mercury nine-cylinder air-cooled engine of original design. The Crusader is considered the lightest loaded machine per horse power in existence.

At Williamstown. Professor Heaton, of Queen’s University. Canada, discussing economic relations between Britain and the dominions, indicated that free trade between the various parts of the Empire was impossible. because the Empire could not be an economic unit. It was often more convenient for a dominion to buy. goods from a neighbouring country, as Canada from the United States, than from another far distant part of the Empire. Britain no longer has the former great volume of capital available for investment overseas, so the dominions are more and more borrowing from the United States.or internally.

H.M.S. London will be launched in the Portsmouth dockyard on September 14. She is a 10.000 ton cruiser of the County class, laid down under the 1925-26 programme. The previous London was a 15,000 ton battleship, launched 28 years ago

Reports received in Rome from Benughazi state that the Italian campaign against rebel mountain tribes resulted firstly in isolated encounters, in which a small number of the enemy were killed. Then airmen notified 1 the presence of the main body retreating to Wadigrabar. and a flying column, aided bv tanks, overtook these, killing 200 and capturing 700 camels.

“The Times’ ” Riga correspondent says the supreme Soviet tribunal imposed death sentences on Generals Annenkoff and' Denisoff. who voluntarily returned to Russia last year. Annenkoff and 100 Cossacks, who defied the Reds in the early stages of the revolution, fought their wav from Siberia to Czecho-Slovakia aiding Kolschek until the White Russians collapsed, and then went to China.

Th© American Red Cross announces that it is still providing for over 130,000 destitute victims of I ’’© flood jn Arkansas. Mississippi and Louisiana. The total number of those destitute is estimated at 607,000. of whom the Rod Cross has been able to assist in rehabilitating SO.OOO. It has also fed 200,000 refugee cattle. The waters, which inundated approximately 10 v OOO,OOO acres still cover 170,000 acres. Already 2.170,000 acres have been replanted.