HOME AND FOREIGN NEWS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 157, 20 November 1912, Page 6

HOME AND FOREIGN NEWS.

The following cables appeared in the Sydney Sun on November 6:— M. Fallieres, President of France, has appointed a Parliamentary Commission to study .social .and fiscal questions in their bearing upon the depopulation of France, and to discover how to encourage larger families. The Board of Trade have appointed Mr. G. T. Milne to succeed Mr. Hamilton Wiekes as Trade Commissioner to Australia. Mr. Miine, who is at present enquiring into the prospects of British trade in Central America, will proceed to Australia early next year.

A Select Committee has been appointed by the House of Commons to enquire into the large number of fatal street accidents for which motor 'buses are responsible. The Canadian; Government have given the Marconi Company the contract for the erection of nine new wireless stations on the Great Lakes, and have entered into an agreement with the company that is to extend over 19 years. Charles Conway, the professional high diver, who stands charged with the murder of Sophia Singer, the victim of the rooming-house tragedy in Chicago, told a remarkable story at the coroner's inquest. He admitted that he had killed Miss Singer, but averred that he had done so "in self-defence." Conway said he was sorry for what he had done, but declared that he had to "stand up" for his wife when the murdered woman tried to induce her to lead a life of shame.

All the newspapers are congratulating Mr. Martin Donohue, the Australian journalist, who is the London Daily Chronicle's war correspondent. The unanimous opinion is that his work eclipses that of all other war journalists. The prolonged drought prevailing in the Transkei district, in the east coast of Cape Colony, is causing great losses of stock. Kaffir corn and fodder are at famine prices, and the natives are on the verge of starvation. Unless heavy rain soon ■ sets in the new mealie crop cannot be sown.

General Saboff, commander-in-chief of the Bulgarians, planned ten years ago the whole of the scheme of operations which was conducted last month.

The Queen visited the Imperial Institute and superintended the sorting, packing and distribution of the thousands of articles contributed by the London Needlework Guild for the poorer classes.

The official trials of the new American 14in gun took place in New York. The tests were entirely satisfactory, six shots being fired in 3% minutes. Guns of this calibre will probably be mounted at the Panama Canal and in Honolulu and Manila, to gradually supersede the 12in guns at present in use. The Tasmanian Agent-General, Sir John McCall. informed a Press interviewer that lie was submitting to his Government a detailed scheme for the settlement of immigrants in Tasmania. Sir John McCall stated that a large number of prospective emigrants with capital were making enquiries about Tasmania, because of its temperate climate. These people, he added, feared the cold of Canada and the heat of the Australian mainland, but they saw in the Tasmanian climate,a so't of happy medium.

One of the Paris papers, the* Eclair, reports that observations in connection with the firing of the new submarine shell showed that the damage done was tremendous. One shell pierced the armor of a battleship, destroying everything in its way. Mr. G. E. Foster, Minister of Trade and Commerce, who is going to Australia to conduct negotiations with the Federal Government with a view to bringing about an improvement in the trade relations between Canada and the Commonwealth, will sail from Vancouver for Sydney in February.