TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Lake County Press, Issue 982, 3 October 1901, Page 2

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

[From the Evening Star’s Correspondent.: LONDON, August 9. LET ME LIKE A SOLDIER FALL. This yarn comes from the wild and woolly West. Probably there is much cry and little wool in it. True or not, it is dramatically conceived and narrated:“Three Indians of the Sioux tribe were condemned to death for having raised the standard of revolt. They asked that they might go to meet death on horseback, their faces painted as for mortal combat, their guns in their hands, the war cry upon their lips. The officer at the fort agreed, and caused a. horse and a gun loaded with blank cartridge to he given to each. All round the hill and at a certain distance were ranged the veterans of the Indian War. The Indians at first put their horses to a slight, trot. The wind blew the high grass of the prairie in waves, like the surface of a large lake. Arrived at. the summit of the hill the Indians dismounted and began to sing the death chant. The sound of the hymn was carried by the wind to the ears of the soldiers, who were able to watch the rhythmic movements of the bodies of the Indians as the sound of their lamentations grew higher and higher. It was a solemn as well as a wild scene. Emotion and hatred fought for the mastery in the- breasts of those veteran soldiers as the chant of the warriors, having reached its highest note, finished in a long wail. In tin instant there was a, silence of death, then suddenly a terrible cry was heard- the war cry of the Sioux. The shout of battle bad succeeded lo the death cry, and the three Sioux threw themselves upon their horses and turned to face the United States troops. Again they gave vent lo their terrible cry. and dashed down the side of the hill across the sp-aco which separated them from the battalion. . . At last they arrived within range of the guns, the soldiers standing immovable. ‘ Present arms !’ ‘ Ready ! Many a hundred guns are lowered, their muzzles directed upon the Indians, who tire their blank cartridge, and whose spurs draw the blood from their horses' flanks to urge them on. . . . They arc now .-,o close that the veterans are able to see the red colors with which they have painted their faces, (heir shining eves, and long Routing black hair. . . ■'Fire!’ A long flash, a n sounding report llirre i i dei - less horses are galloping madly awav. DUMONT ALMOST AN ICARUS.

M. Santos Dumont took another flight «u Thursday for the Dcuisdbt prize, but nearly perished' in the attempt. The plucky aeronaut left St. Cloud at 6.10 a.m.. and rounded the Eiffel Tower in 9min Sd.sec after starting. On his return journey to St. Cloud, when just above the Avenue Henri Martin, a strong gust of wind struck the aerostat, which veered violently to one side, at the same time bounding back at least iifty yards. Hydrogen gas was forced from the front to the buck part of the balloon. Owing to the sudden expansion of this portion of the balloon, the machine dipped, and the screw touched the steel cords, causing them to break. M. Dumont immediately stopped working the sereu, and the motor and the balloon began to descend of its own accord. The cover of the aerostat struck agiust the corner of a six-story building. No. 12 Quay de Pas.-y. A lepoi't like that of a cannon was heard, and the balloon at once fell rapidly. Luckily, the frame caught in one of the walls.' where it remained suspended. But for this M. Dumont would probably have been killed. He was in a most dangerous position for over half an hour, hanging in mid-air in the small wicker basket which forms the car. He succeeded by a great effort it! catching hold of an iron liar on otui df the windows of the house, and he clung to this support until rescued by a carpenter, who clambered over the roofs of the adjoining houses, and let down the guide-rope, which had fallen on the roof of the building struck by the balloon. M. Dumont fastened the rope round bis body and was with some difficulty hauled up to a place of safety by the workmen. The report made by the explosion of the balloon when it burst was so loud that a crowd soon assembled, and when M. Dumont reeehed the street he was received with rapturous enthusiasm, mam ladies kissing him. M. Dumont, who had escaped without a scratch, nns wonderfully cool, and calmly superintended in person the woik of removing the aerostat. He expressed Ids readiness to fly again as soon as his aerostat had been repaired, but M. Deutseh, deeply moved, declared that he would rather hand hint lltc pi i/.e at once than see him killed. After his pluck and persistence M. Dumont deserves something better than the fate of learns. ■ INEVITABLE " IN CHINA, The present Cabinet seems likely to be known as the "inevitable" Ministry. Lord Lansdon ne used that ominous adjective again on Tuesday night in his speech on the. position of a Hairs in China. The speech must have given cold comfort to Earl Spencer. who asked for information. The open door which Lord Lansiiowne boasted we had secured in all ports on the rivers and littoral of China seems likely to be anything but a literal open door. ‘‘What 1 think most people are afraid of," said Lord Lansdowne,

"is that our commerce in China will in future have to compete not under fair and equal conditions, but under conditions anything but equal or fair. To some extent I am afraid that is inevitable, and for this reason, that it is the policy of many foreign Powers to give to commercial enterprises in which they are interested an amount of assistance which if is not our custom to deal out so liberally to our commercial representatives in different parts of tlie world. In my opinion it Mould be a most unfortunate tiling for this country if wr were lo embark in a competition with foreign Powers in the direction of subsidies and bonuses to railways and other enterprises of that kind." "We. must (rust to the enterprise of our fellow-countrymen with the confidence that it xvi 11 enable them to hold their oxvn." These subsidies. Lord Lausdowne xvent on to say. Here very expensive to the givers and not always an unmixed blessing to the recipients; they generally developed trade, and of that trade we managed to get our share. Besides we were not entirely dependent in China on raihvay coimmiijiica--1 ion. We could use the waterways. Lord Lansdow’lie’s pleadings arc as inconsistent as the defences of the man who returned the kettle m ith a hole in it. First, the subsidies are not much good ; secondly, they develop trade, but we get a share of it; thirdly, if foreign nations have subsidised railu ays, we can fall hack upon the MaterMays. The English Commissioners at the Paris Fxhihition told us forcibly how disadvan(a.geously England compared with other countries at (he big slum . mainly because the (Jovcrnui nl left everything lo private enterprise instead of assisting with sub sidics and securing ually representative combined exhibits. The (ioventmeni does not seem to be taking the advice to heart. Foreign (lovemiiients realise the immense importance of stimulating the trade of their merchants by opening up railways and lines of eomiiiunieal ion, which they subsidise if neessary and keep under their control. Our experience on I he Russian railw ays in China ought to have convinced us of the import aiice to our merchants and commercial men of Knglish supremacy in the Yang-lse Val ley and English ownership of railways there.

! But the Englishman nmv has the official | assurance of an unfair field and no favor in 1 China. Enterprise and an intelligent anti- ! ripation of events before they occur may he i expected of the English merchant and' the I English journalist, not of the English Goj vernment. which, with a fatalism worthy of , the Turk, calmlv bows to the *‘ inevitj able."

: THE OR]EXT AXI) THE LASCARS. ! The Orient Company seem likely to take I the place of the 11.I 1 . and O. as the subject i of interrogation in the House of Commons. ; Mr W. Redmond opened the ball on Tues- | day by asking the President of the Board of Trade the reason mliv the Orient were discharging their white crews in order to provide employment for Asiatics and lascars. Mr Gerald Balfour replied that the Orient Company stated that they had been driven to make an experimental trial of lascar stokers owing to the drunkenness, the mutinous behaviour, and the mliolcsale desertions of the British stokers hitherto employed by them, by reason of which the efficiency of their mail service had been impaired and heavy hiss sustained by the company. In other respects the company were making no change in ‘be manning of their ships. Apart from me stokers, the conduct of the British seamen and of the rest of the ships’ complements had always been excellent. Mr Balfour said that, he had seen statements in the Press that a desire exists in Australia for the exclusive employment of white labor on mail steamers, but he had no official information on the subject. NATIVE LABOR AND IFIL GOLD MINES. That knottiest of all South African prob-leins-thc discovery of some method rf inducing the natives to work without any system of forced labor--cropped up in t!:o Commons a night or two ago. Sir Harry .Johnston, a warm sympathiser with ilie natives, recently declared that if the native could not be persuaded to till his dirty continent and clear out. all the weeds which have grown up there, there is nothing for it but. his extinction. But lmw induce him to work? Sir William Hurcourt, after a denunciation of the. present pass laws, which lie attributed to the influence of the gold mining interest and not of the Boers, read some evidence given by the president of the Chamber of Mines and the chairman of the Association of Alines in connection with the Industrial Commission, in which they declared that the only way to obtain a sufficient supply of black labor Mas to pay the Kaffir lom - M-agcs. so that he could not save enough in a short time to enable him to live in laziness, or else to tax him high, so that he could not accumulate savings, or else to have a system of forced labor. Sir William sympathised M-ith the natives M’ho have a repugnance to working underground, expressed a hope that Mr Chamberlain Mould not be coerced by the capitalist interest, but would replace the pass fines by the humane code 'in force in the West Indies.

Mr Chamberlain. in reply, expressed Ins approval of that code, and liis firm determination not to permit anythin: in the nature of forced labor or slavery. The pass law system could not be abolished by a stroke of tin- pen any more than the system of forced labor in Kgypt. 'lime was re(|ttired to revise the legislation. Meantime the magistrate bad been given the discretion to impose very small punishments. whereas formerly a minimum punishment was prescribed. The magistrates were controlled by Sir Godfrey Lagden, of liasnto fame, the Native Commit--sioner. and Mr Solomon, the Att.onu yGeneral. wim comes of a family stigmatised as negrophilisis. Their imputation should be a suibcieiit security for the protection of the native race. Then Mr Chamberlain referred to the delicacy of the question. the necessity urged upon the Government of considering the prejudices of the Dutch, and of teaching the native to be industrious. A barrister with considerable experience of the Transvaal, whose prophecies of the course of the war have so far proved remarkably correct, predicted nearly a year ago that the great contest after the war Would he mu between Mr Chamberlain and Mr Rhodes, as to whether the compound system. as it exists in Kimberley, should prevail in Johannesburg or not. I give you his suggestion for what it is worth. “The job of converting the natives of Africa into industrious and at the same time independent citizens i.- perhaps the biggest the Knglish have ever taken on. hut in the light of our accomplishment in Kgypt and our traditions of liberty, we ought to he ihie, with God's help, to carry it through.