THE EMPIRE.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 336, 24 October 1908, Page 10

THE EMPIRE.

Canadian wheatcrop prospects continue excellent, and the estimate of the total crop of 115,000,000. bushels may be exceeded. Tho system of lighting - tho St. Lawrence River channel to, Montreal has been, completed, thus permitting safe night navigation for all ocean steamers. . Five hundred veterans of tho South African war have notified the Canadian Government that they will accept tho offer of a frco grant of 320 acres of land each in tue North-west ( and settle there. The vastness of British Columbia is illus-. trated by tho fact that news has J us ' i reached the authorities of a battle between two Indian tribes which was fought near tho confluenco of tho Liard and Nelson Rivers' in tho spring of last year. ■ Mgr. Dontenwill has been appointed Archbishop of Vancouver, and the seat of the ecclesiastical province has been transferred from Victoria to Vancouver. Mgr. Macdonald, Vicar-General of Ant-igonersh, has been recommended for the Bishopric or Victoria. Frederick Cornish, a Crimean veteran, soventy-four years old, has died in poverty in Vancouver, British Columbia. On the representations of his friends, the War Office granted him a pension, the first instalment of which he was to have received in October. The Hon. J. M. Gibson, who was Attor-ney-General of Ontario under the Ross Goveminent,- and conimandcr of the Canadian team at Bisley in 1907, has taken office as Lieutenant-Governor of Ontario, in succession to Sir Mortimer Clarke, whose term has expired. Miss Campbell, an American, is putting forward a claim to be the rightful owner of tho Citadel and the site of the Chateau de Frontenac and the greater _ part of the upper town, including the Basilica. A special envoy from the Emperor Francis Joseph and Pope Pius X. has recently visited AVestern Canada to investigate the conditions of the country. Should his report be favourable, it is probable that 200,000 Hungarian farmers will settle in Western Canada during tho next four or five years.' • - Tho King has appointed Lieut.-General Frederick Walter Kitchener to be Governor and Commander-in-Chief of tho Bermudas, or "Somers Islands," in succession 'to Lieut.-General Wodehouse, who has retired. Lieut.-General Kitehoner is the younger brother of Lord Kitchener. Ho has seen considerable service in Afghanistan, and with his brother in Egypt and South Africa. A grand durbar has been -held at Katmandu in honour of the return from' London of tho Prime Minister of Nepal, _at which Sir Chandra Shamsher Jang, Prime Minister of Nopal, presented to the Maharaj Dhiraj, the - titular sovereign of tho country, an autograph letter from the King-Emperor. While it was being read a salute of twenty-one guns-was fired, and at tho close the bands played the National Anthem. . : The report of Captain Young, the. Color nial Secretary, on the trade of: Singapore includes a strong indictment against the shipping conference. Statistics, he says,: show an increase in freight for. the- -year of £104,000, ' while a sum of £28,000 is granted yearly in secret rebates, which favour a few firms, tho majority of which.- are foreign.. By this means 23,851 tuns of Imperial trade is diverted to the Continent, and British "tramps'! have been driven out. An agitation is proceeding for the introduction- of legislation to abolish secret: re: bates. The largest number of passengers—l6lß— ever carried in a single vessel to Canada -■left-Liverpool recently on the 'Empress' -of' ■Ireland. This beats this boat's own previous record of 1554, made on August 30 last year.

A- White Paper just published shows that | the 'strength of the European Array in India at present is 75,702, tne numbers of the Native Army being 148,996. In 1886 the 1 figures for the European Army were 73,582, and for the native Army 124,492. v . • A Mohammedan meeting at Bombay has passed a resolution respectfully offering -sincere and heartfelt thanks to King Edward for the _ religious toleration and public liberty enjoyed by the. Mohammedans of India under his benign government. Tbo frequency and seriousness of native crime on lhe Hand have caused the authorities to devise means for the better control of natives. Recently tho police planned an ambush in the, hills. east of Johannesburg, where they surprised' a gang of 200 hooligans armed with sticks, who were marching on the town. Tho natives are so formidable that comparatively few arrests are made. The mayors of Johannesburg and the other towns along the reef are arrang--ing to wait on tho Attorney-General to request stronger measures of ■ repression to prevent native attacks on white women. ! Presiding at the meeting of the New jagersfontoin Mining and Exploration Company, Colonel Harris, the chairman, said that owing to the severe depression in tho market during the past twelve months tho company's profit had been £208,894, which was £160,000 below last year's. After £34,320 had been .written off for .depreciation, dividends totalling a quarter of a million had been paid, while £61,000 had been carried forward. Diamonds had realised £711,543 with 1,801,500 loads of ground still on tho floors. :He pointed out that tho industry had survived the crisis, and was now on ft steady road to recovery. "