GENERAL ITEMS.

Feilding Star, Volume XI, Issue 2701, 21 April 1915, Page 2

GENERAL ITEMS.

ALL SORTS OF NEWS. Copeniuifieu, April 20. The German fleet laid a. minefield in the vicinity of Alands to prevent communication .between Russia and Sweden, The Germans have closed the Dutch-Belgian frontier. Even foodstuffs are not allowed to pass. The Dutch vessel Olanda, coalladen from Seaham to Rotterdam, was mined and sunk in the North . sea. The crew were saved. Amsterdam, April 20. Germany, on her own initiative, iufoi'ined Holland that it was possible, through accident, that a German submarine torpedoed the Dutch steamer Katwyk. If an inquiry proved tin's, full compensation would be made. The Lokal Anzeigor states that 1U . British officers at Cologne have been put into solitary confinement on account of the submarine reprisals. Petrograd, April 20. The Novoe Vremy-a says Marshal Hindenburg has fallen into disfavour with the Genera] Staff. He retained his command on tho Kaiser urging that ho bo given another chance. London, April 20. Reports received from Lenoir sfcato that an official of the Belgian Railway Ministry was court-martiallcd for espionage and executed at Ghent rifto range, where 260 people, including his wife, were compelled to be present. The city of Brussels has been fined half a million marks for refusing to make the leading street "Berlin . Strasse." The Germans threaten to shoot a hundred inhabitants unless tho fine be paid by the end of April. The British delegates to the "Women's Peace Congress were unable to reach The Hague owing to the absence of steamers. Lord Bryce, in a letter heartily supporting the Congress, said all ought to impress on the various Governments th« supreme duty to reduce the causes of war now we have learned how much more awful and hideous war can be than anybody supposed. Dγ Paw, U.S. Ambassador to London, handed Sir Edward Grey Germany's protest against the seizure of the German steamer Pallat, convoying German refugees from Tsiugtao towards Tientsin on the ground that the vessel was engaged on a, humanitarian mission,, and therefore