NEWS OF THE WEEK.

THE Indian news of the week cannot be very consoling to anybody. The danger of a great battle in one of the terrible frontier passes is apparently over, but the tactics of the mountaineers make them formidable enemies in their own kills. The plan of operations now adopted is to send a brigade to destroy any Afridi village, or rather collection of towers, known to exist in any mountain oasis within reach. The march is well managed, the oasis is safely reached, the village is destroyed with powder or dynamite, and then the brigade turns back again. Instantly the clammier, who are hidden in the ravines and on the hillsides, swarm on the line of march, and begin firing so well and so continuously that we fear, if the truth were known, they sometimes press our brave schoolboys in red harder than they can bear. Anyhow, they have to fight for their lives, get burdened with wounded men, and have to be "rescued" by reinforcements,—usually Sikhs. On Nov. 9th, for example, a detachment of the Northamptonshire Regiment, the gallant old 48th, got "caught" in retiring from a high little plateau called Saran-Sar. They had destroyed villages of the Zakka Khels, and were returning, when the tribesmen, who "seemed, like Roderick Dhu's men, to spring out of the earth," poured in such a fire that sixty men fell wounded, and the detachment, being bound to protect them, was, in fact, stopped. The 36th Sikhs were sent to rescue them, but when they got back thirteen Europeans were still "missing," all subsequently found dead after a gallant resist- ance. This kind of thing goes on every day, foraging parties, in particular, being cut up wherever seen.

We have complete confidence in Sir William Lockhart, but the conditions for him are crueL If he does nothing the campaign does not advance ; if he moves forward it must be in small brigades, because of transport, food, and the endless water trouble. The enemy melts away into the hills, and then when the brigade retires, advances by unknown paths " to within fifty yards" to pour in a fire from rifles which are as good as our own, for the simple reason that they were for the most part stolen from our own arsenals. The clansmen are individually as brave as our own people; they have learned to shoot straight, and they have an inexplicable facility in acting in the dark, which, on the other hand, bewilders and daunts our own best trained men. The losses are incessant, and as yet there is no clear pros- pect of their cessation. Groups of the clansmen, probably boycotted for some offence against clan rules, keep "coming in," but the war continues, and will continue until our terms are known. It is a dreary business, let Lord George Hamilton say what he likes, and, for ourselves, we see no reason for claiming territory we do not want, or insisting on a dis- armament which we cannot carry out. We might as well insist that all tigers in the jangle shall have their claws cut as a token of their submission to the elephants.

Lord George Hamilton made a speech at Acton on Thursday, addressed to a Constitutional Club there, which is evidently intended as a formal defence of the policy of the Government of India. The first part, which was purely historical, was rather dull, being an account of our prepara- tions to resist Russia, which ended in an agreement between the two Empires not to fight, as there was room enough for all. The Secretary of State, however, gradually approached the present position, and his argument is this. As we are bound by treaty to defend Afghanistan if it is attacked, we must have the roads and passes which lead to it in our own hands. The easiest roads and passes are those through the central section of the Western Himalaya, and in this section the fighting tribes suddenly and without cause, other than the general wave of Mahommedan feeling, "went Gbazi,"—that is, gave way to an impulse of fanaticism. The movement caused by that impulse has been suppressed, and the Government has now to decide the use to which it will apply the fruits of its victory,—a victory, we may remark, which is not yet gained. The Afridis may submit, and the other tribes, but it is clear that if they do not, they can keep up a most annoying guerilla campaign, in which we shall lose many men and expend much treasure, and probably gain nothing.

Lord George Hamilton was not as clear on the future as he might have been, but he indicated the ideas and hopes of the Government. They propose to take nothing but absolutely necessary positions, together with a general suzerainty, under which most of the tribes will be per- mitted to manage themselves as they please. Through the positions thus taken the Government hope that wealth will gradually flow, and new wants, and civilisation generally, until the clansmen are as completely reconciled to our rule as our own Highlanders. He made quite an oratorical point of this, contrasting the Gordons of a hundred and fifty years ago with the Gordon Highlanders who recently cleared the Chagra Pass. His sketch was a clever one; but we would ask him, first, whether we can hold the positions he mentions without holding the whole country, —a doubt which has evidently occurred to himself ; secondly, whether we want to hold them, even•from the Forward point of view, while we hold Quetta and Cashmere; and thirdly, whether he really thinks that the clansmen will become richer, or more civilised, or more friendly than the citizens of Poona. Because, if not, they, as fighting men, will be just as for- midable after their " improvement " as before. They may, he hints, enter our service ; but of the 36th Sikhs, which on Tuesday rescued the " Northamptonshire " men, one-third are Afridis. What more do we want? In plain English, for what have we, with financial difficulties thickening round us, mobilised an army of seventy thousand men ?

Lord Salisbury's speech at the Gaildhall on Tuesday was a very impressive performance. After announcing the close of the engineers' strike, giving two messages from the Queen—one in regard to the Jubilee and one in regard to the bravery of the troops—and praising Sir Herbert Kitchener in language which shows that the authori- ties consider the Sirdar to be a General of the very first ability, Lord Salisbury dealt with the most burning question of the hour,—the dispute with France in West Africa. We have dealt with this part of the speech at length else- where, and will only say here that his words were clearly meant as a warning to France that we cannot and will not allow any infringement of our rights on the Niger, the Nile, or the Zambesi. Lord Salisbury's defence of the Concert was most ingenious. He compared it to a steam-roller, which, though its powers are tremendous, would be beaten in a race down Piccadilly by the worst hansom on the stand. That, no doubt, explains the Concert's slowness, but hardly the Concert's habit of crushing the wrong things. Lord Salisbury's real defence of the Concert was that it had saved us from the horrors of a great European war. Would it not have been wiser, however, for Lord Salisbury to have added up till now "?

The other speech of importance was made by Lord Lans- downe, Secretary of War. After taking credit for the fact that we have been able to mobilise an army of seventy thousand men in India, and that this army has "held its own" against the frontier tribes—a statement upon which we have commented elsewhere—Lord Lansdowne declared that there was at last a consensus of opinion in favour of in- creasing the Army. The extension of the Empire compelled it, and we must see that in the scramble for territory going on all over the world "a legitimate outlet is secured for the commerce of this country." The Army should be suffi- cient not only to defy invasion or to despatch a large body of troops abroad, but "to provide for those minor emergencies which we speak of as exceptional, but which are almost normal factors in the calculation." The people must remember, when told of the cost of the Army, that all other armies are for home defence, but that we have to defend an Empire so wide that "more than half our Army has to be maintained permanently on a war footing." We gather from the tone rather than the words of the whole speech that the increase asked for will be considerable, and that the argument used will be the necessity of swift mobilisation to meet emergencies.

The general effect of Lord Salisbury's speech upon the Continent, especially in France, appears to have been pacificatory. The serious journals all perceive that Great Britain cannot be hustled out of West Africa, and that the only course is to ask for " exchanges " or "compensations." That is reasonable enough, provided our clear rights are not infringed, and we trust opinion will allow Lord Salisbury to make considerable offers of the unoccupied sections of the continent. We cannot hope to possess the whole world, even if we wish for it, nor, if we can only understand one another, are neighbours in Africa any nuisance. But then they must not consider us a nuisance either, or devote themselves to hindering our trade or snipping off slices from territories which they have acknowledged belong by treaty to us. We believe an agreement will now be made, and only wish it could be a broader one, and that we could exchange West Africa for the Congo Free State. We should have two entrances into that. As that would snit France also, we sup- pose the German Emperor stops the way.

A desperate attempt was made on the 5th inst. to shoot Dom Pradente Moraes, President of the Brazilian Republic, and General Bittenconrt, his Minister of War. A soldier, who is believed to have been the agent of a widespread con- -spiraey, fired at the former with a pistol on the steps of the Marine Arsenal, but missed his aim. General Bittencourt endeavoured to arrest the assassin, but was stabbed, and died an the spot, the criminal being afterwards arrested by the bystanders. Party feeling runs high in Rio, and so great is the agitation that Congress has passed an Act placing the capital in a state of siege. The immediate cause of the con- spiracy is not reported; but it is known that the factions, each of which accuses the other of corruption and a design to establish tyranny, are so embittered that a civil war can scarcely be avoided except by a dictatorship of some kind. There is no evidence of any design to restore the Monarchy, though certain classes have never ceased to regret its fall, and the " fanatic " insurgents recently defeated in Bahia professed devotion to the Braganzas ; but the Republican form of government, which is unsuited to so vast and thinly peopled a dominion, may be seriously modified.

The struggle between the Germans and the Slays within the Cisleithan half of the Austrian Empire increases rapidly in bitterness. The Germans even mutter that they will seek aid from their kinsmen in the Northern Empire, and Vienna, which has declared itself on their side, is hooting Dr. Lneger, only a month or two since the idol of the mob. The Emperor has as yet refrained from intervention, but it is believed that his Majesty is prepared, if need be, to sanction the passage of an Act continuing the Ausgleich, or arrangement with Hungary, without a Parliamentary vote. There is a clause in the Constitution—Clause 14—which appears to allow of this course in emergencies, and it would be taken at once but for the necessity of obtaining an informal consent from the Hungarian Government, which is afraid of the precedent, and affirms that it will not consider an octroye agreement fully binding. It is possible that at the latest moment the Germans, who want ascendency, not universal suffrage, may upon this point of the contest sullenly recede.

The Egyptian Sirdar, who reached Cairo on Thursday, states, says the Times' correspondent, that the entire Eastern Soudan has been cleared of Dervishes, and that the railway between Abu-Hamed, already begun, will reach Berber about April. When direct and easy communication is established with Cairo —already one may travel from Cairo to Berber in six days, for Wady Halfa to Abu-Hamed is only eighteen hours by rail—it will be possible to name the day for seizing Khar- toum. Four steamers, says a Renter's telegram, lately made a reconnaissance from Berber to Metemmeh, and engaged the forts there on October 31st. They passed the town and then repassed it, having steamed twenty miles above the place. The country was deserted. The steamers engaged the forts on their return. Three men were wounded by a shell which burst on board one of the gunboats. Metemmeh is evidently a very strong position. The mud forts which com- mand the river, though armed with cannon, are not the most serious obstacle, for they could probably be taken by water. The town, however, which is a sort of huge entrenched camp, is three miles inland, and hidden behind a ridge. It could not, therefore, be shelled by the gunboats, and would have to be attacked by land,—a difficult process, and one requiring a large force.

The Times of Friday published the text of some of the principal treaties negotiated by the Royal Niger Company in the Hinterland of the British possessions on the West African Coast. Unless the French are prepared to deny that treaties give rights, and also that where there are two treaties the prior treaty prevails, we cannot see what possible colour, of right the French have in regard to the present dispute, at any rate as far as Boussa (or Borgu) is concerned. At present the French, in order to make good their claim to seize and keep Boum, have to contend that they have a right to seize and occupy places which are (1) in the Hinterland of our coast-line ; (2) within terri- tories on our side of the Say-Barna line of demarcation agreed on by them and us in the Anglo-French Agreement of 1890; (3) in countries governed by native rulers who have definitely and formally placed themselves and their king- doms under British protection, and have acknowledged and accepted our flag. If the French really mean to contend that the " jumping " of our claims and violent occupation are to set aside all other rights, they must remember that two can play at the game, and that we must perforce also adopt the policy of seizing and keeping. That is not a nice game, but, unless we are mistaken, it is one our officers will play even better than the French.

At Glasgow on Monday Mr. Chamberlain made two ex- cellent speeches on municipal institutions. We have dealt with some of the points raised by him elsewhere, but must note here the advantage which Mr. Chamberlain is at when he urges the best men to come forward and help to manage their local affairs. All our public men do this on occasion, but be almost alone can claim to have practised what he preaches. Here, indeed, he may be said to revert to the older type of Whig Cabinet Minister, who had so often served his apprenticeship to statesmanship as a Chairman or prominent member of Quarter Sessions. We must commend to the special attention of our readers Mr. Chamberlain's blunt but abso- lutely true remarks about municipal salaries. If the ratepayers want a good dividend in the way of efficient public administra- tion they must pay their managers good salaries,—pay them, that is, what they are worth in the market, and not what some demagogic professor or pedagogic demagogue thinks they ought to be worth in the abstract. A properly paid, self-respecting, efficient, and uncorrupted permanent civil service will alone give a sound public administration locally as well as at the centre. Without it the government of large areas can hardly be anything but an affair of waste, muddle, and plunder.

Mr. Asquith, speaking at Rochdale on Wednesday—still minus a definite policy—denounced Lord Salisbury's foreign policy. " Turn to Armenia, to Crete, to Venezuela, to Mada- gascar, to Siam, to Tunis—turn where they would, every- where within the last two years the part of England had been to scold, to protest, and to give way." This is a curious indictment to find in the mouth of one whose leader in the House of Commons is an avowed Little Englander. Turning to home politics, Mr Asquith dealt with what he described as the unfairness of the Agricultural Rating Act, and strongly condemned the Education Act. As to the Workman's Com- pensation Act, Mr. Asquith complained that it did not apply squally to all branches of industry. In conclusion, he main- tained that the principles of the Liberal party "were to-day the same as they always had been," and he scouted Mr. Chamberlain's "assumption that the true principles of Liberalism went with those who had severed their connec- tion with the party and formed the forces of Unionism." But if the principles of Liberalism are what they were, how is it that they cannot be stated? In the old days Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Bright never found any difficulty in telling the people what it was they advocated.

Sir William Harcourt has written a letter to Mr. Duckworth, apropos of Mr. Chamberlain's remarks on the Middleton elec- tion, which positively introduces a new style of political con- troversy into public life. We have no objection to hard hitting, but Sir William Harcourt's latest manner goes beyond the limits. After describing Mr. Chamberlain's speech as "the venom of a serpent gnawing a file," an& suggesting that he is a, "Disraeli manqué," it proceeds to declare that "he has tempted the Tories to sell their souls for votes. They have not got the votes, and their souls are sold." Next comes a storm of incoherent vituperation:— "Mr. Chamberlain perishing by his own virtue is a spectacle for men and angels. How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless democracy, the last refuge of patriotism." Later Mr. Chamberlain is said to "assume the attitude of a lady who is much misunderstood." One can only say, in Sir William Harcourt's own words, "What an agreeable and graceful style of political criticism "!

In Thursday's Times Mr. Chamberlain replied to Sir William Harcourt by quoting Mr. Lecky's description of Lord Thurlow :—" Lord Thurlow, though he had a strong natural bias towards harsh and despotic measures, seems to have taken his politics much as he took his briefs, and he had that air of cynical, brutal, and almost reckless candour which is sometimes the best veil of a time-serving and highly calculating nature." Possibly the making of so apt a quotation was irresistible, but for all that we greatly regret that Mr. Chamberlain should have made it. It would have been far better to have passed the letter over with a shrug of the shoulders. The Russian diplomatist was right when he met a personal attack of this kind by turning away with the remark, " C'est impossible de causer avec tin Monsieur commie ;a." That is the way to treat Sir William in a tantrum.

The result of the election in the Exchange division of Liverpool has been the retention of the seat by the Unionists. The figures are : Mr. Al'Arthur (Unionist), 2,711; Mr. Russell Rea (Radical), 2657; Unionist majority, 54. In 1895 the Unionist majority was 2.54, the Unionist polling 2,884 votes and the Home-ruler 2,630. In 1892 the Home-rulers carried the seat by 66 votes. It is, of course, satisfactory that the seat has been retained, and no one can pretend that the loss ef some 200 votes is a very serious matter. Still, it is neces-

sary to face the fact that in all probability the by-elections will continue to go against the Government. It is not in human nature to make great efforts to support a Ministry with so large a majority as that enjoyed by Lord Salisbury's Administration,

The question whether the Yukon region is full of gold, or has been selected by acute speculators as the scene of an enormous fraud—for that i8 the real dispute—seems to be getting cleared up. The district is exceedingly rich, though it is so distant and so arctic that the cost of working it will he exceptionally great. The Ottawa correspondent of the Times, for example, reports the opinion of Mr. Ogilvie, a Canadian geologist, who has worked there for years, and is said to be the beet living authority. He declares that the region west and east of the collection of huts and caves known as Dawson City stretches five hundred miles by one hundred over all which gold is found in the creeks, usually twenty-five feet below the surface. The miners have to make holes by burning the frozen ground, but they then come on rich paying streaks of frozen gravel about 3 ft. thick. On Bonanza Creek one hundred claims will yield from £50,000 to £100,000 each. At Eldorado there are thirty claims which will yield £200,000 each, and the two creeks are expected to yield before they are exhausted £14,000,000 sterling. Even richer spots will, it is said, though not by Mr. Ogilvie, be discovered; but, on the other hand, fuel is cruelly dear, the roughest food is scarce in Dawson City, and it will be twelve months before a reasonably safe route can be cut and protected. Till then the work is only for those who are fit for an Arctic expedition without furs. Note as a curious fact that the engineers think that the best means of getting food to Dawson is to drive sheep there, because the sheep carry themselves and their great-coats.

It is with no little satisfaction that we record the agree- ment of the masters and men engaged in the engineering dispute to enter into the conference suggested by Mr. Ritchie. The "amended draft for consideration" which is to be the basis of the conference, and which has been accepted by both sides, sets forth, on the part of the masters, that they do not wish to interfere with the legitimate action of the Trade- Unions, but that they will admit no interference with the management of their business. The men, on their part, while maintaining their right to combine, disavow any intention of interfering with the management of the business of the em- ployers. The demand for a forty-eight hour week is withdrawn. A conference is agreed upon, and if the two sides cannot come to terms as to a chairman, each side is to have He owe. chairman. The conference is in effect to determine (1) the best means of giving practical effect to the declarations, 01 the masters and of the men ; (2) the best means of avoiding future disputes ; (3) the best hours of labour. It is greatly to be hoped that these results will be achieved. -If the masters are wise they will use their half-victory wisely and liberally. The important thing is to arrive at i systew which will make it impossible for the local officials of the Union to carry out the policy of insisting that work sha.,11,.be artificially increased so that there shall be more to go round.

' - The National Liberal Federation has been asking its affiliated associations what they really desire in the way of political reforms, and the replies are very curious. The associations are not clear about the second ballot, and they are " widely " divided as to female suffrage and as to the shutting of public-houses during election time. There is some doubt also whether they wish that all official election expenses should be paid for out of taxes. In fact, so far as we can gather, the only subjects are the abolition of the Lords' veto upon legislation, upon which there is unanimity, and registration reform, which means practically the abolition of plural voting and an increase in the lodger franchise. Those proposals come, we fancy, from party managers rather than electors, and show that as yet there is no really popular cry on foot. The People, with a big "P," does not care about registration, and wishes "King, Lords, and Commons," which is their notion of natural government, to go on as they are.

Bank Rate, 3 per cent.

New Consols (2:) were on Friday, 1131.