Rensselaer Democrat, Volume 1, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 June 1898 — FOREIGN. [ARTICLE]

FOREIGN.

The winter wheat crops of Russia are satisfactory, except in five provinces, and the spring crops are satisfactory, except in two provinces. Good rains which have fallen in that colony have, it is estimated, improved the value of the wheat Victoria, Australia, by £1,000,000 ($5,000,000). France and Russia, according to a special dispatch from Shanghai, are pressing new territorial claims at Foo Chow, capital of the province of Fo Kien, on the Min river, and at Kiri Chow, in Manchuria, near the north shore of the Gulf of Leao Tong. The French ministers assembled the other day, under the presidency of President Faure, when M. Meline, the premier, handed the president the resignation of th whole cabinet, which M. Faure accepted, while requesting the ministers to continue the direction of affairs until their successors were named. While the first secretary of the German embassy in London, Count von Arco-Val-ley, was emerging from the embassy Jhe other evening a stranger fired two shots from a revolver at him. One of the bullets entered the secretary's back, but the wound is not believed to be fatal. His assailant was arrested after firjng at and missing a policeman. The motive which prompted the man to attempt the life of Count von Arco-Valley is unknown. The name of Count Arco-Valley’s assailant is John Todd. A dispatch from Berlin says the Reichsanxeiger announces that from July 31 next Great Britain and her colonies, with the exception of Canada, will receive from Germany the benefit of the most favored nation treatment. The exclusion of Canada from these benefits is regarded as a reprisal for Canada's action which brought about the denouncement by Great Britain of the commercial treaties with Germany and Belgium. Sir Richard Cartwright, minister of trade and commerce at Ottawa, Ont., when questioned concerning this report, said the move was not an unexpected one on the part of the German Empire, that Canada could not complain, as she need not have expected “favored nation” treatment from those to whom she did not give it. “As regards German trade with Canada.” continued the minister, “it is decidedly one-sided, and we will not suffer much. We buy at least six times as much from Germany as

she takes from us, and possibly a great deal more than that. The direct imports from Germany into Canada last year were about $6,500,000 in value, besides the goods imported from that country through England. On the other hand, Canadian exports to Germany only amounted to $1,000,000 last year. Canada would be very little affected by the action of the German Government in this matter.”