THROUGH OUR EXCHANGES.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XLIX, Issue 13905, 5 November 1919, Page 7

THROUGH OUR EXCHANGES.

One of the best, because undoubtedly one of the most practical and most needed, legacies bequeathed __ by the American Expeditionary Forces to France is their amazingly extensive and efficient system of telephones constructed and operated by the United States Army Signal Corps. The total erjuipmeiit of this system includes 273 exchanges and 2-j.OOO instruments, with' thousands; of miles of lines linking up ! no fewer than :300 French towns from I Brest to Bordeaux and Marseilles and from St. Xazaire to Toul. with Paris as the radiating centre, through which connection can also be made with London. Liverpool, and "Winchester, and. since the armistice. Antwerp. Rotterdam. Cobhnz, Metz. and Treves. The average dailv number of calls during the war is calculated at ilo.ooo m the interior and 4000 long-distance calls, exclusive of 40.000 telegrams averaging sixty word- each day. While at least a delay of two minutes was required on the French lines to establish a connection, not more than thirty seconds was needed for interior calls on the American lines.

Addressing several hundred members of the Canadian Club on August 19. General Sir William Currie, the commander of tlie Canadian forces in France, stated that the Supreme War Council early in August, IMB, had planned the buttle of Amiens as the la-t battle of the year, the purpose being, alter taking the objectives, to dig in for the winter and await the development- of the great American Army. So great was the success along the whole line, however, that the armies pressed forward, ending the war. General Currie stated that the Canadian Army had never lost a gun. and during the'last two years of the war had never retired after once consolidating the occupied territory. The efforts of de Yalera's party to collect Canadian dollars in aid of the. revolution in Ireland have thus far proved a painful fiasco. Even Irishmen who have been lifelong supporters of Home Rule hesitate to extend recognition to the man who, while an openly avowed enemy, demands that loyal subjects of the King here should lend him aid in money and men. Alur stealing a pearl necklace with i a diamond pendant valued at £2OO from a room of an American hospital nurio. a valet in a Paris hotel handed it ever to a friend. The friend offered tin: necklace to an ice-cream vendor in the Tuiicries for 9s, but as the vendor had not enough money on him the. friend of the thiei' accepted 'two glasses; of ice cream for the necklace, which was later recovered. A Weimar telegram to the Freihcit a-scrts that a Bill was submitted at the last sitting of the Prussian Cabinet j by the Finance Minister. Herr Sydek'nm. for the handing over of £>.- 700.000 to the ex-Kaiser as a total settlement for what the paper terms "the civil list he lost by forced abdication." Nearly all the. Ministers approved tho Bill, and the only reason why no final division was reached was the opposition el' Herr Braun. Minister of Agriculture. A representative of the Matin' has visited at Doom (Holland) the chateau which the ex-Kaiser is anxious to buv. Wilhelm was down at the lilac- 'last week, and offerccf £OO.OOO for it. The chateau has two wings and a central building two storeys high. A stone bridge across a wide moat leads to a court of honor. The chateau is surrennded by a large park and superb woods. Doom is a wooded region with many aristocratic chateaux, much frc(|iiented in summer.

Hundreds of Bavarian prisoners from England Have- arrived at Munich ami Frihourg. They are the healthiest and i'attc.-i persons seen in tho streets of these towns, much to the astonishment of ilie population, who. owing to the propaganda of the Pan-German Press, had been led to expect scarecrows. The prisoners.' families are delighted, ljur the men arc indignant that i!ie misery of their relations was hiddm I'rnm ilii'in by the German authorities. The prisoners, with few exceptions, ownly praise their treatment in England, but fear the future, as there is no work awaiting them in Southern Germany. The Government is anxious, eencorning the ever-increasing thousands of prisoners flowing into Germany, where there is. no new work, and where food prices are increasing.

T hoar there's tremendous activity in Spitsbergen '(says a "Weekly Telegraph writer). Hint Arctic no-man's land, which :dl the Powers in conference dismissed as a terra miMius. or a worthless country, so recently as Hll-I-. For ages British. .Scandinavian. Russian, and German trappers and adventurers have visited the place. But now its ours. The British ilag floats over Ebehait Harbor. The inevitable Hun wireless station is destroyed, and vast seams of coal and iron have been found by Scottish and English syndicates. The rarer metals are there, too —even gold. Last year iSir Ernest Shaekelton explored the island. A Swedish company has contracted for 20.000.000 tons of iron ore—as usual, for the German blast furnaces. Stockholm was ever a close friend of Berlin. But Spitzbergeu coal is. after all. the most valuable to us. "it will soon be coming over by the 'IOO.OOO tons. l-'rom Reeberce Bay. in our new North Polar "coal cellar.'' to Lerwick, in the Shetland*, is only 821 miles, or 1314 lo Middlesbrough. Itbehoves to find more and more coal, and that. <|iiickly. Here it can be mined at- on :; ton. e «• ft «

The installation of 3000 "phonograph pastors." proposed by the Presbvicrian New Era Conference, seems like a lap from H. G*. Wells' novel, "Tlie Sleeper Awakes." where he visualises the religion-worship of two hundred years hence as "a combination of the phonograph and electric display." The St. Louis Star observes: —''The English novelist made his evolution of the Church a consequence- of the eternal haste of an artificial civilisation. The Presbyterian innovation is a measure of economy. The pulpits are i nipty because financial -support is lacking. But it is possible that once the phonograph is established in the |waterless churches, it will drive the ministers out of many other churches. Thephonograph has been so wonderfully improvid in recent years that it is capable: ot genuine oratory, and can convey its mes.-age to an audience of several hundred people—far more than ever gather in the smaller churches. But the real advantages should be in the calibre of the sermon. "Who is to say that- a congivation will not- prefer to hear the •'<•ann.tr voice of a 20.000 dollars a year minister, representing the highest ini. licet and the finest expression of religious i bought to he found in the* Church, rather than the 'firstlies' and '•tcnihlies' of a man who struggles under the martyrdom of a 600 dollars salary and preaching -ability to match.-" ADD Exchanges

The Anglo-Belgian agreement concerning the districts of Ruanda and Urundi. - in German East Africa, embodies not a bargain between the two • onntiies. but a free gift by Great Britain to Belgium of these territories. The two districts constitute the most fertile portion of the colony, and have a population of more than 3,000.000 natives. This gift to Belgium is a mark of British gratitude to her ally. Great Britain having been under no obligation whatever to cede this, the most valuable portion of her new East African domain, to Belgium or any other country.