NEWS IN BRIEF.

Otago Witness, Issue 3571, 22 August 1922, Page 29

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Bellamy’s, the Parliamentary Club, cost £6364 last year, and for this year £4161 ’3 asked for. The sum of £IO,OOO is oil the Estimates as a subsidy towards the salaries of Pluuket nurses. The estimated amount to pay interest this year on New Zealand Government loans and to add to sinking fund is £8,933,104. Xo wonder so many candidates are coming forward for the general election, as to become a member of the Legislature appears to mean now a pension for life, or, if death follows, a pension for the widow. The following items are on this year’s Estimates: —Annuities for Messrs A. E. Glover, V. H. Mills, and H. G. Ell £l2O each, Lady Steward and Mrs Hogg £l5O each, Mrs Sarah Lawry and All's Hornsby £IOO each. Revs. Currie, Clark, Durward, Hume, Alexander, \\ iicox, Dow, and -Mason were elected by the Clutha Presbytery representatives to the Assembly at its next rneetmg, and the Kirk Sessions of Lawrence, Lovell’s Hat, Stirling, Warepa, Waiwera, and Popotunoa were requested to elect each an elder. The Clutha Presbytery decided to accept with the sincerest regret tile resignation, owing to failing health, of the Rev. A. Morton, of Lovell’s Flat, and adopted a minute appreciative of the rev. gentleman's services as minister for 11 years. The Rev. R. L. Walker, ALA., of Auckland, was inducted into the charge of the Ravensbourne Presbyterian Church on the 14th inst. by the Rev. VV. Fairlie Evans, Moderator ot the Dunedin Presbytery. I here was a. fair-sized congregation considering’ the inclement evening, and a large number of the members of the Presbytery were also present. rJn e Jarvis studentship of the value of .V P ev annum in connection with the British school of architects at Rome was f lS G ea r a ' v - ll ’dcd to Air George C'heckley, c-. Akaroa, Canterbury, who, after serving two and a-half years with the N.Z.E.F., afterwards awarded an X.Z.E.F.’ scholarship.

! attendance at both the Boys and Gins Hign Schools in Dunedin has been seriously, effected by illness last week. Lignty-six were absent from the boys’ school measles accounting for 60 of these. 57 were absent from the girls’ school (00), the absences being due to measles. . bankruptcy returns for the Dominion indicate how the farmers have been hit by the bad times. For the first seven months of 1922 the farming industry contributed 110 bankruptcies, equal to 27.5 per cent, of the total, the number for July being 25. The total bankruptcies tor tlie past seven months was 407. as compared with 160 for the same months last year, an increase of 237. Major E. A. Belcher, assistant director of the Empire Exhibition, which is to be eld m London in 1924, to be open for six months from about April of that year, addressed a meeting of business men in L unedin last week, and dealt at length with the aims and objects of the promotors. The Budget prepared Estimates a surplus of £250,000, half of which would 06 divided among the Dominions taking part, should there be a loss it will be borne entirely by Great Britain. The exmbition would provide a comprehensive survey ot tlie resources and products of the Empire, and permit, as it were, of stock being taken. Those present were impressed by the clear and lucid address gnen by Major Belcher, who was accorded a hearty vote of thanks. Xews has just been received here that, the imperial Government railways of Japan have just placed with the English Electric company for manufacture in their DiekKerr works at Preston an order for 34 complete electric locomotives, of the total value of upwards of £500,000. This represents the whole requirement of locomotives up to the end ol 1925 for those sections of their main line railways which the Japanese Governmerit has decided to electrify at once. The order was obtained in the face of keen foreign competition, particularly fr om America and was placed with the British Electric Company after the fullest investigation by Japanese engineers into the system in operation in different parts of file world, owing to their confidence in the excellence of British design and workmanship. The Auckland Yacht and Motor Boat Association decided to adhere to tlie plans and specifications for 14ft. one-design boats, adopted last April. The effect of this is the lejeetion of Otago’s challenge for tbe Sanders Memorial Cup.