CABLE BRIEFS.

Hastings Standard, Issue 501, 14 December 1897, Page 3

CABLE BRIEFS.

t Per Tress Association. — Copyright.)

In the course of an address Mr Innes, ex-Attorney General, at Capetown, said that it would be better to pay tbe Admiralty £25,000 a year instead of making a present of a battleship as proposed. An extensive gold robbery is reported from Pretoria. The Lyndenburg coach was struck up and robbed of £12,000 worth of gold belonging to tbe Transvaal Goldmining Estates Company. The loss is covered by insurance. The Germans have occupied 400 square miles of territory around Kaio Chou. Geueral Lockhart has informed the Afridis that the troops will remain until the terms of submission have been complied with. Leading French commercial men are urging M. Meline, Premier, to abandon the sugar bouuties. The Federal Convention at Melbourne will be preceded by the assembling of the Finance Committee of the Convention and the annual conference of Premiers. At the latter there will be an interchange of ideas with regard to their recent visit to England bearing on the subjects broached by Mr Chamberlain, and also to give consideration to the question of the restriction of aliens. There is no reason yet given as to how the steamer Fitzroy got out of her course into the Stockton Bight. Nobody had the remotest suspicion that the vessel was five miles off her course. At a meeting at the Trades Hall in Melbourne, it was decided to appeal to the trades for aid for the English engineers' strike. The magazine of the United mine at Charters Towers exploded, wrecking the engine-house and a number of houses in the vicinity. The concussion broke the windows ot hundreds of shops. Fortunately no persons were injured.