CURRENT TOPICS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXIX, Issue 14681, 12 May 1908, Page 6

CURRENT TOPICS.

"While foodstuffs are the diamond rising in pvico it is some market. comfort to the poor man to feel that diamonds may shortly ho cheaper. According to Air A. N. Jackman, editor of the “Alining Year Book,” tho high prices of gems in recent years have been maintained by tho artificial restriction of the supply. The South African mine, tho supply. The South African mines, Premier properties, provide most of the world’s diamonds. Their profits have been enormous. Last year tho Do Beers Company earned a net profit of £2,770,000, paying a dividend of 70 per cent on capital. The Premier Aline, near Pretoria, was developed in 1902. Uithin a year the pound shares wore selling for £SO. Last year the profits reached £598,000, out of which the Transvaal Government received £306,000 as its share, and the dividends paid were 250 per cent on preference shares and 400 per cent on deferred shares. At tho end of last year, the Premier Company, anticipating trouble in the market, proposed to hold over the payment of dividends. There was a possibility of acute competition between the De Deere Company and tho Premier Company and shrewd followers of the jnarket anticipated a sharp decline in tho prices. However, the trouble was averted for tho time, tho Premier Company joining with the De Beers to control tho .market. In December the Transvaal Company declared its dividend of 400 per cent. “Now,” says Mr Jackman, “it is announced that tho arrangement with the Diamond Syndicate will not bo continued, which means that the Premier Company will put as many stones as it can on the market, and that there will bo no regulation of the output of the rivals by the Diamond Syndicate. Meantime, tho De Boors has not only passed its interim dividend, but is shutting down its Dtitoitspan mine, thus reducing its output by about one-quarter, while the Jagersfontein Company is reducing its output by half.” The crisis lias caused a sharp declino in all diamond shares. Tho De Boors deferred shares have 'declined in value from £30,750,000 to £11,500,000, and the Jagersfontein and Premier stocks have suffered even more severely. Taking all diamond stocks flio decline since last year is from £55,450,000 to or approximately fifty per cent.

AN ARCHPLOTTER,

A Russian scholar named Gershuni, who recently died in exile, is

said to have been the “head centre” of tho Russian revolutionary movement. Gershuni was sent to a Siberian penal settlement on a life sentouce, but escaped by getting somo fellow-prisoners to conceal him in a coal barrel which, witli a load of others, was to be taken further north. Tho driver was bribed and “lost” the barrel, its occupant escaping after many perils to Japan, and then to America. Among his young comrades Gershuni was credited with strong powers of hypnotism, by which he became the real head of their movement. Alost of the attempts against officials of the Russian Government in recent years were of his devising. He was said to have directed tho assassinations of Prince Obolonsky and AL do Plohve. He never took personal part in tho actual murders, but by choosing men among his desperate comrades, fascinating and frightening them, ho directed the operations. But lie was not always successful. Once ho planned the assassination of AL Pobiedonostzeff, Procurator of the Holy Synod, who was to be murdered at tho funeral of AL. Sipiaguine, Alinister of the Interior, another of his victims. For assassin he had chosen a young subaltern of radical leanings. After four meetings with Gershuni the officer promised to kill the Procurator. On the morning fixed for the deed tho officer showed signs of weakening. Gershuni upbraided and derided him, finally giving him a bottle of strong wine and telliug him to do as ho was bid. The officer went out obediently with his revolver aud poisoned bullets and took his position on the line of tho funeral procession. As AI. Pobicdonostzeff approached on foot the eyes of tho two men met, and the would-be assassin, who had cowered under tho eye of Gershuni, felt himself evon more helpless before the masterful eyes of the Procurator. “ It was as if they met and fought in a life-and-dcath combat- and the Terrorist was vanquished,” runs the story. “He broke down, turned and fled. They found him in liis lodgings in an hysterical state, exhausted with throwing off tho spell of Gershuni.” There aro many such talcs of Gershuni’s influence, hut commonly they describe his successes. li-ot liis failures. In ordinary life bo was a quiet, scholarly man, apparently not at all interested in politics.

INDUSTRIAL PERU,.

Tlie difficulties that have to be faced by the Imperial Government in making any reform are

very great. An appalling weight of vested interest opposes any proposal in the direction of change. A Bill was introduced into the. Imperial Parliament recently to give an eight hours’ day in coalmines, but a storm of protest has been raised. A diminished output and increased prices have been prophesied in a score of important trades dependent upon coal, and the Ministers have had to face influential and indignant deputations. A deputation that waited upon the aught Hon Herbert Gladstone, on behalf of ironworkers, engineers and shipbuilders, represented consumers of 80,000,000 tons of coal annually, with a wages bill of £615,000,000: Sir Hugh Bell stated that the iron industry represented an output of 10,000,000 tons of pig-iron, and an annual value of not less than £50,000,000. The industry paid wages to the extent of £35,000,000 a year, and a disastrous ofTcet would he produced by any rise in the price of coal. The output of coal would be diminished bv 10 per cent, and the effect of this would be to throw out of employment not fewer than 30.000 or 40,000 men. Sir Andrew Noble, for the Engineers’ and Shipbuilders’ Federations, including 960 firms, and practically the whole engineering and shipbuilding .trade of the country, said that the two

industries employed 500,000 workmen and paid more than £30,000,000 a year in wages. Foreign competition was already keenly felt, and it would bo at the expense of the manufacturers and workers if any further burden were placed on tho homo industries. Another member of the deputation said that a rise of hut a few pence per ton in tho price of coal would unsettle the cotton industry for years to come. Tho Combined Steam Fishing Vessel Owners of Great Britain, owners of 2500 boats, on which depended 250,000 men, besides a vast number of men, women and children in the allied trades, made another impressive deputation. They stated that the Coal Bill would lessen the output of coal by 25,000,000 tons a year, and raise the price permanently by Is 6d or 2s a ton. This would stop at least a quarter of the fishing boats of the kingdom from working, and would thereby deprivo the people of one of the cheapest and most nutritious foods. It would also throw thousands of people out of employment. The replies given by Ministers were noncommittal, but it was evident that the weight of tlio opposition had discouraged thorn.