BRITISH AND FOREIGN NEWS. [Spectator Summary.]

Evening Post, Volume LXIV, Issue 131, 29 November 1902, Page 13 (Supplement)

BRITISH AND FOREIGN NEWS. [Spectator Summary.]

LONDON, 11th October. THE COAL STRIKE. The coal strike in Pennsylvania is becoming a. movement of the first imporfciiuce. ° Tke miners, chieiiy Hungarian SI.iVS, compldin that, taking the average oi the year, they can only earn a pound a week, 'nirich m AmcVicu. is poor pay; that they have to a\ ork too long hours ; and that the emp.oyerss, locally called the operators, reiuse them the right lo combine. The efforts of the President, therefore, have failed, the men almost unanimously rejecting his proposal to consider all grievances officially if. they will return to work. Mr. Stone, who is Governor of Pennsylvania, has consequently called out ten thousand mflitiawien, and hopes to be able to preserve order; but the number of woikers who present themselves is insufficient, and the trained hands say they can get bread, and that even if the United Stales troops are empltyed, they cannot compel them to work. The agitation in the towns is consequently very great, the price of coal in small quantities having risen to £6 , a ton^ which the poorer workmen cannot pay, and as the weather grows colder ' there are threats of dangerous outbreaks directed against the rich. A POWERLESS EXECUTIVE. The Constitution renders the Central Government in such cases singularly powerless. Very little can be done without the consent of Pennsylvania, and the Legislature of Pennsylvania is afraid of the workers' vote. Even the tax on seaborne coal cannot be remitted Avithout a special session of Congress, and the seaborn© supply is .wholly insufficient. It takes time to make the apparatus necessary for using oil, and, as we have pointed out before, the supply of wood furnishes relief only to the rich. The situation •will be rendered worse by the general strike of French coal miners, ' ordered on Wednesday, and generally obeyed, which Isriags many French industries into the British market, and by the rapid rise in the price of freight for ships that can carry coal. Altogether the situation is 60 serious that there is a call on the " niillionaires to end it by buying a "controlling interest" in the mines, and ordering a compromise with the men. That seems a reasonable proposal ; but .it will 1 ' place one more of the springs of industry at the disposal of the financiers, and the men may not yield after all. They are paying only for food, and they earn sufficient for thab ab other work than mining. THE FRANCO-SIAMESE TREATY. 'The French Government has signed a Treaty with that of Siam which appears e.t first sight to be much to her advantage, but which is not, we think, altogether unreasonable. Broadly speaking, France withdraws her troops from Chentabun, where they were a menace to Bangkok, and ceases to claim two disputed provinces, bub receives in return two provinces, Bassak and Meluprey, and the control of fisheries and trade on the Mekong River and in the Mekong Valley. The independence of Siam is again guaranteed ; and though Siam promises to employ Frenchmen as freely as Belgians or Japanese, she is not bound to employ either. The French consider that lndo-China is enlarged and enriched, but the Siamese do not consider themselves seriously injured, and English interests are certainly in no way endangered. The Mekong Valley is nob ours, and if we ever have to fight Fsance for Siam, which heaven forfend, we can do it just as well under the new Treaty as before it was signed. It is no business of ouns to prevent either French prosperity or French Bclf-satisfaclion. AFFAIRS IN FRANCE. M. Combes, the French Premier, delivered on Monday a* great speech at the annual meeting of the Kepublican Committee of Commerce and Industry. M. Combes was more than decided — haughty and combative — as to the suppressioa of the monastic teaching N Orders, whom lie evidently regards as open enemies of lay society. He was strongly for peace as necessary to prosperity, and spoke of the Army as' essentially a defensive force. 4He trusted — vainly, as it now appears — t'hab the general scrike of miners would be averted, but promised legislation in the miners' iavour on certain points which he did not bpecify, and gave a sharp reprimand to the "ridiculously vain (vanitcux) bourgeoisie" who "conspired to make their millions serve for the intimidation and subjection of their workmen," a remark the itnanciei-9 of Trusts will do well to ponder. It was, in truth, the noteworthy s>peeeh of a sincere and resolute man who, having once worn the tonsure, has an overweening dislike of Clericals, and who thinks that much of the future beiongs — or is it ought to belong? — to a well-con-sidered and regulated Socialism. AUSTRO-HUJNGARIAN RELATIONS. The Ausgteich, or arrangement between Austria and Hungary whicn governs their commercial relations and much of theij* attitude to each other, has again fallen i through. It was supposed that the protracted negotiations had succeeded, bub at the last momswt they were, from some cause not yet made clear, broken off. The Premier^ M. Szell, declares that j the failure is nob the Emperor's fault, he | having been most impartial, or thab of ibis Foreign Minister, and it is more than hinted that its real origin is fear of the Kossuithites, who desire tlve separation of the two monarchies. To tuis the Emperor will not yield, and M. Szell in hu speech- on the subject informed the | House that if obstruction began he would .at once appeal to the country. The Magyars have, we think, too much political sense to wish their country to stand alone, but they are obviously tired of the Trip.c Alliance and of the Pan-Germani»m for which it serves as a shield. It is believed that even now the Emperor will be able to enforce a compromise ; but one would like to know more accurately why negotiations were broken off. The cause cannot have been slight, for patient as diplomatists are, negotiations which have lasted for five years must have involved a most unusual amount of selfcontrol. Is the Vatican perhaps interested in keeping up discoud between the two countries? MR. CHAJfiBERLAIN IN BIRMINGHAM. At Birmingham on Thursday Mr. Chamberlain met a Conference of Liberal Vnienihts, and in a most powerful and convincing s/peech defended the Education I Bill and the policy of the Government. The most important point in his speech was the emphatic declaration that the Government would not withdraw the Bill. If the Bill was defeated, it would mean the resignation of the Government. The Bill, however, was introduced subject to sneh amendments as may com- j mend themselves to the country, and therefore the Government would meet in a reasonable spirit suggestions which did not destroy the spirit of the measure. "I desire ad much as any one that taxation and representation should go together. The advocates of the Bill assert, and I defy any one to contradict them, that there is representation." Mr. Chamberlain went on to put a question which, he ' declared, contained the crux of the whole matter : "Suppo&e by amendment we make it perfectly clear that the whole of secular education is brought under populai contro 1 . will thrrt satisfy you?" In a word. Mr. Chamberlain .shoved that while the Government meant to stand absolutely by the wain jrinciple of their ,

Bill — which is, while bringing all elementary and secondary education under the. local authorities, to preserve tne existing voluntary and denominational schools, with their power of giving religious education — they would consider all suggestions which were practical and did not cut the heart out ot the Bill. Very sound was Mr. Chamberlain's exposition of the fact that the most clamorous advocates of absolute elective control did not really mean what they said, for they would not allow, for example, a local authority, evea though the elected majority wish to do so, to set up a Church school without a conscience clause, or in many other ways to do exactly as they liked. FAVOURITISM AT THE WAR OFFICE. As to the allegation of outside interference at the War Office raided by Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, and denied so emphatically by Mr. Brodrick, we must note here the letter sent by Sir Michael to a correspondent who drew his attention to the article in last week's Spectator, and especially to tke suggestion that he might have meant Court influence by his speech. In his reply £ir Michael Hicks-Beach says:— "l can only say thab I think I am entitled to choose my own time and opportunity for any further reference to the outside influence which, in my opinion, interferes with the management of the Army, and in the selection for appointments and promotions. I cannot enter into correspondence on the subject. But you ■will find some material for an answer in your question in the newspaper article to which you allude, and in Mr. Brodrick's complaint of the pressure brought to bear on him by members of Parliament, presumably for the appointment or promotion of officers connected with their constituencies." Those who read between the lines may think that it is significanb that Sir Michael HicksBeach does not deny that he meant Court interference, but we . must refuse to try I to "prick" his meaning out of him in this 1 way. A statesman of his standing and splendid public service cannot be treated I like an unwilling witness under cross- ! examination. As much, then, after his letter as before it, we appeal to him on i patriotic grounds to give us his whole meaning, and to deal no longer in hints and innuendoes, which can only imperil the cause he desires to serve. THE REMOUNT DEPARTMENT. On Thursday a Blue-book was issued giving the Report of the Military Court of Enquiry which has been investigating the action of the Remount Department. No one ever imagined that there was any corruption in the Department, and it will therefore be no surprise to any one that nothing of the kind is reported. The general result of the report seems to bethat the Department did its best, but that it was quite unprepared to deal with any suddan emergency and had no machinery with which to meet the crisis of the war. Considering all this, the rer port suggests that the Department really acquitted itself wonderfully well. Very likely. But what we want to know is how the Secretary ef State for War and the War Office allowed such a vital rnabter as the provision of horses to f be in such feeble hands. We suppose the excuse is that no one thought the Avar would be a mounted -war ; but that is reaUy no CKcase, for a civilian, ' quite as much as a^oldier, ought to have known that it would be a mounted war. The fact that the Boers were all mounted made that a necessity. Men on foot cannot hunt down men on horseback. To have jnissed a point so simple, and to have failed to make the necessary provision, is a fault which c-.nnot be lightly forgotten. The report, of course, does not deal with this terrible neglect of commonsen&e in those ultimately responsible for the management of our military affairs. THE WAR ENQUIRY. The War Commission met on Tuesday, and decided that the press should nob be admitted to the examination of witnesses, but "that after each meeting at which witnesses were examined a shoit communication should be made to the press. If the Commissioners mean business, that is, really mean to go right down to the bed-rook of fact and spare no one, this was a wise decision, for you cannot get men to speak publicly of. other men's incompetence, especially when they have been brothersin-arms. If A believes B to be corrupt, he will very possibly not mind saying so in open Court, and may, indeed, delight in the chance of publicly exposing a crime. If, however, he merely thinks that B was an incompetent old muddler utterly unfit for his post, but an honesb good fellow all the same, he will fighb very hard against having to make his opinion public. Of course, in certain ways we shall lose a great deai by the want of publicity, but as we have said, if the Commissioners mean business and mean to do their duty afc all costs, the result may be good. We greatly tri»t that the Commissioneos will not fail to collect full material for reporting as to the fighting value of the non-proiessional soldiers of all kinds employed during the war — including the militia. What the country need's most to know in regard to the war is the value of its hastily-raised levies. But it wants a reasoned decision on evidenoe, not merely the ex aathedt-a statements of this or that general of&eer that the non-profes-sional did very ill or very well. ' To decide this question i* 1 , we may remark, fully wfthin the reference of the Commission. '.KHE CHURCH CONGRESS. Owing to the much -regretted absence of the Bishop of Peterborough, the Bishop of Leicester at Northampton on Tuesday opened the Church Congress as ActingPresident. His address was moderate in tone and spirited in manner. Naturally he touched on the education que«tion. He quoted with excellent effect Milton's words on education : " 'The end of all education is for a ■child to gain the knowledge of God in Christ, and out of that knowledge to love Him, to imitate Him, and to grow like Him.' And how should lie attain that knowledge except ' 'from a child be has known the Holy Scriptures' ?" The Bishop further made a concise statement of the position of the Church of England as regards education. "The Churcii of England's desire in this matter might be broadly and simply stated in a very few words. It was this : in addition to all other education, also to teach church children in church schools, by church teachers, in regulated hours, the Bible, the creed, and the Christian faitn, as it had been taught from the beginning of Christianity, as their church had received it fr*om their fathers, and as the parents ot the children believed it; for 'Here is wisdom, this is tke Royal law, these are thft lively oracles of God, 1 as the Archbishop said the other day addressing the King's Majesty in the Coronation Service and presenting the Bible in the old Abbey at Westminster." That strikes us as a statement as fair and unapgressive nh it is lucid. No claim is made to create a^ church atmosphere during tne secular teaching for the purpose of influencing non-church children. We cannot doubt that the various Nonconformist bodies would, in theory at any rate, admit that this is the position which every earnest denominationalist ought to maintain. CHURCH REUNION. We have, unfortunately, no space to notice the bulk of the papers read at tne Congress, but we must draw attention to tha admirable contributions^ to the subject of "Home Reunion" made by the Bishop of llipon and Canon Henson. The H shop declared • that he sometimes J thought it would be a good thing if all I the churches could for o, year pafcs self-

denying ordinances to lay aside all questions which fostered dissension and embittered the heart. Canon Henson's contribution to tile subject contained a very striking declaration : — "I am convinced that the obstacle to 'Home Reunion' does nob lies in the general sentiment of English Churchmen; on the contrary, many circumstances combine to persuade me that the Anglican laity as a whole mitigate the irrational and mischievous dre-iiorninationali-sm which now prevails. I believe that, so far from resenting, most religious Anglicans would approve, the opening of our pulpits, under due safeguards and by lawful authority, to the great spiritual teachers of the other Eng-lish-speaking churches, and the establishment of intercommunion with those non-episcopal churches which satisfy the conditions of orthodoxy proposed by the Lambeth Conference as long ago as 1886." We cannot at present discuss this most momentous subject, or open our columns to its discussion, but we must express our general sympathy with Canon Henson's aims. THE OVERLAND TO CHINA. A statement of some importance has been issued as to the overland route betwen Europe and China. It is officially declared that the line through Siberia will be ready next spring; that travelling, though slow, will be comf ortaltle ; and that the journey to Port Artnur will occupy only fifteen and a half days. This would enable a traveller to reach Pekin in eighteen and a half days, most of the distance between Port Arthur and the capital being accomplished by sea. The price' of a first-class ticket from London to Shanghai or to Japan will be £42 14s. This is a great improvement both as to speed and price over both the Suez and the American routes, and the uew line will doubtless gi'eatly attract globe-trot-ters. We question, however, if it will attract attraat ordinary English passengers, while, of course, most descriptions of goods will always be seat by eea. A continuous journey of sixteen days by rail is a severe trial of endurance, and there will ba difficulties and disagreeables both from the language and, except for a few months in the year, from the climate.