Page:The Annual Register 1899.djvu/496

 72 CHBONICLE. [dec.

1. The Victorian Cabinet of Sir George Turner, after having been in office for upwards of five years, defeated on a vote of confidence by 11 votes.

— The Sultan of Turkey granted to the Deutsche Bank the con- cession to construct a railway connecting Smyrna (Anatolia), Baghdad and Bussorah in the Persian Gulf.

2. The treaty for the partition of the Samoan Islands signed at Washington by the representatives of Germany, Great Britain and the United States.

— Lord Emly, who had been previously removed from the Com- mission of the Peace, deprived of his rank as Deputy-Lieutenant of Limerick on account of a violent speech delivered (Nov. 1) at Kil- malloch.

3. The transport steamship Ismore 9 conveying troops, went ashore in St. Helena Bay, about fifty miles west of Cape Town ; all on board were saved.

4. The Court of Appeal allowed the application of Sir Robert Peel to sell certain heirlooms of the settled estates, pictures, books, etc., to provide an income for his wife and infant son.

— In consequence of the prolonged drought, especially in the central provinces of India, upwards of 1,368,000 persons employed on relief works.

— Mr. Justice Wright, who presided over an investigation into the winding up of the Industrial Contract Corporation, of which Mr. Newton, the Lord Mayor, was a director, exonerated him and his colleagues from fraudulent and illegal conduct.

— Mr. Gage, Secretary of the United States Treasury, transmitted to the House of Representatives the estimates for the year 1900-1, which showed an aggregate expenditure of $631,081,994.

5. President McKinley's message delivered to Congress recom- mending the latter to support the existing gold standard, and the strengthening of the mercantile marine.

— Captain Dreyfus addressed a letter to the President of the Senatorial Amnesty Committee protesting against being deprived of the right to vindicate his character.

6. In the German Reichstag a resolution, accepted by the Govern- ment and carried by a large majority, declared that German societies of every kind might combine, and repealed all legal obstacles to such coalition.

— At the Socialist Congress held in Paris it was resolved by 818 to 634 votes that no Socialist should form part of a bourgeois ministry. This was followed by a contradictory vote of 1,140 to 245 to the effect that under certain exceptional circumstances a Socialist might hold office.

7. The Aldeburgh lifeboat, which had put to sea to succour a vessel in distress, capsized, and six of the crew were imprisoned under the boat and were drowned. The others got to shore much injured and quite exhausted.