THE COLONIST. Published Every Morning. Monday, March 1, 1909. NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Colonist, Volume LI, Issue 12476, 1 March 1909, Page 2

THE COLONIST. Published Every Morning. Monday, March 1, 1909. NOTES AND COMMENTS.

A Great Lawyer. Recently an interesting- cerembry took place in the hall of Gray's Inn, London. It was a luncheon given by the to a number of distmr guished guests, to celebrate the3ooih anniversary of the election " of Frar.cis B,acbn r as treasurer oE the Inn.- Ifc is intended by the Benchers to place a permanent memorial of the greet Lord Chancellor, and their most illustrious member, in one. of. the open, spaces of tfye Inn. It will be a, marble statue of Bacon, by Mr ■- F. W-*' Pbmeroy, A.R.A. The legal profesr ] sion, of course, gathered in strength ; but literature and science: were alfo largely represented, for the name of Bacon, as Mr Whitelaw ' Reid, 'tlo American Ambassador and principrl guest, reminded his hearers, wbukl stand pre-eminent in the intollecturi world, if his career as a lawyer were forgotten. In his eloquent 1 speech, MiReid said: — ."No man' ever held a more extraordinary position than B;> con. It had been given to very .; few men in the world to change the whole intellectual current and tendency cf their age, and of succeeding ages. . i . . The enormous progress thr.t has been made in the centuries since his .time in the development of the empire of mind over matter received its original impulse from the Baconian philosophy." In thus- expressing Ba- , con's claim to intellectual greatness, Mr Whitelaw- Reid boldly, challenges the opinions put forward by some thinkers, -the German chemist Licberg among them, who take a much lower view of Bacon's importance in the history of human thought. They point out that he was behind^the scientific knowledge of his day/. He never mentions Harvey's great discovery cf the circulation of the blood, and lie seems to have been ignorant of Kepler's great astronomical discoveries, is also shown that no scientific discoveries have been made; by Bacon's method of investigation. Yet, admitting these objections, the fact remains that Bacon gave an immense impetus to the experimental sciences. He is rightly called the founder of inductive philosophy as . a system, . though before he .wrote observation and experiment were being more and more employed : by physical investigators. In the moral sciences his influence was scarcely less great, and it has been said. that he might well be called -the' British Socrates. • Takinginto account all that he said. and did, he was fully justified in his last message, to -the world, embodied in- the will which he drew up in his chambers in Gray's Inn, shortly before his death: — "For my name and memory I leave it to men's charitable speeches;" and to foreign nations, arid the next age." •

An Exchange of Courtesies. The row. •'between' Mr Roosevelt and New York newspapers is a study in vituperation. An Indianopolis paper charged that a: large portion of the £8,000,000 paid by; the United States; for the purchase of the rights of the French Panama Canal Company found its way 'into' the pockets of Americans. - The president; wrote a letter saying it was false^" arid thn t all the- money was^paidto-the Fjtnch stockbrokers. The Indianopolis j.i»|?er then cited the "New York Worlrl" as its authority. . The "World" lA otce published an article charging the President" with having "issued a public statement full of flagrant misstatements, reeking -with untrush." It also insinuated, that the President's brother-in-law, • Douglas Robinson, shared in the money alleged to ha va been paid to Americans. A plain is-' sue of fact having arisen, the pnb'ic records were overhauled^ and they fully substantiated all that the President had said. The coin was paid to the accredited agents of the French company, and none of it was pocketed by American speculators, as charged. Then followed a veritable avalanche -from White House. The "World" and its owner, Joseph Pulitzer, were attacked in the bitterest nianner. "The real offender is Mr Joseph Pulitzer," said the President, in a special message to Congress. '-'The great injury done is in. blackening the. good name of the. American 'people. „ He should be prosecuted for libel by the Government authorities. It is a high national duty to bring to justice this vilifier of the American' people, this man who wantonly and wickedly, and without one shadow of justification, seeks, to blacken the charactsr , of reputable citizens, and to convict ■ the Government of his own country in the eyes of the civilised • world of wrongdoing of the foulest arid basest . kind, when he has not one shadow of i justification of any sort or description 1 for the charge he "has. made. The.-vt^. ' tprhey-General has under contsidera- ] tiqn the form "under jvhich- the ;.>jo- t e'eedings against Mr Pulii^er^hall l;e i vbrought.'! ,'iThe World's'':retort was l .sensational. "If the 'World' has ji---'

belled anybody we hope it will be punished," wrote the paper, "but we do not intend to be intimidated by Roosevelt's threats or by Roosevelt's denunciation, or by Roosevelt's po.vcr. No other living man ever so grossly libelled the United States as does this President, who besmirches Congrats, bulldozes judges, assails the integrity of courts, slanders private citizens,, and who has shown himself the most reckless, unscrupulous demagogue the American people ever trusted with great power and authority."