LONDON GOSSIP. ANGLO-COLONIAL NOTES

Evening Post, Volume LXXXV, Issue 31, 6 February 1913, Page 2

LONDON GOSSIP. ANGLO-COLONIAL NOTES

A BOXING DAY STORM. (From Our o**! Correspondent.) LONDON, 27th December. The weather for the Christmas season promised to be exceptionally mild, but the people's holiday, Boxing Day, was one of the roughest days on record, and the cyclone brought distress all around the British coasts. The P. and 0. liner Narrung, full of emigrants from London, ran into the teeth of the storm off Ushant. Lying in Plymouth the battle cruiser New Zealand had part of her topmast and wireless gear carried away, and simultaneously the Ruahine, just arrived off the Sound from New Zealand, had to give up the idea of entering and turn" her nose straight up-Channel for London. A THREE-CHAffi UNIVERSITY. The great German port of Hamburg is thoroughly alive to the future of Germany over tho seas. It is here that the German Colonial Institute has for some years given a class of education which is not, adequately provided for in England— hamely, instruction in the languages, the economics, and the go> vernment of oversea dominions. It is j evidently in development of this institution that the Hamburg merchants have now decided on the formation of a university, commencing with t-hrde chairs— jurisprudence, philosophy, and colonial Bcience — which will be supported by the annual income of a loan of £1,250,000. A generous Hamburg citizen has already placed at the disposal of the new university a suitable building, which he will enlarge to tho necessary size al> his own cost. The new university will be organised on the system of other German universities, witn the exception that Hamburg merchants will be represented on the senate, which will be in close touch with the Colonial Department. SCANDINAVIAN NEUTRALITY. , No conduct of neutrals can have much more significance to the Triple Entente than the neutrality of the three' Scandinavian nations, which collectively possess the power of closing the Baltic against the ingress or egress of belligerent fleets. These three powers have now published identical declarations concerning the 1 maintenance of their neutrality in case of war, a step which they also took in common at the beginning of the Crimean war and of the Russo-Japanese war. The new declarations, which the three Powers believe will have the greater weight for the evidence which they give" of concerted action, are in reality an embodiment of the supplementary rules of the Hague Convention of 1907. OUR GROWING IMPORTANCE. The Daily Telegraph, in an article on shipping, remarks on the various rumours of the extension of different foreign shipping lines to New Zealand,, and states that these are all "very comlimentaryto the growirig importance of New Zealand's trade." CAPTAIN ASQUITH. ,The King has conceded the wish of the brethren of Trinity House to be permitted to use the title of "Captain" for their Elder Brethren. According to the proclamation this has been customary for some time, for it says: "Whereas the Master, Wardens, Assistants, and Elder Brethren of the Guild, Fraternity or Brotherhood of the Most Glorious and Undivided Trinity and of St. Glenrenv in the parish_of Deptford Strond, in the county of Kent, commonly called the Corporation 'of Trinity 'House of Deptford Strond, ha\jp, represented unto Us that the Elder Brethren oi the said corporation have long! been J accustomed to use the style and title of 'Captain* and have humbly prayed that We may be graciously pleased to grant and confirm unto the said Elder Brethren the style and title of 'Captain' ■ and precedence after captains in our Navy ; now know ye," etc. , This brings into view "Captain H. H. Asquith," "Captain A. J. Balfour," "Captain Austert Chamberlain," and others of like celebrity.