Secretary Taft and Senor Guitterez have reached an agreement to arbitrate the outstanding issue respecting the sale to the Philippine Government of the Dominican Friars' lands, amounting to about 160,000 acres, involving eight Haciendas, valued at about $2,500,000, which amount has been on deposit in New York for more than a year awaiting an agreement between the principals as to the titles to the lands.
The census of the Philippine Islands, the principle object of which was to secure statistics of population and a general knowledge of social conditions as a basis for the establishment of a Philippine Legislature, has been completed.
President Roosevelt, before his departure for his trip to the Southwest and West, announced the members of the new Panama Canal Commission as follows :—
The President, exercising his prerogative during the interim of the sessions of the Senate, has notified the State Department that the proposition of the Dominican Government to have the United States take control of the finances of that Republic for the payment of its debts, has been accepted.
Minister Bowen at Caracas, acting under instructions, inquired of Venezuela whether she was willing to submit to arbitration on the New York and Bermudez and Critchfield asphalt cases, the case of the expulsion of Editor Jaurett, and the revision of the award made in 1903 to the Orinoco Steamship Company.
Professor Robert Francis Harper of the University of Chicago, who is director of the expedition of the Oriental Exploration Fund, now in Assyria, has received a telegram announcing that the work of excavating the ruins of Bismya, which was suspended last autumn, is to be resumed by permission of the Turkish Government.
It is expected that the commission created by the President to consider the subject of naturalization will be ready to report at the next session of Congress.
The report of the Commissioner of Corporations upon the beef industry has been submitted in compliance with the resolution of the House of Representatives adopted March 7.
Steps to compel the removal from the New York subway stations of the advertising signs which have given so much offence to the artistic tastes of many of its patrons, have been taken by Mayor McClellan.
The United States Supreme Court, in a decision written by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, has unanimously decided in favor of the Government in its case against the Beef Trust.
