Late European News

Otago Witness, Issue 181, 6 August 1886, Page 15

Late European News

The following cablegrams have appeared in the Melbourne Age : —

The Times states that a majority of the Executive Commissioners for the Colonies at the Colonial and Indian Exhibition support the Congress of Chambers of Commerce in opposing the proposition that the site for the projected colonial museum and permanent exhibition should be at Kensington. The Times further states that it will not be necessary for the colonies to contribute annually towards the maintenance of the exhibition, but that a lump sum at the outset would be all that would be needed. Five colonists have guaranteed £5000 each for the support of the iiibtitution.

Earl Rosebery* has officially notified M. Waddington the final determination of the Cabinet with regard to the New Hebrides. It is impossible, Lord Rosebery states, that England can permit France to annex the New Hebrides. The Russian fleet is now menacing Quelport, an island at tho entrance of the Yellow Sea, about 60 miles south of Corea.

The Prince of Wales being unable himself to accept the invitation offered him to visit Australia, desires that his eldest son (Prince Albert Victor) should be asked to perform the opening ceremony at the Jubilee Exhibition to be opened in Adelaide next year. Canada is sending some excellent exhibits.

The scheme for the formation of a ship canal between Liverpool and Manchester has collapsed. In the voting throughout the electorates of Great Britain at the general elections the Conservatives and Unionists of the Liberal party pollpd'an aggregate majority of 7/6,00,0 votes qyer the total number recorded in favour of candidates who came forward as supporters of Mr Gladstone's Home Eule policy.

The Rev. Dr Robert Neiyton Young has been elected President of the British Wesleyan Methodist Conference.

Political offenders' will be excluded from the operation of the amended extradition treaty now under consideration by the Governments of Great Britain and the United States, the professed object of which is to include within the scope of the treaty persons guilty of using dynamite aud other explosives. By the exemption of politioal offenders the amended treaty will probably hi rendered utterly valueless to England. At the hearing of the evidence in tho divorce case Crawford v. Dilke, Mrs Crawford swore that Sir Charles ©ilke had admitted that the woman " Fanny," Mrs Rogerson, and Mrs Smith were all former mistresses of his own. Ashton DUkei brother of co-respondent, deposed that

Sir Charles Dilke had offered to pay respondent an annuity provided she retracted the inculpatory statements she had made regarding him. Some lodgers in the house where respondent had lived gave evidence tending to show that she had been improperly intimate with co-re-spondent. The decree of divorce in the case has been confirmed. Sir Charles Dilke has published a farewell address to his late constituents, in which he states that he is sensible of the fact that his political career has for ever closed, but still protests his innocence of the charges laid against him. The Times, commenting on the case in a leading article, reflects severely on the co-respondent, alludes to the effrontery of Sir Chas. Dilke during the time that the case was pending, and says it is certain that bis name will be removed from the list of Privy Councillors, for he has been convicted of wholesale perjury and of suborning witnesses. It is necessary, the Times further declares, that the Crown should carefully consider whether Dilke should not be prosecuted, and it expresses a belief that the exposure of his conduct has been so complete that he will take the earliest convenient opportunity of quitting the country. The Pall Mall Gazette, alluding to the case, says there is a likelihood that the idea at present eutertained of Sir Chas. Dilke's guilt will be diminished, but it insists that it is essential the woman " Fanny," who would have been the best material witness, but who disappeared mysteriously, should be found, and that Sir C. Dilke should either prosecute the respondent (Mrs Crawford) for slander, or be himself indicted for perjury. The press is unanimous in condemning Sir C. Dilke's connection with the case. Baron Macleay, reported to have been commissioned by the Russian Government to proceed to German New Guinea for the purpose of founding a Russian colony, has written a letter 1o The Times denying that his Government had any intention of establishing such a colony. Baron Macleay, however, adds that he proposes to revisit New Guinea shortly to forward a private autonomous settlement which has been projected by some Russians.