AMERICAN ITEMS.

Hokitika Guardian, 3 April 1922, Page 3

AMERICAN ITEMS.

• OSIHAI.IAN AND N.Z. CABLE ASSOCIATION. U.S. MINERS STRIKE. NEW YORK, April 1. The United States miners began a general strike at midnight on Saturday. -Lt is estimated that 600,000 men have obeyed the order to stop. Five hundred thousand of them are union members. The balance are not union members. Tlie strikers have left the pumpmen, engineers, and fiiemen at the mines. At various mines in West Virginia, Kentucky, Colorado, and Alabama the men are remaining at work. The United States has nine weeks’ oal stocks on band. The strikers on the anthracite fields demand a 20 per cent wage increase. The bituminous workers want changed working conditions. Many of the railway work is will likely he affected if the strike continues. The Government, however, have announced that they will not interfere unless a public emergency arises.

HALF A MILLION OUT. NEW YORK, March 31. While the coal strike will not ho effective officially until midnight, thousands of miners in 20 States left the mines this morning. Half a million miners are expected to he out before midnight. ' The Government has abandoned hope of arranging a settlement. It will afford protection to miners remaining at work, but otherwise will be neutral.

FIRE AT BAHAMAS. NEW YORK, April 1

A message from Massau, capital 'of the Bahamas, reports that a fire destroyed a large part of the city. Firemen dynamited many buildings and prevented tlie complete destruction of the town.

SON OF SIAMESE TWIN. NEW YORK, March 31

The doctors and the lawyers are quarrelling over whether Franz Blazck, aged 12 years, is the son of Rosa Blazck, alone, or the son of both of the Siamese twins who have just died. Upon tho settlement of this question depends, party, the disposition of an American estate worth £20,000, which both left

jointly. If it is decided that Rosa was the sole mother, then the estate of the sister goes to her parents in Chechoslovakia.

CONDITIONS TN RUSSIA. NEW YORK, .March 31

Professor Meredith Atkinson, of Melhouriiie University, has arrived here in the Mauretania. He lias spent, six weeks in the famine regions of Russia, and declares the conditions there rivalled any description of Hell. Cannibalism was rife in several cities. Bodies thrown out of houses at nigbtlitll were seized by starving people, who devoured the flesh. At Saratov he personally heard of a man who killed his wife, and pickled her remains for eating. The crime was discovered and the murderer was shot. Typhus was spreading at an alarming rate. Professor Atkinson expressed Hie opinion that tho only way to protect the rest of the world now would he to throw a cordon round Russia, and so prevent anyone leaving the country. Professor Atkinson is going to Canada to lecture.

(Professor Atkinson is one of the leading writers for “Stead’s Review. )

COST OF ARMY. (Received This Day at 8 a.m.) WASHINGTON, April 1

Tlie State Department lias published a French note, which states the 1' rene't Government never had any intention of denying United States right to be completely reimbursed for the cost of tho army of occupation on the Rhine.

AMERICA’S COAL. WASHINGTON, April I

Senator Baras (Chairman of the Senatorial Labor Committee) declared unless the coal industry is reorganised in the interest of the public, the only solution of the problem may he Government ownership at tlie mines. He added that the public would no longer submit to the present operations and tlie committee was preparing to take actum in the strike.

RETURXING THATnKS. WASHINGTON, April 1

The Federal Council of Churches ol Christ requested special services to be held in 11011-Conformist Churches throughout the country to-morrow, to give thanks for the ratification of the Washington Conference treaties.