Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 39, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 January 1907 — Untitled [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The British colonial secretary, the Earl of Elgin, announced recently the issuance of letters patent, establishing immediate responsible government and a constitution to the Transvaal. < The government at Vienna has introduced to the upper house of the Austrian parliament a bill limiting the number of live members of that house to 180. It ia now hoped that the upper house will pase the universal suffrage bill. Several women suffragists entered the House of Commons on requests to seo members and then tried to make speeches in the lobbies. A number resisted expulsion and were arrested. They refused to pay $5 fines, and went to jail for fourteen days. The chamber of deputies at Brussels has voted, 127 to 30, in favor of the proposal to accept the terms of King Leopold’s will, bequeathing the Congo Independent State to Belgium, on condition that the royal private domains be maintained integrally after its annexation. This means that Belgium will proceed to annex the Congo, after a full accounting of its obligations nad concessions. In an interview with the correspondent of the Publishers’ Press, King Leopold of Belgium made an elaborate denial of tho revived charges of his cruelty and misgovernment in tli'e He admitted that probahty there had been cases of crime and cruelty in the Congo, but ho insisted that every effort had been made hring thn guilty to justice and stop the ill treatment of natives. lie said he waa poorer instead of richer because of his Congo ?esponsibilitiea. After the Reichstag had rejected appropriations for the continuance of the southwest African war, Chancellor von Buriow read the Kaiser's message of dissolution. For months the German people have been growing restless over the heavy cost of the African campaign and displeased with the stories of cruelties perpetrated upon natives by the soldiers. At last even the powerful Catholic center party refused to support the budget, hence the acuta crisis. A new Reichstag must be electa# within sixty days. .. m It puys to advertise in this paper.