BRITISH AND FOREIGN.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LVI, Issue 6493, 19 December 1881, Page 5

BRITISH AND FOREIGN.

[Reusie’s Tkleoeams.J

SEIZURE OP AN IRISH NEWSPAPER.

LONDON, Deo. 15

News is to hand from Ireland that the police have seized the whole of this week’s issue of United Ireland, the organ of the Land League, published in Dublin. They have also arrested the remainder of the staff of the paper. Mr O'Brien, tho editor was arrested in October last. THE PANAMA OANAL QUESTION. LONDON, Deo. 16.

A dispatch from the United States Secretary of State to Mr Lowell, Minister to London, on the subject of the projected Panama Canal, was published to-day. Mr Blaine dwells in forcible language on the growth of American interests in the Pacific, and draws attention to the solicitude which has been shown by England to control the route to India, vid the Suez Canal. He asserts the right of the United States against that of European Powers to control the Isthmus of Panama, and points out that such control would offer the absolute neutrality of the canal. The dispatch concludes by stating that the claims of America cancelled everything which might he deemed to forbid her fortifying her right to the control of the projected highway between the Atlantic and Pacific.

M. EOUSTAN’S LIBEL ACTION. PARIS, Dec. 15.

An action for libel brought by M. Houston, tbe French delegate to the Bey of Tunis, against M. Rochefort, the well-known politician and journalist, has resulted in tbe acquittal of the defendant. EMIGRATION OP TUNISIANS.

Intelligence is to hand that 45,000 persons, comprising the families of Tunisian insurgents, and a number of the insurgents themselves, have entered Morocco, and have requested the Sultan to permit them to settle permanently in the country. The news has caused great sensation throughout France.