Tag: 100 Years Ago

25 APRIL 1925

On their return from the Mediterranean the King and Queen visited Paris incognito, and were entertained at luncheon by President Doumergue. His Majesty subsequently decorated M. Painlevé, and placed a wreath on the tomb of the Unknown Warrior at the Arc de Triomphe. The Queen paid a private visit to the Musée Carnavalet.

A resolution approving of the Liberal Million Fighting Fund, and a statement of Liberal principles and aims relating to Scottish problems were discussed at a Scottish Convention of Liberals held in Edinburgh.

Speaking at a Liberal demonstration in Edinburgh, Sir John Simon characterised the policy of the Labour party in regard to temperance, armaments, and fiscal policy as mistaken, and in referring to the land problem said he was unable to see how, on the principles of the Conservative party or of Socialists, a practical policy of land reform could be framed.

In endorsing the Weir scheme of steel houses to help to meet the housing shortage, the Court of Inquiry, which was appointed to inquire into the threatened disputes in connection with the erection of steel houses, states that Messrs Weir have devised a way of supplementing the supply of houses by utilising the methods of the engineering trade just as that trade in the production of motor vehicles or of steel bridges supplemented the supply of vehicles and bridges formerly produced by skilled wheelwrights and masons respectively.

The Earl of Balfour arrived in London from Palestine, and was greeted at the Victoria Station with the cheers of about 1000 Zionists.

The German Presidential election takes place to-morrow. A Berlin telegram predicts that the fight between Marx and Hindenburg will be close and thrilling.

24 APRIL 1925

The memorial commemorating the storming of the Mole and the blocking of the channel at Zeebrugge by British naval forces was unveiled by the King of the Belgians. Many wounded survivors of the exploit were carried across the narrow seas to witness the ceremony.

A plan to meet foreign competition in the engineering trade, and to come to an arrangement with the employees on the question of wages, was outlined in a letter by the Engineering and Allied Employers’ National Federation which was read to a conference of the Unions in London considering the men’s wage claims.

The full Executive of the Miners’ Federation will meet at their headquarters in London to-day to receive a report from the miners’ representatives on the Joint Sub-Committee which has been inquiring with the coalowners into the position of the industry.

The five members of the British Fascisti alleged to have been concerned with the kidnapping at Liverpool of Mr Pollitt, the Communist, were tried at Liverpool and acquitted.

Captain Wedgwood Benn, M.P., at a meeting in Leith, spoke of the trend of the Trade Union and Labour movements. It was, he said, for Trade Unionists to consider what was to be their attitude towards that new movement from Moscow, the watchwords of which were class war, dictatorship, and revolution.

23 APRIL 1925

The trial at Leipzig of Communist leaders charged with murder and conspiracy to overthrow the German Republic by violence has concluded. The three chief accused have been sentenced to death, and others to terms of penal servitude, varying from 15 years to 6 months.

The Conference of Ambassadors has sanctioned the request of Bulgaria for permission to increase the militia in the present emergency.

The General Council of the Trade Union Congress resumed consideration of the report of a sub-committee which recently met representatives of the Russian Trade Unions. The sub-committee, it will be recalled, decided favourably on proposals of co-operation for the promotion of international unity and for the setting up of a Joint Advisory Council between the Trade Union organisations of Great Britain and Russia. The General Council agreed to ratify the recommendations and principles embodied in the chairman’s report.

The Irish Free State Budget was introduced in the Dail. The Minister for Finance, in introducing the Budget, stated that the experiment in protection had been satisfactory, stimulating the industries protected to a remarkable degree.

The arguments were concluded in the case in which an appeal was made against the detention of an Irish prisoner in Maidstone Jail. In giving judgement, the Lord Chief Justice said the order was lawfully and properly made, the detention was lawful, and the rule must be discharged with costs.

The Lord Advocate referred to the Prime Minister’s appeal for peace, in industry at a meeting in Broxburn, describing it as an effort to create an atmosphere in which the employers and employed might come together to find a way out of present difficulties. Mr James Kidd, M.P. for West Lothian, who also addressed the meeting, referred to the growing divisions in the ranks of the Socialist party.

Sir A. Mond, M.P., in a pamphlet, outlines his scheme of subsidised industry for remedying unemployment.

Dr G. E. Spero, late Liberal M.P. for Stoke Newington, has left the Liberal party.

22 APRIL 1925

Captain Yankoff, another of the leading Communist conspirators in Bulgaria, was killed by the police after resisting capture. An attempt to blow up the International Balkan Express near the Serbo-Bulgar frontier was frustrated by soldiers, who discovered the mine laid on the railroad.

The Japanese steamer Raifuku Maru has been lost, with 38 lives, off the coast of Nova Scotia.

Colonel the Hon. F. S. Jackson, chairman of the Unionist Party Organisation, speaking at Hull, said he would be disappointed—along with the country and the government—if, before the end of the present year, they had not produced legislation of a far-reaching character. He believed it would be possible to introduce “all-in” insurance legislation, and that provision should be made for widows and orphans.

Notices were posted at the London and North-Eastern Railway locomotive shops at Gateshead announcing that from Saturday next, the shops will be closed on Saturday mornings until further notice. Two thousand men and boys are employed. An official statement has been issued regarding the company’s measures for the reduction of working costs.

Sir Alfred Mond, addressing his constituents at Llandovery, contended that his scheme to subsidise employers to take on the unemployed would end the vicious circle in which society was trapped, maintain stable social order, and deprive the Communist of his most fruitful ground for propaganda.

The latest unemployment figures show an increase of 38,417.

Lieutenant-General Sir J. A. L. Haldane has been promoted to the rank of general, succeeding the late General Lord Rawlinson.

21 APRIL 1925

During a disturbance in the native location at Bloemfontein the police fired a volley on a mob of 4,000. Four natives were killed. The ringleaders have been arrested, and the Citizen Force has been called up.

One Australian correspondent, in a review of Commonwealth affairs, refers to the disclosures regarding the losses of the Commonwealth shipping line, the loan requirements of the States, and the growth of the Communist agitation.

In the fighting against a hostile chief in Iraq a British aeroplane crashed, and two airmen were killed. A flying officer has also been killed in an accident near Shaibah, Iraq.

The Prince of Wales received various native chiefs at Ibadan, Nigeria, when scenes of great picturesqueness were witnessed.

A Sofia telegram announces that Minkoff, the alleged principal conspirator in the plot against the Government, has been killed while endeavouring to evade arrest.

The Soviet Government declined to take part in the International Conference on the Control of Arms and Munitions, which assembles at Geneva on May 4 next.

A revolution has broken out in Honduras.

Sir A. Maurice Low, the Washington correspondent of the Morning Post and The Economist, in another article on Prohibition refers to what he describes as its serious and tragical effects, so far as the American concept of law is concerned.

When passing through Paris on Friday en route for London, King George and Queen Mary are to lunch with President Doumergue.

The Swansea No. 1 Branch of the National Union of Railwaymen have passed a resolution in favour of a strike in the Great Western Railway Company enforces its proposals for a reduction of staff.

In a shipyard accident at Clydebank three men were fatally injured.

20 APRIL 1925

A section of the Lisbon garrison were involved in a revolutionary outbreak. The rising was suppressed after a bombardment, in which some hundred were wounded.

Hundreds of arrests of Communists have been made at Sofia. The victims of the Cathedral explosion were buried in one enormous grave.

Field-Marshal Von Hindenburg, in answer to questions put by Reuter’s correspondent, said the question of Republic or Monarchy is at present nowhere under discussion in German politics, that the question of the alteration of frontiers on the east must be settled by negotiations, that he had always spoken against warlike adventures, and that Germany was not even capable of waging a defensive war against one of her neighbours, who had each bigger standing armies than Germany had.

The Duke and Duchess of York have returned to London after a tour of over four and a half months in Africa.

Mr Ramsay MacDonald, at Penzance, said that there was a large section of the Tory party, especially the young Tories, who were men of great promise. When they faced the problem of a national policy the partition between them and the Socialists would be so thin that they might as well break it down and come over to the Socialist camp.

Sir Alfred Mond, speaking at Newport, Mon., said that Socialism as a political issue was as dead as mutton, and he found fault with the Government for taking no strenuous action regarding employment or anything else. Advocating co-operation between employers and employed, he told of a new experiment at his works, which was a combination of cost-sharing and profit-sharing, which was causing a remarkable improvement in output.

19 APRIL 1925

A military revolt took place in Lisbon involving numerous troops stationed in the city. The Portuguese Government said that it was attempting restore order and end the disturbances.

The Government said that those who didn’t pay income tax would receive police court summons.

18 APRIL 1925

The British airship R 33, after breaking from her moorings at Pulham, with 20 of a crew, and being driven across the North Sea to the Dutch coast, was safely navigated back to Pulham after being nearly 30 hours in the air.

Upwards of a hundred people were killed and many hundreds injured by the explosion of an infernal machine in the Cathedral Church at Sofia. Martial law has been proclaimed by the Bulgarian Government. The frontier has been closed, all transport stopped, and the arrest of Communists and others hostile to the present rulers of the country ordered.

A Paris telegram states that the new Ministry will present its declaration of policy to Parliament on Tuesday. Its fate both in the Senate and in the Chamber is dubious.

Dr. Stresemann, the German Minister for Foreign Affairs, declared in a speech at Hamburg, referring to the coming Presidential election, that the basis of their foreign policy could not be changed by a political vote on internal affairs.

A Cape Town telegram reports that there is a strong feeling in Natal favouring the secession of the Province from the Union. The anti-British policy of the present Nationalist Government is bitterly resented.

17 APRIL 1925

The British airship, R.33, broke from her moorings at Pulham in a squall. She carried a crew of twenty, and was driven across the North Sea by the gale.

Telegrams from various parts of England and Ireland report damage by severe gales.

M. Painleve has almost completed his Cabinet. He is Premier and Minister of War, M. Briand is Foreign Minister, and M. Caillaux, Minister of Finance.

A manifesto by the German Centre party says that the people behind von Hindenburg’s candidature are aiming at the restoration of the Monarchy, and are thus not only leading up to civil war, but, if they succeed, will plunge Germany into fresh international difficulties.

Reports from Bulgaria are of a disquieting character. Another Deputy has been murdered in the streets of Sofia, and at a memorial service for the assassinated General Gheorghieff an infernal machine exploded, killing and injuring many persons. These crimes, as well as the unsuccessful attempt on the life of King Boris, are regarded as the work of Communists.

The Chinese Foreign Office has replied to the British, French, and American Notes of protest against the flotation of a new internal loan.

Prince Henry got a fall at the Crawley and Horsham Hunt Steeplechases at West Grinstead, but was unhurt. His horse, Ocean III., had to be destroyed.

Ulster Parliament, for the first time in its history, had a debate on party lines.

16 APRIL 1925

Lagos gave the Prince of Wales a great welcome when he landed there. He afterwards left for Iddo, en route for Kano, on the frontier of French West Africa.

MR John Sargent, R.A., the famous portrait painter, is dead.

A motor car in which King Boris of Bulgaria was travelling was ambushed on the road to Sofia. M. Ilchieff, Chief of the Entomological Museum, and a servant were killed and the driver wounded. The King’s escape has been hailed with delight and relief in Sofia.

M. Painleve has accepted the task of forming a French Cabinet. It is reported that M. Caillaux will be given the portfolio of Finance.

According to a Berlin telegram, the German Nationalists believe that there is every possibility of Field-Marshal von Hindenburg being elected President of the Reich.

The unloading and assembling of the planes of the Amundsen Polar Expedition will begin as soon as the Farm and the Hobby, now at the edge of the ice in King’s Bay, Spitzbergen, can reach the shore. The expedition will then move to a new base, from which the flight to the Pole will be made as soon as good weather is forecast.

In his attempt to fly to the North Pole Captain Roald Amundsen is to have a rival in Mr. Gretir Algaitsson, who proposes to make the flight in a non-rigid airship, starting from a point north of Spitzbergen.

To a request of the Italian Government for delimitation of the frontier between Egypt and Tripoli according to the Milner-Scialoja agreement, the Egyptian Government is reported to have replied that it cannot accept determination of the frontier according to an agreement made with a foreigner in which it did not participate.

Mr William C. Leonard, presiding at Dumfries at the 28th annual Scottish Trades Union Congress, pleaded for a shorter working week.