We

excited the jealousy of European countries, and have made them eager to take any opportunity of humiliating a successful rival. Secondly, that English conceit, manifested in an irritating assumption of superiority and an irritating habit of disregarding other people's sensibilities, has bred dislike of England in this country. "There is," says the "Speaker," "some justification for the popular American impression of our self-conceit. We ourselves know that it springs mainly from the self-absorption of a busy race. have our own work in the world to do; and whilst we are doing it we trouble ourselves very little about the affairs, or indeed the feelings, of others. So we tread unconsciously upon the corns of many of our fellow-creatures, and we have naturally to pay the penalty for doing so." Insularity, the "Speaker " adds, is a great thing for England, but there is a penalty attached to it. "It inspires in us that traditional attitude of, we will not say contempt, but condescension towards the foreigner which has been so often satirized by writers and philosophers of our own race." This is admirable talking. It shows the instinct for truth which lies at the bottom of the character of the

English-speaking races. We commend this example to our own flamboyant press.

Last week the question was raised in England why the United States should recommend arbitration in the British Venezuelan affair, when it has not yet paid the $425,000 to Great Britain, agreed upon between the late Secretary 'Gresham and the British Ambassador, Sir Julian Paunc.fote, as a lump sum in settlement of Behring Sea claims. The charge that we are not carrying out the terms of that arbitration is wholly unjust. By Article VIII. of the Behring Sea Treaty it was provided that

"The United States and Great Britain, having found themselves unable to agree upon a reference which shall include the question of the liability of each for the injuries alleged to have been sustained by the other, or by its citizens, in connection with the claims presented and urged by it, and being solicitous that this subordinate question should not interrupt or longer delay the submission and determination of the main questions, do agree that either may submit to the arbitrators any question of fact involved in said claims, and ask for a finding thereon; the question of the liability of either Government upon the facts found to be the subject of further negotiation." When the questions of fact were submitted to the arbitrators, the finding was against us; but the amount of damages to be paid by us was left to be settled by further negotiation, the Paris Tribunal expressly declining to arbitrate the question of damages. The late Secretary of State and the B itish Ambassador decided that the best method of settlement would be through a Commission, but as differences had arisen regarding the phraseology to be used in establishing the Commission, and as the expenses of the Commission would be considerable, the Secretary and the Ambassador proposed to settle all claims without adjudication, by a compromise lump sum of $425,000. This agreement was, of course, subject to Congressional ratification; Congress refused to ratify it, and negotiations have been resumed for the organization of a Commission. If our Government shall refuse to pay the damages awarded by this Commission, it will then be time enough to accuse us of bad faith. As many of our Representatives in Washington believe that more than half the British claim was for the expected catches of vessels warned away; that more than half the vessels for which claims were filed were wholly or in part owned by Americans; that a large number of these ships had been put down at double their value; in short, that less than one-fifth of the amount originally claimed was on an equitable basis, it is not surprising that our National Legislature decided to provide

for a proper compensation only after thorough investigation.

Last week the Volksraad of the Orange Free State adopted a resolution declaring that the State would assist the Transvaal at all times when such assistance should be required, and protested against the continued existence of the British South Africa Company as being a danger to the peace of Africa, recording its opinion that the charter of the Company should be canceled and that Mashonaland and Matabeleland should be placed either under the British Imperial Government or under the Government of Cape Colony. It is thought in England that it might be a good thing under the circumstances to cancel the charter, since, should the Company be forced into liquidation, the resulting tumult would show that many men high in station, including some members of the reigning house, have realized great amounts of money by the sale of South Africa shares at large premiums to the present unfortunate holders. The forfeiture of the charter would also relieve. the Company of much of the blame which has already come to it, and some of the odium might be transferred to the Government. The directors would contend that, but for the repeal of the charter by the Government, they might have fulfilled every engagement. The Company's organizer and chief working power, Mr. Cecil Rhodes, ex-Premier of Cape Colony, has sailed for England. As to his lieutenant, Dr. Jameson, the leader of the recent filibustering raid, we have conflicting dispatches. It is announced that he and his officers are to be conveyed as prisoners to England, where they will be arraigned before proper tribunals. Again, we have news that, as the arrested men have been accused of treason and also of seeking to subvert the Government of the Transvaal, they must be tried by its High Court. As to the Americans arrested, our consular agent at Johannesburg is acting in co-operation with the British authorities in securing protection. The fact that we have accredited an agent to the South African Republic has led some to think that we have recognized the entire independence of that nation and have disregarded the species of suzerainty which Great Britain holds. The statement has been made by officers of our State Department, however, that, in view of the treaty of 1884 between Great Britain and the Transvaal, this has no bearing on the question. In the abovementioned treaty this paragraph defines the former's authority:

"The South African Republic will conclude no treaty or engagement with any State or nation other than the Orange Free State, nor with any native tribe to the eastward or westward of the Republic, until the same has been approved by her Majesty the Queen. Such approval shall be considered to have been granted if her Majesty's Government shall not, within six months after receiving a copy of such treaty (which shall be delivered to them immediately upon its completion), have notified that the conclusion of such treaty is in conflict with the interests of Great Britain, or of any of her Majesty's possessions in South Africa."

Hence it will be seen that it was not necessary to ask Great Britain's consent to accredit an agent to the South African Republic. Its Volksraad has met at Pretoria, and, after authorizing an addition to the State artillery, and passing resolutions of thanks to the Orange Free State and also to the Cape Colony Government for their influence and support, has adjourned until the regular May session.

The return to office of some of the Ministers who had resigned from the Canadian Cabinet was entirely overshadowed in importance last week by the elections in Manitoba. Premier Greenway has increased his legislative support over that which he enjoyed in the last Manitoban

Parliament. More than thirty constituencies out of the forty have now indorsed Mr. Greenway's colleagues—a sufficient answer to the Remedial Order providing separate schools for Manitoba. It is claimed by the Roman Catholics that the Dominion could not have been formed without the compromise of separate schools, and on this account a provision was inserted in the British North America Act that "nothing in any such law shall prejudicially affect any right or privilege with respect to denominational schools which any class of persons have by law in the province at the union." Under this act the Roman Catholics of Manitoba had the right of support from the public fund for their separate schools; but when the province became mostly Protestant, it was seen that the Protestant schools were making better progress than were those of the Roman Catholics. In 1890, therefore, the Public Schools Act was passed. It declared that no school which did not conform to the provisions of the Act with reference to certificated teachers, authorized text-books, and teaching should be deemed a public school and entitled to any share of the school taxes or legislative grant for educational purposes. No religious exercises were to be allowed except those authorized by the Advisory Board, and no religious exercises were to contain anything opposed to the religious beliefs of any class of the people. This provision was not satisfactory to the Roman Catholics, who contended that they were entitled under the Manitoba Act to separate schools in which they might teach their own doctrines. A test case"Barrett vs. the City of Winnipeg"-in which the constitutionality of the Public Schools Act was attacked, was carried from court to court until it reached the British Privy Council, which declared that the Public Schools Act was constitutional. Then the Roman Catholics declared that they had the right of redress from the Dominion Parliament, and accordingly they petitioned the Governor

General in Council for relief. The Dominion Cabinet (the Governor-General in Council) expressed doubts as to whether this petition could be heard, and referred the matter to the decision of the Canadian Supreme Court. As the Court was evenly divided, the question was carried to the British Privy Council, which decided that the Roman Catholics had the right to appeal to the Governor-General in Council. A statement was added, however, that the matter of relief was entirely one for the Dominion Cabinet to decide. The Cabinet issued an order directing Manitoba to restore separate schools to the Roman Catholics. Last June the Manitoba Legislature met and declined to carry out the terms of the order; upon which the Dominion Cabinet declared that if Manitoba did not carry out the terms the Dominion Government would at the present Parliamentary session institute legislation to override the Manitoba Public School Act. By the elections last week the people of Manitoba reiterated the answer of the Manitoba Legislature, and it remains to be seen what response the people of the Dominion of Canada will make at the impending Canadian elections. In the United States the laity of the Roman Catholic Church might be safely trusted to confirm the position of Manitoba in favor of non-ecclesiastical public schools.

army has outnumbered the insurgents ten to one. Yet he has not only failed to defeat or disperse his enemies, but he has been unable to compel them to confine their operations to any one part of the island. At first we were told that the rebels had been driven into the swamps at the eastern end of the island. Then, as they appeared in large bodies in central Cuba, a line was drawn south from Havana to the southern coast, beyond which they were not to pass. As the island is narrow at this part, it seemed an easy military undertaking to hold the line inflexibly. But the insurgents, by threatening Havana, compelled Campos to draw his whole force around the capital, and have passed and repassed his imaginary line at pleasure. Naturally, the extreme party in Havana have accused Campos of lack of vigor and of political leanings towards a compromise with the autonomists. General Garcia, the leader of a former Cuban revolt, speaks of Campos as conciliatory; all accounts agree that he has absolutely refused to adopt the cruel methods of warfare which have been employed by other Spanish generals in Cuba. His successor, Ger eral Weyler, is in experience inferior to Campos; he is spoken of as energetic and ready to adopt extreme measures. In this desultory kind of warfare it seems almost impossible to bring on a decisive engagement. The rapidity and alertness of the revolutionary leaders are remarkable. Raids and attacks upon exposed points are followed by swift retreats to inaccessible districts. A whole year has been spent by Spain in futile attempts to crush the rebellion, and it is now stronger than ever.

During the past week the newspapers which urged most strenuously that the new bond issue should have been sold to the Morgan syndicate, instead of being offered in the open market to the highest bidders, have abandoned the prediction that the method employed would fai'. From the beginning it was evident that foreign capitalists cou'd bid for the new bonds, and therefore that the syndicate could not dictate its own terms by reason of its control of so large a part of the available gold in this country. The question of greatest interest was whether individual members of the syndicate would enter into the competition for the bonds by offering separate bids. This question had been practically answered in the affirmative by the beginning of last week, certain members of the syndicate having announced that the investors they represented desired the bonds and would offer competing bids. On Wednesday this answer was given in a conclusive way by the publication of a circular-letter from Mr. Pierpont Morgan, dissolving the syndicate. This letter ought to do much to disabuse the public mind of popular prejudice against capitalists, though, unfortunately, it will not be read by nor truly interpreted to the prejudiced class of the public. It is thoroughly patriotic in tone. The syndicate, it says, was organized to offer the Government $200,000,000 of gold coin in exchange for bonds. Within four days the entire amount had been subscribed. The subscribers belonged to four classes of about equal importance:

1. Foreign firms, prepared, if necessary, to ship gold to the amount of this subscription.

2. American banks, savings-banks, trust companies, and private individuals in possession of gold, and wishing the bonds for investment. 3. American banks in possession of gold, and wishing the bonds for future sale in the market.

4. Firms without gold, but willing to obtain it, in order to participate in the loan.

In his circular Mr. Morgan quotes a letter from himself to the President, written just prior to the announcement of the new bond issue, and presumably influential, in connection with a previous interview, in bringing that issue about,

recommending, on grounds of public policy, that new bonds should be sold to the syndicate 66 on about the basis of the contract of February 8, 1895," but pledging his cooperation in making the loan a success in case the President decided to offer the bonds to public subscription. This pledge is carried out by the dissolution of the syndicate, leaving the members entirely free to offer what terms they see fit, and by the co-operation of members of it in making the loan a success. There is now little doubt that the entire issue will be subscribed for at rates approximating those for which the former issue now sells in the open market. During last week Secretary Carlisle sensibly extended the time during which payments for the new bonds could be made. He did this at the suggestion of many New York bankers, who recognized that the purchase of $100,000,000 in gold for the Treasury would contract the amount of money in circulation, and feared that if this contraction took place suddenly, the loan to "restore confidence" would precipitate a panic.

Among the recent elections of United States Senators the most important was that held in Utah on Monday of this week. Mr. Frank J. Cannon, the son of George Q. Cannon, of the Presidency of the Mormon Church, was selected as the representative of the Mormons, and Mr. Arthur Brown as the representative of the Gentiles. Mr. Cannon was elected delegate to Congress in 1894, partly because of the revulsion of public sentiment against the Democratic party, and partly, it is alleged, because of the church influence in his favor. At one time, in his wilder days, he left the Mormon Church, but returned to it previous to his entrance into politics. He is not regarded as a man of marked ability or strength of character. His colleague,

on the contrary, is reported to be a man of exceptional power, closely resembling Senator Tillman. He has been an intense anti-Mormon, and his election was something of a surprise. Both Senators are, of course, Republicans and advocates of the immediate free coinage of silver. In Kentucky the Democratic caucus renominated Senator Blackburn, but fourteen Democrats opposed to free coinage refused to be bound by the caucus action. The election of a Democrat is thus rendered next to impossible, as the two Populists who hold the balance of power will not support a Democrat acceptable to the anti-silver wing. The Republicans may unseat enough Democrats in the lower House to give themselves a majority of both Houses on joint ballot, but the Democrats threaten to meet any such tactics by unseating Republican Senators. In such an unseemly fight as this the Republicans would seem to have the political advantage, as the Republican House has a much longer tale of members than the Democratic Senate. In Ohio the Republicans have elected to the Senate exGovernor Foraker, who is expected to succeed in all respects to the power and prestige of James G. Blaine. his speech before the Ohio Legislature accepting the election he characteristically defined himself as a bimetallist, without defining bimetallism.

In

Temperance legislation occupies the first place before most of the newly assembled Legislatures. In Ohio the temperance forces seem to be entirely united in support of the local option bill, barely defeated last year, extending to counties the rights now possessed by townships to prohibit bar rooms within their borders. The Anti-Saloon League, which has carried on so effectively the agitation in favor of this measure, holds its convention in Columbus this week. Among the speakers announced are the Rev.

J. M. Cleary, of Minnesota, and Bishop Watterson, of Columbus, representing the Catholic Total Abstinence Union, Colonel Eli Ritter and the Hon. I. E. Nicholson, of Indiana-the leaders of the forces which secured the enactment of the Nicholson Law last year—and the Hon. Walter B. Hill, of Georgia, representing the powerful AntiBar-room League in that State, besides President J. W. Bashford, of Ohio Wesleyan University, and others who have given the Ohio League its astonishing vitality and strength. The fact that most of these men are Prohibitionists furnishes illustration of the falsity of the charge that Prohibitionists will not work with moderate temperance people to push forward restrictive measures immediately practicable. It is our observation that much, if not most, of the hard work in behalf of such measures is performed by the members of this party from whose theories we so often dissent. In New York State a large number of excise bills have been introduced into the Legislature besides the Raines tax bill reported last week. A moderate Sunday-opening bill has been presented having the support of Dr. Parkhurst and the Chamber of Commerce, and an immoderate Sunday-opening bill having the support of the Chamber of Commerce and the Excise Reform Association. The former merely authorizes bona-fide restaurants to sell wine and beer with meals, and without meals from 12 to 2 P.M. and from 6 P.M. to 8 P.M. provided they are not to be drunk on the premises. With such an enactment as this it is believed that the temperance forces in this city could defeat at the polls the proposition for wide-open saloons from 1 to 10 P.M., on which the other bill demands a referendum. It is for this last bill, of course, that the

liquor-dealers are working with might and main, and we

regret to find them supported by many men to whom Sun

day bar-rooms, with the attendant treating, tippling, and loafing, are personally repugnant. Fortunately, however, the Legislature-Republican by over two-thirds majority— will not dare to repudiate the anti-saloon platform on which liquor-dealers while refusing the local option demanded by it was elected by offering the local option demanded by temperance people.

Another temperance matter of interest in New York is a decision of the Court of Appeals which will gradually reduce the number of saloons within two hundred feet of churches or schools. Heretofore it has been the custom, at least in this city, to renew licenses to old saloons within the legal limit, even if the saloons changed hands, unless a protest was filed by the church or school authorities. The Court of Appeals decides that under the law licenses can only be renewed to present licensees and cannot be transferred to new men. The significance of the decision is much less than most of the reports have indicated. In Iowa retiring Governor Jackson, in his message to the Legislature, urges that the license law passed under his administration has lessened the number of saloons. The number of United States licenses issued during the last year of State-wide prohibition, he says, was 6,032; the number issued during the first year of the so-called "mulct" law was 4,264. The revenue of the taxpayers from the license or "mulct" system was $1,156,000. On these accounts the retiring Governor urges that the new law has been helpful to the State as well as to the liquor-dealers. That it has helped the liquor-dealers no one denies; that it has helped the State is vehemently denied by most of the temperance people, who ask nothing more of the new Legislature than that Legislature than that it shall fulfill the pledge to submit to the voters of the State a prohibitory amendment to the Constitution. The fact that the number of United States

tary articles, have considered the subject of municipal government from the historic and scientific points of view; but it may fairly be said that no systematic, patriotic, and scientific endeavor has been made by any Legislature to ascertain the principles which should be applied to municipal government, and to construct a general municipal charter upon those principles. This is what pre-eminently needs to be done. The charter of the great cities should be like the Constitution of the State, adopted after careful deliberation, and not easily to be changed. The Reform Club in the city of New York could render no better service than by entering into correspondence with smaller bodies in other cities for the purpose of devising a plan for municipal government to be urged upon the Legislature. If the cities from New York to Buffalo were once able to agree upon a general plan of municipal government, their united action would unquestionably secure its ratification by the people of the State. It is doubtful whether any legislative committee will or can secure any

The political machine corrupts, vitiates, and demoralizes everything which it touches. The Hon. Levi P. Morton has made, on the whole, an excellent Governor of New York State. He has been conservative, conciliatory, prudent, and in his moral standards greatly superior to the politicians who have claimed to control the Republican party. When such a man is nominated for the Presidency by his friends, legitimate political ambition should intensify his desire and strengthen his purpose to do great things. But the machine is supposed to control the convention which makes the Presidential nomination, and it is probably true that no man can even have his name submitted to the people as a candidate unless he has secured a nomination from the machine. When, therefore, Mr. Morton's name is seriously mentioned for the Presidency, immediately he is brought under pressure to yield to the machine, whose behests he did not obey in the gubernatorial administration. Apparently as a result of that pressure, he has removed a good man and appointed an extremely doubtful one on the Civil Service Commission, in deference to the demands of the spoilsmen, and in spite of the protest of the Civil Service Reformers; in other words, he has put the law into the hands of men whose character and antecedents give the public reason to believe that they will disregard its spirit, and, so far as they dare, will violate its principles. If this is what the machine can do with a man so deservedly esteemed as Governor Morton, what wonder that it corrupts and demoralizes men of feebler fiber and less eminence! Such political appointments as these make the independent citizen question whether he can hope for political purity in either party, or office, but between statesmen honestly differing in their for a political issue, not between spoils men struggling for political judgments. Our present political system is as if in the Civil War General Lee on one side and General Grant on the other had been controlled in their campaigns by the peddlers, sutlers, camp-followers, and hangers-on who were following the army for what they could make out of it.

The New York Kindergarten Association has made an appeal for funds. It needs about $9,000 for the work of the winter, in addition to the money which it receives from regular sources. No officer of the Association receives any salary, and very considerable work is done and very heavy responsibilities are shouldered by busy men and women out of pure love of the cause. Subscriptions of any amount may be sent to the Treasurer, Mr. Alfred Bishop Mason, 10 Wall Street.

Hopeful Signs

That waves of emotion sometimes sweep through whole races is well known. There are times when great populations are seized with a kind of hysteria; when it seems as if the nerves were in control instead of intelligence and will. The world appears to be passing through such a period at present. The evidences of nervous excitement have long been numerous in all the arts, and the recent outbreaks of race and national feeling in their suddenness and intensity have seemed to betray the general diffusion of a hysterical element. Only a few weeks ago, with the exception of the uncertainty at Constantinople, the whole world was at peace; now it would seem as if the whole world were by the ears. The clamor of tongues has been deafening. First came the roar which rolled over this continent like a surge. Then followed a similar tumult in England and Germany, and mutterings all over Europe. The sober business of governing the world and keeping order, with due sense of the tremendous responsibilities involved, has apparently yielded for the moment to the sort of irritability which sometimes takes possession of a school of boys at the end of the winter term, when, at the least provocation, self-restraint goes and passion comes. President Woolsey used to say that about the middle of March the devil went through the New England colleges like a roaring lion. It seems to day as if the whole world were feeling a kind of nervous tension, and as if its nerves were giving way under it.

There is, however, one fact in the present situation which is profoundly significant, and, from our point of view, profoundly hopeful, and that is the evident reluctance of any Great Power to commit itself beyond hope to the settlement of questions by war. All Europe is armed to the teeth. Not since the days of Napoleon the Great have so many men been under arms, or so many vessels equipped for battle, ready to sail at an hour's notice'; and not even in Napoleon's time was there anything like the systematic, scientific, and complete equipment of armies and navies alike for the highest service and the most deadly destructiveness. And yet, with these superb instruments in hand, no country is willing to evoke the awful possibilities of

war.

Science has armed men with such instruments of destruction that the very perfection of the instrument makes the man unwilling to employ it. It would seem as if the development of the machinery of devastation and wreck had developed also a keener sense of responsibility, a keener consciousness of pain. The Emperor of Germany may send gratuitous congratulations to the President of the South African Republic, and all England may be set aflame with indignation, but Germany has probably no intention of provoking an armed struggle. With With every possible facility for warfare, war is the one thing which she wishes to avoid. The same thing may be said of England, which, as usual, has shown the nerve of the English-speaking races under great danger, and has manifested a characteristic readiness and resourcefulness. France is supposed to be full of the belligerent spirit, but France is now calling herself the arbiter of peace in Europe. Italy and Austria have great armies, but neither desires to use them. Even Russia, which still stands largely outside of European opinion, shows a new reluctance in employing force.

The unwillingness of the world to fight is due to several causes: First, to the clear recognition, on the part of all who know anything about the matter, of the enormous destructiveness which must be involved in any modern war. Second, to the immense and crushing expense which any

war must involve. The Franco-German War cost eight and a half millions of dollars a day. A United States Senator is reported as having said that war would be a good thing for this country-not war for the vindication of National honor or the protection of National rights, but war in itself. Never, surely, did any man in high position evince a greater ignorance of the laws of economics or of the teachings of history. War is sheer brutal destruction of values, and in the present condition of things, when almost every country in Europe is loaded to the water's edge with indebtedness of every kind, no country has the courage to face an enormous addition to its financial burdens. France, with all its prosperity and sagacity, has been steadily increasing its national debt; Italy has been almost crushed by the burden of taxation; the same burdens in Germany are already as heavy as the people can comfortably bear; and, while the English are rejoicing in a large surplus of revenue, the general financial condition of the Empire is not one to encourage any increase of obligations. Third, to the growing sense of the solidarity of the race and of the reality of the ties which bind country to country. We have long passed the point where even a German bomb could be dropped by the most ardent German marksman into the Louvre with any degree of satisfaction, and the American who could destroy Westminster Abbey would be a monster. In spite of armaments and arms, there is more real brotherhood in the world than there has ever been before, and the swift reaction against the passion which in this country, in England, and in Germany has been so notable in recent weeks, is an assertion of a common sentiment which public men and the ruling classes cannot disregard. The peoples of the world are for peace because they hate destruction. They have a growing sense of the responsibility of race for race, and they are coming into that broader economic knowledge which makes them understand that the highest results, both materially and spiritually, are reached by co-operation between the races, and not by the kind of competition that involves destructiveness. In other words, war, which is the old method of barbarism, has already become an anachronism in these civilized days, which are not, as some of our warlike public men declare, "piping times of peace," but times of higher discernment of the uses of energy, of profounder sense of the solidarity of the race, and of truer ideals of honor.

A Historical Precedent

The Outlook cited last week the action of President Monroe and the speech of Mr. Webster in support of the Greeks in their struggle for freedom against Turkey, as furnishing a historical example of the spirit and method in which and by which the United States may properly endeavor to put a stop to outrages in Armenia. England may find a still more striking historical precedent in one of the finest episodes in her later history. Two hundred and forty years ago, in 1655, Charles Emanuel II., Duke of Savoy and Prince of Piedmont, by an edict, commanded his Protestant subjects in the valleys of the Cottian Alps, known sometimes as the Vaudois and sometimes as the Waldenses, to abjure Protestantism and accept the Roman Catholic faith within twenty days, or to part with their property and leave the country. These brave and sturdy people resisted. Military force was sent against them. They were overcome by preponderance of numbers, they were slaughtered, flung over precipices, carried away into captivity, outraged in every conceivable fashion, and hundreds of families were driven to seek access among the