News of the Week

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXX, Issue XXI, 23 May 1903, Page 1428

News of the Week

The P. and O. Company has declared r<;i interim dividend of 7 per cent, on deterred stock.

Messrs. Viljoen and Snyman, the Doer ex-generals, have secured 3030 acres in Alexiee for Boer emigrants.

Four of the Standard Oil Company’s barges, containing in all SOO,OOO gallons of oil, have exploded off Long Island.

The town of Mcrv, in Russian Turkestan, is flooded to a depth of eighteen feet. Many fatalities have taken place.

The House of Commons has agreed to an lid. income tax. a reduction of 4u. upon that of last year.

The British Government has invited Mr Marconi to attend the International Telegraph Conference, to be held in London.

The Mullah’? followers laugh at the small Avounds caused by the British solid bullets, and declare the Mullah causes them io heal quickly.

The French submarine boat Algerian was manoeuvring at Cherbourg when the quartermaster and several of the sailors were nearly asphixiated.

Lord Milner, High Comnisisioner for South Africa, lias been ordered complete rest. He will start for England in J uh.-.

The pomp of the Kaiser’s recent visit to the Vatican has excited much animadversion on the part of the Italian press.

There are 73,009 people starving in ths Nanningfu and Bunifu districts of China. Relief is being sent from Hongkong.

The Finns’ petition, as published in the “Times,” makes a pathetic protest against Russia’s barbarous outrages on personal liberty and Finnish citizens.

The annual assembly of the Congregational Union adopted a resohition condemning- tho Education Act and expressing sympathy with the policy of passive resistance to the bill.

3.1 r Alfred Moseley is organising a conunission similar to the industrial commission which lie sent at his own expense to America, only the present expedition will be to study education.

Mr AV. T. Maud, artist and war correspondent for the London “Graphic,” after a narrow escape during the recent attack on Colonel Gough’s column in Somaliland, died at Aden of syncope.

Tn the House of Commons Mr Chamberlain stated that all the recent interruptions on the Pacitic cable had occurred on the land line between Bamfield and Vancouver Ci tv.

A semi-official Note issued in Berlin complained that the British Government did not check anti-Germaa agitation, although the German Government resisted German public opinion in favour of the Boers.

President Roosevelt, speaking at San Franeiseo, said that the Isthmian Canal would make the Atlantic and Pacific coast lines practically continuous. He advocated acquisition of more fighting ships.

Replying to' a question in the House of Commons, Mr Arnold Forster said the Admiralty was satisfied with the English submarines. He declared that no recent Continental naval programme was so rapid and formidable as that of Germany.

The retirement of the Kaiser’s brother-in-law, Prince Bernhardt, of Saxe-Meinin gen from the Army is attributed to his denouncing the brutal tyranny of the non-commissioned officers towards the men, and recommending the latter to report their maltreatment.

The “Daily Mail” states that the approaching Afrikander, Bond Conference will be held at Graaf the object being that of establishing a corporation on the lines of the Army and Navy Stoyes, to control the entire trade of the colony. . b ' :.•

Colonel Montanar’s expedition, sent to punish the Alis, a cannibal tribe in Southern Nigeria, for an unprovoked attack upon the district commissioner, had three weeks’ stubborn fighting. The Alis lost heavily. The British casualties numbered 11.

The “Times” states that a Paris correspondent has revealed the fact that after tho Kaiser's famous despatch to Kruger during the excitement over the Jamieson Raid, at least four minor German courts remonstrated with the Kaiser, and profound dismay was expressed in Vienna,

The committee of the debentuie-hold-ers of the New Zealand Midland Railway is inviting their bond holders to state if they accept the Government’s offer of bonds instead of cash, and recommends them to accept the bonds, stating that it would be inadvisable to re-open the question, many members of the New Zealand Parliament being averse to paying anything.

The Synod of the Dutch Reformed. Church of Pretoria has adopted resolutions condemning the Government's policy cf education, on the grounds that it does not afford sufficient facilities for teaching the taal, and claiming that control of State schools ought to be eiia?, Usted to a re P res cntative committee, yhe Rev. Bosman declared that reconciliation was impossible under the present system. ,

Tho Russian newspapers are incensed at T.ord Lansdowne’s recent declaration with reference to the Persian Gulf, to the effect that Great Britain would regal <1 the establishment of a naval base or fortified port on the Gulf by any other Power as a very grave menace to British interests to be" resisted bv all the means at lisr disposal. They assert that Russia ivill continue the Trans-Caspian or Trans-Caucasian railway to Bandor Abbas.