AMERICAN ITEMS.

Hokitika Guardian, 7 April 1923, Page 3

AMERICAN ITEMS.

TRIAL OF COMMUNISTS. r.S.A. JURY DISAGREE. AUSTRALIAN AND N.Z. CABLE ASSOCIATION. WASHINGTON, April 7. A telegram from Si, Joseph, -Michigan, states one of the most unusual trials ever held in the Foiled States lias ended hopelessly in a deadlock. The jury is divided six against six. The tacts of the ease arc that the State of Michigan attempted to secure the conviction of William Foster for violation of a Slate law making criminal anarchy a felony punishable by ten years’ imprisonment. Foster was one of .'l2 alleged members of the Communist Party in America, lie was arrested more than a year ago, during n secret conclave, at which the prosecuting counsel averred, plans were being formulated, under the direction of the Russian Soviet, for a proletariat revolution ill America. Foster’s trial has lasted for two months. There was much sensational evidence, purporting to show the machinations of the Communists in America and tlm Soviet’s furtherance of tin insidious propaganda.

The defence, which did not deny Communist principles, declared that no violence had been advocated and declared that the law was a violation of the eonstii iilional rigid ol free speech. The jury was discharged, and the judge ordered Rutheiiherg, another of the arrested men, to he tried on the sixteenth of April. FIXATE IN* RIGHT. CANADIAN VERDICT. OTTAWA, April b. A telegram from Toronto stales that Professor ('. A. Chant, Professor of Astronomy at the University of Toronto, has announced i hat observations by Toronto scientists regarding the solar eclip.-e at Wallal, in Queensland, lend lo show Ihe correctness ol the Einstein theory. Professor Chant said that Dr Einstein predated that i his theory were correel , Ihe stars, when photographed with the sun apparently in their midst, would show a displacement outward from the sun, as compared with the positions of the same stars when the sun was absent from I heir portion of the heavens. Mure than thirty slurs were rccogni-cd nil Hie photographic plates, hut only 2d were submitted to measurement, and eight of these were later rejected. The difficulty of measuring with certainty the position of somewhat indefinite images of faint stars made it impossible to obtain perfectly conclusive evidence of the law of the variation of I lie displacement of the stars relative Hi their distance from the sun, hut the fact that there is a displacement is quite certain, and its amount appears approximately that predicted by Einstein’s theory. GIBBONS V. li ENA VET. NEW VO UK. April b. Mr Tex Richard has announced that Mike Gibbons and Renault have been matched for a lb-round bout in the lirst or second week of May. NEW YORK CITY. WASHINGTON, April (1. Tim Census Rtireau announced that it estimates that New York City had a population on January Ist totalling •5.1.127, li2b. A COURT PROPOSAL. SANTIAGO. April li. Chile and Costa ltica have introduced a proposal before the pan-Amerman Court of ,Justice, composed of repiesentntires of each country, chosen by their respective Supreme Courts ior a ten year term. The eases would he decided by from three to seven Judge-, none of whom s!u II he a representative ol any country which is a party to a dispute. The proposal requires the adherence of only twelve nations before the creation of the Court.