News of the Week

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXX, Issue XX, 16 May 1903, Page 1357

News of the Week

Shamrock 111. has been repaired, and ■has restarted her trials.

The Crown Princess of Saxony has given birth to a daughter. The Admiralty has planned four cruisers’ Wf' the Duke of Edinburgh type, with a speed of 22 knots and armour of the citadel design.

The Montreal employers and the longshoremen both refuse the offer of the Labour Department to intervene in the dispute which has arisen.

The; Columbia, last year’s defender ot the America Cup, beat the Reliance, the newly-built-yacht,-by a quarter of a mile in a seven-knot breeze.

The Dominion liner Hamilton rammed the Clyde liner Saganaw off the coast of Delaware. Twenty of the Saganaw’s passengers were drowned.

The Emerald, a steamer constructed on the turbine principle, has successfully crossed the Atlantic despite the severe gales prevailing at the time of her voyage.

The “Daily Express” states that the Haversham Grange brought from Buenos Ayres ,to, papetown 2,000 sheep and 250 cattle suffering from foot and mouth disease.

Not only with England is Germany experiencing difficulty in securing financial support for the Bagdad railway, for Swiss, French and Americans all threaten ftT itithdraw.

Conflicting Japanese political parties have arranged to expend a hundred and fifteen million yen (about two millions sterling) a year on their naval, programme during, the decade ensuing.

The second reading debate on the Irish Land Bill foreshadows a . protracted discussioil in co>mmittee. The Nationalists ask for wider concessions. The Government has promised fair consideration to all amendments in committee.

At a meeting of the Marylebone Cricket Club, 315 members voted in favour of widening the wickets, and 2!'9 against.-;/ The motion was therefore lost, a “twhSthirds majority being necessary under- the constitution of the club. Mr A. J. Balfour’s motor driver has been thrice fined for “scorching” when the Prime Minister has been riding. The Liberal press condemns Mr Balfour’s repeated breaches of a lawof his own mak•jng. - ■ i

The Rev. Mr Morrison, an American missionary, has reported to Lord Lansdowne that many flagrant cases of official atrocities arc reported in the Congo, and declares that there is no Government in the world so wicked, not even including-that of Turkey, as this Republic, with its population of a European race.

M. Rouvier, the French Minister for Finance, is introducing an Income Tax Bill with a new method of collection, which does not require declaration or inquiry as to its taxpayers’ financial position;’ Ifistead the amount of the tax will vary according to the taxpayer’s apparent circumstances.

The New York police, in consequence of a letter they received stating that the Mafia Secret Society contemplated the destruction of an English liner, discovered on board the steamer Umbria a box containing no less than a 1001 b of dynamite, fitted with mechanism which was actually working and arranged to explode within 36 hours.

Mr Chamberlain, replying to Mr Cathcart Wason in the House of Commons, said that on learning hereafter the Governor of Fiji’s views he would consider if an alteration of taxation was advisable. It would, he said, he unprecedented and ineonveneint to ask the Prime Minister of New Zealand for a report on the native regulations promulgated in Fiji. The proper method for the natives petitioning would be through the Governor. Ordinance 20 of 1887 was still operative. As at present advised he was of opinion that it was necessary to retain the powers of deportation.