News in Brief

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20222, 5 February 1934, Page 6

News in Brief

Status ot Dominions. “ I have banished the word Australasia from my vocabulary,” said Sir John Sandman Allen a member of the House of C°mmons, in an address in Auckland. By tne efforts of the Royal Empire Society and similar organisations, people in Great Britain were getting a better appreciation of the Dominions, and New Zealand was no longer regarded as “ an island off the coast of Australia “ Empire’s Greatest Peril.” “ The submarine menace was the greatest peril that has ever threatened the British Empire/’ said Captain Taprell Dorling, R.N., in the course of a lecture under the auspices of the Auckland branch of the Navy League. In 1914-15, he said, 008 British, Allied and neutral merchant ships were sent to the bottom of the sea by enemy submarines. In 1916 the total was 1098. In February, 1917, the first month ot the unrestricted submarine war, 260 merchant ships were sunk. In March, the number was 338, and in April 430. On Apr* 19, “ the worst day of the worst month ot the war”, eleven British merchantmen and eight fishing craft were destroyed. One out of every four ships that left the British Isles in April, 1917, never returned. 3 M 3$ A Certain Dividend. Much has been written about the use of systems at race meetings, and how’ to get big returns from small outlay, but the only ones who invariably win are apparently a few boys, whose system is watertight. \esterday three boys were seen struggling out of the Takapuna racecourse with three medium-sized bags full of bottles, states the “ Auckland Star.” They said it was their practice to collect bottles after every race meeting, and the jingle of coins, which ranged from threepence to florins, showed that bottles were not the only things they found. Even so, the trio only got the second dividend; two other boys had already made two trips.