AUSTRALIAN ITEMS.

Greymouth Evening Star, 22 March 1911, Page 6

AUSTRALIAN ITEMS.

(Per Independent Service),

NAVVIES FOR QUEENSLAND. '■ ' BRISBANE, March 5,

Some littVe time ago instructions were given to Sir Thomas Robinson, the Agent-General, to advertise in the United Kingdom for navvies for work on the Queensland railways. The Premier (Mr. Denham) stated that it was expected that the first shipment of about six hundred or eight hundred men would, arrive in Queensland about April 30th. Other shipments would follow monthly until approximately three thousand men in all had been secured. The men would be landed at coastal ports, and taken at once to the scene of their labours, which will be on the western line. Mr. Denham said that there would not be the slightest difficulty in securing the whole of the men required. OBSERVING AN ECLIPSE. FREMANTLE, March 7. Travelling by the B.M.S. Otway are two scientific expeditions, which are proceeding to Vavau, in the Friendly Islands for the purpose of observing an eclipse of the sun which takes place on April 29th. One party is in charge ol the Rev. Father Cortis, who holds the position of Professor of Physics at the Stoneyhurst College, Lancashire.' He is an accredited observer of eclipse?: this year on behalf of what is known as the eclipse committee of the Royal Society and Royal Astronomical Society. Father Cortis will be assisted by Brother McKeon, one of his assistants at the Stoneyhurst College. The second expedition is under the direction of Dr. Lockler, who is first assistant at the Solar Physics Observatory, South Kensington, London. He is proceeding to Vivau as official representative of the British Government, and has as his assistant Mr. F. McLean, who is interested in astronomy" and aviation. Vavau, in the Friendly Islands, has been selected as the locale of the expeditions’ observation, as the greatest totality of eclipse will be observed there.

SMART EXECUTED. PERTH, March 7. Alfred Wilson Smart was executed in the Fremantle Gaol this morning for the murder of Ethel Harris, at Perth, on or about March 14th of last year’. When asked if he wished to say anything, .he never as much as moved his lips, and died without showing any emotion. In a letter addressed to the con-troller-general of prisons, Smart, aftei thanking the prison officials and chaplain for their kindness to him in prison, wrote: “I don’t know what I should have done without the kindly sympathy shown to me by these officials, and I cannot die without leaving it on record that I thank them from the bottom of my heart. They have shown me by every action that, though I have broken the laws of God and man, I am still worthy of a little kindness, and that I am still a man, ' and not altogether a beast. I want also to say this, and, as I have shortly to face my God, it is the truth, that all the evidence given in Court about my visit to the sanitary depot was not true. The only time I visited this place was once, when I was sent out by my'employers, Messrs Hoskins and Co., with a tin of oil. I have never been near this place at any other time, so help me, God.”

Smart closed the letter with the request that it should be published. Smart also addressed a letter to his wife, in Victoria, asking for her forgiveness.

MORMONS AND YOUNG GIRLS SALT LAKE CITY, March 14.

Referring to Mr Winston Churchill’s statement in the British House of Commons, that an exhaustive investigation was beng made into the charge that Mormon missionaries were actively engaged in inducing young British girls to emigrate to Utah City, President Smith, chief of the Mormons, said today that he would gladly welcome the investigation, as it would do the Mormon Church a vast amount of good, and set the false charges at rest. BRITISH PUBLIC LIFE. LONDON, March 11. Mr J. L. Griffiths, American ConsulGeneral in London, speaking at a dinner given at Oxford to the Rhodes scholars, said that the latter would return impressed not only with the impartial enforcement of laws in England, but, what was much liner, with the widespread obedience to constituted authority shown by the English people. The one conspicuous failure in America was the ruthless exploitation by selfish, greedy and corrupt men. Voluntary service, added Mr Griffiths was the most characteristic, the most encouraging, and the most inspiring feature of English public life.

BRITAIN, FRANCE AND AMERICA PARIS, March 10. Speaking at a banquet at which he was entertained by the foreign press correspondents, last night, M. Pichon, who was Foreign Minister in the Briand Cabinet, said that during the long and trying period he had occupied that post he had constantly laboured to solidify the friendship between Britain, the United States and France. “These countries,” he added, “have so marked an identity of aspirations and solidarity of interests that it would be chimerical for any other Power to seek to separate those grand peoples in aiming at the common ends of liberty, social progress demoncracy, and the maintenance of peace throughout the world.”