LONDON CHAT.

Press, Volume LXII, Issue 12377, 16 December 1905, Page 3

LONDON CHAT.

(num ocb owx coehesposdejtt.) * LONDON, November 11. Everybody wished King Edward VII. the traditional "Many happy returns" on his 64th .birthday, which occurred the day before yesterday. King Edward has conferred a small of "Birthday Honours," in which New Zealand docs not appear to participate. However, the King's eldest daughter, Pulncess Louise Victoria (Duchees of Fife), is henceforth to bear the stylo and title of Princess Royal, and each of her daughters will bear the style and ! title of Highness, aiso the style of Pnincess, and wfll have precedence and rank immediately after all members of tho Royal Family enjoying the style of Royal Highness. Lord Windsor is raised to an earldom, Lord Iveagh to a VLscounty, end" o peerage of the United Kingdom is bestowed upon Mr A. J- Forbes-Leith, of Fyvio Oastle, Aberdeenehire. 'Sir F. M. Barley, Lieutenant-Governor and Chii* Justice of the Supreme Court of New South Wales, and Mr Arthur Cohen, K.C. are to be sworn of the Pxivy Council. A few baronetcies, knighthoods and promotions axe oonferred, but none of special or colonial interest. Some surprise has been often expressed at the delay which has taken place in bestowing upon the Duchess of Fife they title of Princess Royal, usually borne by the reigning sovereign's eldest daughter. The title in itself always seems slightly absurd, because all of the sovereign's daughters and others beside of his or her feminine .relatives are royal, princesses, and, therefore, in tho ordinary senses, prin-cesi£s-royal without any special appointment. But tho custom is established, and so it lias been wondered I that the eldest daughter of our present j sovereign has so long been allowed to : lack that titlo of precedence. Edward : VII. has now been on the throne very 1 nearly five years, yet his oldest daughi t«r has remained a mere Duchess, and his grandchildren only the Ladies Duff, instead of being accorded the usual state and precedence. And people have asked, Why? Well, nobody knows ex- ! actdy and authentic-ally, bub it is under- | stocd among those who are in the best I position to judge, that King Edward i was determined to emphasise the fact j that such conferments and preferments I are matters of his royal prerogative, j and are subject to his sovereign will and pleasure alone. His eldest son did not become Prince of Wales, ipeo facto, on tho accession of Edward VII. to the .throne; indeed, it will be remembered ; that tho title was not conferred upon the Duke of York until many months : had passed. There is a rumour that i the Duke of Fife assumed a little hastily and "previously/ , that his wife became Princess Royal ipso facto of her father's accession, and that the King resolved to make it quite dear that the title was one which rested with him to bestow or withhold as it should please him. And co he has. allowed nearly five years to pass, before raising his daughter to the rank of Princess Hoyal and her daughters to that of Princesses —Princesses Alexandra, and Maud. Those young ladies are now fourteen and twelve years of age respectiveJy. RUSSIAN. AFFAIRS. It seems approximately true that the Czar has bestowed a "sort of" Constitutional Government, that Count Witts is trying to work it, and that the Grand Dukes and the bureaucracy generally are trying to prevent him with considerable success, their latest device being* a sort of general "jacquerie" .earriecT on by hooligans against the cultured and respectable middle classes. But in truth, we know nothing with even relative certainty. Russia is co vast, and her system of espionage so elaborate that if a spark of truth should at any time es- ■' cape, it is out by accident or by connivance for come sinister purpose. The J Russian system of training pretty and attractive young girls—who aisplay tho •needful capacity and unscrupuloueness— to act as police , detectives, has proved a potent weapon of despotism. These girl detectives are ©aid to exeroise a dexterity that seems almost marvellous. in discovering what is deeired. When an unhappy prisoner arrested on euspioion and lying bound and helpless, has ont- of those dainty feminine officials admitted to his cell, aimed with plenary powers of investigation, including any mode of refined torture she may choose to practise, it is very seldom indeed that she fails to extract, not merely confession—which is by no means essential to conviction and execution—but incrimination of other "euepecta" whose arrest is contemplated. pretty police girls are accredited 'with almost fiendish ingenuity in tho extraction of valuable testimony, ■ and this, once obtained, is quite sufficient for the purpese of prosecution. The deponent has no opportunity of disclaiming his evidence or of pleading that it wee torn from him by refined but exquisite torments, for 'by death or exile he is promptly got out of the way of doing any harm. And so it. is recognised that until the present police system of Russia shall have been swept utterly away, real, reform is hopeless. POLICE METHODS. Talking of police methods, our English system continues to come' in for some awkward exposures much too frequently for the public peace of mind. Several admittedly wrong convictions havo been "disclosed, and some reversed during the last few weeks, and jsomo sharp rebukes have beon administered by judges and magistrates. Often the means employed to escure conviction have been startlingly unfair, and the swearing in tho witness-box apparently quite reckless. Fortunately, however, ■ we do not seem to come near America hi this respect. . It came out a day or two ago that in a case when a man had been arrested on suspicion of robbery, and refused to disclose the hid-ing-place of his epod, the American detective-constables sought to induce confession by ' up and down hs cell until ho fainted from sbeer exhaustion, then .keeping him without food, with the object of etarvins him into revelation. Tnesa . ere ffinctly the methods of th e,'W old times," assimpletons call them, and it is not a little curious that extreme modernism such oe that of-the United States, and such rank m^f™ 1 judicial torture should co-exist, during the reign, too, of so strenuously modern aPreefdent cc Mr Roosevelt. Bnt it h a trite saying that " E* -emee meet." Assuredly they do *n America! THE UNEMPLOIT3D PROBLEM. Although it still wantejix weeks to the recognised beginning of winter, the distress & London has already^i to a very serious height, and the bitter cry of the unemployed goes up daily and hourly. A few days ago the Prune Minister consented to receive a deputation, chiefly of women, from the unemployed of East London. m ATlarge. number of women marched ra PToceroioii to the Premier's office, and as substantially no provision, for the occasion had been made, in advance by the police authorities, a good, deal of disorder occurred, especially on the Thames Embankment, where crowds of spectators encroached i» formidably upon the procession, that once or twice there was a danger of a complete and possbry perilous tangle. However, the got through at last, and a select number duly awaited upon Mr Balfonr, to whom they stated their hard case. . It could hardly be said in strict truth that therr statement was a moderate or temperate one. It was. in fact, mixed up with a good deal of covert menace, whi'e occasionally overt threats were uttered. ! The attitude* assumed by the" deputation . wiaa often disagreeably suggestive of I the' desire to make political capital out ■

of the East End suffering, as several speakers seemed more anxious to demonstrate the futility and .inadequacy of the special Act passed •■ last session, than to offer any practical suggestion as to any feasible plan of relief, either within or without the scope of the Act. - : ' ■ That Mr Balfour - received the deputation and listened to its utterances with the utmost courtesy, interest and sympathy, need hardly be (stated. Everyone who knows him is well aware that he feels very deeply the prevalence and severity of tho present distress. But,' unfortunately, he could not see his way to offer any better remedy than an appeal to public chnrity, a prayer for the voluntary contributions of the wealthy and benevo-, lent. Ho demonstrated: — That the prevalent notion that the State is bound to find employment for every person who needs it is an utter and hopeless fallacy. (2) That'were the State to proceed even approximately along that line, the 6peedy result must inevitably be to produce a far worse state of things than that which it was sought to cure, by -reason of tho disastrous consequences which must inevitably follow any 6uch grave interference with the operation of the immutable I economic laws of supply and demand, i This was poor food .for hungry mouths, poor consolation for the destitute and | despairing. It amounted simplj* to this, that Mr Balfour would only . be • too happy to do anything that ho could, but really did not see what he could do to alleviate the prevalent suffering, and avert its recurrence. This was cold comfort to starving men and women who were not educated up to the point of being able to follow Mr Balfour's reasoning, but did very much resent tho plea of "non possum" put forward by the Prime Minister, whom they accredited with the control of unnumbered millions sterling. So several rather rude and nasty speeches were made, and in tlio end the visitors were not only "6ent empty away," but angry also. The affair is unlucky for the" present Government, for it has brought upon Ministers an attack from two widely-separated points. The ultra-Radicals, .of course, revile Mr Balfour as having mocked at starving men and women, and as having deliberately refrained from- initiating relief measures that lay within his power. At tho eamo time, the . occasion is being ' seized by many Aof tho Fiscal Reformers—though not by Mr Chamberlain himself—to shout loudly that all the existing distress and unemployment is due to free trade, which they declare ias taken tho bread out of British mouths and given it to foreigners, who have ousted them from employment by undue competition. They go on to assert that the only real remedy for this state of things is some kind of fiscal reform upon the basis of j retaliatory or preferential tariffs. Thus I the distress of the unhappy East j Enders is being exploited bytwo of tho various parties into which English politics may now be deemed to be divided. And as yet no symptom has appeared of any adequate mode being devised # of meeting tho urgent and daily-growing need. ■ * POPLAR'S LESSON. ; More than once I havo mentioned the monstrous magnitude of the-local raiting—l2s in the £—in the Poplar distract. I also referred to a meeting when tie working men present express<ed a wish that the rates might nso to 24s in the £, and when reminded that this would drive away capital and employers, roundly declared that the place would 'be better without them. This is about to be put to the practical test. The well-known Yarrow shipbuilding firm, who are. by far the largest employers of labour, and also the largest ratepayers in the Poplar district, have announced that they can no longer afford to pay such enormous rates, and that they are, therefore, about to remove their vast works from the Thames to 6omo other locality where lower rates prevail, probably on either the Tyne or the Clyde river; in other words, to the neighbourhood of either Newcastle "or Glasgow,' where also they will be able to obtain materials, fuel and labour, at a considerably cheaper rato. They have stated emphatically that they do not .purpose taking with them their present hands, as for.some time they have been paying.en unduly high rate of wages, whereas they can obtain aboundant labour far more cheaply in the North. This removal will be a tremendous blow for the locality, but the ratepayers -have brought the misfortune on themselves. THE SUSPENSION OF SHRUBB. According to a leading London paper, the suspension of Alfred Shrubb, the famous runner, has Jed to some surprising revelations, not confined to Shrubb himself. ~ Mr Thomas S. Sinnott, the late treasurer of the. South London Harriers, olaims the sum of £40 5s lid as out-of-pocket expenses paid by him on behalf' of the South London Harriers, for Alfred Shrubb. This amount includes, training expenses and the purchase of articles of- wearing apparel, so that tho payment; to Mr Smnott of that amount would be a contravention by the, club of Law I. of the Amateur Athletic Association. > The committee deny all liability, but Mr Sinnotfc contenda t/hat members' of the South London Harriers were present when he arranged with Shrubb that he should not be expected to pay any entrance fee or subscription on joining the South London Harriers, and that all other expenses incidental to .training should be mot by Mr Sinnott on behalf of the club. . While the members of tlho South London Harriers referred to deny all knowledge of this arrangement,' Shrubb now states that such an arrangement was made. He, however, declined to allow his entranco fees and subsoriptions to bo paid for him, and paid them himself.. Shrubb admits the expenditure detailed ,by Mr Sinnott. but states that not one penny passed through his own hands. He received articles of wearing apparel: 6ucih as running clothes, shoes and. ribbons,' but.these he looked upon in the light of presents. Since Mr Sinnotfs resignation Shrubb has met all his training expenses out of his own pocket. Such, at any irate, is his version of the affair.