NEWS OF THE WEEK.

THE War advances a little. The Americans on Friday week landed a force of sixteen hundred Marines at Guanta- namo, some fifty miles from Santiago de Cuba, intending, it may be supposed, to support them at once with a larger force. The larger force, however, was delayed, like everything else, for unexplained reasons, and the Marines have had a hard time of it, a much heavier force of Spaniards attacking them every night. They have, however, held their own without serious loss, and on Tuesday a corps d'anntie of fifteen thousand men left Tampa in thirty transports for "Santiago," —that is, for some point a few miles from that harbour. The fleet is to arrive on Sunday, and from that day the invasion of Cuba will commence. It is by no means certain that the eight thousand Spanish troops in Santiago fighting behind earthworks will not be able to repulse the attack ; but the only effect of that will be the wakening of the American people -to still greater energy. At present their soldiers, the Staff especially, are evidently pazzled by their inexperience, and a reluctance to risk their men's lives, which will pass away with habitude. The Cuban insurgents, it is stated, though they waste ammunition recklessly, display much courage, and a furious zeal which will greatly help the invaders. We shall know, we think, within a fortnight whether the conquest of the island is or is not to be a very long business,—a point of great importance to America, which is pouring out money in rivers. It is said that £72,000,000 has already been spent, and there is nothing to show for it except the destruction of Admiral Montojo's squadron in Manilla.

M. Meline has been overthrown already. A debate of two days on general policy, in some ways a fine debate, ended on 'Tuesday in an odd way. M. Meline was carrying a Resolution proposed by M. Ribot approving the Government, when M. Ricard suggested, as an addition, that the Government should look for "support to a majority exclusively Republican." M. Meline resisted, but was beaten by a vote of 295 to 246,—a majority of 49. The Premier, whose idea is always to obey the Chamber, then turned round and accepted the Resolution with its addendum, but this was too much for the Republicans, and he only carried it by a majority of 12. M. Meline, there- fore, resigned, and the President, in his slow, unideaed way, is asking everybody how he should form the next Ministry. it is believed that M. Dupuy, the whilom schoolmaster, who

has been Premier before, will be selected, and will fight on for a while, but there is still a possibility of M. Bourgeois and a Ministry of the Left. The new Chamber is said to be singularly unmanageable, the Radicals of all shades and the Moderates of all shades being too nearly equal. Note as a most important fact that for the first time M. Maine expressed his conviction that a Bourgeois Ministry would be speedily followed by " a Government of repression." M. Meline knows what the soldiers are saying.

The greater part of the German fleet in Chinese waters is now in the harbour of Manilla, and everybody, especially in America, is asking what it is there for. Official Germans reply that the cruisers are intended to protect German subjects if the insurgents should seize Manilla, and they have despatched sixteen hundred Marines to strengthen their Admiral's bands. The German Press replies that Germany wants a Kiao-chow in the Philippines, and will claim one from " the Philippine Republic ; " while the Press of Madrid thinks that Germany intends, in consideration of a coaling- station, to intervene on behalf of Spain. Americans look on gloomily, muttering under their breath that the war is between them and Spain, and nobody shall interfere, and the British look on quietly, quite sure that if a collision occurs the last word will rest with them. The German Emperor, of course, means nothing but friendly observation ; but would it not be expedient to send a couple of cruisers to Manilla to join in the friendly observation,—and reinforce Admiral Dewey if attacked F The Convention between England and France terminating the various boundary disputes in West Africa was signed soon after midnight on Tuesday. Under the Convention France abandons her claims to and evacuates Boussa and all places on the Lower Niger up to and including llo. France, however, remains at Nikki, a place situated within what we claimed to be the Lagos Hinterland, but not on the Niger. From Ilo, which becomes our highest point on the river, our old boundary will recede—it used to go up to Say—but in compensation it will near Sokoto be carried above the old Say-Barna line. We are to have everything within a hundred- miles radius of the capital of Sokoto. After that the old Say-Barna line is to continue up to Lake Chad, which, as we have said elsewhere, becomes an African Lake of Constance. The French have the whole of the north, north-east, and north-west shores, while the rest is divided between us and Germany. So far we sustain all our absolute contentions in regard to territory. By doing so, however, we exclude France from the navigable Niger, which is, as oar readers will remember, an international highway,—i.e., open to all corners, like the sea. To meet this difficulty we most properly lease to France for thirty years two reserves or great bonded warehouses on the right bank of the navigable Niger, and give her the right to bring goods from her colonies and ship them there under her own regulations. She will also be able to use these leased places as commercial coaling-stations. In exchange France is to give us for thirty years equality of treatment in the matter of tariff and trade facilities with her own subjects. We, of course, do the same by her. This arrangement on the part of France only applies, however, to the area east of Sierra Leone,—i.e., to her Ivory Coast and Dahomey possessions. In the Hinterland of the Gold Coast all the concessions are made by us. We give up our claim to Mossi and Wagadugu, retire from Bona and Dokta, and allow our Hinterland to stop at the eleventh parallel. On the west our boundary is to be the course of the Black Volta. As we have said elsewhere, all our West African Colonies become enclaves, though in the case of Nigeria the enclave is on a very great scale. We do not complain of the arrangement, and consider, indeed, that Mr.

Chamberlain has made a reasonable and fair settlement of a most difficult question.

The Austrian Parliament has been prorogued. The imme- diate occasion, it is said, was the prospect of a debate on the employment of Bosnian troops in Styria in suppressing a riot, which would have brought up the whole question of the relation of Bosnia to the Empire, but the object was to sus- pend controversy, and enable the Emperor to act by decree. It is said that his Majesty will suspend the Language Ordinance, that is, as we have explained elsewhere, will en- deavour to conciliate the German population once more, relying upon the weakness in the organisation of the Slays. The latter will be very angry if this is done, and it is rumoured that the Emperor, worn out by the prospect of endless troubles, and unwilling to revert to an absolutist policy, will celebrate his Jubilee, which occurs this year, and then abdicate in favour of a brother of the heir, who is too sickly to reign in disturbed times. The report may be true, for the Emperor is a weary man ; but as a rule Kings do not abdicate. They think they will, and say they will, but when the time arrives life in a lower position and without excitements looks too dull. They feel as the soapboiler felt when he pleaded to be allowed to return "on melting days." Governing is a business like another, and the retired man of business usually grows tired of himself and dies.

Yemen is again, for about the fifth time since 1860, in full insurrection and its Governor besieged. The Sultan is sending troops, and in a month or two we shall hear that order has been restored, and, indeed, has never been disturbed. There were only some British intrigues ! The incident is worth noting, because some fine day, when a Sultan has become quite intolerable, we shall recognise the independence of Arabia, and remark mildly that the peninsula must not be invaded by sea. That will not matter to the Sultan, who draws no revenue from Arabia, but to the Khalif it means ruin, and as Khalif and Sultan are one, the latter will pro- bably reconsider himself. With the Arabs on our side, we may remark, the influence of the Sultan over Indian Mussul- mans would be exactly measured by his expenditure.

The journey of the German Emperor to Jerusalem in autumn is to be a sort of triumphal progress, for which mag- nificent marquees are already in preparation. All the Princes of Germany are to accompany him, and as many representa- tives of other Courts as can be induced to swell the pageant. His Majesty is to visit the Sultan in state, and even make a call upon the Khedive, while he will be received in Jerusalem, where nobody has too much to eat, as a sort of deity. There is an idea that the object of the visit is to familiarise the East, and especially Asia Minor, of which Palestine is a dependency, with the grandeur of German power, and so leave an impres- sion which may be useful when Turkey is partitioned ; but that is rather dreamy. William II. loves display and pomp and all that, but he is an intellectual man, and Jerusalem probably has the interest for him which it has for all Christians, as well as for all men who know the past. He is, moreover, well aware that the one thing for which every Russian peasant is willing to fight is that neither Protestant nor Catholic shall have rule over the Holy Places.

There seems a real danger of a kind of railway mania breaking out in China,—only the rivals, instead of fighting out their differences in Parliamentary Committees, threaten war by land and sea unless " their" line has the preference. Just, too, as in the railway mania, none of the lines are yet built, half of them never will be, and of the other half not a third will really pay. Our advice, then, to our readers is not to get depressed if they hear that Russia is going to make a railway a thousand miles long, or unduly elated when they are told that an English syndicate is going to make one to " tap " an even richer province. There is plenty of room for every one in China, and also an infinite capacity for delay and obstruction among the Mandarins. The last item of news (i.e., on Friday) is that the Hong-kong and Shanghai Bank has agreed to grant a loan of 16,000,000 taels (say £3,000,000) in order to make, or rather extend, the railway to Newchang.

Have the chiefs of the Liberal party a surprise in store for us? As chairman at the dinner of the Eighty Clab on Friday,

June 10th, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman had to propose the health of the guest of the evening, Lord Spencer. In doing so he declared that the amount of success which would attend their efforts would be precisely apportioned to the degree in which they were inspired by the example of Mr. Gladstone. " But he .continued, " Mr. Gladstone having passed from among them, there was no one among their comrades who attracted in a larger degree the personal affection and admiration of them all than the guest of the evening." Was this meant, we wonder, as a hint that Lord Spencer might usefully fill the part of Premier in the next Home-rule Ministry ? Stranger things have happened. Addington, Percival, and Lord Goderich were all three Prime Ministers. Neither Lord Rosebery nor Sir William Harcourt could, we presume, refuse to serve under Lord Spencer. As the " safe man" says in the song,-

" To yield to the other could neither agree, So they made up their difference by sending for me.'

The only difficulty is,—what would happen to Lord Kimberley ?

In the House of Commons on Friday, June 10th, Sir- Charles Dilke raised a debate on the foreign policy of the Government. Mr. Asquith, in backing up Sir Charles Dilke's adverse criticism, practically confined himself to Mr. Chamber- lain's Birmingham speech, which he attacked in a speech which,. though very able, was too lawyerlike to be effective in the House of Commons. Was Mr. Chamberlain's policy, he asked, the policy of the Government? Did they really mean busi-. ness about Russia ? Was she to be regarded as our perpetual and standing enemy, against whom it is to be the end of our foreign policy to find allies ? What had the people of Great Britain done that, after bearing for nearly fifty years the• ever-growing weight of empire on their unaided shoulders,. they were now to tout for allies in the highways and byways of Europe ? That is, of course, very effective oratory, but as we want to see the nation induced to adopt a wise foreign policy- rather than to witness the making of telling Parliamentary points, we cannot but regret that Mr. Asquith did not choose less heated language to enforce his argument. Mr. Asquith ended his speech by a denunciation of alliances. Mr. Asquith, in our opinion, threw away a great opportunity for stating our true policy in regard to Russia in order that he might the better " spoil the face " of Mr. Chamberlain.

After Mr. Curzon had made an able and comprehensive• reply to Sir Charles Dilke, Sir William Harcourt attempted to show that there was a strong difference of opinion between• Mr. Chamberlain and Lord Salisbury as to our policy towards Russia,—i.e., between the old diplomacy and the new diplomacy. "I can no more affect the new diplomacy than,. I confess, I do the new woman. The style is different, but I prefer that to which I have been accustomed." As to the alliance proposals, Mr. Chamberlain's words might be repre- sented as something like this: " We have got into such a terrible mess ; we are so weak, so helpless, that unless we can obtain the affiance of a great military Power we are impotent and cannot meet Russia." It was not till near the end of his speech that Sir William Harcourt touched the real heart of the question. His language then became that of a statesman, and saved the Opposition from the reproach of merely " scoring " off their opponents. The plan of treating Russia as our natural enemy had, he declared, failed in the- past, and would fail in the future. If the Eastern question was to be settled in a way favourable to this country, it must: be settled in concert, not in hostility, with Russia.

Mr. Asquith's rhetoric, and the gibes of the earlier and concluding parts of Sir William Harcourt's speech, gave Mr. Chamberlain exactly the opportunity required by a great debater, and it is not too much to say that he made use of them in a speech which was quite unsurpassable in its particular form of Parliamentary oratory. After his speech was ended, it had to be admitted that he had successfully countermined and destroyed every personal point made against him, though the question of general policy in. regard to Russia remained, of course, exactly where it was. Particularly happy was the way in which he dis- posed of the assertions that he was at loggerheads with his colleagues over his Birmingham speech. When a Cabinet Minister made a speech, was he to submit it. beforehand to his colleagues ? "Sir, we do not all write our speeches." If he differed from the Prime Minister it would be his duty to resign, and if he did not he had no doubt that those in authority would remind him of that duty. But he bad not resigned or been rejected by the Prime Minister, —" so there is solidarity." Did not this explanation give satisfaction ? Perhaps they were thinking of a Government in which the Prime Minister and his principal colleague were not on speaking terms, and yet neither resigned. That was a precedent which the present Government would not follow. As to the question of alliances, what he had said was that we must cut our coat according to our cloth, and if we resolve to preserve the independence of China against Russia we must make alliances, for there is no other way of gaining our end. We have dealt with the Russian question at length elsewhere, but we will say here that though we differ in toto from Mr. -Chamberlain's conclusions, we admit that they are sound if once his premises are granted. We do not- agree that it is a matter of life and death for us to keep Russia from getting control in China.

Sir John Gorst on Tuesday moved the second reading of the Bill creating the Statutory Commission which is to federate twenty-five London Schools and Colleges into a teaching University. He explained a great mass of details, declaring that a larger scheme would cost £700,000, that the position of the present University as an Examining Board would not be affected, and that the plan had been accepted by the Senate, by Convocation, and by the twenty-five Colleges. Mr. Harwood moved the rejection of the Bill because it did not really create a teaching University, which is true ; but the speech of the evening was Mr. Haldane's, which was wholly in favour of the Government plan. His main contention was that the scheme would terminate an enormous waste of teaching force, would bring into the new University the best teachers in London, and would give its undergraduates access to the "great research establishments." He thought the new University would be a grand institution .on the principles of Mill and Austin, Bentham and Grote,— rather an odd compliment to a Conservative Government. In the end, the second reading was passed without a division. The Bill is a clever attempt to evade the difficulties surround- ing the question, and should be passed in the hope that it will facilitate its own supersession by a wider and wiser measure. As we have elsewhere argued, the Government should have brought in a scheme more worthy of London, and have faced the necessary expenditure. They will have to do it when the scheme has proved useless, except as a measure for clearing the ground, and meanwhile London will lie under the disgrace of being the only capital in Europe so given up to materialism that it does not care to provide in the only -way that has ever succeeded, for the development of intel- lectual life.

On Thursday the House of Commons ought to have con- sidered the Benefices Bill as amended by the Standing Com- mittee, but instead they found themselves engaged in a debate on the question of ritualistic practices in the Church. We shall return at length to this grave and difficult problem next week, and will only note now the chief features of the discus- sion. Mr. Samuel Smith, in a speech as full of sincerity and good intention as it was prejudiced and injudicious, declared that the Church of England was full of secret societies, the object of which was to destroy the Protestant character of the Church, and to prepare for its reunion with the Church of Rome. This was the avowed object of " the Order of Corporate Reunion." "It had Bishops secretly con- secrated who were prepared to give reordination to such of the clergy as would submit to it. Dr. F. G. Lee, vicar of All Saints, Lambeth, was believed to be one of these Bishops who possessed orders which Roman priests had acknowledged to be valid, and he v3as believed to have Secretly reordained several hundred clergy." The organ of the Jesuits at Rome had also declared that " several Anglican ministers in con- nection with this Society have induced a Greek Bishop— whose name, however, it has not as yet been possible to ascer- tain—to ordain them under certain conditions " in order that when the question was again raised at Rome there should be no doubt as to their orders. We know that it is difficult to put any limit to the eccentricities of an Anglican clergyman when once he takes an idea into his head, but we shall certainly want better evidence before we credit this stranga story.

Sir William Harcourt intervened in the debate, and, in a manner which we will not trust ourselves to characterise, tried by dragging in the voluntary school question to make party capital out of the vagaries of the extreme ritualists. He thinks, no doubt, that a good anti-Popery cry would be an embarrassment to the Government, especially in connection with popular education. Mr. Balfour replied with a sense of indignation not usual to him, but quite justified by the circum- stances. Apart, however, from his passage of arms with Sir William Harcourt, his speech was a model of moderation and calmness. He showed how much exaggeration there had been over the whole question, though he expressed his general con- currence with the opposition to the wilder forms of ritualism which had been given in the House. Speaking on the whole question, what we desire to see, and what we believe the great hulk of English Churchmen desire to see, is an arrangement under which the extreme men among the clergy will be pre- vented from introducing new services and ceremonials into their churches without the authorisation of their Episcopal superiors. We do not want to put the Church into a strait- waistcoat, and to forbid all change or development—that would be introducing the Mass with a vengeance—but merely to prevent the services of the churches from being at the mercy of each individual incumbent. Many English laymen are strong and convinced ritualists, desire a full ceremonial, and ought to have that desire satisfied; but we do not believe that they wish to see a sort of sacerdotal anarchy or in- dependency made the chief feature of the English Church.

On Tuesday Lord Salisbury received a deputation from the Associated Chambers of Commerce in regard to British trade with China, and replied in a speech full of sober common- sense. He could not, considering his position. discuss the rela- tions of this country with Russia, France, and Germany, but he shared the deputation's desire to extend British trade in China. Territorial expansion had, to a great extent, ceased to have any charm for us, but what forced us to take part in the dealings which other nations are having with the unappropriated places of the earth is their Protectionist policy, " which we know is very calamitous to our trade, and which we believe to be equally calamitous to their own." —Lord Salisbury would have been within the truth if he had said, instead of equally, are more calamitous to their own.—After declaring that we should maintain our rights under the Treaty of Tientsin, Lord Salisbury, we are glad to see, refused to endorse the dog-in-the-manger policy in regard to railways. " We cannot stop a district from having the benefit of a railway if that railway belongs to a foreign Power." Lord Salisbury ended his speech with the wise exhortation : " Do not imagine that because other nations are increasing their trade, therefore your own position is so difficult as some people seem to think, for in spite of adverse tariffs British trade is increasing." Those are words which ought to be written in letters of gold above the doors of every public office in the Kingdom. Jealousy of foreign trade is fatuous in the extreme.

The Westminster Gazette is always finding curious and interesting quotations in all sorts of odd and unexpected places. Its issue of Tuesday shows that it was after all Mr. Gladstone, and not Mr. Rhodes, to whom the idea of the Cape to Cairo connection first occurred,—and occurred, too, before we had gone to Egypt. In an article in the Nineteenth Century of August, 1877—i.e., more than twenty years ago—Mr. Gladstone used these words :—" Our first site in Egypt, be it by larceny or be it by emption, will be the almost certain egg of a North African empire that will grow and grow until another Victoria and another Albert—titles of the lake sources of the White Nile—come within our borders, and till we finally join hands across the Equator with Natal and Cape Town, to say nothing of the Transvaal and the Orange River on the South, or of Abyssinia or Zanzibar to be swallowed by way of viaticum on our journey." After that the famous passage in Tancred about Cyprus is quite put in the shade.

Bank Rate, 3 per cent. New Consols (2!) were on Friday, 1111.