BRITISH AND FOREIGN.

Otago Witness, Issue 2913, 12 January 1910, Page 24

BRITISH AND FOREIGN.

LONDON, January 3. Professor Lowell says that'the new Martian canals are strikingly evident, and denote the presence of an animate will. January 4. Upwards of 20,000 miners are now idle in the Northumberland and Durham districts. January 6. The Times reports that, with a view to securing to each port on the Atlantic seaboard of North America the benefit of its geographical position, the North Atlantic steamship lines propose to coordinate in the matter of freight rates to the extent of agreeing to a minimum tariff and the abolishing of nnremnnerative rates in connection with competitive traffic to interior points.

The New South Wales Agent-general has discovered that empty Australian branded butter boxes are collected in London and shipped abroad, especially to Malta, filled with margarine, which is sold as Australian butter.

The late Mr Ogden. Mills left a fortune yalued at £12,000,000. At the instance of Mr Rowland Hunt, M.P., the Post Office officials have issued % circular assuring all old-age pensioners of the security of their pensions.

Of the 280 members of the Stafford branch of t,he Amalgamated Society of Engineers i>Vy 28 participated in a, ballot regarding a membership levy of Is a head for a rjarliamentary propaganda. Of the 28 three voted in favour and 25 against the proposition.

January 6

Sir Edward Robert Murray was sentenced to six months' imprisonment for obtaining credits at hotels amounting to 38165 without first stating- that he was an undischarged bankrupt. Murray enlisted as a trooper in South Africa,' became a lieutenant-colonel, and was awarded the Distinguished. Service ■" Order!' " ; ■ ■'"/ t *

United States statistics show, that diamonds and pearls valued at £809,887 w«re imported into New York in 1909, fes compared with £2,572,570 in 1908.

January 7,

An official contradiction is given: to the yeport of the tour of the Prince ;of Wales's jons.r'•■;. - -->■' ■' ':'■■''. Mr Lloyd-George foretells a great boom in British trade during 1910. The impending issue of an Indian loan of seven millions and adialf ■ sterling- at 961, bearing 3£ per cent, interest, is announced. The underwriters'' commission jj. 2 per cent.

January 8. The authorities at the Greenwich Observatory estimate that Haliey's comet will make a transit across the sun on May 19. It will be visible in Australasia and Asia, but not in Europe. Though it is improbable that the comet will be of sufficient density to be seen silhouetted on the sun's disc, the spectroscope or spectroheliograph may detect its presence. BRUSSELS, January 6. The International Conference at Brussels on Gun-running has. failed as regards results through the unwillingness of some of the States to extend the present convention. BERLIN, January 4. There have been many ice accidents in Germany during the New Yeair's festivals, 11 persons being drowned. There were also 20 suicides and attempted suicides in this; city in two days. January 5. The German Commercial Treaties' Association states that the revised French tariff will deal a serious blow to German exports. It will principally destroy the market in chemicals, . machinery, pianos, and metal manufactures, and will annihilate the trade of Nuremberg. January 6. Germany's first flotilla of turbine torpedoers was commissioned yesterday. The majority of them travel at 34 knots. ST. PETERSBURG, January 4. The. Admiralty continues disorganised. The four proposed Dreadnoughts cannot be completed in due time without resource to foreign aid, and the Government works, which undertook to supply the armour-plate in two years, find it impossible to deliver the turrets and plates for a decade. January 6. The Czar, when visiting St. Petersburg in' connection with the funeral of the Grand Duke Michaelovich, was reconciled to the Grand Duke's son, who had been prohibited from living in Russia owing to his marriage with Countess Torby. M. Plancon, the head of the Far Eastern Department at the Russian Foreign Office, has been superseded for presenting the Minister of War with a memorandum alleging that Japan was preparing to attack Russia. ATHENS, January 7. King George's palace caught fire while the Royal Fa.nnilv ■ were celebrating the Greek Christmas. Eve. The British and ' Russian bluejackets assisted to extinguish the flames, arid in the rescue of art treasures and historic records.

*NEW YGBK. January 9. ■ The Federal Grand Jury of this city

has returned indictments against 140 mem- j bers of the Paper Boards Manufacturers' \ Association for forming a combination to restrict trade.' .; OTTAWA, January 4. ' j There, are now 1000 more . typhoid j patients in Montreal. A few deaths. : have occurred. January 9. Owing to the apathy of the munici-. pality of Montreal, the citizens have : organised an emergency hospital, towards Which Lord Strathoona has given £SOOO, ! and promised to give £20,000 to the sanii tation fund. Canada's revenue for nine months shows an increa.se of eleven million dollars (£2,200,000) compared with the same period of 1908. BATAVIA, January 9. \ Five hundred persons have succumbed i to malaria on the plantations near Batavia.