AUSTRALIAN NEWS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8469, 21 June 1907, Page 5

AUSTRALIAN NEWS.

THE MAIL CONTRACT. Received June 20, 9.32 a.m. PERTH, June 20. Sir William Lyne, Federal Minister of Customs, interviewed here in regard to the Laing Syndicate mail contract, said that when Mr Bent's offer was made in London he told the members of the syndicate that it was impossible to admit the right of one State to receive preference over another. That position he still adhered to. As to Victoria's latest offer, Sir William Lyne declared that the contract was a Federal matter, and what the State says it is willing to do may be a different thing. MADAME ALBANI. Received June 20, 9.32 a.m. SYDNEY, June 20. Madame Albani has concluded a short and highly successful season in the Town Hall. A NEW GOLD RUSH. Received June 20, 9.32 a.m. MELBOURNE, June 20. The discovery of a seam of goldbearing stone nineteen inches wide in a grave in the old cemetery at Ballarat North has caused a rush. The country has been pegged for a mile around the cemetery. SENTENCES COMMUTED. Received June 20, 9.32 a.m. -~ ADELAIDE, June 20. The capital sentences on the aborigines Combit and Donah, for the murder of Mr Bradshaw and his party at Port Keats, last, year; 1 have been commuted to imprisonment for life. NEW CALEDONIA. Received June 20, 10.30 a.m. MELBOURNE, June 20. Sir John Forrest, Acting Federal Premier, declares that the story that the Commonwealth had an agent in France trying to arrange for the purchase of New Caledonia was ridiculous. ' NEW TORPEDO. Received June 21, 12.48 a.m. MELBOURNE, June 20. A trial will shortly be made of an invention of a young Australian, named Millane, which it is claimed will revolutionise torpedo warfare. The Board of Navy Experts reported favourably on the invention, whereupon the Minister of Defenca has afforded assistance, and facilities to complete the invention. , ( , THE MELBOURNE MURDER. »~— ' Redeved June 20, 12.45 a.m. MELBOURNE, June 20. The police claim to have discovered a strong clue as to who is Mr Bauer's murderer. A jewe, gutter identified a photograph as that of a man who called upon him to make enquiries re-, garding Mr Bauer. (Mr Bauer, a diamond merchant, was recently murdered in his office in Melbourne).