NEWS OF THE WORLD.

Otago Witness, Issue 2985, 31 May 1911, Page 53

NEWS OF THE WORLD.

The following items have appeared in the Australian papers employing the independent cable service : —• LONDON, May 14. Following Mr Asquith's recent Home Rule speech, attention is being focussed on the resuscitation of Ireland's political clubs formed 20 years ago. It is estimated that these clubs now have a membership of 200,000 or 25,000 more t/han they had in 1893. The Orange bodies are co-operating with the Irish Unionist Associations, and organisation is proceeding on up-to-dajfce lines wjith the object of making possible the mobilisation of every able-bodied Unionist in a few hours. Political circles outside Ulster do not regard seriously the threats of civil war, yet in the province itself the matter is not treated as a joke, and the Government is fully alive to the gravity of the situation. . , . , The dramatic circumstances m which an inventor was overtaken by death were related yesterday at an inquest held in Poplar on the body of Charles Bratt Bratt was an aged man, and a sawmill engineer, who had given nearly all the years of his life to perfecting a machine. He had at last succeeded m his task, and, having given the first working demonstration of his invention he was receiving the congratulations of those present, when, with terrible suddenness, he expired from heart failure. Messages received in Berlin yesterday report an extensive discovery of diamonds in German East Africa. The Red Cross organisation in the United States has cabled £IOOO to China for the relief of the famine sufferers, making a total of £14,000 in cash m addition to £9OOO worth of supplies, that it has sent. The Portuguese .revenue has been greatly decreased by the partial failure of the wheat' crop and vintage. A Lisbon message states that the country is feeling the loss of the money taken away by the exiled royalties. The Emperor of Japan has presented to Miss Maria Wolters, of Boston, U.S., a diploma of honour, and a silver loving cup, in recognition of her gift of £IOOO -to the famine sufferers in the northern part of Japan a few years ago. The Home Rule Union in Dublin has already set about enrolling the 2000 speakers who are wanted to lecture throughout the United Kingdom under the auspices of the Liberal party. May 16.

' Mr Alexander has just retired from the White Star Company's service after a unique record, the whole of his seafaring career of 38 years having been spent with that company.* He was chief engineer of the Britannic when she took the' Imperial Contingent to Australia, for the Commonwealth celebrations. May 17. Dr William Lloyd, the well-known throat specialist, who has been in attendance upon 'Signor Caruso, says that the famous' tenor has completely recovered from the effects of his throat trouble. At a meeting of subscribers to the National Art Collectors' Fund yesterday Sir Edgar Vincent suggested the imposition of a duty on all works of art sold for export. Sir Edgar said that the value of pictures that left England every year wis between £1,000,000 and £2,000,000, and that a 10 per cent, duty would provide sufficient funds for the purchase of three or four pictures of considerable merit. May 18. _ There is just now a dog-stealing epidemic in London. One thief showed his contempt for authority and incidentally a rather fine sense of humour by actually stealing the bulldog belonging to Sir Melville Macnaghten, Chief of the Criminal Investigation Department. The workmen who for months past have been excavating mud in the River Wye, at Chepstow, have practically uncovered the timbers beneath which Dr Owen hopes to find certain relics that will prove his edition that Bacon was the author of the works attributed to Shakespeare. The opinion grows, however, that the laborious undertaking on which Dr Owen and his men have been engaged so long is about to be abandoned.

DUBLIN, May 15. It is officially announced by the promoters of the Galway-Halifax Steamship Co. that a suggestion will be brought before a colonial conference that the proposed harbour at Galway should be fully 400 acres in extent, and capable of dealing with the largest trans-Atlantic steamers. The undertaking is to cost £1,000,000, in addition to which Galway proposes to spend £70,000 on railway construction, including the necessary station accommodation, at the new harbour. PARIS, May 16. Mdlle. Lina Cavalieri, the famous Italian prima donna, whose marriage with Mr R. W. Chanler, a member of the Astor family, created such a stir last year, fears to face an American audience until her matrimonial troubles have been settled. In her absence of an assurance from her lawyers that they will be able to expedite the divorce for which she has applied, Mdlle. Cavalieri has instructed her agents not to sign any American contracts. The French Socialists are disgusted with the Government's old-age pension scheme. They say that it falls far short of the British system, the beneficiaries under which are not required _ to make any contributions. The Socialists strongly object to deduction from wages for a benefit which few live to enjoy. It is pointed out that although there are 1,500.000 workers under 65 earning less than 3000 francs (£120) who should have registered, only 37,000 did so. Referring to the low birth-rate in this country, Dr Bertillon, the famous anthropologist, says that there is no reason, psychological or economic, why France should not increase as other nations,, and.

no motive for her resigning herself shamefully to race suicide.

BERLIN, May 15. The approaching visit of the King of Servia to Budapest, the Hungarian capital, is greeted throughout the dual monarchy with expressions of satisfaction. King Peter's visit is regarded as indicating the disappearance of the last trace of the quarrel over the annexation of the Bosnian provinces, which in 1908 threatened the peace of Europe, and as an acknowledgment of the victory of Austrian policy. Captain Hartwig Schubert, a wellknown army officer, contends that Germany's navy is really a peril to the nation's power. He further holds that the Kaiser's ships are a dangerous source of irritation to England, and is convinced that the fleet would be powerless to protect Germany's oversea trade. On the other hand, Dr Ludwig Sevin, a leading statistician, is endeavouring to prove that Germany to-day is spending a smaller proportion of her wealth upon armaments than any other European Power.

CONSTANTINOPLE, May 16. The newspaper Rumali publishes an article to-day in which it attacks Zionism, declaring that it is simply and solely a cloak for German schemes for the canonic conquest and exploitation '""f Mesopotamia. These views are shared by prominent Turks, who profess to find evidence to support them in the fact that the chief Zionist propagandists are German subjects and in the Anglophobe tendencies of their newspapers. May 17. The first aero-taxi will be put into service in Switzerland. It is intended to carry passengers on short flights into the country at fixed rates per kilometre. The State Legislature in Illinois has passed a measure ' under which considerable restrictions are imposed upon the " yellow " journals with regard to the publication of immoral or revolting details in divorces, .murders, and executions. The Standard Oil Company has made it clear that it does not intend to take up any contumacious attitude with regard to the Supreme Court's adverse judgment. The intention of the company is to obey the decree. It was announced to-day that some time would elapse _ before the company's plans of reorganisation would be given out. fo May 18. Tenders have been invited for _ a £10,000,000 loan at 3 per cent, to reimburse the Treasury for the outlay on the Panama Canal. The loan is intended as a first instalment to cover the huge amount already expended on the great waterway. ROME, -May 18. Prince Salem, a cousin of King Victor Emanuel, has been expelled from the Naval Academy .at Leghorn on suspicion of bavins appropriated money from his fellow students. LISBON, May 17. Shouting at .the top of their voices, " Death to the professors!" the students at a mission college rose in mutiny yesterday. They raided all the rooms, wrecking every "stick of furniture on which they could lay hands, and put the professors to flight. 'So terrified were the professors that they got out of the college as soon as the disturbance started, but most of them were compelled to 'jump., out of the windows. PEKING, May 12. The Government has agreed to pay an indemnity to any of the American doctors who, while fighting the plague, may be stricken with the disease. In the event of death their families will receive £I3OO. TOKIO, May 12. A discovery made to-day indicates that another anarchist plot is being concocted in Japan. A trunk which was seized by the authorities on board a coasting vessel was found to contain a quantity of explosives, bullets, and percussion caps, all of which had been stolen from the naval station at Maizuru, and were being despatched to well-known anarchists. One of the Tokio newspapers says that Dr Sen has established an association in the Yangtse Valley to ferment a rebellion, and that the uprising is expected to eventuate in the summer. WASHINGTON, May 14.

In his evidence before the Finance Committee of the Senate yesterday, Mr Wilkinson, a Minnesota farmer, declared that the reciprocity agreement with Canada would mean a loss of £8,000,000 annually to the farmers in the north-west. "No agreement," added the witness, " wo'uld have been entered into which would have injured the Steel Trust to that amount." May 17. In the opinion of prominent lawyers, the prosecution of the Steel, Beef, Bath-tub, Electric, Coal, Paper, Glass, Steamship, and Sugar Trusts is likely to be seriously affected by the judgment secured by the Government against the Standard Oil Company. It is not improbable that the proceedings against some of the smaller combines will be abandoned.

NEW YOKE, May 12. Speaking last night at the celebration of the golden jubilee of Cardinal Gibbon's ordination in the priesthood, Judge Dowling referred to the remarkable growth of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States. Judge Dowling pointed out that while in 1808 the church had two bishops and 69 priests, to-day it was represented by 13 archbishops, '97 bishops, 17,000 priests, and 13,461 churches, with a membership of 15,000,000. May 15. An extraordinary outbreak occurred yesterday evening among the congregation of St. Casimir's, a Polish church in Cleveland, Ohio. Dissatisfied with the manner in which the affairs of the church had been conducted by the Rev. Ignatius Plotrowski, the worshippers_ set about effecting the removal of their pastor I#/ force. The disturbance developed into a regular riot, during which two persons were killed and 10 others seriously injured. OTTAWA, May 16. M a iresiul-t of recent decisions by .Quebec judges Nullifying marriages of

Catholics by clergy other than those belonging to the ' Catholic Church, the Primate of Canada, the Most Rev. S. P. Matheson, has issued ft Pastoral Letter in which, while deprecating such marriages, he insists that they are not dissoluble by Rome. The Pastoral prohibits the clery' from remarrying divorcees during the life of either party. By a majority of 33 votes the Dominion Government last night escaped a motion of censure. The motion was one characterising as scandalous the patronage system of filling public appointments through local party committees. The specific complaint was against the appointment of census enumerators being in the hands of a man who had assisted the escape from justice of three returning officers who had been convicted of ballotstuffing frauds. The motion was rejected by 84 votes to 51. May 18. Bairrington Foote, the erstwhile famous English baritone, who used to sing with Madame Patti at Covent Garden 25 year 3 ago, is at present in BlackweH's Island Hospital. He is suffering from nervous breakdown, and is declared to be in destitute circumstances.