THE WORLD’S NEWS.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LX, Issue 143767, 16 April 1912, Page 3

THE WORLD’S NEWS.

The following cablegrams have appeared in the Australian papers that take the independent cable service; LONDON, April 5. The Berlin correspondent of the United Press Association says that since the failure of the British Government to disclose any tangible results arising out of Lord Haldane’s much discussed visit to Germany, Court gossips have been busy with the new theory that the real purpose of the journey had something to do with the possibility of a betrothal between the Prince of \Vales and the Princess Victoria Louisa of Germany.

There is hardly a responsible statesman or a close observer of affairs in either England or Germany who will now deny that he considers that war is a probability unless some form of rapprochement is effected in the near future.

The marriage altar might afford the desired solution of the difficulty. Louisa is tho only European princess worthy of tho notice of the British Court, and the Prince of Wales tho only Prince of sufficient importance to aspire to the hand of tho Kaiser’s only daughter. It is whispered, however, that tho Prince of Wales is not overjoyed at the prospect of marrying his Imperial second cousin.

BERLIN, April 5. Herr Karl Wiogand, the Berlin correspondent of the United Press Association. says that with 600,000 of a population of 2,500,000 in tho Kaiser’s capital crowded into oue-roomod dwellings, at tho rate of from five to ton persons to each room, the Berlin authorities are seriously concerned with the problem confronting them. Rapid as have been building operations in Berlin, they have not kept paco with the growth of tho city, the erection of now' houses having boon entirely confined to tho better residential sections of West Berlin.

The city is known the world over as tho one large city without tenements, and is indisputably the most modern and up-to-date capital in Europe. Tho cleanliness of its streets, of which so much is heard, has not been exaggerated, and sociologists hold up Berlin as a model. But this now Berlin, says Herr Wicgand, is the Berlin of progressive municipal administration, the Berlin that visitors see and praise. There is another Berlin that comparatively few see, and that sociologists do not know, across the fiver in tho oast and' tho north. There the authorities have the same sociological problems that confront the authorities of other cities. In the new Berlin there are 8000 to 10,000 empty flats ranging from two to nine rooms, while as many as thirteen have been found living in one room in the old part of the city.

A proposal is aboht to be laid before the (legislature for tho appropriation of £200,000 for tho erecuiou of small dwellings to bo rented at a rate within the reach of tho working classes.