TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Press, Volume LII, Issue 9290, 16 December 1895, Page 4

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

An interesting inaigbl Doing Business iuto the Btate of affairs uuder existing at Rio during Difficulties. the late revolution w« afforded by a case he.tt* recently ia the Court of Queen'- Baooh, in which the plaintiff-, a Glasgow firm of. shipowners, sued a firm of ocml merchants of London and Kio, for damages for breach of coutract. The defendants, it appeared had chartered a steamer, the Port Crawford, belonging to plaintiff., to take a cargo of coal to Rio, and the charter party provided that the coal was to be discharged at a certain rate per day. If this had been adhered to the vessel would have been discharged iv 30 days, whereas, in fact, she was not discharged until she had been 120 days in the port. This the defendants urged, was due to the fact that the revolution prevented them from properly carrying on their business. The defendants owned half an island in the harbour, and coal cargoes were discharged at this point, where they had a depot. They told the captain of the Port Crawford he must go to this place, if he wanted to discharge, but at the same time they wrote Home to the owners, saying they knew perfectly well he could not go there unles. be wanted his ship knooked to pieces by the rebel cannonading, as the rebois were bombardiue the forts, aud this particular anchorage was right ia the line of fire. The Port Crawfoid went down to an anchorage iv the bay, and was eveutually discharged there. As the captain of the Port Crawford had declared that people hardly knew a revolution was going on, the evidenoe of the witnesses for the defence was, of course, directed to show that this gallant officer took an extremely sanguine view of the situation. They stated that coal and provisions were the two things which ths rebels would not allow to be landed, coals boing coii.i-icrfd contraband of war. There were no men to work tbe lighters, for the Government pressed every man on shore that they coula lay hands on for the army, and the rebels pressed every man afloat iuto the navy. Captain Lang, of H.M.S. Sirius, said that during the whole time he was in the harbour constant firing was going on between the forts and the rebel fleet. "On one occasion." sai.l the witness, when I went ail-ore, I was very nearly hit. I had gone to see the Miuistm- of Marine on duty, and after I came out and was waiting for my boat to come up, some bullets whistled close by mc and struck two or three feet away. The Government troops in the arsenal were lying flat on their stonm-lis, but I being in full uniform, .with my cocked hat, Bword, and epaulettes, did not think it would be dignified for a British officer to follow their example, so I stood where I was." He endeavoured, he added, iv reply to a remark by one of the counsel, to uphold the..honour of England. The managers of the defendants' business, at Rio deposed that during the rovolution it was impossible to oarry on their business. They could not get a place iv which to store their coal which was outside the line of fire. Scores of shot were picked up in their offices, which were riddled in many places, aud the windows had to be barricaded with ledgers. The Government troops on certain days amused themselves by firing on the firm's lighters, and sank several of them. Tho captain of a British mail steamer said the defendants did all they could to carry on their business with expedition, aud added that at the end of the revolution the rejoicings on shore were kept up to that exipnt, that they paralysed trade as much as the revolution itself had done. The Judge eventually reserved his decision, but if the excuse clause of the charter party means anything, the defendants, one would think,' are tolerably certain of winning their case.

•There is little doubt as to Is what the answer of moat Photography photographers to this ques* Art? tion would be, and he would be a tolerably brave man who ventured to assert in their presence that photography ia not art. But Mr Story, A.R.A., is nob only brave, but rash, for he did not scruple to uphold this argument before a meeting of the London Camera Club. That be etill Uvea ia perhaps due to hie having taken the precaution to see that he had some sympathise!a at the meeting. The more he thought about photography, he said, the more wonderlul and interesting it seemed to him. He bad come to the conclusion, however, that photography, while ib was the most perfect copy possible, was but a copy, aud he valued it for this. Art, on the other baud, was invention, not only the invention of the brain, but the work of human hands guided by intelligence. He acknowledged that art and photography were of the greatest service to each other, but photography could not make its pictures so perfect, if it were not for the Je-aons of art. Ihe ordinary run of photographs were unsatisfactory from au' artist a point of view, as they were full of the minutest details and nothing was left to the imagination. The cameia took thing* -s they were and when these were selected with taste and judgment beautiful results were obtained, but this required time. The artist did not paint everything he saw, he indicated things with a few louche., aad left it to the imagination to produce what was not present to the eye, so that the great source of ci joymeut iv a work of art was a mental one. We are not surprised to learn that a discussion followed the lecturer's remarks, and that the question was keenly argued. One gentleman, in defending . photography as an art, used the **yottre another " line of argument, by denying that some painters had any right to call themselves artists at all. This drew fr on * another the retort that the camera stood in precisely the same position to art that the phonograph did to music. A person using a camera was**' more an artist than a person using a phonograph waa a musician. This, we need hardly point out, is a very weak argument. Using a phonograph is a purely meohanical work, whereas the most meohanical photographer exerts something more than were meohanical skill. The position ia tllii—, : tbat whereas a man completely devoid of „,,,. artistio feeling may by ohance produce a moil*-A7" artiatio photograph, one who ia an artist ix» „'-, . *ai

all but the ability to paint pictures can be reckoned "uon to turn out beautiful photograph*** I'» choice of subjects, grouping, and even in the more mechanical process of priniin','. tho artist will, nine times out of ten, do bettor work thau the mere " camera fiend," and this fact surely argues that photo.rap'ny is something more than a copy, and that it can lay some claim to being con-' sidci.*-" one of the arts.

The Japanese, having acJapan ..pled tho position into Preparing, which they were forced by tho action of Russia, and having for the timo being swallowed their resentment at that actiou, have now settled down for a long steady ten-years' grind, at the end of whicn time they hope to be iv a f»r more powerful position than they are at aresent. They have set themselves to do ;W0 things—to bring the army and navy up io a point which shall make them supreme in the Far 1-ist and to develops the comniercial and industrial resources of their country. The first task is infinitely the more important in their eyes. No sacrifice says a Yokohama correspondent, will be too great, no taxation too heavy, no debt too burdensome, if in ten years .Japan be placed in possession of au army far exceeding in number any force that can be brought against her and a navy that shall dominate the Pacific. The army, it is thought, is to be increased from il? present peace footing of 66,000 to 250,-00, an.l the navy is to ba strengthened hy the addition of eight battleships. The order for the building of these vessels is one which ia naturally the object of much competition between British and American firms, but there is little reason to doubt that the English and Scotch shipbuilding yards will secure .the desired commission. The addition of these warships to her fleet will be of material servic. to Japan in prosecuting any desire for revenge which she may have left at the end of ten years. Spinnin" mills, docks, railway., and steamship lines will be the principal outlets for the nation's commercial aud industrial activity, but we are assured that England has nothing to fear from competition. All the machinery and raw material required for the construction of such works as those mentioned will come from England, if English manufacturers are alive to their interests. It is further pointed out that there is less to fear from Japanese cheap labour than is generally supposed, for tbe price of skilled labour is advancing as the demand for it grows. Even now coolie labour is worth more than doublo what it was in 1890, five years ago, and everything, the writer says, points to an approximation between the price of labour in the West and in the East. Granting this, however, it must be many yoars before thei*. is anything like equality in the rates of pay, if such an event ever occurs. In tho meantime Japan seems likely to develop into a daugerous competitor with English and European manufacturers iv the Eastern and Pacific markets.