GENERAL CABLES

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8363, 25 February 1913, Page 11

GENERAL CABLES

The following general cablegrams from its special service appear m the lydney “Sun”: LONDON, February 16. A constant stream of soldiery is passing through Constantinople on its way ;o tho theatre of war in Gallipoli. They are full of enthusiasm for a Holy War, and the press and the Government are playing on this religious sentiment with every means at their command. In the Gallipoli and Dardanelles fighting 3000 Turks have been wounded. Most of them have boon sent to Constantinople. Gallipoli is swarming with troops, and the Turkish fleet is lying in the Dardanelles. • , . A force of Ottomans from Chataldoja has, been transferred to Gallipoli to strengthen the army There. The loss of the Turkish battleship Assar-I-Tewfik was duo to a .blind obedience to discipline. The Turkish Navy is subordinate to the Army, and the commander of the ship was compelled to go too close to the shore in obedience to tho signals from tho military commanders. Tho Ottoman troops are incensed at the reports of massacre and rapine that have been current throughout tho war, and in which tho Turks are said to have committed all sorts of atrocities. Tho Bulgarians are equally indignant at the outrages ascribed to them, and it is expected that all tho hatred of tho past few months will come out in the big battle that is pending at Dnlair. A thorough disregard of all the conventions of civilised warfare is expected. Hakki Pasha denies that he is entrusted with an official mission to London in connection with the war. Ho arrived. on Saturday. “The Times” says that ostensibly he is in the metropolis on business connected with the Baghdad railway, but adds that it is impossible not to ascribe some connection between his presence and the Porte’s desiro to end the war. As a result of further unsuccessful negotiations _ regarding the action of frontier impinging in Dobrujola, a disputed region on the river Danube, a section of tho followers of the Roumamanian Government is advocating violent action. Should tho discussion between the two countries break down it is considered that the intervention of the Powers will bo necessary to avoid a sanguinary solution of tho question. Bulgaria refuses to give np Silistria, a frontier town, and the amended proposal from Itoumania threatens to cause a crisis. The Austro-Hungarian press contemptuously assails the conference of Ambassadors in London, and refers to it as the “London Tobacco Club,” “Shut it up,” says one of tho papers, while another remarks that at the penultimate meeting of the conference the time was spent in discussing the qualities of various. makes of tobacco. ' Tho blackest fog in which London has been enveloped for twelve years Was experienced yesterday. The conditions that prevailed were miserable in the extreme. The city was in complete darkness, and the drizzling rain that foil through tho soot-laden . vapour quickly spoilt everything in the way of light coloured wearing apparel. ■ At Hackney an infant was so distressed by the fog that it died. Three men lest their lives by falling into the Thames, and a soldier narrowly escaped drowning through walking into a canal, while a railway man was knocked,-down and killed by a train. At Mumbles Head, on the Welsh coast, the lighthouse foghorn was sounded continuously‘for 111 hours, the longest period for which it has ever been kept going. Commenting on the discussion which' is proceeding regarding the two expeditions that got to the South Pole, the "Observer” remarks: “We dp net say that Amundsen’s rivalry was an injustice to the British explorers, but Captain Scott was bitterly surprised to find the Norwegians on has flank. The fact inevitably changed the moral zest which was the life and soul of the men under extreme hardships, and' must have influenced the sequel.”. Mr Lloyd George, Chancellor of the Exchequer, is suffering,-from throat strain as a result of the session’s Talk, on 3 he is going to Italy on a motoring tour. Yesterday he said that land reform was the most vital question in Great Britain to-day. No,empire had over thriven when the population was weaned or driven from the soil, as had been tbo ease in Great Britain. National Insurance has succeeded beyond his moat sanguine dreams. Over 14,000,000 people are paying in, and over 13,000,000 of these are members of approved societies, and entitled in time of sickness to the benefits of the Act. A wealthy Chicago woman, Mrs EUa Dean, is starting a crusade in favour of “pleasant cemeteries.’' She thinks that burial grounds should be places for relaxation and artistic, inspiration, , instead of sources of ghostly atmosphere/ and gruesome associations. Manchuria is in a state of anarchy, and is overrun with bandits. Hr Theodore Roosevelt’s daughter Ethel is engaged to marry Dr Richard Derby, a Harvard graduate of 1903.: