News In A Nutshell

Northern Advocate, 18 February 1939, Page 7

News In A Nutshell

No successor has yet been found for Dr- Maw, who resigned after the Government’s defeat yesterday, says an Independent Cable Service message from Rangoon. Students now say they will oppose all Governments until the constitution is wrecked. ’Buses and trams were pelted with stones and bottles, and all transport is at a standstill.

An Independent Cable Service message from Berlin says it is announced that a sum of £1,000,000,000 is to be spent on a four-year plan to modernise the German railways.

Speaking in the House of Lords, the Earl of Birkenhead said Government experts were considering the possibility of underground garages to be used in wartime as air-raid shelters.

The death has occurred in London of Sir William Cox. He was best known as director of the Ellerman estate since Sir John Ellerman’s death. He served with the Royal Artillery in the Great War, 1914-17, and was mentioned in despatches and awarded the D.S.O.

The protracted drought in Victoria has been partly broken with good overnight rains, which have spread into New South Wales and are replenishing the Burrinjuck dam, which supplies the rice crops. Grave anxiety had been felt lately whether the rice crops would be saved, owing to the possibility of water from the dam having to be rationed.

The historic Lyceum Theatre, London, has been sold and will be demolished, says an Independent Cable Service message. A block of flats and offices will be erected on the site. The Lyceum was the scene of Sir Henry Irving’s triumphs.

According to testimony offered by Mr H. Morgenthau, Secretary of the United States Treasury, before the military committee of the Senate, President Roosevelt personally overrode the Chief of Staff, General M. D. Craig, and permitted the Fi’ench to purchase 100 American bombing aeroplanes. General Craig objected, contending that the purchase might interfere with the United State’s army’s ability to procure necessary aeroplanes in order to meet its requirements under, the new defence programme.

Signor Mussolini has committed a breach of Article 2 of the AngloItalian Agreement, by secretly sending arms to Yemen in exchange for the control of several strategic islands fringing the Yemen coast. Article 2 of the agreement states that neither party shall seek a privileged political position in the territory at present belonging to Saudi Arabia or Yemen, or territory which either State might hereafter acquire.

The first North American Harvard trainer aeroplane to arrive from the United States crashed when on a test flight at Suffolk. Squadron-Leader Cazalet and Mr R. Alston, senior scientific officer of the Air Ministry, were killed.

The ‘Asahi Shimbun” says Japan will occupy Hainan Island as long as Chiang Kai-shek resists. The Japanese must remain in South China while Britain and France continue to aid China. Admiral Kanazawa says armed junks had been transhipping arms at sea, and taking them to Hainan to await a favourable moment to run them to the mainland. This is now impossible.

The vice-president of the Reichbank, Dr. Brinkman, closest collaborator of the president, Herr Funk, is seriously ill, following a nervous breakdown. He will be succeeded by Dr. Wholthat, the negotiator who proposed the Jewish agreement with the chairman of the Inter-Governmental Refugee Committee, Mr Georges Rublee.

Mr W. N. Granz, manager of Broken Hill Proprietary mine, announced that the mine would cease , on March 4. The decision to close it was the result of the workable ore being exhausted. Since work began at the mine in 1884, about 12,300,000 tons of ore have been mined, and the aggregate value of the mineral extracted fs about £160,000,000.

A Portuguese Week is to be held in London in March, under the auspices of the Anglo-Portuguese Society and the British Council.

A new interpretation of a tap dance, called La Chamberlafne was introduced throughout Normandy. It features an umbrella, with which a male without a partner singles out a girl, hooks his partner’s arm, and hands over the umbrella and dances away.

The hearing of an application for an award covering masters and officers on coastal vessels occupied the Arbitration Court at Wellington yesterday. The applicants claimed that they were entitled to increased wages, because in some cases a master received less than other employees, and the altered conditions made the duties more exacting. The shipowners opposed increased wages, since masters’ wages had been increased and hours reduced by the last award.

Herr Hitler, in a speech at the Motor Show, said: “We 80,000,000 Germans, united in ourselves, are such a magnificent consuming force in one single economic factor that we have now very favourable conditions for mass production in competition with world markets. Our task is to lower prices, and unify and simplify types.” Herr Hitler added that he had appointed a special representative to supervise and co-ordinate motor production in order to improve the German position in world car markets. • » • • The President of the Board of Trade, Mr Oliver Stanley, was asked in the House of Commons whether, in view of the urgent necessity for removing some obstacle in the way of the development of Britain’s export trade, he would consider the advisability of consulting the Governments of the Dominions as to placing the bargaining power of the Empire on a more unified basis. In reply, Mr Stanley said it was the constant endeavour of the Government to remove such obstacles. An example of the valuable co-operation between members of the British Commonwealth for this object. in trade negotiations with other countries, was furnished by the recent concurrent negotiations with the United States on behalf of England and Canada respectively, with which certain other Dominions and India were also concerned.

Donations for Spanish relief organised by the International Commission for the Assistance of Child Relief has received from Britain £BO,OOO, from Sweden £10,298, Australia £2,500, New Zealand £2OOO, South Africa £2OOO, Switzerland £1175, Norway £llO4, Ireland £IOOO. Denmark £893, India £750, Belgium £686, Egypt £SOO, France £3OO. Italy £235, Germany £235, and Poland £196. ♦ • * • A series of strong earthquake shocks with the epicentre 50 miles from Sofia, caused panic among the population.