TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Press, Volume LIII, Issue 9363, 12 March 1896, Page 4

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

During last session of Foreign Parliament the question of Prison-made the importation of foreign Goods. prison • made goods was brought before the House on several occasions, and Ministers, agreeing that such competition was unfair, promised in effect to " keep the matter steadily in view." The question was exciting a good deal of interest in England just about . then, in consequence of the - statement made by Sir Howard Vincent, M.P., and others, as to the way in which English manufacturers were being ruined by the cheap output of German and Belgian prisons, and a Departmental Committee was Bet up to euquire into the whole matter, and fiud out whether, if the evil really existed, there was any cure for it. This Commission, which has been sitting off and ou for j more than a year, and whioh heard a great deal of evidence, has just ; issued its report. The Commissioners 1 find, from the investigations made as ; to the extent to whioh goods made in foreign prisons are imported into | the United Kingdom, that they had no I evidence to show that the volume of such trade was sufficiently large to injure British j trade generally. The only trades which I made serious complaints of injury were the brushmakers and matmakers, and with I regard to the first the allegations.made of [ severe or lasting injury were not sustained, while in the case of the matmakers the injury was only slight. Brushes wore made in England by machinery as cheaply as, or oheaper than, they could be made by foreign ["labour, prison or otherwise, and foreign mats | were not made more cheaply in prison than outside, for labour is so cheap ou tho Continent that ib can effectually compete with prison labour. As a matter of fact, only the trade in the cheaper descriptions of brushes ; and mats suffered from the depression ; the j English manufacture of the better qualities was increasing. As we have remarked, the Committee,. besides having to inquire into the extent of the import trade in foreign prison-made goods, had to. report whether any steps could be taken to effectually restrict sush importation. Having stated that no cause had been shown for the necessity to take auy such steps this part of the Commissioners' business naturally lapsed, but they took, the opportunity to remark that even if cause had been shown no steps could be taken to restiict such importation in prison-made goods which wonld not be more hurtful thaii beneficial. Any prohibitory legislation, they said, would iuVolve administrative action of a kind which, besides being most injurious to trade, wonld probably create international difficulties, and would also fail to effect the desired objects. The report appears to effectually lay the " foreign prison-made goods" bogey, and ioiface of its assertions it is unlikely that the subject will, for some time at least, trouble the minds of New Zealand politicians. Two somewhat remarkable Two attempts to effect the con: American version of two prominent Atheists. - • atheists by the means, of prayer have lately been made in America; It appears that the notoriety and mfluence of the American lawyer and infidel lecturer, Colonel Ingersoll, have lately much impressed a large body of people in the city' of Cleveland. Three thousand members., of the Christian Eadeavouc Societies in the city therefore resolved to .pray at stated times for a fortuight for the conversion of Ingersoil, but at the cod of the fortnight tho latter stated that his views were unchanged, and he delivered and published a lecture quite as objectionable to the Chmtiau portion of tho community as any that precede'! it. The second attempt alluded to was made under somewhat different conditions, for it took the form of

a challenge. An atheist lecturer named § John R. Charlesworth had boen lecturing j„ I a town io Texas, and at the conclusion a , ' I Mro Swoenoy, an evangelist of t|, 9 0M Women's Christian Temperanpe Union proposed that Charlesworth should ter! *8 mib tho members of tho Union to pra* If for his conversion for three months an-l i that if the prayers were successful he shoold I publicly acknowledge his conversion. T n I lecturer accepted the challenge and the con. I dition attached to it, but there seams to have beeu a misunderstanding. Charles worth asserts, according to a New VorW correspondent, that it was part of tf, e agreement that Mrs Sweeney, if he should not bo converted, should acknowledge puh. lioly that there was no efficacy i Q prayer. Mrs Sweeney, on tho other hand, declares that no such condi- i tion was imposed or agreed to. Ab 8 any rate, the three months p aß , ed I and Charlesworth publicly announced that f his attitude towards religion had uudergone I no change. Mrs Sweeney, for her part, hm 1 stated that Charlesworth " was in no condj. tion to receive the influences of the Holy Spirit," and that no prayer would convert a man who took the stand he took ; at ih e same time she believed he was honest. «> n does not follow," remarks the correspondent " that because these atheists maintained their past attitude, the purpose of these praying thousands will never be accom. plished." I

•Speaking recently of the The isolation of Eugland to the Conscription Odessa correspondent of a in London paper, a Russian England. staff officer of high rjmfc was very outspoken as to the absolute necessity for the conscription in England if she intended to maintain her present position. For the present, he admitted, England's invincible naval power protected her against the aggression of any two or three combined Powers,» but tha! state of things would not lust for ever, a u < England's future salvatiou lay in her eibhe: seeking an alliance with France or Russia or both, or keeping her independence witl the aid of tho conscription. " Had you hud tho conscription during the last decade," ht j said, " you could the other day hive snapped your fingers in the face of President Cleveland, of the German Emperor, and indeed, of all Europe. With your magnift. cent and expeditious meaus of transport, you could land half a million or a million of men in an euemy'a territdry before that enemy would know what had happened. Call the oonsoription a national evil if you will, but among nations who to-morrow may be at strife one national evil demands another." He did not look upon ib as an evil himself. Oa the othoc hand, beaides making Kugland the moat formidable power in the world, i t would relieve the congested labour market, clear the cities of loafing idlers and criminals, and partially empty the prisons. He further suggested making it the corollary of the English system ot free education; the question as to whether it should be exactly on the lines of the Continental system was a matter for statesmen to decide. This officer held that" the recent creation in England of the "Navy League" might mean much or nothing, but its initiation was a sufficiently significant indication of the popular distrust of the invulnerability of England's defchoe. We do nob so treat it, bub look upou it rather as a body whose object it is to keep the nation from falling asleep and forgetting how important the navy is to the Empire. The Russian gentleman also advocated consoription or the pressgang for the navy, because he said he knew our naval reserve would be exhausted if we went to war. But hit Goschen has. just said that only soinj 11,000 of the reserve would be required i( every ship in the Navy had to be manned, so we are better off than our Russian adviser supposed. Hid arguments as to why England should form an alliance with Russia, " which would reduce the Tuutouio League to. absolute' impotence," are, in these times of German hostility, less likely to provoke ridicule than might otherwise have been the case. Certainly, they are more logical than those he uses io favour of the conscription in Eugland, whioh, if he knows the English character as well as he is said to do, he must know is very unlikely indeed ever to bo thought of seriously.