GENERAL WAR NEWS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XL, Issue 1787, 9 February 1918, Page 1

GENERAL WAR NEWS.

BELGIAN NEWSPAPER STOPPED. L’lndependanee Beige, ,which has been printed daily in London since October, 1914, has ceased publication. It was formerly published in Brussels, and after the German occupation was transferred to Ghent, then to Ostend, and afterwards to London. MOTOR PLOUGHS. So anxious are the farmers of Northern Alberta to overcome the difficulties occasioned by the shortage of labour that they are buyingup tractors as fast as they can get them. One firm alone has sold in this district no fewer than 200 of these machines, for which the farmers in every instance paid cash in advance in order to ensure early delivery. This enterprise on the part of the farmers is not only helping to solve (he labour difficulty, hut it is also resulting in a gratifying increase in the acreage of farm land under cultivation. ARSENAL FASHIONS. In Munition Lasses Or. Fox well relates how Woolwich Arsenal broke into a riot of coinin'. Girls in some departments were able to indulge their passion for flowers, but in the danger buildings nothing extraneous to the works must enter. The substitution of coloured ribbons for the Government shoe laces was the result. The fashion was introduced by the Cap Shop girls, who appeared one morning with bright emeraldgreen ribbon in their shoes. The following morning the whole factory was in the fashion. Shoes wore tied with blue, pink, red, while ribbon; with anything but the Government boot lace of untanned leather. The fashion spread to the office; the women clerks paraded the platform during the dinner hour with resplendent shoe laces. The attendants also followed suit, and dear old Auntie Ellis, the senior attendant, was discovered wearing shoestrings of bright scarlet. NEUTRALS BUYING UP PEARLS. Patriotic dames are selling their pearl necklaces and buying war loan with the proceeds. People who read with surprise of the purchase of £30,000 worth of pearls under the hammer will be reassured to learn that in most cases these deals are tor neutral or South American accounts. The increase ip the price of the best specimens is due to the demand of neutral ‘and South American buyers. Countries like Holland, Sweden, and Denmark, that have become rich through, the war, are treating rosy-tinted, clear-skin-ned, round pearls, which are the finest, as a convenient form of investment, and the majority that come on to the English market are purchased to neutral commissions. South America is taking the darker pearl™, which are found to harmonise better with the brunette complexions of the wopjen, America bought the most recent specimens of black pearls that came into Hatton Garden, TAMPERING WITH SEALS. It is stated officially that the Uruguayan Government has subjected to the ordinary criminal jurisdiction of the country the German captains of the vessels that were interned at Montevideo, the nature of the legal procedure being determined by the fact that the captains broke the scats that were placed in certain positions on the ships in order to assure the Government that there should be no tampering with the vessels. The captains will accordingly have to take their trial in due course as ordinary prisoners. U.S. LETTERS lid. It is stated at Washington that Great Britain has agreed to a modification of the postal treaty increasing the letter rate from the United States to lid for praeically nil foreign letters now requiring only a peppy stamp. The new rate, besides applying to Great Britain, also applies to Canada, British Honduras, New Zealand, British Guiana, Newfoundland, the Dutch West Indies, Mexico, Panama, and other points. These changes became effective on November 2nd.