CABLE NEWS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLI, Issue 8542, 24 March 1908, Page 3

CABLE NEWS.

(By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.) .for Press Association DURBAN, March 23. Mr Moor, Premier of Natal, speaking at Winton, complained of certain Commoners putting questions and otherwise seeking to discredit and dishonour Natal's constitution. Natal acted within its chartered rights in bearing the White Man's Burden, which was not made lighter by "their damnable interference." He hoped that better counsels would prevail and Natal be given an opportunity of proving the justice of her position. PEKIN, March 23. An announcement is made in Pekin that Great Britain had agreed to an experimental decrease in the importation of opium for a period of three years to see whether the cultivation of the poppy and the number of opium smokers will bo lessened and the importation in that case decreased annually. A decree issued in Pekin orders further measures to deal with the evil. / NEW YORK, March 23. President Roosevelt announces that he is about to send a message to Congress urging the enactment of a programme prepared after consulting with the leaders in the Senate and the House of Representatives. It includes a revision of the tariff by a special session of Congress after March, 1909, and urges Congress in 1908 to attend to the Sharman anti-trust law to enable the railways to make a reasonable traffic agreement, subject to the consent of the Inter-State Commerce Commission; also to pass the Employers' Liability and Financial Bills introduced by Senator Aldrich.ST. PETERSBURG, March 23. M. Kokostoff informed the Budget Committee of the Douma that new loans were inevitable, and emphasised the political indispensability of constructing, within five years, a second transSiberian line and Amur railway, totalling £36,000,000. Extraordinary expenditure upon national defence in the next five years would total £32,000,000. He explained the tendency of ordinary expenditure to incrcaso in the case of countries passing from absolute monarchy to national representation, and foreshadowed an income tax. LONDON. March 23. The Rand mines will not be permitted to recruit further from the natives of British Central Africa.