CABLE NEWS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1678, 27 April 1904, Page 58

CABLE NEWS.

LONDON. April 21. Tlie British mission in Thibet destroyed the Towers Gate, a fort at Gyantse. They found scores of human heads, frashly decapitated, in a room in the fort. Sir Michael Hicks-Beaoh, who is a recognised authority on Church matters (he was appointed a Church Estates Commissioner in 1893), has been appointed chairman of a Royal Commission to inquire into the question of ecclesiastical disorders. The Archbishop of Canterbury (Dr Davidson), the Bishop of Oxford (Dr Paget), Sir Francis Jeune (a Judge of the High Court and a member of the Privy Council) and Sir Edward Clarke, K.C.. are among the members. Official figures show that the wheat crop for last season was 2,426,000 bushels —an average of 17.65 bushels Der acre. The bodies of the crew of tlie .submarine boat Al, which was sunk in collision during naval manoeuvres off the Isle of Wight on March 18th, were buried) witih military honours. _ An inquest has been opened. Captain Bason, commander of the submarine flotilla, deposed that Lieutenant Mansergh evi-,-dently sighted the liner when 150 ft off, and dived!. With three seconds more he would have gone clean under fhe liner. If the crew had not been stunned by the shock, the submarine boat could have reached the surface. An avalanche at Pragelato, Turin, buried huts containing one hundred miners. LONDON, April 22. The Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company has arranged with the Imperial Government for the extension and improvement of its Eastern service for a minimum ot three years, with the proviso that tne company may retire from the Australian line —relinquishing a portion of its subsidy ■— if Commonwealth legislation debars the company from participating in coastal trade, which is essential to profit on the Australian mail line. LONDON, April 23. Tlie Chamber of Commerce and teaplanters at Colombo have protested against the increase olf 2d proposed in the tea duty by Mr Austen Chamberlain. Chancellor of the Exchequer, in his Budget speech last week. They complain that the dutv imperils the colony’s trade. The “Daily Mail” states that M. Lepere, director of the Cent rail Industrial! Loan Bank, Paris, has disappeared. TTiq liabilities amount to a million and a half sterling. Two.of M. Lepere’s co-directors have been arrested. Tlie contract for American ownership of the Panama Canal has been signed at Paris. [The Panama Canal _ Company, a French organisation, receives £8,000,000 from the United States for its interests in the Panama Canal, including the portion already constructed.] The death is announced of Bishop Hobhouse, formerly of Nelson, aged eighty-seven years. Lord Plunket kissed King Edward’s hands on liis appointment as Governor of New Zealand. The commander of the cruiser Retribution. has heen instructed .to take strong measures to enforce Britain’s demands on Nicaragua, Mr George Coates and Miss Taylor Blaoke, of New Zealand, have had their pictures accepted by the Paris Salon. The official celebration of King Edward’s birthday, has been fixed for June 24fch * BERLIN. April 20.

Estimating that the Herreros revolt in German South-west Africa has already cost the settlers 7,000,000 marks (about £345,000), the Government is asking the Reichstag to compensate them to the-extent of .2,000,000 marks (about £100,000). BERLUN, April 22. News has new been received that Major Glasenopp’s column—which has been operating against the rlerrerots in German South-west Atrica, and regarding the fate of which considerable anxiety was felt —is safe at Unyatu.

VIENNA, April 20. A State railway strike has occurred in Hungary, owing to the demand of the men for an' increase in wages. The strikers are running trains bringing the strikers to Buda-Pesth, where numerous arrests have been made. VIENNA, April 21. Sixty thousand railway men have struck work in Hungary. This has had the effect of disorganising tlie railway, postal and telephone systems. ST. PETERSBURG, April 20. One of the victims in the Hotel Nord explosion, who has not been identified, was found to be in possession of forged documents. Tho police are convinced from the documents seized that the bombs were intended to be used against Ministers attending the weiccj" , o to the survivors from the Far East vri the Varyag and Koreetz; also, at the unveiling of tho monument of Alexander 111., at Moscow, in the presence of the Czar. Three hundred girls have been excluded from the higher schools in St. Petersburg for taking part in a seditious demonstration. The railway strike in Hungary is due to the long obstructionist crisis preventing Parliament attending to the men’s demands. Among the curious incidents reported was the case of a. goods train which was approaching Buda Pesth. The strikers lay on the line in front or tlie engine. The driver stopped the train, and with the stoker joined tlie strikers. VIENNA, April 22. Count Stephan Tisza, the Hungarian Premier, has caused the arrest of a thousand strikers. He has offered to grant- a general amnesty if work as resumed, and has also agreed to the formation of a railway trade union, -and promised a Bill! regulating the service. Tho strike committee will submit the Premier’s offer to a mass meeting. The Strike has extended to Croatia and Transylvania, and all traffic in the direction of the * Balkans, Turkey and Switzerland has been stopped. The loss to the State is 4,000,000 kroner (£225,000) per day. Tho law Courts are paralysed, and theatricals, concerts and weddings postponed. Racehorses worth half a million pounds have been left in the trains in the open. PARIS, April 21. M. Dolcassa, French Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Sir Edmund Monson, British Ambassador in Paris, have signed an additional clause in the Anglo-French agreement providing for tho institution of postal orders available in either country. NEW YORK, April 20. Mr W. F, Powell, American Minister of the Dominican Republic-, has threatened to seize the Customs to protect the Americans against foreign creditors. [San Domingo has been a considerable field for American enterprise. Large sugar plantations and factories have been established there, and other industries have been freely developed. The country is bring opened up by railways.] . Britain demands heavy _ indemnity against Nicaragua for the seizure- of the Cayman vessels. [Nicaragua, in the early part of April, seized six Cayman Island schooners engaged in turtle fishing, and imprisoned the crews. The captains claimed that the schooners were fishing outride the territorial limit.] NEW YORK. April 22.

The Chicago hoy bandits, Niedormeyer, Vandimo and Marx, have heen hanged. Niedormeyeti opened an airtery, and had to be carried to the scaffold.

OTTAWA, April 20. A disastrous fire has occurred in Toronto, Canada.

Many acres of buildings in tlie wholesale business part of the city were destroyed. OTTAWA, April 21.

A hundred and thirty buildings Avere destroyed in the fire at Toronto. Six thousand persons aire thrown out of (employment. The damage is estimated at thirteen million dollars (£2,600,000). The insurances total nine million dollars (£1,800,000), chiefly in British offices. [Toronto, the capital of Ontario, is tho second city in Canada, and in 1901 its population numbered 208,040.] CAPETOWN. April 21.

In connection with the arrest of seven ex-burghers by tine Constabulary near Lydenburg, in the Transvaal, a leading Afrikander states that three ex-rebel commandants in Great Namaqualand (north of Cape Colony) are conducting an active revolutionary propaganda., and have established a secret society, the penalty of treachery to which is death. Transvaal volunteers are mobilising extensively, and hiring means of transport. The Constabulary is recruiting. Boer leaders are preparing to formulate a demand for* representative government ait a Boer Congress to be held at Pretoria in May. The Transvaal Chamber of Commerce excitedly protests against the instructions of Mi'. A. Lyttelton. Secretary of State for the Colonies, that all departmental supplies for tk> Transvaal must be purchased through agents of the Crown. All notices of local tenders are annulled*

Sir Arthur Lawley. Governor of the Transvaal, states that the C-rown. agents base their claim on the ground' of immemorial prerogative. . CAPETOWN. April 21. Mr W. T. Stead lias abandoned his visit to Australia ana saued homewards. Otherwise the Premier (Dr Jameson) would have taken action against him for his recent inflammatory and seditious speeches. The students at Stellenbosch (near Capetown) frequently turned King Edward’s portrait to the wall, and are wearing the Vierkleur ribbon. CAPETOWN. April 22. In the Legislative Council the Representation Bill was read a second time by a majority of one vote. CAPETOWN, April 23. The Legislative Council carried the third reading of the Representation ±siil by twelve votes to ten. [The second reading was carried by one vote.] SYDNEY April 21. Plague-infected rats have been found in a disused building in the Belmcire Markets, situated in the city. [The Belmore Markets, constructed at a oost of over £30,000, are used principally for the sale of vegetables, fruit and market-garden produce.] SYDNEY, April 24. A man has been attacked by plague at Mairrickville, a suburb about three miles and a half from Sydney. He worked at the Belmore Markets, :n the city. Of seventy-five rats captured m these markets, twenty-two were infected with plague. BRISBANE, April 23. Another case of plague has been discovered here.