GENERAL CABLES

Hokitika Guardian, 11 August 1928, Page 3

GENERAL CABLES

fUnited Press Association. —By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.)

BRITISH FARMING. LONDON, August 10. Official returns show that the acreage under wheat in England and Wales in June was 239,000 acres below the acreage in the year 1927, being, with two exceptions, the lowest on record. The arable land decrease amounts to 199,000 acres. The area under crops and permanent grass has decreased by 8(5,000 acres. The sugar beet crop acreage shows a decrease of 6000 acres.

There arc increases in barley, oats, and vegetables. There are other farm decreases recorded in cattle and sheep. The number of the latter recorded is 16,386,100, showing" a decrease of 686,200. ARMY INNOVATION. LONDON, Aug. 10. What is believed to be without precedent, will be the participation of the Eighth King’s Royal Irish Hussars, the only British Cavalry Regiment serving the Army of Occupation in the Rhineland in the coming manoeuvres of the French Army of Occupation under General Guillaumat. SOUTH AFRICAN IDEA. CAPETOWN, Aug 9. The Nationalist Congress has accepted a modification framed by Hertzdg (Union Premier), to the Secessionist Article in the Nationalist Party’s Constitution, after a debate, in which it was laid down that the. ultimate aim ■was tho absolute independence of South Africa. The now article accepts the Imperial Conference declaration as being the attainment of sovereign independence. One' of the delegates evoked enthusiasm by declaring: “There is still a chain binding us to the Empire. I look forward to tho day when that chain will be snapped and we shall be free from the Empire.” The Chairman the Rev. Mr Hattingh explained that sovereign independence was not in conflict with republicanism. South Africa could proclaim a republic. No reply was given to a question as to whether South Africa was strong enough to defend herself if England declared war. A MEMORIAL. BASRA, Aug. 10. A gravestone in Aberdeen granite, sculptured with Cobham’s aeroplane has been erected over tho grave of Arthur Elliott, tho mechanic, whom, a Redonin shot while on tho AngloAustralian flight in 1926. AIR. CRASH. (Received this day at 9.30 a.m). CAPETOWN. Aug. 10. A Kimberley diamond buyer and owner of the first privately owned Moth in South Africa, used for weekly visits to the diamond diggings, left this morning accompanied by a retired air force officer and crashed near Liehtenburg. Both are dead. The machine’s nose hit the earth with gieat violence. A NEW RAY DISCOVERY. LONDON Aug. 9. Mr MacDonald, first officer of the Aquitania, has disclosed that, as the result of experiments with an invisible raj', it is possible to increase the distance of the human sight twenty-fold. The ray is equally efficient in the daytime or the night time, or in a fog. It works similarly to television, recording images on a mirror. INCREASE OF CIGARETTES. LONDON, Aug. 9.

Owing to the extension of the cigarette habit, particularly among women, the consumption of tobacco, which was 2.4 pounds per capita in 1914, rose - to 3.4 pounds i>er head in Great Britain last year. The consumption in 1907 was divided as follows:—71 per cent, by pipes, 23.8 per cent, by cigarettes, and 5.2 per cent, by cigars. In 1924, however the figures were:—Pipes 40 per cent, cigarettes 58.5 per cent., cigars 1.5 per cent. The supplies of Empire leaf increased from 3.3 per cent, the total used in 1921, to 18.4 per cent, last year, this increase 'being mostly pip© tobacco. The World’s production of tobacco in 1926 Was 4900 million pounds.