INTERCOLONIAL.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXV, Issue 52, 29 April 1898, Page 19

INTERCOLONIAL.

Caule messages from Melbourne have announced that Mr. James Crotty, the well-known mining investor, who recently died in London, bequeathed about £ 100,000 to St. Patrick's Cathedral, of which £10,000 will be available immediately. A subsequent message states that the sum bequeathed will be nearer £200,000 than £ 100,000. The Rev. John O'Brien, S.J , has been provisionally appointed administrator of the diocese of Port Victoria, Northern Territory. The cable messages have announced that Dr. Higgins, auxiliary Bishop of Sydney, succeeds Dr. John Cani as Catholic Bishop of Rockhampton. The news is, we believe, premature, and probably means that the popular auxiliary Bishop of Sydney has been elected dignissimus by the priests of the Rockhampton. Sufficient time has not yet elapsed for arrangements being made at Rome for definitely naming Dr. Cani's successor. The '98 Centenary movement is being pushed forward in Perth, W.A. The leading members of the Catholic laity are taking an active part in it. Father Duff is in the thick of the movement. The hall at the Palace has been placed at the Committee's disposal for their meetings by the Bishop, who is entering heartily into the project. The movement so well initiated will be sure to go ahead right merrily. The new Premier for Queensland, in succession to Sir Hugh Nelson (resigned), is the Hon. J. T. Byrnes, the Attorney-General. Mr. Byrnes is recognised as one of the most promising of Australian statesmen, and is highly esteemed in the northern colony as an earnest and devout f3atholic. While in Rome recently he was favoured with the now somewhat unusual privilege of an interview with Leo XIII , and his impressions of the Holy Father were latelypublished. It is now many years since a Catholic ruled the destinies of an Australian colony. We have received from a correspondent an interesting account of the cider industry and its various processes in Aramoho (Wonganui). and of the latest developments of that promising industry in the hands of two enterprising fellow-colonists, Mm. Provost and Duflow. Extreme pressure on our space obliges us to hold the communication over.