LATE TELEGRAMS.

Otago Witness, Issue 1865, 19 August 1887, Page 21

LATE TELEGRAMS.

BRITISH AND FOREIGN. (Rbutbr's Telegrams.)

London, August 16.

In tbe House of Lords to-day Lord Onslow, Under-secretary of State for the Colonies, replying to a question,' stated that the British Government had been compelled to abandon the scheme for the international prevention of the sale of spirits and arms to the natives of the Western Pacific owing to the United States Government having refused to join in the scheme. His lordship added that the Imperial Government would gladly renew negotiations on the subject.

(Special to Press Association..)

London, August 16. E. J. Stone, MA., Radcliffe Observer ai; Oxford University, and who was appointed to organise plans for the observation of the transit of .Venus in 1882, is focussing the various observations made on that occasion with a view to their early publication. Mr Stone calculates that the distance of the earth from the sun is 92, 560,000 £ miles, with an uncertainty of a quarter of a million of miles.

The cholera in Northern India has assumed alarming proportions ; 70,000 deaths have occurred during June and July. , The Novoe Vremya characterises Lord Salisbury's speech as that of an optimist. It ridicules his belief that the probability of war has passed, and declares that it is merely the repugnance of the Emperor of Germany to war which preserves peace.

At a meeting of the unemployed sugar refiners it was decided to request the Government to facilitate the discussion on the sugar bounties question by Parliament. The success of the proposed conference on the subject in London is regarded as hopeless unless England is prepared to tax imports.

At the inquest on Madame Elmblad, held at Silva Plata, Switzerland, a verdict of " Committed suicide " was returned.

Thousands of quarrymen and factory operatives are unemployed in Wales owing to the drought there.

In a sculling match rowed at Saratoga lake between Bubear and Wallace Ross, the former won easily.