LATE CABLES.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XXXIII, Issue 11332, 29 July 1891, Page 2

LATE CABLES.

[By Electric Telegraph — Copyright.] (Per Press Association.) (Received July 29, 1.30 a.m.) Caclutta, July 28. Rain in the north-west provinces has averted a famine, but throughout India generally there is great scarcity of rain. The Indian Government have granted a sum of £10,000 for relief purposes. London, July 28. The death is announced of King Pomare, of Tahiti, Society Islands, Mr Henry John Atkinson, member of Parliament for Boston, Lincolnshire, has been suspended for a fortnight for writing an insulting letter to the Speaker of the House of Commons, and acciising him of altering the terms of his questions, Sydney, July 28. The London missionary schooner Harrier has been wrecked near Cookbown. The Eev, Mr Chalter3 and five others and the crew were saved, The depression in the intercolonial shipping trade is causing "great anxiety among the owners and investors of capital. Before the last strike severe depression was felt, which the losses ■occasioned by these strikes still .further accentuated, and there has been no improvement since, and future prospects are not bright. It is an open secret that serious consideration is being given to a proposal to lay. up a number of steamers, instead of two or three as at present. Companies are bitterly realising that the addition of more steamers to their fleets, with a view to obtaining a larger proportion of tride, has recoiled on themselves, there being no corresponding increase. Ever since each colony has been served with direct steamers there ha? been a creeping falling off in the interchange of merchandise between one port and another. Attention is being given to a scheme of an offensive and defensive alliance, in order to protect shareholders and investors for losses caused by individual companies competing in any trade outside its own, the idea being that, if any line is subjected to opposition, the alliance will make common causo against the opponent, deeming that such course is warranted by the present sacrifice of capital. The amalgamation of two Newcastle companies is almost completed, and arrangements are also ponding for the amalgamation of the John See line of steamers and the Clarence River Company, Notwithstanding the dullness of trade, it is understood that efforts are being made to form a company to enter the New Zealand trade,