AMERICAN ITEMS.

Hokitika Guardian, 20 August 1921, Page 3

AMERICAN ITEMS.

ITALIAN .MURDER GANG. AUSTRALIAN AND N.Z. CABLE ASSOCIATION. NEW YORK, Aug. 18 The New York police state that they attribute a total of more than 125 unsolved Italian murder mysteries in New York, Chicago, Detroit, Pittsburg and other large American cities to a Sicilian murder syndicate, named the Bona Ventie, the workings of which were revealed in a confession by Bartolo i'ontano, who Bought police protection, after admitting the assassination of his l>est friend. The police in various cities have began to co-operate, with the result that the traces of the syndicate’s activities are becoming more evident. U.S. PROHIBITION LAW. NEW YORK, Aug. 18 The “New York Times’s” Washington correspondent reports: “Britain has filed a protest against the American seizure of a British schooner outside the three-mile limit, on the ground that she was engaged in smuggling liquor into the ITnited States. Mr Mellon (Secretary of the U.S. Treasury) has a.nhounced a riding that the prohibition of the transhipment to United States of alcoholic beverages, is lifted, as the result of the Anchor Line suit (cabled on July 10). The Courts granted the Anchor Line an injunction restraining the Collector of Customs at New York from interfering with the shipment of liquor originally from Glasgow, and consigned to a foreign port. The Supreme Court will now probably decide the issue. AMERICAN VIEWS. (Received This Day at 9.5 a.m.) WASHINGTON, Aug. 19 It is now found that American officialdom agrees with Hon Lloyd George, that a settlement of Pacific affairs must precede disarmament. It is stated that the Pacific understanding rests entirely on the recognition of proper principles and policies, after which peace is regarded as a simple matter of international co-operation. The American Government’s ideas of principles on which an understanding should he based, is fair treatment for Siberia and Oliina, and equal commercial opportunities for all nations. It is regarded as certain that America would not join the Anglo-Japanese Alliance at present, maintaining that under he above understanding such an alliance would he unnecessary '