15 NOVEMBER 1890, Page 2

exception of a promise of continued peace, was entirely occupied

with internal reforms. The communal system is to be improved, the teachers' salaries raised, more inspectors of workshops appointed, the railway system to be extended, and direct taxation on legacies, and incomes so remodelled that it will not fall on persons of less than £150 a year, while those with more will be unable to avoid the collectors. This is not 'unfair at all, as the indirect taxation for the sake of Protection is now cruelly heavy on the poor ; but it indicates the per- sistence of the Emperor in his idea that he can anticipate the democracy by relieving them from the burdens on their comfort, which, as he thinks, they most seriously feel.