I BRITISH AND FOREIGN NEWS.

Evening Post, Volume LXXI, Issue 142, 16 June 1906, Page 13

I BRITISH AND FOREIGN NEWS.

SPECTATOR SUMMARY (Week ending Saturday, April 21, 1906). THE CALIFORNIAN EARTHQUAKE. The eruption of Vesuvius has been followed by another and far more appalling convulsion of nature. News reached London on Wednesday afternoon that San Francisco had been devastated by earthquake. Further reports have only added to the magnitude I and horror of the catastrophe, which has not merely wrecked San Francisco, but spread ruin through the towns on the Pacific slope within a radius of one hundred miles. Shocks were first felt ;in San Francisco shortly after 5 a.m., and in an incredibly short space of time the principal buildings in the commercial quarter had collapsed in ruins. To . aggravate the calamity, fires broke out on all sides, and in twenty-four hours the ruin of the city was well-nigh complete. The extent of the calamity may be gathered from the second despatch received at Washington early on Thursday from General Funston, the officer commanding the troops at San Francisco : — "San Francisco is practically destroyed. You cannot send too many tents and rations. About two hundred thousand persons are now homeless. Food is very scarce, as the provision houses are all destroyed. All the Gov- | ernment buildings in the city have been destroyed." The response of the' Government and country has been prompt and generous. The Senate has voted a million dollars in relief, and the Secretary to the Treasury has authorised the opening of a credit at San Francisco of ten million dollars. The President has issued a national appeal for subscriptions to the American Red Cross Society; help, in money, food, and clothing, is pouring in from every side ; and — a notable fact — the insurance companies have announced that they will not discriminate between fire and earthquake loss. It is almost impossible to use the language of exaggeration in the face of a catastrophe which has cost the United States five thousand lives, probably £40,000,000 in property, and wiped out a splendid city which stood in a class by itself from the beauty of its site and its romantic past. The notable feature of the disaster is that it was entirely unexpected. Earth tremors are not unknown in California, but for nearly forty years the Pacific coast has enjoyed a practical immunity from serious earthquake shocks-. Modern* San Francisco was not merely unprepared for such a visitation but architecturally organised on the assumption that it was impossible. In a recent description of San Francisco quoted by the Daily Chronicle we read : "In the early days the number of wooden buildings was considerable, but builders are no longer hampered by fear of earthquakes." So Mont Pelee was pronounced extinct by geological authorities on the eve of the eruption of 1902. THE KAISER AT THE WIRE. The sensation of the week in foreign affairs has been the telegram sent by the German Emperor to Count Goluchowski thanking Austria for her unshakable support at Algeciras, " a fine deed of a true-hearted ally.'* In a strain of ill-chosen metaphor he declares 'that Count Goluchowski has been a "brilliant second on the duelling-ground." And he promises a similar service if circumstances should make it necessary. The telegram is undated, and may either have accompanied Count Welsersheimb's decoration and havo'been withheld from publication by the Austrian Government, or may havo been sent as an afterthought on the news of Austria's action with regard to the Russian loan. In any case, owing to the illness of Prince Bulow, it probably represents the Emperor's unaided efforts at telegraphic correspondence, which, as in the caso of the Kruger telegram, are apt to be unhappily inspired. The ob-y vious intention of the message is to give a lesson to the other member of the Triple Alliance. Italy may well read into the Emperor's words a promise to assist Austria in any claims she may make in the Balkans at the expense of herself. But the telegram seems to have caused only embarrassment at Vienna. Though Austria more than once supported Germany's claims, yet she has no desire to show any hostility to France, and has always maintained that she acted independently upon the merits. Further, it is scarcely complimentary to a great nation to thank her as if she were only a "second" prepared to follow German instructions. The strong party in the Dual Monarchy who dread and distrust German influence may well regard the Emperor's thanks as an insult to their Government. THE COMING FRENCH ELEC- -> TIONS. France is on the eve of an electoral contest. The correspondent of the Times on Tuesday had some interesting comments to make on the manifestoes of the various parties. All the many sections of Socialism have united for electoral purposes, and their appeal to the electorate is "based on the principle of class war." Their programme is the familiar one of the transformation of the present "capitalist regime" into a species of communism by means of the socialisation of all means of production and exchange. All other political questions they reject as inconsiderable. The Socialist-Radical Party are merely advanced Liberals. They wish for progross by Constitutional means, they make no cult of political abstractions, and they see the necessity of a strong system of defence _ and the desirability of a colonial dominion. In the centre come the Conservative Republicans, who are equally opposed to a spurious nationalism, to Socialism, and to reaction. The policy of the Reactionaries is a general condemnation of the Bloc, for which I purpose they havo adopted the title of the Anti-Bloc. As is usual in France, | there is no well-defined issue -among the parties except between the Socialists and the Reactionaries. M. Doumer, the President of the Chamber, has publicly declared his sympathies to be on the side of the Anti-Bloc, the suspicion of which leaning was one of the causes j that weakened his recent candidature for the presidency. THE TABAH INCIDENT. The complicated question between the Sultan" of Turkey and the Khedive' I of Egypt arising out of the Turkish oc- \ cupation of the post of Tabah, in the Sinai Peninsula, which has always been regarded as being within Egyptian territory, is still far from a settlement. Egypt's case, in which she is strongly supported by Britain, is that the ownership of Tabah was settled by the agreement of 1892 on the the accession of the present Khedive. At the same time the post has not been occupied for some time, and the frontier has never been strictly delimited, so the question can only be settled on the basis of friendly negotiation. But the action of the Sultan is significent of the new policy which is being Vigorously pursued by the Porte. He recognises that his power comes mainly from his position as successor of the Prophet, and he ib, therefore, jealously anxious to secure complete control of Arabia and the Holy Places of his religion. He is f,wniiiqr Jr'B AICU t-'V""' l^ A*i&* BXldi h&8

already come into conflict with Persia over a perfectly indefensibfe seizure of part of Kurdistan. Among. the Sheikhs at the head of the Persian Gulf, in the Aden Hinterland, and in Yemen he is endeavouring to ' consolidate his authority. The Hejaz railway, when completed, will enable him to concentrate troops at strategic positions. _He has always been suspicious of Britain as the greatest of Mohammedan Powers, ' and of Egypt, which is too near Arabia for his comfort. Possibly the views of the German Emperor are not antagonistic to this new activity of his protege. THE PARTITION OF BENGAL. The Times last Saturday published tho last of a series of articles from its special correspondent on the question of the partition of Bengal. The policy was a cimple one of administrative readjustment. In the Eastern district of the old province there were twenty-five million inhabitants, of whom two-thirds were Mohammedans. The rest .of the province was Hindu, and by the centralisation of all administration at -Calcutta, and the consequent starving of ttie Eastern districts in the matter of local administration, the special interests of those parts were unavoidably neglected. Eastern Bengal possesses in Chittagong an excellent harbour and i the riches of the country are very great, ! and only await development, but Calcutta has hitherto absorbed most of the export trade, and an undue amount of the money allotted to public works was naturally spent in the district where the administrative centre was situated. In such circumstances, it was only common justice to give Easter Bengal a separate capital and an administration of its own. The outcry against the measure was a Protectionist outcry raised in Calcutta by the powerful interests, legal and mercantile, which dreaded the completion of Dacca and Chittagong. A certain degree of reasonable sentiment was excited, but the methods of the agitation, when the leaders incited schoolboys and undergraduates to fight their battles, show how weak was the case against the policy. The reading of the admirable articles in the Times has fully convinced us that Lord Curzon was wholly justified in the decision he took, and that Mr. Morley showed courage and statesmanship in refusing to reverse it. THE TRANSVAAL LABOUR ' PARTY. _ On Friday week a Labour demonstration, at which some thousands of men attended, was held in tho Market Square at Johannesburg. Resolutions Were passed in favour of the ordinary measures in a Labour programme — adult suffrage, an eight-hour day, and tho payment of members — and a motion was carried affirming the white workers' uncompromising opposition to Chinese Labour. So far as we have no quarrel with the Transvaal Labour Party. The stronger and the better organised white labour is in the Colony the more we 'shall be pleased, for it ia a valuable counteractive to other influences. But we greatly regret certain signs that the Transvaal Labour Party is prepared to play the part of Hal o' the Wynd in politics, fighting only for its own sectional interests. Mr. Ware, a member of tho Town Council, made a speech in which he declared that his party would form no alliances, would rather be ruled by tho Boers than by tho magnates, and missed Mr. Kruger. If the last sentence means anything, it shows how little they realise tho true facts of the case. Wo agree with Lord Milner that the Kruger regime was the true golden era for capitalism, and that the war was fought far more on behalf of the humble citizens than of the magnates. To regrot a regime where they had no chance of obtaining rights, and to be prepared to make terms with a party who represent the antithesis of ordinary democratic ideals, is a course which will discredit them with serious people and cut at the root of their own vital interests. "THE MUCKRAKE. President Roosevelt delivered a- striking speech at Washington last Saturday on tho occasion of the opening of the new offices for Congressional Committees. The President took as his text Bunyan's description of the Man with the Muckrake, which he held to be typical of men devoid of high Weals with their eyes fixed only on what was vile. While admitting the gravity of the evils which beset tho body politic, he vigorously denounced as a national . danger the practice 6f indiscriminate attacks on the character of public men. The onormous fortunes of to-day, whether individual or corporate, must be grappled with, and he expressed his belief that it would become necessary to adopt a national scheme of a progressive tax in order to limit the amount of inherited fortunes. He also advocated a system of national supervision of interstate corporations to cope with the evils of over capitalisation, and declared that the rich class could not check the movement for Government regulation of their business in the interest of tho pubic. But the welfare of the wageearners and farmers was not to be achieved by the pulling down of others, and the success of those who agitated against the entire existing order of things would ultimately provoke the excesses which accompanied all reform brought about through convulsion. The presence of several Members of tho Senate, with whom the President has of late been frequently in conflict, and who have been attacked in the manner deprecated by the President, lent a dramatic significance to his remarks. THE ERUPTION OF_ VESUVIUS. The Times correspondent at Naples summarises the results of the recent eruption of Vesuvius in a long and interesting letter which appeared in Tuesday s issue. Though tho most abiding mischief was dbne by the lava streams, six tn number, set free by the collapse of the cone on the night of 7th April, the loss of life and destruction of property were chiefly due to tho showers of nery scoriae and ashes. The fall of ashes, though for a time it has destroyed every vestigo of spring, blotted out all colour from the landscape, and dislocated traffic, may prove in the long run a blessing in disguise, chemical analysis having revealed only fertilising e ) ern ?nts. The effect of the eruption, at Naples has been extraordinary, spreading darkness, depression, and stillness throughout tho noisiest and gayest of Italian cities. Speaking generally, the extent of the disaster and the possible dangers of the situation havo been greatly exaggerated, though probably exceeding those .of any eruption of mod' era times. But the panic, though fomented by the criminal classes and heightened by superstition, was gennine enough, some eighty thousand fugitives having fled from the communes threatened or affected by the eruption. The courage, devotion, and generosity of the King and Queen have greatly added to tho popularity of the Royal houso. Lastly, the world at large will never see Vesuvius in its long familiar form, the old picturesque outline having I beon annihilated by the subsidence of the cone.

An actor travelling m tho States lost a miniature Saratoga, called in America a "toy trunk." He sant a telegram about it, and this, says the Manchester Courier, was how it reached tho person to whom it was despatched : " — "Too drunk. Bound with two straps put in omnibus not in train. See if left at dejjot. Send to Ottawa. Go often."