FLOODS IN AUSTRALIA

Manawatu Standard, Volume LI, Issue 7, 8 December 1930, Page 7

FLOODS IN AUSTRALIA

EXTENSIVE DAMAGE. VICTORIA DRENCHED. WHEAT LOSSES WILL BE HEAVY. (United Press Association.—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) Received December 8, 10.0 a.m. MELBOURNE, Dec. 8. There has been extensive damage in Victoria owing to floods. Practically the entire State lias been drenched. The wheat crops in the Mallee are under water. Floods are feared along the Campaspe River at Orbost and other parts of Gippsland. A shop at Woodend was flooded out. Several suburbs are inundated. The most serious floods are at Heidelburg and Ivcw, where a very large area of land is under water. Several railway bridges and culverts have been destroyed. The Sydney express was delayed for hours. No serious loss of livestock is reported, though many cattle are marooned. Harvesting operations have received a severe setback. The wheat losses are certain to be heavy. Earlier in the month it was estimated that the yield would amount to 50,000,000 bushels. SOUTH AUSTRALIA AFFECTED. A message from Adelaide says that heavy thunderstorms are reported from the northern districts, the worst floods occurring since 1923. Railway washouts and damage to roads are reported in many places. TOC II FESTIVAL. CEREMONIES IN BRITAIN. A WORLD CHAIN OF LIGHTS. , PRINCE OF WALES’S LAMP. Received December 8, 8.5 a.m. LONDON, Dec. 7. Lord Stonehaven represented Australia, and the German and American Ambassadors were also present, at a gathering of 7000 in the Albert Hall in celebration of the Toe H festival to mark the completion of a world chain of lights started at Talbot House, Poperinghe. Those who returned from the ceremony received a deafening welcome.

Rev. Philip Clayton, Padre of Toe H, read greetings from the Prince of Wales. He traced the trail blazed by the lights via Ireland, the West Indies, both the Americas, Australia, China, India and South Africa.

Thereafter 50 unlit lamps, headed by the Prince’s perpetually burning light, were borne in the procession and lit from the Prince’s lamp. Then all other illumination was quenched, leaving 50 lamps burning in the centre of the hall amid a hem of surrounding darkness, while tho whole gathering echoed Mr Clayton’s quotation of LawTenee Binyon’s ending: “We will remember them.” After this a minute’s silence was observed.

Similar gatherings were held at Nottingham, Gloucester, Newcastle, Cardiff and Belfast.

At Talbot House the chapel in the upper room is now restored to its wartime condition, with the original priedieu at which 25,000 soldiers received Communion, and the shell-marked harmonium.

Forty-five ex - soldiers, who were among the originators of Toe H, went to Poperinghe yesterday morning and visited the Menin Gate, where Mr Clayton, at nine o’clock last night, lighted a symbolic lamp. Simultaneously a thanksgiving service was held at St. Paul’s, where, amidst silence, a lamp was lighted, after which the links travelled westward and lamps were lighted until the circuit of the globe was completed. CEREMONY AT WELLINGTON. His Excellency the Governor-General visited the Toe H rooms in Wakefield Chambers, Wellington, on Saturday evening for the purpose of lighting the lamp of the branch and the rushlight of the group at the anniversary of the birth of Toe H in Poperinghe in 1915. Toe H, Australia, by a bold touch of the imagination, made use of the ceremony of Light at its birthday festival in May, 1929, and invited Toe H in rotation, country by country, continent by countinent, to pick up the flame and pass it on, until (as an observer high above the earth might see it) the light girdled the globe and returned, twentyfour hours later, to Western Australia, whence it had started. This year the birthday committee in England invited branches and groups to co-operate in similar fashion at the anniversary services in December.

On this occasion the lamp was first lighted in the restored upper room of Talbot House, Poperinghe, by the founder, Padre (“Tubby”) Clayton at 9 p.m. on Friday, and at the same hour all units in England, Belgium, West Africa, Canada, United States of America, and South America lighted their lamps and rushlights, those of the London branches and groups beneath the dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral. On Saturday all units east of Greenwich, including those in New Zealand, Australia, Malay States, India, East and South Africa, Rhodesia, Egypt, Malta, and Germany, did the same.