AMERICAN CABLE NEWS.

Hokitika Guardian, 30 December 1925, Page 2

AMERICAN CABLE NEWS.

[Australia iVr N.Z. Cable Association.J RUBBER AIO.iOPOLY. NEW YORK, Dec. 29. A Boston message states that a bill, seeking, a "reprisal,” against Britain, “for the financial hardships” imposed through the increased rubber prices, lias been filed in Massachusetts State Senate hy Senator Hennessey. The hill would direct that a list be prepared of the British rubber companies doing business in Alassacluisetts to ascertain the total amount, paid in premiums hy these companies during the last five years “in order to enable the people of the commonwealth to take such action as they may deem effective hy way of reprisal.” Senator Hennessey asserted that seven hundred millions dollars per .year were being taken from the United States in excess prices by the British rubber “monopoly,” and that the press reports indicated that British interests had decided to support a similar Brazilian coffee monopoly.

HUGE BANK MERGER. NEW YORK. Dec. 29. A gigantic bank consolidation, which, when completed will have resources of over one billion throe hundred million dollars, thus out-capitalising the Morgan or any other private banking interests in the United States, was reported in Wall Street as being formed by Mr Clarence Dillon, the head of tiio hanking firm of Dillon Dead, which recently sensationally purchased Dodge Brothers automobile business for 146 million dollars cash, and also participated in the flotation of the Australian loan. The amalgamation, which may take years to complete, will he the largest American business coup since the formation of the United States Steel Corporation by the late Andrew Carnegie. The group will include the following interests:—Four banks, one trust company; Mechanics Metals (with 308 million dollars resources); Chatham National Party (with 232 million dollars); the Central Union Trust Company (with 317 million dollars).

The reasons for the merger are. to afford a greater capacity for financing both (ho foreign and domestic fields.

AUSTRALIAN BLACKS. NEW YORK, December 28.

At Ncwbavcn. Doctor Alec Hrdliekor. President of the American Anthropological Society, addressed the organisation in reference to his investi,(rations in Africa, Asia and Australiainto racial developments. Ho declared:—“ 1 find the Rhodesian skull of much scientific importance, but still it is so enigmatic that none knows what to make of it.”

Dr llrdlicker. referring to his Australian studies :—“ I was especially interested in the pure-blooded aborigines along the coast, and their particularly impressive nocturnal ceremonies.” He described the exceptional type of the Wyudhnm. district. They are fullblooded and coloured aborigines, with tow hair. The Doctor said : “The Australian and the Tasmanian aborigines deserve to he classed as one of the fundamental races in mankind, although they are not a race which shows close connection with our ancestral stock, namely, not with the Negroes or Melanesians, but with the old white people of post-glacial times.”

ETNSTEIN'S THEORY UPSET. NEW YORK, Dec. 30

At Kansas City. Missouri. Doctor Dayton Miller, President of the American Physics Society, read a paper befor the Convention of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, which, in tlie opinion of scientists, has struck a Wow at the foundations of the Einstein theory of relativity. Dr Miller lias been working at. Atop. Mount Wilson, f'alilornia. to detect the motion of tbc earth and the solar system through the ether of space. Einstein claimed that it was impossible to detect such, motion and based his relativity theory largely upon the fact, but Miller said: “I succeeded in measuring tbc motion of the earth and solar system in the ether of space. My work annuls the second postulate of the Einstein theory.” Dr Miller also declared he succeeded in measuring the direction and size of this motion. He claimed the soeed of the solar system was ten times as great as he previously thought. The sun moves through space at a speed of one hundred and twenty miles per second. carrying the earth and other planets at a similar rate, while the direction is dose to the star Yega.

Dr Miller made one hundred thousand observations before declaring the result.