TAURANGA-TE PUKE-ROTORUA MOTOR SERVICE.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Issue 1345, 3 February 1916, Page 40

TAURANGA-TE PUKE-ROTORUA MOTOR SERVICE.

A splendid motor service has been established and is now running between Tauranga and Rotorua, via Te Puke and Paengaroa. Messrs. Wil-

liams, Geraghty and Collett, the proprietors of this service, speak most highly of the support accorded to them since its inception. The cars, which include some of the best makes, such as the Cadillac, Overland and Studebaker, are specially adapted for this particular service, being luxuriously upholstered and replete with every comfort. The trip itself is an ideal one, passing through some very interesting country, with native bush and purling streams, and is one that should not be missed by visitors to Tauranga. Travellers can leave Tauranga at 9 a.m., arriving at Rotorua about 2.30 p.m., thus enabling them to connect with train to Hamilton, Frankton Junction and the Main Trunk line the same day. This should be a great boon to the travelling public, and the fare is most reasonable—£2 return. Application for seats should be made to Mr. W. J. Baigent, Wharf Street, Tauranga, who is agent for the company, and from whom all available informat’on may be obtained.

Mr. and Mrs. Solomon and Miss Cohen, of Sydney, are at present in Auckland on their way to the thermal district. They also visited this country last year.

“Some weeks ago the German Emperor, in a message to his troops in the West, referred to the marvellous • courage and tenacity with which they •had defended for a year what had been won in the first month of the war. That is not the language of a conqueror who is passing from victory to victory,” says the Glasgow “Herald”; “it involves an admission •of the grave dangers which beset the German line of defence, and we know that these dangers are increasing every day.”

A New Zealander who has recently passed over the route of the Panama Canal has sent to a friend in Wellington a very alarming account of the present condition of the great waterway. He says that the people of New York know as little about the work of the Canal as the people of Berlin know ; about the war in which their country is engaged, and will be nearly as much .surprised and shocked when they learn the truth. The New Zealander doubts if the canal along its present route will ever become a highway of • commerce, and estimates that another hundred million pounds would have to be added to the hundred millions already spent to make it safe and secure. He warns his countrymen .against making any calculations upon the. Canal being permanently opened for traffic during the next three or four years. “It would be easier and cheaper and in every way more satisfactory,” he says, “to take the longer cut through Nicaragua than to go on mending and patching the present works.”

Old trades are being revived in .England. Birmingham swordmaking, ■ once an important affair, almost disappeared under the stress of cheap German competition. To-day the em-

ployers, with renewed demand, are seeking out the old hands wherever they are to be found and bringing them back again. “In past years,” said a large manufacturer and wellknown public worker, “I have had to sit on relief committees voting sums to help skilled workers, unable to obtain employment, to go to Canada. To-day, if it were not that it did not seem a fair thing to do, we would advertise in the Canadian papers for our wqrkers to come back to us, and pay them to come back. We need them all.”

Mr. A. H. Pollard, the well-known expert in naval gunnery, says that considering the enormous range at which sea battles were fought, and the fact that a ship was a moving target, the results achieved were really remarkable. If a lead pencil were held eighteen inches from the eye, the tip of the pencil was exactly the length of a battleship at 15,000 yards. No range-finder had yet been invented which could give the range within 500 yards at those enormous distances.

Some interesting particulars about a German big gun of the 16-inch class have come to my knowledge (writes a correspondent of the “Daily Express”). I will not call it a new gun, tecause it was under construction experimentally at Krupps’ three years ago at least, but it has not been publicly mentioned during the war. It fires a shell of 20241b5., and its range is given as 23,816 yards, or roughly, miles. The penetration of Krupp armour, however, is only given at a range of seven miles, at which it is stated to be 19% inches.

If Germany can hold the Austrian ports on the Adriatic the Latin races will always be in danger, for, with those ports in German possession, a great possibility for a Pan-German revanche would still “ipso facto” exist. If the Latin races are not to become what Germany desires to make them —slave races, as she styles

all those to be brought under the rule of the Prussian feudal aristocracy— Italy must hold all the Adriatic ports, both for the sake of her own independence and expansion and for the sake of the Latin races of Southern Europe. It will also be to the advantage of Great Britain, France, and Russia that Italy should hold them. Austria, the disturber of the peace of Europe from the middle ages down to the present day, must be deprived entirely of the power of again endangering the peace of Europe.

The inhabitants of the small town of Butterworth, in the Transkei, South Africa, to show their appreciation of Admiral Jellicoe’s efforts to keep the seas open for British trade, have presented him with a silver broom, measuring 2ft. 6in., inscribed “Presented to Admiral Jellicoe for his abilities in sweeping the North Sea, 1914,” while on a label attached to the broom were the words “as usual.” An appreciative acknowledgement has been received from Admiral Jellicoe, in which he states that their one hope is to succeed in keeping that command of the sea which will enable British trade to be carried on “as usual.”

An incident unprecedented in London history occurred recently in the hall of the Ancient Scottish Corporation in Crance Court, Fleet Street. The occasion was a recruiting rally addressed by the Secretary for Scotland to inspire the remaining Scots in London. A real fiery cross was shown, cut from the old tree at Fortingall, in Perthshire, where the fiery crosses of the turbulent Highland days were got. The fiery cross had to be blooded as well as burnt, and the blood for the symbol in November, 1915, was taken from a goat which was the mascot of a London Territorial regiment. It is strange to think that an ancient Celtic rite was thus carried out in London, attended by its original significance in the twentieth century.

The “Kilmarnock Standard” c November 13 states that LieutenantColonel John Findlay, of the Canterbury Mounted Rifles, and Colonel E. R. Bowler, of Southland, had been paying a visit to Ayrshire, and together with Mr. James Dunlop, SubCommissioner on Small Holdings, and Mr. John Howie, secretary of the Ayrshire Agricultural Association, had made a motor tour through a large portion of Ayrshire.

Easter Island is one of the wonders of the world. It is a lonely spot, the most eastern of the Polynesian Islands, and lies out in the Pacific about 2000 miles from the coast of Chili. It belongs to that country, and is used by the Government as a convict settlement. Easter island's great fame rests upon its gigantic carved images, huge statues cut into the native volcanic rock. By whom or for what reason these great carvings were made is still a mystery, for no metal tool has ever been found in the place. Scientists assume the colossi were idols, for there are platforms for sacrificing in front of many of them, but there is no tradition among the natives. The huge carvings are just mysteries. One of the many theories propounded concerning the island is that it is the remnant of a submerged continent.

The death of Mr. Lancelot Indermaur, district officer for the Ellice Group of Islands, and a Deputy Commissioner of the Western Pacific, is recorded in the “Samoan Times.” The deceased, who was a Cambridge graduate, was formerly at Tonga, in practice as a barrister and solicitor. In 1913 he left Tonga for the Union or Tokelau Islands, where he acted as district officer of the group. Mr. Indermaur was at Atafu, in the Union Islands, at the outbreak of the war, and, owing to the isolated position of those islands and the absence of communication, he was probably the last person in the British Empire to hear of the war.

Dr. and Mrs. Edgar have returned to Napier. Dr. Edgar recently underwent a severe operation in Sydney.

The famous King Teh Cheng porcelain factory, which from the year 1396 furnished all the fine porce.a n for the royal palaces of China, is to be reopened immediately, and a grant of £4OOO has already been made by President Yuan Shih Kai for this purpose. This factory was partly destroyed during the revolution in which the republic was established, and the various samples and patterns kept there were divided among the leading revolutionists. While the making of porcelain has been one of the leading Chinese industries for generations, this factory is said to be the only place in which the ancient ways of making porcelain, with the beautiful ancient colours and designs, has been preserved. The factory will not only be employed in producing porcelain for the market, out will have a special department in which porcelain of the highest quality will be made for presentation to the rulers of other countries.

The supply of munitions, which the United States is sending to the Allies, thanks to our undisputed mastery of the sea, continues to increase at a remarkable rate. A few months ago some £1,000,000 munitions of war had been shipped across the Atlantic. It is now estimated that to date double that amount has found its way from Amerca to Europe. Papers have given particulars of the Russian order to a Canad an firm which called for 5,000,000 shrapnel and howitzer shells at a cost of £16,600,000 —on which order the profit is said to be no less than £4,000,000! France has placed a shrapnel order for £4,000,000, and Great Britain one for £13,200,000, and one for £5,300,000 worth of rifles. No less than £7,000,000 worth of railway trucks and railroad equipment is on order. These particulars show

how tremendously necessary the American factories are to the Allies; for exhaustion of munitions, not of men, will end the war.

When so much is being said about the kilt as a war dress, it is worth pointing out (says a London correspoident) that probably at no previous period in history have so many men been clad in the Highland garb. On a very rough estimate there must be something like 50,000 men in the old and new battalions of the five kilted Scottish regiments. Besides these, there are the London and Liverpool Scottish and the Scottish regiments in Australia, New Zealand, the Cape, Canada and elsewhere, so that it is, perhaps, no exaggeration to say that there are now about 70,000 or 80,000 wearers of the kilt throughout the Empire under arms for Imperial defence. Never at any previous time have these numbers been equalled or even approached, and when these facts are remembered it is not surprising to hear that the supply of tartans can hardly keep pace with the demand.

An “old boy” of’the Otago Boys’ High School was in London early in December on special leave from the French military authorities. He was Mr. James Waddell, of Cromwell, who was at the Otago High School in the late ’eighties. His present title is Chef de Bataillon J. Waddell, Chevtilier de la Legion d’Honneur. In other words, he is commander of a battalion in the French army, corresponding with the rank of lieutenant-colonel in the British army. He left New Zealand many years ago, became a naturalised Frenchman, and joined the French army. He has seen considerable fighting, and previous to the present war had medals for the Sahara, Morocco, and Indo-China campaigns. Now he has two decorations —the Legion of Honour and the medal

for being mentioned in despatches. He was twice mentioned by the French commander for bravery at the Dardanelles, where he was wounded during the summer, and returned to France. Having recovered, he took part in the recent fighting in Champagne. Mr. Waddell is now looking fit and well. He still takes keen interest in New Zealand, and hopes to pay a visit to the Dominion after the war. • • • • The new battle cruisers for the United States Navy, reach the irr t cf size which is iixed by the locks of the Panama canal Furthermore, it transpires that these new ships would have been oi greater width—in the light of the discoveries of naval construction from the present war—were it not for the fact that the Panama Canal fixes the limit of warship construction for the United States. From an authoritative sourse it was learned that the new battle cruisers, for which Congress will be asked to appropriate 18, 000,000dol each this winter, are designed with a length of 800 ft and a beam of 105 ft The width: of the canal locks is just 110 ft Consequently these ships could only jusC squeeze through the Gatun locks, with vwo and a half feet on each side —ju it tnough for fenders. Bigger warships could not be built and get through tire Canal, when the canal was planned with locks 1100 ft wide and 1000 ft long, the largest warships were but 80ft wide, and it was confidently asserted warships would never be built too big to go through these locks But tire war has shattered olci theories, and in the light of the war construction of the belligerents—although the exact dimensions of the ships recently laid down by European Powers has been an official secret —the United States naval constructors would have designed battle cruisers over 800 ft in length. And that would have required a beam too great to get through the locks. The constant increase in size that has been going on from year to year has reached the point where it can go no further —unless the Panama Canal locks are rebuilt.