TABLE TALK.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIX, Issue 12, 14 January 1918, Page 1

TABLE TALK.

Many citie3 in Britain are now without meat, so acute is the shortage. Sir Joseph Ward says that the next _ar loan will be floated in June or July.

The Spanish, steamer Joaquin Numbrall was torpedoed off Madeira, 21 of the crew of 39 being lost. Last year the United States yards turned out 900,200 gross tons of .hipping, double the 191(5 output. The Central Powers have accepted 11. Trotzky's proposal to ' prolong the armistice for another month.

Fifteen fellows and 57 associates of the New Zealand Institute •of Architects have gone on active service. • It is thought to he not unlikely that Mr. -Massey and Sir Joseph Ward will attend the next sitting of the Imperial War Cabinet.

The greatest storm for twenty years is sweeping the central western States of America. Scores of cities are isolated and 100 deaths are reported.

The British destroyer Bacoon, of about 900 tons and 27 knots, foundered in a snowstorm off the lrisli coast, the whole crew perishing.

A deputation from the Tuhoe tribe has asked the Minister of Justice for the release of the "Prophet" Sua, whose sentence expires in August next.

A colliery' explosion gccurred at ■ Halmer End, Staffordshire. A hundred, including dead, have been brought $sMthe surface, and 140 are still missing. The Bolshevik Telegraph Bureau re' ports that the Don district wifl. shortly , become an independent republic, withs, General Kaledin probably as Premier. , A young woman was struck on titer head by an unknown assailant on tho Point Chevalier Road about 10 o'clock on Friday night, and was partly stunned. The German and 'Austrian Foreign •Ministers declared at Brest Litovsk that the Central Powers would continue the war relentlessly if Russia, broke up the conference. General. KrylenKo, jthe Bolshevik commander-in-chief, has issued a proclamation threatening a holy war against the Russian, German, French, and British, bourgeoisie. The Bolshevik leaders are of opinion; that the peace negotiations will be interrupted, and that it will be' necessary to organise resistance to the German offensive which they consider imminent. The French. Foreign Minister declared in the Chamber of Deputies that French war aims were respect for treaties, territorial settlement on the basis of national rights, aud the limitation of armament-. • The 'War- Office Jhae informed, the De-' fence Department that New Zealand territorial officers aie not wanted for the Imperial Army, irat that it is pre-' pared- to accept officers at present serving at the front. Arthur Johns, the religious objector, ■who escaped from the Rotoaira prison camp, got away again as ihe was being taken back to the camp, ibut was recaptured and sentenced to an additional twelve montha* imprisonment in Mount Eden GaoL *. - ! .