NEWS FROM AMERICA.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 5598, 26 May 1905, Page 2

NEWS FROM AMERICA.

(From Our Own Correspondent.) NEW YORK. April 22. Yesterday tho mercury mounted to 7S in the shade, the warmest of the year thus far in this city, to bo succeeded in tho afternoon by a drenching thunderstorm, and to-day is cooler. Tho gradual warming up of tho atmosphere has had the effect the past few weeks of bringing out spring raiment of the summery styles, and. according to present indications, the New York girls will have garments of a more diaphanous nature than ever. It appeals that V effects at the neck and elsewhere in trimmings will bo the prevailing idea of tho raiment architect. If to-morrow proves fine the outlook for an Easter display of millinery will be realised on a gorgeous scale. The Fifth avenue crowds, although in lato years not including the genuine leaders «f fashion, are always a sight worth seeing on a line Easter Sunday. Of course the church music is always of special excellence and attractiveness on this date in tho calendar and groat numbers of sincere worshippers attend tho services, but it is a question whether in a place like this tney compare in numbers with those who go only to see and admire, not to participate. SOCIAL MATTERS. After Easter there is always a brief interval of a few weeks social gaiety, and then it is a programme of country houses, vacations, yachting, seaside, translantio toms, tennis, and tea until the cooler weather again. With the President hunting oeaxs and otherwise amusing himself in the west, the He ere tary of State abroad for his health and Congress resting on its haunches so to speak, the political situation is almost oppressively quiet, and thero is littlo probability of any excitement before next autumn. In Canada the winter social season has been confined to Ottawa and the provincial centres where local gaiety was possible in spite of blizzards. Tho neiv Governor-General will, according to present indications, be one of the most popular on record, and it is not likely that anything will happen to mar the regime so auspiciously begun. The Canadian Parliament will it is expected, soon adjourn after another prosperous but rather uneventful session. There is at present, in fact very little, on this side of North America at least, to attract world-wide attention. Peace and prosperity prevail in a very considerable degree, and the outlook as to business is rather more encouraging than for some time past. SHIPS AND SHIPPING. r

Some contracts for American shipyards seem at last to be in the wind, and- a little more activity before the year is out will not be surprising. Besides three or four ships possible for the Panama line, it is rumoured that additional tonnage will be constructed for Hawaiian service. Thou there are three proposed turbines for the Eastern S.S. Co., at a New England yard, and some other propositions under consideration. JAPANESE IMMIGRATION. _ At the luncheon on board the Great Northern Steamship Company’s new steamship Dakota, now loading in this port for Seattle, via the Straits of Magellan, on Tuesday, an over-anxious gentleman from the Pacific coast after extolling 'the growth and greatness of the Pacific, ports, expressed himself strongly against admission of. Japanese to free intercourse in this country. He thought that this Government should establish against them equal , restrictions as against the Chinese. His remarks did not elicit much applause, and, on the contrary, several hearty cries of “No; no!” A reply to the fear of Japanese immigration has been well voiced in a lengthy editorial in the “Boston Herald,” from which X quote:—“One is somewhat at a loss to understand why, at this time, an agitation against Japanese immigration should be started on the Pacific coast, and even in Texas. The Japanese are not threatening to over-run the country, or any part of it. There are not enough of them to justly occasion the feeling that nrevailed in the early eighties and led to ihe passage of the stringent anti-Chinese immigration statutes. They number at homo only tens of millions, where the Chinese number hundreds of millions. There is no sort of danger that they will overwhelm this country or any part, of it. . . . It is estimated that there may bo in the jurisdiction of the United States at. the present time possibly 125,000 Japanese. As many xtussians—that is, subjects of Russa—have come into the country within the last eight months. It is not at all certain that the latter are preferable, either as labourers or in respect of their morals, intelligence, and assimilating Quality. Why are we borrowing trouble about the relatively feeble immigration from Japan? It will be years before it can become an alarming factor in the body politic, if it ever would. There is no reason to think it cannot ho as easily dealt with as the great mass of immigrants from Eastern Europe with which we are being gorged many of them such as keep the industrial world in a ferment, being by nature and training haters of all government and disseminators of the principles of socialism and anarchy.” A POWERFUL LOCOMOTIVE. Three thousand miles without a stop, and at the rate of 100 miles or more an hour is the capacity of a new type of locomotive which has been ordered by the Southern Pacific Railroad. The locomotive, or really power-house on wheels, is entirely different from anything now in use. The machine is what is known as the four-stroke cycle. There is a .compressed air reservoir, from which the power is obtained starting. This gives the piston its first stroke, when it takes in the air alone at atmospheric pressure and temperature. The second stroke compresses tills air and raises it to a temperature of about one thousand degrees Fahrenheit. The third stroke is what is known as the working stroke. The oil is sprayed into the hot air, the amount being regulated by governors. During the first part of this stroke the combustion of this oil is carried on at a constant pressure for a period that is regulated by the amount of oil sprayed. _ The second part of the stroke is practically an expansion, with transference of heat and the fourth stroke exhausts the gases. CABLE HAYING. In spite of all the talk, of wireless telegraphy and the many claims advanced of what can be done in transmitting messages for long distances the cable companies continue to extend their lines. The Commercial Cable Company is now preparing to lav its fifth transatlantic cable. This will, be stretched between Canso, N.S.. and Waterville. Ireland, the terminals of the four cables the company how owns. The new line will be laid a ,ittle farther to the north than wero'its predecessors, and the distance covered from land to land will be about 220 D miles. The cable varies in thickness, being more heavily protected at the shore ends, which are in shoal water than in midocean; but it will require the use of 1,330, 000 pounds of copper to make this pable, and when completed itnvill weigh

something like 8000 tons, or a full cargo for a good-sized freight steamer. MONTREAL. An agitation is on in Canada to make Montreal and some of the other ports free ports under supervision of the Dominion Government. Montreal finds itself in a dilemma as to its harbour. The shipping interests have protested that they can stand nothing more of taxation and levies. An increase of exactions might drive them away to ports eager to welcome them, it is stated that it might not be difficult to persuade tho Government to take over the port, thus bringing immediate relief both to shippers' and to the city. Yet there is a matter of self-respect in volvod—a point but little understood by American cities—for Montreal takes some pride in being self-supporting. But self-support, it is almost willing to confess, is coming dangerously near to spelling suicide. Hero is a j)ort open only six months in tlio year, vet one that, through tho short-sightedness of railroads on this side of the line has become a boastful rival of New York open all the year. The Dominion would not hesitate long to vote the maintenance of this rivalry.