LATE CABLES

New Zealand Mail, 21 February 1901, Page 36

LATE CABLES

LONDON, February IS. The Duke of Westminster was married to-day to IVliss Shelagh CornwallisWest, youngest daughter of Colonel Cornwall is-West. A quarter of a million pounds have been subscribed in Calcutta towards the erection of a statue of the late Queen Victoria.

Count von Waldersee has issued a general order to the allied troops to prepare to inarch to Taiyuen, or further, in the spring, and exercise pressure on the Imperial Court. The order is interpreted m Home quarters as being intended to frighten the Court into submisson. The Russo-Chinese Bank has ; undertaken to contruot for China a. railway from Lake Baikal, to Port Arthur, on condition that it shall be entitled to work the line for thirty years.

A railway from Kiakhta, in the vicinity of Lake Baikal, to Pekin, is also projected. ■ Miss ; . Chapman and Miss. Way, two Australians belonging to the China Inland Mission, who were some time ago reported to have been massacred, have arrived! at Hankow under Chinese escort.

Li Hung Chang has informed the Court that the Foreign Mlnisiters consent to the suspension of Tuug-fu-hsi-ang’s sentence until the Court has power to inflict, sentence of death. The complement of 450 officers and men for the H.M.S. Ophir, which has been engaged to take the Royal party on their colonial tour, will be commissioned on the 26th Inst., when the steamer will proceed to Portsmouth to complete the preparations for her voyage to Australia. LONDON, February 19. In the House of Commons, Viscount Cranberne, who resumed the debate on the Address-in-Reply, ' said that friendly Representations made to the Russian Government in regard to the Shan-hai-kwan railway had been largely successful.

Assurances had been given that the Russian agreement with China with reference to Manchuria was a mere modus vivendi with the object of preventing disturbances.

No sequestration of. territory or Russian protectorate was intended. The restoration of the Niuelnvang railway was promised.

Viscount Cranborne added that he was not aware that any Government among the allies desired to send an expedition to Taiyuenfu. Messrs Paatoli and Co., wool and grain exporters of Buenos Ayres, have suspended payment. Tlieir liabilities amount to half a million pounds.

The estate of the late Baron Armstrong, chairman of the Elswick works and inventor of the Armstrong gun, has been sworn at £1,389,946. The deceased bequeathed £7OOO to charities. It is reported , that Chang-chi-tung, Viceroy at Hankow, has beheaded eight alleged Boxer leaders of mobs in that city.

Owing to beetroot sugar enjoying a reduction or return of excise duty on leaving Russia, the American Government imposed a countervailing duty. Russia retaliated by adding 30 per cent, duty to American hardware, steel, iron, dynamos, and machinery. The Hon Lyman J, Gage, United States Secretary of the Treasury, has imposed a countervailing duty on Belgian sugar, equal to the prevailing bounty paid by Belgium.

The death is announoed of Admiral Sir George Ommaney Willes, aged sevent-eighfc. [George Ommaney Willes was born in. 1823, and entered the Navy in 1837, becoming an admiral in 1885. He served in the Crimean war and the China war of 1859-60: and afterwards held the following appointments:—Naval Aide-de-Camp to the Queen from 1870 to 1874 • Chief >ttf Staff at the Admiralty, 1869-72 ; Superintendent of Devonport Dockyard, 1876-79; ■ Comma nder-m-Oliief on the China station, 1881-84; and at Portsmouth/ 1885-1888. Admiral Willes retired in 1888, and was knighted m, 1892.1 : In anticipation of increased duties being proposed in the forthcoming Budget, enormous clearings have been made from bonded stores throughout Great Britain.

i',i. One hundred and fifty million pounds of,tea have heen withdrawn. / ’ There has been a great decrease in German home trade, especially iron manufactures. Fifty per cent, of the Berlin building trades are unemployed. The New Waitekauri Extended Company is being floated with a capital of £IOO,OOO in 5s shares. Three hundred .and sixty thousand shares are being issued with 3s 3d paid-up. The Sussex County Cricket Committee has resolved that the recent action of the county captains in regard to bowlers throwing was ultra vires. The death is announced of Mr George Graham, at one time member for Newton in the New Zealand House of Rexiresen t ati ves. • ' .. OTTAWA, February 18. The miners who were imprisoned by a fire in a colliery at. Cumberland, British

Columbia, were suffocated. They numbered sixty-five, and consisted of twentyseven whites, twenty-nine Chinese, and nine Japanese. BERLIN, February 17. Commissioner Thiel, of the Berlin police, has been sentenced to three years’ penal servitude and five years’ deprivation .of civil rights, on a charge of bribery in connection w 7 ith the case in which the millionaire SternJjerg wasi convicted of gross immorality. SOFIA, February 17.

The remains of the late ex-King Milan, of Servia, were quietly buried at Xruschedol Monastery, Gross Karlowitz, despite King Alexander's wish that the burial should take place at Belgrade. STOCKHOLM, February 17. The Queen of Sweden is recovering from her illness. -

The proclamation of the King has been delayed until the arrival of the Imperial troops from New Zealand. CAPETOWN, February 17.

A thousand native labourers employed in Capetown docks have struck work, fearing; the plague. The steamer Warrigal, bound for Australia, refused to take passengers or mails. If Australian vessels refuse to call at Capetown, the mails will be sent overland via India. CAPETOWN, February 19. Two cases of plague are reported to have been discovered among suspects here. It is also reported that a coolie employed at the docks has been found to have the disease. Some of the native labourers who struck at the docks have resumed work. SYDNEY, February 18. The Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and York have expressed their willingness to fall in with Lord Hopetoun’s suggestion that they should proceed to Brisbane after leaving Melbourne, arriving there on May 20th, calling on their return at Sydney, where they would arrive on the 27th. The Federal Cabinet has fixed the elections for both the House and the Senate in South Australia and Queensland for the 30th March, and in the other States for the 29th March. The estate of the late Sir Edward Knox ha.s been sworn at. £124,000. The conference of the postal heads of the several States has been adjourned to Sydney in order to be in touch with the Federal Postmaster-General. Mr T. P. Curran, ex-member for North Donegal in the House of Commons, who recently returned to Sydney, has been admitted to the New South Wales Bar.

Green, an English cyclist, beat Martin in a. mile race by a wheel. Time, 2min llsec. SYDNEY, February 19. The persons injured in the recent, railway accident at Tempe are making good progress. The cause of the accident is still unexplained, and various theories will be submitted to experts at the inquiry. The fact of the taking of the census and the Federal elections coming. together is likely to cause complications. Representations have been made from some* States to postpone the elections until after the census has .been taken. Mr F. O. Edlin, the new 7 AttorneyGeneral of Fiji, has arrived here from London.

MELBOURNE, February 18. The Postmaster-General (Mr Gurr) states that- the joint purse proposal in connection with the Pacific cable was first mooted at a conference, held in Sydney during the Commonwealth festivities, which included Mr Seddon. The proposal did not take definite shape until several weeks la.t9r. when the Victorian Cabinet, at the instance of Sir George Turner, decided to .approach the Queensland and New Zealand Governments..

Mr Seddon has since replied favouring the proposal, but Mr Philp, Premier of Queensland, has been again communicated with. Should Queensland agree, Victoria will then become a party to the Cape cable agreement. It is not known how the Eastern Extension Company will act in the matter. MELBOURNE, February 19. Holland, who murdered the infant, child of Mrs Geach at North Melbourne, has been found not guilty on the ground of insanity, and ordered to be detained during the Governor’s pleasure. The Reception Committee in connection with the visit of the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and York proposes to hold two processions—one on the day of their Royal Highnesses’ arrival, and one on the day the Federal Parliament is opened. The committee will erect three arches at a cost of £IO9O each, and the leading commercial bodies are to be asked to erect others.

There will be an elaborate military display.

BRISBANE, February 19. The Labour Executive has endorsed the candidature of Messrs A. Dawson, W. G. Higgs and J. C. Stewart, members of the State Assembly, for the Federal Senate.

The “ Sugar Journal,” commenting on Mr Barton’s attitude towards the coloured labour question, says that, ( he real issue has been entirely overlooked by the Premier in his utterances. Not only is there a danger to the sugar industry, but there is also a danger to any efforts to establish coffee, tea,

spices or any other tropical growths. The real question, it says, is the settlement of tropical lands, not only in North Queensland, hut also in the whole of tropical Australia. Comparatively few 7 persons realise the immensity of the whole problem. HOBART, February 19.

Sir Phillip Fysh has returned here after two years’ term of office as AgentGeneral in London. He intends to stand for the Federal and will probably be offered the Hon N. E. Lewis’s place in the Federal Ministry. At a public meeting held last night, at which the Rev Mr Paton, of the New Hebrides, was a speaker, resolutions were carried against further foreign aggression in the Pacific and in favour of Britain acquiring the New 7 Hebrides. The resolutions will be forwarded to the Right Hon E. Barton, the Federal Premier.