News and Miscellany

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jun 12, 1913

News and Miscellany

Notes and clippings from the daily and weekly press

— Managers of Eastern railroads notified their 100,000 conductors and trainmen that there would be no arbitration of the demand for an increase in wages. The increase demanded would have added $17,000,000 to the pay-rolls.

— The draft of a bill authorizing the French government to borrow $200,000,000 for twenty years in order to meet military expenses, was submitted to the cabinet recently by Charles Dumont, minister of finance, and approved.

— Spain is to follow the example of other Continental countries and become the owner of its railways. As Spanish railways have been notorious for delays and poor management, travelers will hope that the change promises improvement in service.

— President Wilson issued an order last week revoking the action of previous administrations relative to fourth-class postmasters,—excepting those receiving less than $180 a year,—throwing all such positions open to competitive examination. This will affect about 50,000 incumbents.

— Turkey has definitely ceded the island of Cyprus to Great Britain, according to the Constantinople correspondent of the London Express, who claims to have received a formal statement to that effect from the best-informed source. The cession of the island is said to have been due to clauses in the Anglo-Turkish entente.

— With all the ceremonial which attaches itself to the wedding traditions of the Hohenzollern house, Princess Victoria Louise, only daughter and the youngest child of the German emperor, became the bride, on May 24, of Prince Ernst August, Duke of Brunswick and Luneburg. The prince and princess will ascend the throne of the duchy of Brunswick at an early date. The direct line of rulers of the duchy became extinct in 1884.

— Two great landslides at the Culebra cut in the Panama Canal have filled sections of the ditch and buried a big steam-shovel and other machinery, and threaten to ruin the Young Men’s Christian Association club building. This building has moved eighteen inches toward the cut, and engineers say it cannot be saved from sliding in. Its use is forbidden. The entire hill seems to be settling, and commissioners say the slides will delay work on the canal from six weeks to two months.