HOME NEWS SUMMARY

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1745, 16 August 1905, Page 15

HOME NEWS SUMMARY

{From“Puklio Opinion.”) ( LONDON, June 80. PEACE CONFERENCE. The Peace Conference will, it is believed, assemble .in Washington some iime early in August. Russia has apparently satisfied Japan that she means business, and all Russia now needs to convince her that the Conference is essential is another heavy defeat in the "field. That incentive Japan would seem ho be preparing to supply immediately. 'Marshal 1 Oyama is rapidly developing the preliminaries of another big battle, and General Linievitch daily reports •some incident unfavourable to the Rus- ' sian outposts. Tokio, which has been the barometer of the campaign, is expectant, and any day what should prove to be the final big battle of the war may be fought. The Japanese are ■energetic in every direction. They are beginning to pay attentions to Vladivostok from the sea, and are within striking distance of the VladivostockHartin Railway. RUSSIA’S DILEMMA. From the domestic point ‘of view things are going from "bad to worse in Russia. The crew of the battleship Kniaz Potemkin, which arrived at Odessa on Wednesday, mutinied and killed their officers in revenge for the death of -a sailor who was shot because he complained of the soup. The mutineers trained the guns of the vessel on the port, and Odessa, for the time being, is in a state of riot and entirely at their mercy. In Poland there has also been ghastly work, and General Trepoff has been despatched to deal with the situation. We know what that means. The long-anticipated conflict between the Cossacks and the revolutionists, wlio hawe made elaborate -preparations to Btrike for the freedom of their country, would appear to have begun in earnest. Yesterday week the struggle was inaugurated in Lodz, when the workpeople, led by Jews and Socialists,-fired on the troops. Several officers and men were killed, and the infuriated soldiers promptly proceeded to shoot down men, women, and children indiscriminately, the dead • and wounded numbering thousands. The strikers replied with bombs and vitriol. Harrowing descriptions are given of cartloads of dead bodies being secretly buried by the troops, of the inability of the hospitals to find accommodation for the wounded, and of the plundering of the dead who were lying about -the streets. Odessaand Lodz both tell the same story of the determination of the people to be aid of tyranny. FRANCE AND GERMANY. "Whilst there has probably been no Serious risk of war between France and Germany as the result of the childish manner in which the Sultan of Morocco has “played up” to the Kaiser, the tension for some days was sufficiently-great to cause anxiety in at least three capitals. Germany appears to have thought that she had o ;dy to express her views vigorously and shake the mailed fist to scare France into doing precisely what she wanted. Her thoughts are not confined to Morocco ; she wants pri-. vileges elsewhere, and she hoped, whilst Russia was busily engaged with Japan, that France wou’d assist in furthering Tier France has -not shown herself unconciliatory, but the chief consequence of Germany’s browbeating .has been to bring the Republic and Great Britain more closely than ever together, and, as one Paris correspondent says, “So long as England .and France remain united there is some guarantee, and a rather substantial one, against German aggression on either.” Germany has succeeded in making France realise how important to the Republic is the understanding with Great Bid tain, which was so largely promoted by M. Deleave, the Foreign Minister whom M. Rouvier sacrificed in order to placate Berlin. THE STORES SOANDAL. Mr Balfour has got together an excellent Royal Commission to investigate the Stores scandal in the South African "War. The Commissioners are Sir George Farwell, the Chancery Court Judge; Sir George Taubman Goldie, the founder of Nigeria; Sir George White, the hero of Ladysmith; Sir Francis Mo watt, late of the Treasury; and Mr S. Hope Morley. late Governor of the Bank of England. The combination is a strong one. Sir George Earwell will ensure the judicial character of the inquiry; Sir Francis Mowatt and Mr Morley will bring valuable official and commercial knowledge to bear; and both Sir George Taubman Goldie and Sir George White have had the experience of wars and contracts connected with them which is necessary to a perfectly reasonable view of the circumstances. The report of the, Commission cannot be made for a considerable time to come, but the nation demands that there shall be no attempt to whitewash anybody, and such an example, it is hoped, will be made of proven offenders as will serve for a framing in the future. Royal Commis-

Bairns are usually regarded as a convenient means of shelving awkward questions; there must be no shelving here.

ANOTHER ROYAL COMMISSION.

The question having been referred to a Royal Commission, it would have been more seemly on the part of the Opposition to take no action on it till the report was available. That, however, was not the Radical view, and on Monday Sir Robert Reid moved a vote of censure on the Government. In a vigorous speech, he denounced Ministers for not being alive to the fact that there were men in South Africa prepared to make an unclean profit out of the necessities of their fellow-countrymen. Mr Broderick, who was at the War Office at the time, and Mr Arnold-Forster, who appointed the Butler Committee, defended the part they had taken in the matter, and left an impression on the House that the scandals have been much exaggerated by Sir William Butler and his colleagues. Mr Balfour stood loyally by the ex-Secretary and the present Secretary for War, though he had to admit that transactions had come to his notice, over which they might or might not have exercised some control, which seemed incapable of explanation. Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman s attack on War Office administration during and since the Avar would have been more effective if his hearers could have forgotten his own record. The upshot of the debate was a full majority for the Government- of seventy-four. THREE RESIGNATIONS. General Sir Neville Lyttelton has resigned his position at the War O -ice as the result of the scandals: Lord Curzon has resigned the Indian Viceroyalty owing to differences with Lord Kitchener concerning Indian Army Reforms ; Sir Edmond Elies lias resigned the military membership of the Council of India. At least, so the newspapers say. They are full of resignations, which do not appear to have taken place, and those who are in a position to know are kept busy issuing denials. Of course, no more trust can be placed in an official dementi than in an unofficial statement, and probably the truth lies between the two. That Lord Kitchener is seriously dissatisfied with the state of-things in the Indian Army, which was ■supposed to be as perfect an instrument as the British Navy, is plain from the Blue-book just published; Lord Curzon may not see eye to eye with him on all points, but that- great men who differ from colleagues on minor points, whilst agreeing as to major principles, should act like petulent children, and resign, wo simply do not believe. That is not the way a great Empire is to be run. SELF-SUSTAINED EMPIRE. The Canadian manufacturers who are on a visit to England went to Birmingham on Tuesday, and listened to a speech by Mr Chamberlain which will give them food for Imperial thinking on their return. He declared that, to his mind, the twentieth century has brought to the British people the greatest question ever before man since civilisation was first organised. The members of the Empire dare not face - 'separation. Ye" that is the alternative to closer union which has to be met, not immediately perhaps, in the near future, Mr Chamberlain made a magnificent plea for preferential arrangements, which have become possible thanks to the offe that, as he persists in asserting, has come from the Colonies. “You have an Empire—your Empire: that is what I wish to impress upon you—your Empire as much as ours. You have this Elmpire. There is nothing man can want, there is no necessity of life, nothing which adds to our comfort, no luxury that is desirable, which, if you will have it, cannot be produced within this Empire, and interchanged within it.” That is the case for preferential tariffs in a nutshell: the Empire is capable of being self-contained, to the advantage of every one of its members. PHYSICAL EDUCATION. If the National League for Physical Education and Improvement, formed at -the Mansion House on Wednesday, is to do effective work, it-will be largely in the direction of linking up existing associations, and so putting a stop to the waste of educational and philanthropic energy which is so deplorable a feature of modern life. The national health is the national wealth, but there will have to be a striking revolution in our social ideals if this is to be again generally realised. Poor physique may spell crime, insanity, pauperism, or vagrancy, but the risks are cheerfully encountered in the pursuit of riches or the quest of pleasure. The ideal of manhood depends largely on the ideal of womanhood ; but it is no exaggeration to say that the modern woman’s thoughts of motherhood and wifehood are secondary to her other aims. The young people who crowd our cities may be more outwardly respectable than their predecessors, but it is doubtful if they are more moral than they are physically efficient. In the slums, ignorance of the most elementary rules of health is as rampant as ever, As to the Army, the most do-

plorable conclusions are drawn. With ■folly and selfishness at -the prow and ignorance at the helm the ship of State is sadly in danger of shipwreck. The N.L.P.E.I. has not been formed before it was needed. AN INJURED WOMAN. Few more painful cases have been before the Courts recently than that of Mis® -Doughty, found guilty of shooting and wounding a solicitor named Swan and his son. She was sentenced by Mr Justice Grantham to seven years’ penal servitude. The luckless woman had been taken to the man’s heart, made to believe that she was all in all to him. and that his wife was ruining his prospects; then, when he had fooled her to her ruin, he shut his door against her, and treated her as the social pariah he had made her. She took her revenge, as many another hapless.creature has done, and wa® prepared to die for it. She became mad, and no wonder. A more pathetic document than that in which •she set 'forth her case has never been read in Court./ The Jury had no option but to find her guilty; but they strongly recommended Tier "to mercy, and if ever there was a case for mercy, this seems to he one. Mr Justice Grantham does not think so. “You can do as you like with my body,” she said, as she went to her cell; “you cannot break my spirit.” Must the matter rest there ? We have taken pains to gauge public feeling, and the sentiments we hold are not special to ourselves.