DOMINION TELEGRAMS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXV, Issue 48, 25 February 1913, Page 8

DOMINION TELEGRAMS.

HALF-SUBMERGED WRECKAGE. (Per Press Association.) Gisborne, February 21. j The captain of the Kowhai reports sighting yesterday off Castlepoint Jiglrthouse, submerged wreckage, with broken mast attached, extending six feet above the water. It was too rough to make a closer inspection. Captain Homier considers the wreckage a menace to shipping. THE OLD AGE PEXSIOX. Wellington, February 23. Though the receipt of an old age pension is not an acceptance of charity, there are many pensioners and their relatives who are sensitive on tliis point, and the Hon. F. M. B. Fisher is consulting their feelings in asking the press of the Dominion to avoid what seems to be a very general practice, if anything happens to an old age pensioner, of mentioning that the individual was a pensioner. “The newspapers will do me a kindness if they refrain from that practice,” said Mr Fisher. “It is an unnecessary detail which does not obtrude, for instance, into an obituary notice of an ex-civil servant who was a pensioner. It does nobody any good, and it hurts the feeling of some pensioners’ relatives.” LOXG DISTAXCE TELEPHOXIXG. Wellington, February 21. The Telegraph Department has nearly completed arrangements for the inauguration of the new telephone service between Wellington and Auckland. Some construction work remains to be done before the service can be established on a permanent footing, but by means of temporary arrangements it is hoped to give a partial service within a month. The new double line for this telephone service is 400 miles in length, and 150 tons of copper wire, valued at £15,000, is being used in constructing the lines, which will bo used for telegraph as well as telephone work, and the necessities of the telegraph will curtail the use of the wires for conoversational purposes, but it is hoped to assign two hours during the day and the greater part of the night for telephonic service. The charges for this long distance talking has not yet been fixed. THE EXPEDITIOXARY FORCE. Wellington, February 24. The Hon. R. H. Rhodes, ActingMinister of Defence, stated to-day that the question of organisation of an expenditionary force was under considoration. The intention of the Goveimminent, it is understood, is to formulate some scheme of organisation in advance for contingents that would constitute an expeditionary force serving on a voluntary basis for military operations in other parts of the British Dominions. Such a scheme would have regard to the formation and numerical strength of the expedition, the proportions of infantry and cavalry, tad the equipment, with a view' to harmorious co-operation in case of necessity from the point of view of imperial unity, instead of leaving arrangements to work haphazard as in the case of South African War. The military authorities of the Dominion would be in a position to despatch these voluntary troops in accordance with a systematic prearranged scheme.