TABLE TALK.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVI, Issue 224, 20 September 1915, Page 1

TABLE TALK.

Flour in Bunediu is down to £U per Dargaville's " Queen Carnival" reilised over £6,000 for the Wounded Sol-He-rs' Fund. The rainfall at Auckland during the week-end amounted to just under an jich and a half. The idea of holding a general election n Great Britain is ridiculed by the najority of the newspapers. The "s.=. llakura from Vaucouver reached Auckland this morniirg, and will sail for Sydney to-migbt. A tr?de journal at Home estimates hat Germany has eight of her biggest übmarines available for action. The Food Price 3 Commission meets Miiis week to consider whether the price 3 of butter and bread are too high. The discovery of land north of Prince 'atriek Island disproves Xansen's theory ;hat there is little land in the Arctic. Russian torpedo boats destroyed a leet of Turkish craft laden with food :>ff Sinope, on the coast of the Black ;ea. The fortieth anniversary of 'the foundation of Katikati settlement was celebrated by a settlers' banquet on Saturday ni<rht. The Vancouver mail, which left here jn August 10, arrived Vancouver August 17, and arrived London September 14 (five days late). It is' expected that the 200 iN'iue Islanders who have enlisted Trill be marched into camp at Khrrow Keck about the middle of October. 'Pestilential nonsense" is the tvijj one member of the Cabinet described the story of a plot in the British Cabinet aver the question of conscription. It k expected that the Pairfementary session -will be finished 5n three weeks; the Xatio-nal Registraition Bill will come under consideration this week. Eighteen Chinese (including one female) arrived '.n New Zealand last month, and sixteen (all males) took their departure from the Dominion. The short circuiting of an electric wire at the United Service Hotel caused a slight outbreak of fire on Saturday evening, the fire brigade being summoned. Sweden wants British coal, and it is said that Great Britain is annoyed with Sweden's refusal to allow the agreed imount of food to pass to and from Russia. Japan is said to have erected 1,200 more ammunition factories, with 100,000 workers employed. A new arms factory s said to be contemplated by the Crovernment. John AVard, aged six, .Wibo was riding on a coupling between a motor-lorry and a trailer at "Wellington on Saturday, fell under t>he trailer and sustained fatal injuries. In order to prevent supicious cargoes reaching Germany, Sweden has ordered all prohibited goods to be sent from one Swedish port to another, instead of being sent "oy steamer. The Santa Anna, the steamer with. 1,600 Italian reservists on board, which was reported to' be on fire in the Atlantic, is safe. A great deal of dynamite was discovered on board. The "Financial News" cays the British Ministry that fails to put the Kaiser, yon Tirpitz and the rest of the murderers in the dock at the end of the war is in for a bar quarter of an hour. Several Xew York newspapers, although they were offered £.100 a line, hare refused to publish advertisements from the pro-German faction trying to damage the loan being floated by the Allies. -. __ _~:* ~ The material fo>- the extension of the Queen Street tramway {"ast the Town Hall to KaTangahape Road ie on itsway from England to Auckland, and the work is expected' to be put in hand very soon. There is a iremendous amount of discussion going on at Home the recent sensational speech of Mx J. Thomas in the House of Commons warning the House of the railwaymen's opposition to compulsory service. , In pointing out to a conference of agriculturists at Bristol the great need there was for increasing the production of food, Lord Selbourne mentioned that there were now 1,300,000 lese acres of arable land in Great Britain than in 1895. An independent report by the Home Secretary on the Zeppelin raids on London shows that the Germans were all out in their ideas of the damage they did. Beyond the slaughter of a few innocent people and a bantam hen, the raids were without effect. The speeches of Mr Asquith and Lord Kitchener have created a most favourable impression in Paris. The "Temps," in acknowledging the tremendous efforts made by Great Britain during the first year of the war, says voluntary enrolments are only expedients. Somei'.ing new and big is expected from the Austro-German forces, according to a Rotterdam correspondent. The idea seems to be that there will be a blow against Ssrvia or Italy—postibly as a feint to an attempt to smash a way through the lines on the wssiern front in France and Belgium. The attempt on the German in the spring, the lack of a decisive conclusion in the Dardanelles, and the invasion of Russia by Germany have been three disappointments from the A.lies' point of view, says Jlr Winston Churchill. The situation was a very serious one, added the ex-First Lot! of the Admiralty.