Australia.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXV, Issue 299, 16 December 1914, Page 8

Australia.

ALLEGED MUTILATION OF MALES UGLY REPORT DENIED.

[United Pbehb Association.] Melbourne, December 15

Mr Fisher, on behalf of members ol : .Parliament, cabled to the British Government regarding the stories of mutilation of males in Belgium by the Germans, and received this reply: "I am .informed by the Embassy that the Belgian Committee of Inquiry has no evidence of any such report." When the reply was read in Parliament, the members cheered.

THE PRIZE COURT.

Sydney, December lo

The Prize Court is hearing the application of the Commonwealth Government to have the ship Zambesi and cargo, captured by the warship Encounter off llabaul, declared a lawful prize. The petitioners' claim sets out that the Zambesi was a Britishowned vessel, under charter to the Pacific Phosphate Co.; that on August 6th the master received, through the agents of the company, and on behalf of the Kaiser, orders to proceed from Nauru Island to Rabaul with the agent of the Kaiser, carrying important telegrams in relation to the vvar, and on arrival at llabaul to hold himself and his ship at the disposal of the German Government. The respondent in the case declared that at the time of the departure from Nauru the agent of the charterers of the Zambesi and her captain were unaware that war existed between Britain and Germany. The captain of the Zambesi gave evidence that he was unaware of the war until the officers of the Encounter came aboard. Other evidence, including ex-German officials at Nauru, supported this. At the time of the capture the German agent aboard gave one of the Zambesi's crew' a bundle of telegrams to throw overboard. Instead, he handed them to the Encounter's officers. The hearing is unfinished.

AFTER SUBSCRIPTIONS.

DUTCH MISSIONERSTO NEW ZEALAND.

(Received 10.20 a.m.) .Fremantle, December 1G

Three Dutch 1 priests, members of St. Joseph's Missionary Society have arrived by the Maloja, and are proceeding to New Zealand. They state that twenty thousand Belgian soldiers are interned in Holland and six thousand British. There are also 1$ million' refugees, the total costing the Dutch Government £50,000 daily. Dutch feeling is strongly anti-German on account of the atrocities in Belgium.