TOPICS OF THE TIME.

Hastings Standard, Issue 43, 16 June 1896, Page 2

TOPICS OF THE TIME.

The scene in the Court at Pretoria when the four leaders of the Reform Committee George Farrar, Lionel, Phillips, Colonel Rhodes and John Havs Hammond —were sentences to death, on 28th April, was of th« most impressive character. At 11 o'clock in the morning the Court was opened amid deep excitement. It was packed ivith ladies gaily dressed and -with onlookers, showing ail the emotion from smiling levity to pale auxisty amongst

the friends of the accused. Apprehension of an extreme sentence became acute amongst the well-informed, as the spectators jostled for places. Those conspicuously unable to see or hear were the mob of the prisoners, who constituted an audience in themselves. They were penned in behind the press platform, 011 the floor level, " nitlanders " to the last, even when their lives and liberties were at issue. A sort of wooden pew was thrust through the crowd, and set up at the corner of the platform as a dock to receive the procession of prisoners receiving sentence. It accommodated three at a time. At 11.1-50 -Judge Gregorowski was engaged in reviewing the case and the anxiety deepened. Eventually sentence was pronounced. The four leaders, George Farrar, Lionel Phillips, Colonel Rhodes and John Hays Hammond were sentenced to cleat I), and the remaining accused to two years' imprisonment, banishment for three years, a fine of £2OOO, or ;n default- of payment an addition;'! year's imprisonment. The four leaders answered in tiie negative the question whether they had anything to say why the sentence of il<«> th should not be passed, and received the sentence with a courteous 'now to the Judge, and then stopped out ot'lthe dock. After they had left the dock a, painful sensation was cm us-. <1 in the Court by the word going round that Mr Hammond had fainted, hut if so he recover •«' 1> f'>ie his doctor got near bku. The genera! sense of the spedators was « \pit —ed by a journalist, who, b; ing next to the dock, audibly remarked to the prisoners, '■ It's only a cruel farce.,' Judge Gregorowski, in mentioning that- toe prerogative of mercy was in the hands of the Executive, remarked that this was not his ail'air, and that in no other civilise 1 country would prisoners have a claim thereon, a sentiment open to two interpretations. A big crowd was outside the Court, but perfect order was maintained. Air:us!>r- : to Sir John Lubbock the incomes of the English people liable to income tax have increased in 12 years from i'~> 1-1,000,000 to <-700,000.000, an increase of -£! which at 25 years' purchase means an increase of national wealth of four thousand eight hundred millions sterling, while the average rale of wages has increased front -fcUi Ks to i'O:} 10s, equal to 21 per cent., in the space of time. Every country in the world has become indebted to the old country. In America alone, the Engli-di investments in public securities, railway bonds and shares, amount to no less than 1*770,000.000. Doubtless the, private in ce.-.'. moots held by the British people there amount to as much more ; it so, then the American people have to pay the British inve- -tor somewhere about 1'C0,000.000 a yea)- a.s interest. One of the reasons for this great prosperity* is that owing- to the stability of her financial position England—or rathe!- London has become the clearing bouse of the world. All large financial transactions are eventually settled in London. The Chinese indemnity, for instance, was paid to Japan by a, cheque on the Bank of England. But it is the revolution of industrial enterprise, owing to the progress of science l of invention —the invention of the steam-engine and the electric telegraph, and the construction of railwavs, and giant steamships—that England mostly owes her marvellous prosperity. America tries to manufacture for a hundred millions; while England actually manufactures for the whole world.