COALTHROWNINTOSEA

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 11111, 8 May 1911, Page 5

COALTHROWNINTOSEA

ALASKA INDIGNANT. By TricEi-aph—Press AsEociation-CopyricV. New York, May 5. Following the example of the "Boston Harbour tea party" of 1773, a mob at Cordova, Alaska, enraged at the nonsettlement of the Alaskan coal lands cases by the Washington legal authorities, threw hundreds of tons of Canadian coal into the harbour, declaring that, while millions of tons of Alaskan coal remained unmined, foreign coal should not be used.

The Alaska Steamship Company owned the coal, which it had itself imported.

(Eec. Hay 8, 0.23 a.m.)

New York, May 7. Threats had been openly made at Cordova, Alaska, that when a ccal steamer arrived her coal would be dumped into the sea.

The Maj'or had telegraphed for troops,

A Seattle dispatch of April 3 to the San Francisco "Chronicle" stated-.—"The Government to-day lost its first battle in the effort to punish the alleged fraudulent locators of Alaska coal lands. Judge Cornelius H. Hanford in the United States District Court, in over-ruling the motion to instruct the jury to acquit Charles 1\ Munday, Earl E. Siegley and Archie Shiels, sustained all the vital points contended for by the defendants. The ground on which the Judge refused to grant the motion to acquit was not raised by counsel for either side in the suit, but by the Judge himself. It leaves the Government so little room to stand on that it is practically assured that the prosecution will be dropped. "The lauds in question are the English or Sir Edward Stracey group. They are the most valuable coal lands in the world, being even richer than the Cunningham claims. Estimates of their value range from 100,000,000d01. to a much larger sum. The defendants, together with Algernon. Stracey, a brother of' Sir Edward Stracey, were indicted at Tacoma last fall charged with conspiracy to defraud the Government. Stracey remained in Vancouver, 8.C., and avoided arrest. Trial of the ease was begun last Tuesday. After the jury had been completed counsel for the defence moved for instructions to the jury to acquit the defendants."