BRITISH AND FOREIGN NEWS. (SPECTATOR SUMMARY.)

Evening Post, Volume LXIV, Issue 47, 23 August 1902, Page 5 (Supplement)

BRITISH AND FOREIGN NEWS. (SPECTATOR SUMMARY.)

LONDON, sth July. FRANCE AND ITALY. While Lord Oranbonic was talking about Italy and our foreign relations in the Commons, M. Delcasse was making an important ttateinonb as to French foreign policy in the Chamber of Deputies which was oho speeiully concerned with Italy. His references to France's southern neighbour were, we are glad to say, most friendly, and he intimated that France had had assurances that the renewal of the Triple Alliance, aa for as Italy is concerned, was by no means a menace to the Republic. "The King's Government had itself taken care to clear up the situation, and make it precise," and had shown "that in no case, and under no form, could Italy becomo eithor the instrument or the auxiliary of an aggression against our country." Italy's explanation showed, in fact, that 'nothing any longer impedes the development of a friendship that haa already hod fortilo conwquonceß." This is a most important declaration. The Times correspondent hastens to dot the "i's" by showing how the most recent trend of French foreign policy is to abandon her former attitude of submission in regard to the lost provinces and to make bar reassert her claims.' But France haa determined that in doing this she will not plunge all Europe into war. If and when,. the struggle comes, it must be a duel with Germany alone. Therefore the primary aim of France is to isolate Germany and to assure other Powers that no aggression against them is intended. France wishes to spare Europe a general conflict, and only asks thut if the duel proves unavoidable, Europe shall moke a ring round the combatants. But it is surely also to the interests of Britain to sco Germany isolated, and therefore wo ought not to oppose Frenoh aspirations in this direction, but rather assist them. Germany isolated, and watched in that 'isolation by France, would have far less time on her hands for vilifying all things British and for doing her best to sow discord between us and Russia and America. The telegram to Mr. Kruger would rever have emanatecj. from an isolated Germany.' ,'

CHINA AND THE POWERS. There ia evidently great reluctance on the port of the Powers recently engaged in China to restore the city of Tientsin to the Government of Pekin. They Want to keep the means of coercing the Empress-Regent should she prove refractory. * As, however, Russia has withdrawn from the joint occupation and America does not wish it to continue, the city must be surrendered after the delay necessary to sooth© tho irritated pride- of some of the Allies. There is also great reluctance to concede the Chinese demand that the indemnity shall be paid in silver ; but as America has formally conceded the point and Great Britain is indifferent, there' is no doubt that on this subject also China will win. Indeed she has won, for she has paid the instalment due upon the silver basis, and the Powers have taken no steps towards coercion. As Europe will not again enter China with a composite army, as she will trust no mandatory, and as the people of China consider the exaction of the indemnity a violent oppression, we should not be surprised if it were by degrees "whittled away until only a moderate annuity remained to be paid. Only Germany is in earnest in exacting % the money, and even) »ho would hesitate to drive the Court a second time from Pekin. The rumours of attacks on missionaries do not seem for the present to mean much, but there is a certain revival of the "Boxer" organisation, how extensive no one seems to know.

THE FRENCH BUDGET. Tha French Budget is not to be settled till October, when tho Chambers will recommence sitting. M. Rouvier requires time to consider bis exceedingly difficult, and even dangerous, task. It is staled on good authority that the French deficit now amounts to £12,000,000 a year, while the revenue is declining and trade terribly languid. There must therefore be either a great reduction of military exponditue, which in the present condition of opinion is next to impossible, or a heavy addition to taxation. The Radicals almost unanimously, though it is suspected, not quite sincerely, plead -ior a progressive Income Tax ; but this M. Rouvier has as yet peremptorily refused. He must therefore either greatly increase the duties on all kinds of alcohol, which will be most unpoular, or put on much heavier death duties, which will be evaded, or produce some absolutely original scheme, say of universal and compulsory insurance. In any case the opposition will be most bitter, and we should not wonder if not only the Government but the Republic reeled under the shook. The French are all in a way accountants.

THE TSAR AND HIS SUBJECTS. A correspondent of the Daily Express, writing from St. Petersburg on 28th June, declares that the Tsar, who is greatly alarmed by the accumulating reports of discontent in Russia, hwt resolved to grant audiences to leading journalist!, professors, and even political prisoners, and extract from them if he can the real causes of the commotion and suggestions for its cure. A number of invitations have been issued already, und the correspondent even names some of the more remarkable Liberals who will be allowed to express their ideas to the Tsar standing face to face. The story is so odd that it has probably some foundation, ' more especially an the Tsuiis well aware that the higher bureaucracy round the throne do often contrive to conceal unpleasant facts, which reach him (if at all) in a roundabout way from foreign Capitals, especially Copenhagen, where there \b a real wish for the safety of the dynasty, The recent recrudescence of NihilUm must, moreover, have alarmed the Tsarina, who, being accustomed to Germany, must be well aware that a splendid and powerful throne can be maintained wjthout tho excessive ropression at present practised in Russia. It is not the Sovereign who benefit* by the shooting down of peasants.

THE RIOTS IN SOUTH RUSSTA. Of the discontent in the Southern provinces, usually the best off, there can be no doubt, and there must be some cause at work which has not yet been accurately described. The process of events is in all cases the same. The peasants ' are hungry, in debt, and disposed to violence ; they are told that the Tsar has given them the lands of the rich, and they make a rush either for the chateaux or the Government offices, where, as they think, decrees in their favour are concealed. The landlords mnke no more fight than the French nobles did in 1789, but fly to the larger towns, whence the officials send troops to beat back the peasantry. If the soldiers do not fire, there is anarchy ; but, if, as usually happens, they obey orders, there is a mas«acre, and the defeated peasants are flogged or imprisoned in scores. The three measures first required are protection for the journalists, who would koep the central authority informed, a thorough reform of the fiscal department, wi^h decent pay for tli« collectors, nnd some provision through which complaints can reach the central

authority. No ono in China, we believe, daro stop a "red" petition to the throne, but in .Russia they have not as yet got even so far us that. Tho hope is in tho Tsar ; but if he moves he muat move strongly, for the entire official world will bo against him.

THE WEALTH OP BRITAIN. Tho wealth of the country increases in spite of all the calls upon tho Treasury. The revenue receipts for the quarter ending June, 1902, show an increaso on those of the same quarter in 1901 of no less than £5,367,000. This is not all clear gain, for the Customs duties find Income Tax have been increased ; but there baa been an increase of £110,000 in the receipts from tho Post Office, which is the barometer of our business activity, and of £606,000 in those from the death duties, which have not been aiterod. l*Jiis may be due in part to some lucky windfall in the shape of a great estate ; but it must also bo duo in part to the increased value of the properties which fall under the impost. Nobody, in fact, can read the usual lists of wills and legacies without noticing the increased number of obscure persons who die leaving accumulations which even 30 years ago would have been considered immense. Not only are there many ' more millionaires, but there is a whole new class of domi-millionaires and testators with from £200,000 to £400,000. Sir William Harcourb himself must be amazed at the success of his great experiment, which has given the Treasury a second sheot anchor, and' shows him to havo been at all events a most fortunate Chancellor of Exchequer.

THE EDUCATION BILL. The Houso of Commons during the earlier part of the week was chiefly occupied with the Education Bill, with which steady progress was made. During the debate on Wednesday ' Mr. Balfour, we are glad to see, laid down the very proper principle that Nonconformists who desired to become teachers should have greater facilities, and he hoped that Colleges wduld be constructed for their accommodation. Sir John Kennaway, who spoke in a wise, liberal, nnd moderate spirit, declared that Nonconformists should be admitted under a conscience clause into Church of England Training Colleges ; but we fear that there will bo a good deal of opposition to such a course. If Ijhere iB, it will, in our opinion, be a great mistake. The Church of England in such a case ought to adopt the widest and most liberal attitude, and should refuse to take up a narrow or sectarian view. The Nonconformists admitted under a conscience clause could do no possible harm to a Church Training College, but would, on the other hand, by learning something of the Church at close quarters, recognise that, many of their anti-Establishment prejudices were untenable. We devoutly trust that the just and manly spirit snown by Sir John Kennaway in Chis matter may prevail.

THE INDIAN TROOPS IN LONDON. London witnessed a grand "spectacle on Wednesday, one possible only to tho rulers of tho Indian Empire. The Queen, accompanied by a crowd of Crown Princes, reviewed' thirteen hundred soldiers, all picked men, representing tho different forces of tho Indian Army. Sikhe, Qhoorkas, Afreedeos, Rajpoots, the Guides, the Viceroy's bodyguard, and the bodyguards of the Governors, wit* Madrassees, Lancora from Bengal, Madras, and Bombay, all were there blazing in their finest uniforms and covered with medals flamed in battle. A number of Indian Princes in magnificent dresuesand glittering with 'jewels added to the pioturesqueness of the scene ; but tho Europeai. Princes watched most closely the men themselves with thoir tall frames— tho Ghoorkas are an exception — proud bearing, and unmistakable look of real soldiership, and probably corrected many preconceived ideas of their value in the field. The reporters record with enthusiasm the welcome tho troops received from the great crowds assembled; but they failed, of course, to note the most wonderful facta of oil— that all thoso splendid men are voluntarily enhatcd, and, except when on sorvice, can leave at will ; and that two-thirds of them — all, indeed, except the Mahommedans— in order to be present have overcome prejudices, superstitions, and fears which seemed rooted in their very souls? It is said the Indian soldiers were very much pleased ; but it did not need saying. Each man on his return will be somothing more than a hero — a historian with unlimited right of telling, perhaps improving, tales which to his audienco will surpass in interest the beat legends of India or Persia.

THK CORONATION BONFIRES. The Conoration bonfires were lighted on Monday night* and as at tlio celebrations of the Jubiloo and Diamond Jubilee, proved that after all the most primitive form of illumination is tho most effective. Everything co.mbines to make a. bonfire on a beacon hill exciting to the senses and .the imagination. First tho situation of tlio bonfire is in almost ull cases highly romantic. It stands on tho summit of some windswept hill or wild moor, far away from the homes of men. Yet the pageant of flume peoples the hilltop with men and women. On the North Downs, for example, on Monday night what wtta even more impressive than the actual fire was the spectacle of bands of people converging in the darkness to the immemorial hearth of the bonfire. Down numberless paths and glades they came trooping, and the hilltop usually utterly silent on summer nights save for the song of the nightingale in somo little brnko or thicket, atos alive with the sound of voices' dnd the soft pad of footsteps on the turf. So trooped primitive man to the Beltane fires at the Biyht of the summor solstice, and so men believed they trooped to the Witches' Sabbaths on tho DownH. The fires were mostly built of faggots well smeared with pitch, and burnt with flames bo bright and fierce that all the near landscape looked as clear as in the daytime. That was weird and striking, but it was still more thrilling to stand on some height away from the bonfire and sco the fires ringing one round on the neighbouring bills. From many hills a dozen or more bright fires could be seen blazing at once, and they seemed to suggest the camp fires of the giants hemming in the subjugated 'Innd. And beyond and above tho visible fires, the sky was lighted on nil sides by the red reflected glare of the more distant beacons. Tn the words of the Edda, "field and fell were ablaze," and one , would hardly havo wondered if the lonely barrows lmd given up their tenants to watch once more tho leaping fhmes, or if Wodin and Thor nnd Balder luvd stepped from the deep shadows of oak anrt a«h and thoin and chanted' the hymns of Vaihnlin. But instead the wind the mellowed tones of "God Save tho King" from distant hills to mingle with the clearer, harsher notes of the singers close at hand. Tiuly no one who saw tho bonfires will ever forget tbeuu or fniJ to agree thut they are the mosl striking of all national forms of rejoicing.

An article appenrs in the Paris Mntin relating nn ndventure which bofel Admiral Rustan, the Commander of the division which escorted «M. Loubet to Rusia. By some inexplicable means, it is' alleged, th? admiral lost his bpnringa in the" Channel, nnd ot one time the French division found ilself nuking for Uip mouth of the Thames instead of for .Dunkirk