11 MAY 1907, Page 2

In the Commons on Wednesday Mr. Winston Churchill announced that

the Government bad decided to make a free gtant of £150,000 to the sufferers by the earthquake in Jamaica, and to lend £800,000 to the Colonial Government mainly for rebuilding purposes. On Thursday Mr. Churchill stated that the British Government were prepared to guarantee a loan of £5,000,000 which the Transvaal Government pro- posed to raise upon the credit of the Colony for irrigation works, railway development, and the establishment of a land bank. Mr. Sydney Buxton in introducing the vote for the Post Office made a most interesting statement. While able to give a good account of the work done by the Department in the past year, he admitted that the Post Office revenue was not expanding, a result due to a variety of causes, some of them satisfactory in themselves,—e.g., the restriction of betting and the increased use of the telephone.