NEWS OF THE WEEK.

THE Times of Friday publishes a telegram from its corre- spondent at Conatantinople in regard to the peace negotiations, which is to the effect that both the disputed articles of the " preliminaries " have been initialled, and that it is expected that the actual signing will take place to-day. We have dealt elsewhere with the details of the arrangement under which the international man in possession is to be made supreme at Athens, and will only note here that a telegram despatched by the Athens correspondent of the Times on Thursday states that the evacuation of Thessaly is not to begin until one month after the loan for the payment of the indemnity has been negotiated, but that when it takes place the evacuation will at once be completed, the Turks retiring behind the new strategic frontier. When the Treaty of Peace has been signed, the Greek Chamber will be summoned to vote the revenues to be assigned for the service of the new and old loans, and to legalise the establishment of an international Board of Control in Athens. There are rumours that the Chamber may refuse to give their sanction to the arrangement, but considering that such sanction is the only way of getting the Turks out of Thessaly, we hardly think this likely. It is said that the international Commis- sion at Athens is to consist of the Ministers. Though there is something to be said for this scheme, especially on the ground of economy, it has drawbacks. If the body were one independent of the Legations, the diplomats might to some extent modify its decisions, and stand between it and the Government. If composed of the Ministers it will be entirely uncontrolled.

The news from the Indian frontier shows that no big undertaking will be begun until the arrival of Sir William Lockhart, who is on his way to Peshawar, and who when he arrives will take supreme command. In all probability his first act will be to crush the Afridis by attacking Tirah, their headquarters. Meantime two distinct series of operations have been proceeding during the week. In the northern half of the theatre of war—i.e., the hill country north of the Cabal River—operations have been conducted against the Moh- wands. General Sir Bindon Blood has been advancing from Cbakdara in the Swat country, and General Biles from Shabkadr, a place a good deal south of Chakdara. Both forces are converging on a point near Nawagai, which place has already been reached by the first division of General Blood's brigade. The only fighting experienced by the force advanc- ing from Chakdara (General Blood's) was a moonlight attack made on the camp of the rear division. The tribesmen got the range and poured in a very severe fire. They did not, however, try to rush the position, and in the morning a body of Bengal Lancers soon dispersed them. General Elles's advance has been little interrupted by the tribes, but the road difficulties have been tremendous. In places the ascent over the ledges of rock was like climbing a atone stairway.

But though what has been going on north of the Cabul River has been strategically important, the real centre of interest has been the Samana Range in the southern half of the theatre of war. The Samana Range is between Kohat- a place due south of Peshawar—and the Kurram Valley, and on it are a number of isolated forts held by our troops. One of them, Fort Gulistan (or Cavagnari), contained English women and children,—Mrs. Des Vceux, wife of the Com- mandant, Miss Magrath, her nurse, another nurse, and four children. At midnight on Monday General Yeatman Biggs began an advance from Hanga (a place west of Kohat) along the Samana ridge for the purpose of relieving Fort Gulistan and the other forts. The advance was fiercely disputed, and positions had to be carried at the point of the bayonet. Thanks, however, to the excellent effect of the artillery fire the enemy—a combination of Orakzais and Afridis—were everywhere driven back. Fort Lockhart was first relieved, and then Gulistan. The relief to the latter came only just in time. A very large force of Afridis were lying only four hundred yards from the fort, and almost to a certainty it would have been rushed the very night of the relief. The delight of both relievers and relieved may be imagined.

Tee heroic defence of Fort Gulistan—the garden of roses— needs notice in detail. The enemy appeared before it at noon last Sunday. At once the three English officers and the hundred and sixty-five Sikhs who formed the garrison made all possible preparations for defence. By 4 o'clock the enemy had closed all round, and were actually within ten yards of the fort's walls. They had, indeed, to be repeatedly driven back at the point of the bayonet. When at last the besiegers fled, under the fire of General Biggs's guns, the officers and men had been at their posts for thirty hours continuously. The casualties were two killed and thirty-eight wounded. Miss Magrath, one of the nurses, bravely attended to the wounded under an unceasing and heavy fire. The result of General Biggs's artillery fire and the stubborn defence of Gulistan has been to make the Afridis disinclined for more fighting. It is reported that they have "hurriedly left the Samana, country for their homes." General Biggs is reconnoitring to ascertain if the report is true. From a military point of view the tremendous effect of the fire from the horse artillery batteries employed is the most important event of the operations on the Samana Range.

On Tuesday news was received that General Hunter had not only entered Berber, but had despatched two gun- boats to Ed Darner, a place some way higher up the river to which the Emir commanding at Berber had retreated. After the exchange of a few shots the Emir retired inland, leaving behind him fourteen large boats laden with grain. These the gunboats captured, and took down the Nile to Berber, where they will doubtless be much appreciated, for till the railway is finished, which, however, creeps on towards Abu Hamed at the rate of two miles a day, the work of getting food for the troops will not be too easy. Now that General Hunter is at Berber a host of things may happen. The Sirdar will at once open communications with Suakin, and this, though it is not probable, may cause Osman Digna to make a last effort to keep the Suakin-Berber road closed. Next, the Sirdar may move up the Atbara, which joins the Nile near Ed Darner, to Kassala, and relieve the Italian garrison at once. Lastly, he may, after establishing a firm base at Berber and collecting more gunboats, make a dash at Khartoum while the river is still high. While Berber is strongly held there would only be a limited risk in this plan, and it might score an easy victory. The decision on this point must, however, depend upon what Major Wingate has to report in regard to the state of things at Khartoum.

The Cuban insurgents have gained a notable victory in the capture of the city of Victoria de las Tunas after a siege lasting a fortnight. The insurgents had cannon—some of them said to Ere dynamite shells—which destroyed sixteen of the forts protecting the town. According to a telegram from Washington in the Daily Chronicle of Wednesday, the town was not captured, but capitulated after four hundred Spaniards had been killed. Numbers of the Spanish soldiers are said to have deserted to the enemy when the garrison surrendered, and the inhabitants received the victors with acclamation. The fall of Victoria de las Tunas is declared by the correspondent of the Daily Chronicle to be the greatest blow yet received by the Spaniards, who have now been forced to retire from the whole district. It is said that the Spanish Ministry have determined to despatch still more reinforce- ments ; but what is the use of sending unwilling conscripts, who, when they do not die of fever or desert, seem utterly incapable of fighting the rebels ? If the two hundred and fifty thousand men already sent to Cuba have not been able to conquer the island, it is absurd to suppose that fresh rein- forcements will do any good. When Hayti had eaten up a whole French army Napoleon wisely refused to continue the struggle.

The Spanish correspondent of the Times, telegraphing from St. Sebastian (the Court is at present there) on Tuesday, gives a deplorable picture of the callousness and indifference with which the governing class seem to accept the disasters that have fallen on the country. No one seems to realise that a great effort is needed to save the country. Yet such is indeed the case. Unless the nation throws up the man of destiny described by Lord Rosebery, it is difficult to see how Spain can escape utter ruin. The mortification which has begun in Cuba must spread and poison the whole kingdom unless a speedy amputation takes place. If a statesman were to arise bold enough to tell the nation that it must lose Cuba to gain health, and were able to force the Spaniards to abate their pride and listen to him, he would be the saviour of his country. As it is, no one dares make the necessary proposal. Spain therefore staggers on under its feeble and inefficient Ministry. The distressing thing about the situation is that Spain is at heart sound, and during the last twenty years has made con. siderable progress. If she would only recognise that Cuba is lost to her already, and that to try to regain the island is only to court further injury, she might yet keep her position as a great nation.

The effects of the Franco-Russian Alliance are visible in the toasts given at the official luncheon at St. Quentin on Wednesday,—a ceremony closing the manceuvres in which the 1st, 2nd, and 6th Army Corps of the French Republic have been engaged. The Paris correspondent of the Times points out that such images as that of "the virile nation ready to return to the ranks of the active army," and such phrases as "the sacred mission" for which the army is being prepared, phrases which are to be found in M. Fanre's speech, are far more accentuated than those which used to ornament the harangues of the chief of the French State. French statesmen, now that they have Russia behind them, are not afraid of being "called over the coals" by the German Ambassador. No doubt this fact is not per se incompatible with the continued mainten- ance of peace, but it is not difficult to see that under existing conditions another Schnaebelle incident might have very far- reaching consequences. If a frontier official were to make a blunder now, and reparation were to be demanded too acrimoniously by the German Foreign Office, the results might be most serious.

The trial of Mr. Tilak for publishing seditious articles in his paper, which took place at Bombay before Mr. Justice Strachey, ended on Tuesday in a verdict of " Guilty " and a sentence of eighteen months' imprisonment. The Judge laid it down that comments upon a measure of the Government, if they excited hatred, must come within the meaning of Section 121 of the Penal Code. "In this case," said the Judge, "the teat was whether the writer intended to excite feelings of disaffection towards the Government in any way by anything he wrote, whether an editorial article, a poem, or a disquisition concerning some hero." He left it for the jury to apply the test. The sentence is severe, but, unless the translations exaggerate the meaning of the articles, not oppres- sive like that on which we commented two weeks ago. It affords yet another proof that the law in its present state is quite strong enough to deal with the vernacular Press. It is to be hoped that we have heard the last of the demand for a censorship.

On Friday, September 10th, a body of Sheriff's deputies, under the command of the Sheriff of Luzerne County, Penn- sylvania, fired with deadly effect on a crowd of strikers who were marching along the high road from Hazleton to Lattimer in order to induce the miners at the latter place to join the strike which has been proceeding in the bitu- minous coal region of Pennsylvania. The Sheriff's deputies were drawn up across the road at the outskirts of Lattimer, and when the strikers approached, the Sheriff ordered them to disperse. The mob halted, but sullenly stood their ground. The Sheriff thereupon read the Riot Act, but it is doubtful whether the strikers understood, as they were chiefly Poles and Hungarian Slays, with little or no knowledge of English. After the reading of the Riot Act the strikers still refused to disperse, or possibly moved forward,—the accounts differ. At this, the Sheriff again forbade them to advance.. A moment later he is alleged to have been struck. At any rate, the Deputy-Sheriffs then fired into the mob. Eleven fell dead and fifty were wounded, of whom nine have since died. This is the anti-strikers' version of the affair—the one which is of course best represented in the telegrams—but it is said in opposition that the deputies fired on the crowd after they had begun to disperse, and in proof of this is adduced the sinister fact that many of the men were wounded in the back.

We have dealt with this deplorable incident elsewhere, and can only say here that the frequency of bloodshed in American strike riots is becoming a real disgrace to the *Union. It is a curious piece of irony that Pennsylvania, the State set apart for the reign of a Quaker peace and quiet, should so often be the scene of the most squalid and brutal form of civil war. Wordsworth in one of his sonnets—" To the Pennsylvanians "—speaks of the land where there once existed-

" Rights equal, laws with cheerfulness obeyed,"

and asks us to— "Grieve for the land on whose wild woods his name Was fondly grafted with a virtuous aim;"

—a land now dishonoured by a deed "from Mammon's loath- some den." Wordsworth was of course thinking of the repudiation of the State Debt which so greatly annoyed Sydney Smith and our grandfathers generally, but it is diffi- cult not to recall his lines at the present moment. We admit that the great influx of half-savage and newly emancipated Poles and Slays creates many very serious problems for the State of Pennsylvania, but that fact does not excuse such incidents as that of Hazleton.

The Parisian Press is really incorrigible. It is now in full cry against President Faure because when he received the King of Siam on Sunday last he talked with him in English —the only European language the King knows well—did the honours of the house set apart for the guest of the Republic in a hearty and unconventional way, and later gave his Royal visitor a cup of tea at the Elysee. The Moniteur Universel says that M. Faure has undoubtedly forgotten to what position a happy concourse of circum- stances has lifted him, and that he remembered only his sbipo wner and business ways. "We learn that the im- pres 'ion produced on the official entourage was painful. We readily believe it. As for the thoughts which must have been suggested by this incident to the Asiatic Sovereign and his suite, we prefer not to try to probe their nature." Meantime the Temps is politely warning the King to mind his " p's " and " q's," and bids him remember that the status quo at any price should be his policy. We imagine that the King of Siam would only be too delighted with that could he feel sure of

securing it. What he dreads is a breach of the status quo. But though M. Faure has been censured for his too great affability, the King of Siam is winning the goodwill of the Parisians by his evident appreciation of their capital. His shaking hands with the gendarmes who behaved so pluckily on Tuesday at the accident during the review delighted the French crowd, who like a Royal personage with an eye for an -effect.

Mr. Mather, the well-known employer of labour, and one of the first masters to try the eight-hour day in his works, writes to suggest a means of settling the lock-out and strike in the engineering trade. After pointing out the terribly serious -character of the present struggle, noting that the oppor- tunity given to foreign competition by a strike in the engineering trade can be far more easily seized than in a struggle in the cotton or coal trade, and dwelling on the injury done to the businesses built up by the masters and to benefit funds accumulated to help the men in old age and sickness, he makes the following sugges- tions. The masters are to concede the forty-eight hours o, week, and the men are, in effect, to agree that the masters, not they, shall settle all questions as to the working of the machines. We cannot summarise the rest of Mr. Mather's letter, but must note the excellence of its general tone. Throughout there is the fullest recognition of that essential partnership which exists between Capital and Labour. It is not much use for outsiders to express an opinion, but we should view with the utmost satisfaction a -compromise on Mr. Mather's lines. The masters would obtain a victory on the matter which is really vital to them,— the right to run their machines as they choose, and not as the men choose. We have always sympathised with the demand for a voluntary eight-hour day, but the notion that the men, not the owners, are to say whether a machine is to work fast or slow is utterly preposterous.

On Monday Lord Rosebery gave a stirring and interesting address on Sir William Wallace at a banquet following the rejoicings which took place at Stirling on the sixth centenary of Wallace's great victory over the English army. It was not necessary, said Lord Rosebery, to inquire whether Wallace was or was not a Scotchman, for there were men so great that they "embody and absorb a nation and whom a nation has embodied and absorbed." "We all know that Catherine II. of Russia was a German Princess. We all know that the first Napoleon was an Italian, born in Corsica; but 1 do not suppose there is anybody who has read a page of history who would deny that Catherine was one of the greatest of Russians and that Napoleon was incomparably the greatest of Frenchmen." That is an interesting point of view, bat we cannot agree as to Napoleon. No doubt all Frenchmen are intensely proud of Napoleon, but Napoleon has certainly far less right to be called the greatest of Frenchmen than Henry IV. Napoleon fed the French with glory, but he never represented the spirit of the nation as did the gay and gallant soldier who thought Paris worth a Mass. The touch of " caddishness " which marked Napoleon in almost every great action prevents his being the great representative Frenchman.

Lord Rosebery was on firmer ground when he suggested that the reasons for William Wallace's position as the national hero of Scotland were three : his good fortune in securing a biographer whose book became almost as popular as the Bible, his representation of a great and popular cause, and the fact that he was a very great man. Doubtless all these elements are required to make a true national hero. The most consummate talents, said Lord Rosebery, in them- selves will not make great men. "There is in them besides their talents, their spirit, their character, that magnetic fluid, as it were, which enables them to influence vast bodies of their fellow men, which makes them a binding and stimu- lating power outside the circle of their own personal fascina- tion." Equally good and equally true was Lord Rosebery's declaration that there are junctures "when what is wanted is a man—not treasures, not fleets, not legions, but a man— the man of the moment., the man of the occasion, the man of destiny." But these men are not always, as Lord Rosebery seems to suggest, the children and outcome of the storm,— the men born of the travail of a crisis. "The pilot who weathered the storm," whose Life Lord Rosebery wrote, was

not the child of the crisis, and yet he was the man of the moment. The same can be said of Mr. Lincoln. General Grant was much more the child born of the crisis than the President, but Lincoln VMS the man of destiny. Lord Rosebery ended a speech full of thoughtful and interesting things by pointing out that to commemorate men like Wallace is no injury to England. That hardly needed saying. We are proud of Washington, though he too beat us.

On Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday Cardinal Vaughan, the Archbishop of Trebizond, Cardinal Perraud, and a host of other Roman Catholic notables took part in services connected with the commemoration of the thirteenth centenary of St. Augustine's landing in the Isle of Thanet. On Monday evening Cardinal Vaughan gave an address in the Granville Hall, Ramsgate, drawing a parallel between the present efforts of the Papacy to convert England and those made by the Roman Church in the year 597. Like Gregory, the present Pope sends his representatives, his gifts, and his Apostolic letters. "Next, in the place of St. Augustine you have here, however unworthy, St. Augustine's successor. His mission, like that of St. Augustine, is from the Apostolic See. He wears the same pallium ; exercises the same metropolitan jurisdiction ; teaches the same doctrines ; uses holy water, venerates relics ; offers the same sacrifice of the Mass as in the days of St. Augustine." Augustine landed with forty - two Benedictine monks. "We have here to-day forty Benedictine monks and more. They will to- morrow sing the same litanies and to the same chant." All this is, of course, very striking and very picturesque, but Cardinal Vaughan appears to have forgotten that the Anglican and the Protestant who reads his address will add : 'And here, too, are the same imperious claims of Roman domination, the same inflexibility of attitude which in the end brought strife and disunion to the Church founded by St. Augustine.'

We cannot find space to deal in detail with the more controversial part of Cardinal Vaughan's address, but we must not forget to notice and commend its general straight- forwardness and sincerity. He made not the slightest attempt to bait a hook for the Anglican. Instead of glozing over points of difference, he insisted on them without disguise. His criticism of the Resolution of the Lambeth Conference in regard to visible unity was, however, as we have en- deavoured to show elsewhere, hardly worthy of so clear and sincere a mind. Cardinal Vaughan seems to think that when Christians express an aspiration towards visible unity they must be unconsciously supporting the Roman Church. That seems to us a very strained reading of the Lambeth Resolution. Most Englishmen will feel astonishment at Cardinal Vaughan's very unhistorical account of the Reformation, at his declaration that "thousands upon thousands enter into the unity of the Church every year," and at the inference that the Roman Catholics are greatly increasing their influence in England. We should have thought that the high tide of conversion was reached some time ago, and that the present period was rather one of reaction. As a whole, the address was free from passages likely to produce ill-feeling and to cause recrimination ; but there was one slighting reference to Protestantism which it would have been better to have omitted.

On Wednesday the Lord Provost of Edinburgh opened the new North Bridge, which replaces the old bridge opened in 1772, and crosses the valley between the old and new towns of Edinburgh. At the luncheon after the ceremony Lord Rosebery made a very bright and pleasant speech, and told a good story of a former Lord Provost. The old rioting cry was, "To the North Bridge with the Provost!" During the Reform Bill riots the crowd actually got the Lord Provost of the day to the parapet, and were about to hurl him down. At the critical moment, however, the Chief Magistrate of the city "seized as his only chance of safety the tallest and strongest man he could get hold of, saying with firmness which could not be mistaken, If I go over you shall go too.' One wonders whether the story has ever come into Lord Rosebery's mind in connection with the struggle between himself and Sir William Harcourt for the leadership of the Liberal party.

Bank Rate, 2 per cent.

New Consols (21) were on Friday, 1111.