NEWS AND NOTES

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXX, Issue 4811, 20 February 1936, Page 1

NEWS AND NOTES

A London message states that it is understood the British Government’s reply, through Mr. S. M. Bruce, rejects Australia’s air mail counter-proposals and urges an early settlement to enable expansion of the Empire services to begin to 1937.

The Commonwealth Minister of Defence, Mr. R. A. Parkill, addressing the United Services Institute, said Australia’s future air strength depended upon the development of her civil aviation and the provision of local manufacturing resources for aircraft. Defence and civil aviation policies were inseparable, and Australia depended upon them for her very security.

The Auckland airwoman, Miss Jean Batten, has been awarded, for the second succeeding year, the gold eup trophy of the Women’s International Association for Aeronautics.

“Fears of an armed conflict between Russia and Japan cannot entirely be dismissed,” declares the semi-official organ “Japan Times.” “A vital factor is the presence of two great armed forces of about equal strength confronting each other across an' ill defined frontier.” Writing in “L’Oeuvre,” Madame Tabouis, described as one of the best informed diplomatic correspondents in France, predicts a German attack on Holland and Czecho-Sloyakia in the middle of 1937 without a declaration of war. The general staffs of the principal European countries have agreed that Germany has adopted a definite plan of campaign.

President Roosevelt’s “New Deal” sustained an important victory when the United States Supreme Court declared constitutional the so-called Tennessee Valley Authority’s undertaking to sell surplus power generated under its vast hydro-electrical scheme at Muscle Shoals.

The death is reported of " Mr. Hiram Percy Maxim, noted and wealthy American inventor. Son of Sir Hiram Stevens Maxim, the inventor of the Maxim gun, Mr. Maxim had a brilliant scholastic career, in the United States.