LATE CABLE NEWS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1628, 13 May 1903, Page 32

LATE CABLE NEWS.

LONDON, May 10. Mr Barnes, general secretary of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, has warned the local secretaries of. the Clyde branches of the association that they will be held personally responsible it they distribute benefits or incur expenses in connection with the stoppage of work m the Clyde engine works, where six tnousand men are on strike owing to the masters notifying their intention of reducing wages.

LONDON, May 11.

The Hongkong correspondent of u Tiie Times,” in announcing the arrival there of the Spartiate from Plymouth, states that if she becomes the flagship of the Australian squadron the colonies will secure the most economical and the best steaming cruiser in the navy. [The Spartiate, which was built in IS9B, is a first-class cruiser of 11,000 tons. She carries 16 guns, and has a speed of 20 \ knots.] The dissatisfaction of-Unionists at the action of the Government in abandoning the corn tax is increasing. Mr T. C. Ritchie, Chancellor of the Exchequer, is receiving many indignant protests. An unknown. donor has guaranteed three hundred thousand pounds for the modernisation and rebuilding of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, London. The Benidir and Kabyles tribesmen of Morocco are threatening the port of Tetuan. n . Muley Arafa, the Sultan’s uncle, alter a sanguinary fight, retired into the town. The insurgents are encamped in the outskirts. Th© Board of Agriculture has practically prohibited the importation into Britain of live cattle from the Argentine and Uruguay, owing to the prevalence in those countries of foot and mouth disease.

PARIS, May 10.

M. de Santos Dumont, the Brazilian aeronaut, ascended in a navigable balloon at Paris, and carried out successful ovolutions. M. Debaud'y also ascended in a steerable balloon at Nantes. The weather was rainy and windy. Ihe aeronaut travelled twenty-three miles in ninety minutes, and made various evolutions at an altitude of three huudred metres (about 934 feet). ~ NEW YORE, May 11.

Ooiolie riots have occurred a,t Berbice, British Guiana, on the north-east coast of South America. The. police fired on the rioters, killing Bix and wounding seven. OTTAWA, May ,11.

By a fire at Ottawa three hundred! houses were destroyed and a thousand persons rendered homeless. The damage is estimated at a million and a half dollars (£300,000). An incendiary has been arrested for firing a lumber-yard where the conflagration started. SYDNEY, May 11.

At the stock sales at Homebush today, the supply of sheep was below requirements, and competition was keen. Prices were the highest reached since the boom of last year. Best wethers fetched 19s, extra 22s 6d, good 16s to 16s 6d, best.ewes 17s 6d, extra 21s, good 15s to 16s. Cattle also sold at improved values. Best bullocks realised £l2, extra £l-5 7s 6d, good £lO 10s : best cows £9, extra £9 10s, good.£7 ss. Best beef brought 32s per 1001 b. An examination of the steamer Balmoral, which collided on Saturday with the tug Victoria at Newcastle, shows that the damage is more serious than was at first thought. It will be necessary to discharge a portion of her cargo of coal (five thousand tons intended for the Admiralty at Hongkong) to allow a proper survey to be made. At a meeting of the New South Wales Unionist League, the president said he believed that arrangements could be made by the British and French Governments to buy some of the New Hebrides or Solomon Islands as a place of refuge for persecuted European Jews. He had communicated these views to Dr Herze, . founder of the League, whose reply, however, was unfavourable. MELBOURNE, May 11. The federal Postmaster-General (Mr J. G. Drake) has arranged with the Union Company and the Huddart-Parker Proprietary for a new tri-weekly mail service between Launceston and Melbourne. It is probable that the federal Parliament will meet on May 26th.