BRITISH AND FOREIGN.

Otago Witness, Issue 3030, 10 April 1912, Page 23

BRITISH AND FOREIGN.

LONDON, April 1. The Prince of Wales has gone to Paris. April 2. In the House of Commons, in reply to a question, Mr Churchill stated that negotiations with Germany are progressing for an exchange of naval information. In the House of Commons the Temperance in Scotland Bill was read a second time. It provides for local option, 30 per cent, of the electorate being required to vote for a limitation of licenses, and a three-fifths majority being necessary for prohibition. April 3. The shareholders in Reuter’s Company have sanctioned an increase in the capital to £500,000 for the purpose of extending the company’s banking operations. April 4. Specie to tire value of £75,000 has been recovered from the Oceana. Gray and Stevenson have arranged a world's tour. They will leave in May. April 5. Lord Lister’s estate is valued at £65,190. He gives the Royal Society £IO,OOO, the hospitals £30,00*0, and the Lister Institute £20,000. Alfred Motley and C. A. Miller, who are described as wealthy American manufacturers, have been arrested, and will be extradited to New York on a charge of fraud, involving £20,000. Burglars clambered on to the roof and cut through a -wall of the premises of Mr J. Moore, jeweller, of Oxford street, and stole £IOO worth of jewels. Messrs Vacher and Sons sued the London Society of Compositors for libel, but the Court of Appeal decided that under the Trade Disputes Act a trade union was immune. Mr Justice Harwell, in dissenting, remarked that the libel was an absolute lie, and was peculiarly offensive. The Standard’s Berlin correspondent reports that the Imperial Chancellor, Herr Von Bethmann-Hollweg, is studying the question of taxing cats in connection with the new defence buidens. The Board of Trade has circularised all Government Labour Exchanges asking for 1000 unemployed who are prepared to emigrate to Australia. April 6. An entire mail train, which was travelling at a speed of 50 miles an hour, was derailed at Stockton-on-Tees. It ploughed up the permanent way for a quarter of a mile before being brought to a standstill on the edge of a precipitous embankment. The carriages were not overturned, and though the passengers were shaken, they wore not injured. April 7. During some motor cycle reliability trials across Dartmoor a. bull charged one competitor, and held him up for 20 minutes. The historic Gibbstown Castle at Meath has been partially destroyed by fire. The damage is estimated at £40,000. April 8. The Marchioness of Linlithgow has given birth to twin sons. All three are progressing satisfactorily. The Amalgamated Railwayman have refused the North-Eastern Company’s bonus of £60,000 to the lower-paid workers in order that the disputed claim for increased wages may remain in abeyance until the termination of the existing award. A number of Liberal churchmen, including the Bishops of Birmingham, Herefoid, Lincoln, and Weldon, have memorialised Mr Asquith protesting against Welsh disestablishment. A fire in Ipswich which commenced in a bedding factory in Princess street burned for 20 hours. It destroyed an hotel and a jeweller’s shop. The damage is between £IOO,OOO and £200,000. PARIS, April 2. Though his visit is private, the Prince of Wales received a great popular ovation. Jean Baptiste Joany, the head of a banking firm, has been arrested on a charge of swindling. His liabilities amount to £160,000. The sum of £l5O and some securities of little value were found on Ids premises. The Chamber of Deputies passed the Miners’ Eight Hours Bill by a large majority, and also ratified the Declaration of London. April 5. The Matin is organising an aeroplane race from Peking to Paris. April 6. Two Corsicans were killed at Ajaccio while fighting a duel over the municipal elections. Special balloons at Cherbourg raised a boat which had been weighted and sunk, representing a submarine. BERLIN, April 7. All Bavarian scholars under 17 years of age are prohibited from playing football, on the ground of recklessness and that they play too roughly, also that it may possibly have a coarsening effect on them. April 8. Professor Payr, of Leipzig, has transferred a piece of the thyroid gland of a healthy mother to an idiot child, who was completely cured in a month. ROME, April 5. Two persons were killed and 15 injured by an explosion of dynamite at Noble’s factorv, Avigliana. ATHENS, April 7. It is semi-officially stated that at the Turkish primary elections troops surrounded the polling buildings, and only allowed the suppox-ters of the Committee of Union and Px’ogress to enter.

' The Christians and Albanians .abstained from voting because the authorities had violated the ballot boxes. ST. PETERSBURG, April 3. Ten masked men invaded a restaurant at Rostoffondon in daylight. They killed the proprietor and cashier, and ordered the customers to put their hands up. Then they robbed them of their valuables, murdered' two waiters, and escaped. The Senate tried 146 Armenian revolutionaries for attempting to establish a Caucasian republic. Fifty-two were sentenced to various terms, ranging from three months' to six years' imprisonment. CAIRO, April 2. A force under Captain Wheatley, Acting sub-Governor at Kordofan, pursued and killed a Moslem fanatic and 11 followers, who were trying to create a rebellion. BELGRADE. April 3. An election crowd attacked Miskitch, one of the Alexander regicides. Miskitch fired his revolver, wounding three of his assailants. CONSTANTINOPLE, April 5. The Turkish Government seized a quantity of bombs and dynamite which were intended for Russia. An Armenian has been arrested. TEHERAN, April 2. There were 50 casualties among the worshippers in the Meshed Mosque on the occasion of the bombardment by the Russian troops. The ex-Shah's partisans were not wounded. April 5. Great Britain insists on the arrest of the real authors of the attack on Mr Smart, the Consul, who was recently wounded, instead of scapegoats as the condition precedent to the withdrawal of additional troops. WASHINGTON, April 2. The Supreme Court has decided that the Interstate Commission is empowered to compel the water lines to report the business done by them within the States equally with the business done between them,' thus reversing the decision of the Commerce Court. The State Governors, acting in concert, have appealed to the Federal Supreme Court against a decision of the Minnesota Supreme Court virtually transferring the States' control of railway rates to the Interstate Commission. April 5. In the House of Representatives Mr Humphrey has introduced a bill which is intended 'to break the foreign shipping rings. Any foreign-owned vessel violating the Sherman Anti-trust Law will be prohibited from ma-king an entrance to a United States port, and its mail contracts will be cancelled. NEW YORK, April 1. Mr John Arbuckle, a sugar millionaire, is dead. His estate is said to be worth four millions sterling. No will has been found, and no children survive him. His estate will probably be divided among his sisters. Two American artists of some note Robert Newman and Miss Louise Schofield, were found asphyxiated in their own homes, the gas having escaped accidentally. The deaths occurred almost at the same time. The parties were not acquainted. | At Waukessa (Wisconsin) a maniac attacked Senator Gore at the Oklahoma Club. A bystander knocked the man off the platform on which the Senator was standing, and a crowd of members overpowered him. The man is a Pole named Schomulta. April 4. A widespread conspiracy to dump foreign immigrants into the United States has been discovered. While Mr Rogers, the first aviator to cross the American continent, was soaring in a Wright biplane he fell 200 ft, I and was killed instantly. He is the twenty-second American aviator who has been killed. April 5. An engine which was drawing a freight train at Roseburg (Oregon) exploded and wrecked the cars, damaged the track, and killed the engineer and firemen. The others escaped. The engine was left a mass of twisted iron. TORONTO, April 5. There has been a valuable discovery of I a great range of iron ore in the Fort Frances district. Miners and experts are flocking to the district. The range extends for 70 miles. The mineral is of the highest class. Government inspection is promised. VANCOUVER, April 3. At Milwaukee the only Socialist mayor ' in the United States was defeated. All parties combined to drive the Socialises ou,t. Mayor Seidel had occupied the office for a year only. The citizens nomi- i nated Dr Badkinger against him, and the latter was returned with an overwhelming majority. SAN DIEGO. April 5. The Industrial Workers of the World, a Socialist organisation, have recently been disturbing the Pacific Coast from Vancouver to San Francisco. At a roundup in this city hundreds of them were compelled to kiss the American flag. 1 hen an armed force of citizens drove the whole of them from the district. CAPETOWN, April 4. The South African cricketers have sailed for England. The Miners' Phthisis Bill imposes on mine-owners an annual liability of £480,000, or 5 per cent, of the last 12 months' dividends. April 3. There have been 24 cases of plague in

Durban since the outbreak was discovered. CALCUTTA, April 1. The'first Indian Native to be appointed to an Anglican bishopric is the Rev. Azariah, who has been appointed to a new see in Southern India. April 3. The Portuguese commander, with 24 sailors, 60 police, and a detachment of soldiers, had a sharp fight at Caranjuim, i in tho Portuguese defeating 500 armed bandits, who had made an assault jon an hotel at Bicholim. Many bandits I were killed, and nine Portuguese killed and injured. TOKIO, April 3. The Minarayama cone on Oshima Island is in violent eruption. As streams of lava threaten the villages, the inhabitants escaped in fishing boats. The death is announced of General Baron Ishimoto, Japanese Minister of War. April 5. A private bill has been introduced in the "Diet to permit criminals sentenced to death to commit hara-kiri. m