NEWS OF THE WEEK.

ACCORDING to the latest telegrams from Constantinople, the Ambassadors refused to negotiate any longer with the Sultan unless he accepted their proposal for the retrocession of Thessaly. His Majesty therefore accepted it "in principle" with "certain reservations," and the Ambassadors have betaken themselves again to their weary task. A rumour is, moreover, circulated that the Turkish army is "beginning to evacuate Thessaly," that is, its advance guard has been withdrawn from Domoko, probably for some better supplied station. We attach very little importance to these accounts, which vary from day to day, sometimes, we are inclined to believe, according to the operations of highly placed jobbers in stocks in Constantinople. It is not the interest of the Sultan to evacuate Thessaly until he is forced, and he is a man who perceives his interest quite clearly. As to money, he is spending very little, Edhem's army being fed by requisitions on Thessaly and Macedonia, and a host of capitalists seeking " concessions " are swarming into Turkey and bribing everybody who will take a bribe. Life is quite sweet just now in Constantinople for Mussulmans of influence; and as for those wretched Christians, what do they matter, even in Ambassadors' eyes ?

The Prussian Government is evidently determined to go on with its reactionary policy. The Bill against Associations has been strengthened by some clauses specially directed against Socialists, and in this form has been passed by the Prussian Upper House by 112 votes to 19. It has now to be debated again in the Lower House, and will, it is fully believed, be rejected, though by a very narrow majority, the pressure applied to Members being extreme, and the fear of a Dissolu- tion weighing on all whose seats are at all doubtful. The King-Emperor will then make the next move, and it is reported that he insists on the Bill, and is ready to take almost any step, even to the revision of the Constitution, rather than be defeated. It is possible that in the quiet of his voyage he may have reconsidered his position ; but the "Agrarians," who have most influence with him, are almost distracted at the shrinkage of their incomes, and urge him to the most " deter- mined " courses.

The German military authorities have done a rather cool thing. They have sent two thousand carrier-pigeons to Dover, which, when released, have flown back to Dusseldorf and other centres. The object clearly is to see whether, in the event of a German descent upon England, information of its progress could be transmitted to Germany, even if the cables were cut or in English hands. Mr. Brodrick stated in Parliament on Tuesday that the War Office had noticed the despatch of the pigeons ; but of course there is nothing to be said or done, except to remember, as Tennyson said of Napoleon, that "we have a faithful ally, it seems," who takes a great interest in our coasts and in the fate of our possessions in South Africa.

Signor Crispi, now seventy-eight years old, delivered on July 20th a grand speech at Milazzo. Its substance was that Italy needed a Monarchy in order to keep her seven States united, and that though she ought not to seek predominance, she ought to straggle towards a strength which would cause her recognition as a Great Power. He pressed on his hearers the example of France, who, after losing five milliards and two provinces in 1871, had recovered herself completely ; and con- demned the abandonment of Erythrea as an act of weakness not demanded by a defeat which could have been repaired. The speech, like all Signor Crispi's speeches, has something about it of the antique hero, who does not quite recognise that Italy a little exhausted herself in producing the men of the Fifties, and is now seeking a happiness incompatible in so poor a State with heavy taxation, a burdensome though instructive conscription, and a policy intended to raise the national pride rather than the national wellbeing. A certain grandeur of idea in Signor Crispi is rendered almost useless to his country by a certain want of business sense. He is not, in truth, an Italian, but belongs still in thought to the Greek race, from which he sprang.

Dr. Cornelius Herz, the person who is supposed to be able to reveal the whole truth about the Panama briberies, has apparently befooled the investigating Committee. He declared that if the majority of that Committee would visit him in Bourne mouth he would take them into his confidence and reveal some State secrets. Greatly to his surprise, we fancy, the Committee took him at his word, and agreed to visit Bournemouth in a body ; but just as they were starting —the chairman, indeed, was in the train—a letter was received from Dr. Herz declaring that he was an American, that he mast collect documents before he could make revelations, and that France owed him a million sterling in compensation for the injustice with which he had been treated. So the Com- mittee went back to their work feeling silly. It is suspected, of course, that the French Government, which at heart detests the inquiry, has offered Dr. Herz some inducement to hold his tongue; but that suspicion may be born of malice, and it is at least as probable that he knows very little, and rather enjoys making the French Chamber look foolish in the eyes of Paris. There are thousands of Frenchmen, not all peasants, who believe that if the Chamber would drop all inquiry the Americans would buy the Canal, paying the original shareholders, say, 7s. 6d. in the pound. They are wrong ; but the stake is so large that they go on hoping, and inventing rumours.

"Gold, still gold." It appears that enormous quantities of fluvial gold have been discovered at a point on the Klondike, a small affluent of the great Yukon River in British Columbia, close to Alaska. The rich territory is believed to be at least thirty miles square, and is said to be so fall of gold that a single miner has taken out 250,000 in a few months, and that 2600,000 has been actually sent away to places in the State of Washington, and in' California. On the news becoming known in the American Pacific States a rush set in, miners filling steamers for the Yukon, which also the Canadians hope to reach by land. The prices of food have risen to a fabulous height, Canadians are proposing to legis- late against the admission of Americans—which is nonsense —and there are all the usual signs of gold fever. There will be, of course, the usual effort to form companies, but it should be remembered that the region is arctic, that there are few, if any, means of communication when the rivers freeze, and that wages will make the profit of those who have to hire labour imperceptible. The Icelanders should go there in a body.

We regret deeply to record the death of Mr. Mundella, which occurred on Wednesday, from paralysis, at the age of seventy-two. An Anglo-Italian by descent, with, we imagine, a Jewish strain in his blood, he rose from the position of a scarcely educated workman to be Minister of Education under Mr. Gladstone,—a post in which he displayed great knowledge, some power of originating improvements, and indefatigable industry. He was not a man of ideas, but he understood all labour questions thoroughly, and he obtained the unquestioning and unbroken confidence of both masters and men in a great city like Sheffield, where he did not live. He was in politics a sane Radical,—that is, a man who, though holding his doctrines strongly, could yet work with a milder party than his own and be thoroughly loyal to his chief. Throughout life something in him—we believe it was an inner kindliness and simplicity of nature—attracted to him men of stronger intellects than his own, and in the House of Commons, though he never concealed his opinions, he never, we believe made an enemy. In 1894 he resigned the Board of Trade because that Board had to prosecute a Company of which he was a director, but no one suspected his personal honour, and Sheffield re-elected him in 1895 without opposition. He belonged to a type—the indus- trial Member who is on the side neither of the capitalist nor the labourer, but sympathises with both—which is exceedingly useful, and we still believe that his superiors made no mistake when they recognised his qualifications for office.

On Friday week the Archbishop of Canterbury raised a tea-cup storm in the House of Lords by moving that the Royal assent be withheld from the scheme under the Welsh Intermediate Education Act which relates to the Denbigh share of Howell's Charity for girls' schools in Wales. Since 1860 the Charity had been worked as a Church. school, but admitted Nonconformists with a conscience clause, and no complaints had been made by Noncon- formists. Under the new scheme the school would prac- tically be placed in the hands of the Joint Committee of the County of Denbigh, and thus its religious character would be imperilled. The Duke of Devonshire, who represents the Education Department, complained of the muddle and want of principle under which schemes carefully devised by the Education Department in accordance with Acts of Parlia- ment were liable to be set aside by Motions either in the Lords or Commons. "Their lordships were perfectly entitled to reject the scheme, but he could not help thinking that if they did reject it they would act in contravention of a policy deliberately adopted by Parliament upon more than one occasion." This was a somewhat frigid defence of the scheme, for nothing was said as to the merits. After a rather scolding speech from Lord Herschell, Lord Salisbury made it clear that the Government did not mean to stand by the scheme. He was alive to the danger of "theological piracy" springing up under the guise of educational reform, and he therefore thought it would be wise to send the scheme back to the Charity Commissioners. On the House dividing, 72 Peers voted for rejection, and only 33 against,—majority for rejection, 39. A great deal has been made of the so-called throwing over of the Duke of Devonshire by the Premier, but that is nonsense. The Duke of Devonshire is not the kind of man to look out for slights, and he knows as well as Lord Salisbury that the Peers, though they may be made to see reason on big subjects, cannot be driven over small matters.

On Friday, July 16th, the House of Commons dealt with the case of Mr. Kirkwood, the recalcitrant moneylender who had refused to answer questions pat to him by a Committee. On Mr. Kirkwood being brought to the Bar by the Sergeant- at-Arms, mace on shoulder, the Speaker asked him whether he had declined to answer a certain question. Mr. Kirkwood thereupon tried to rush off into an argument as to why he had not answered the question. This, however, the Speaker sternly refused to allow. Next he asked Mr. Kirkwood -whether he still declined to answer. Mr. Kirkwood then made another attempt at argument, but ultimately declared that he would answer anything that he was ordered to

answer. The House then passed a formal Resolution ordering Mr. Kirkwood to attend the Select Committee on Money- lending and to answer the questions put to him. Before, however, this was carried Commander Bethell and Mr. Dillon made a protest against the different treatment accorded to Mr. Kirkwood and to Mr. Hawkesley. It was certainly very unfortunate for its reputation that the South African Committee should have at once been given so clear an object-lesson in dealing with a refractory witness.

On Tuesday Lord Belper, on behalf of the Government, moved the second reading of the Compensation Bill. Lord Londonderry protested against the Bill in a speech of an "Early Victorian" type. It may indeed be compared to the- immortal oration in which Sydney Smith grouped all the possible objections that can be raised to any new measure. It was contrary to Conservative principles ; it had been called Socialistic by the Member who represented Lord Salisbury —apparently Lord Londonderry puts great faith in the notion that if you are not the rose the best thing is to live near it— it did not include all industries ; it was not asked for by the miners, whom it was intended among others to benefit; it was the thin end of the wedge; and, lastly, of course, we had it already in the much better form of mutual benefit societies. In addition to all this Lord Londonderry had heard of a one- armed mortar-mixer—the best mortar-maker an unnamed gentleman in the North of England had ever known—who would be destroyed by the Bill. "Directly this was passed this man would receive notice." After this argument urn. ad lzominem uninzanzcm, Lord Londonderry predicted that the Bill, would not alienate a single Radical vote, while at the next election many people who " slaved " last year for Lord Salisbtu-y "would not cross the street" to vote for his candidates. Altogether the speech, though capable of afford- ing amusement, showed more temper than tact. There are, of course, many strong arguments on the other side, but Lord Londonderry failed to produce them.

Lord Salisbury wound up the debate with a really admirable little speech, and one which should put the measure entirely out of danger. After quietly remarking that Lord London- derry's electioneering appeal hardly rose to the dignity of the subject, Lord Salisbury pointed out that since Mr. Chamber- lain was the recognised spokesman of the Unionist party upon social legislation, and since he had openly advocated the Bill, it was absurd to talk of Conservative voters being deceived. Besides, the measure was in accordance with the traditions of the Tory party. The Bill was not Socialistic for it put the burden, not on the State, but upon the individual.. The present system was, however, Socialistic. Supposing there is a tremendous colliery accident, and fifty or a hundred persons are killed, and their wives and children left destitute, who pays ? The parish. "That is to say, I with my five hundred acres of meadow land, who do not get the slightest profit from the mine, have to pay for the accident." Could anything be more Socialistic than that? Lord Salisbury ended a most telling speech by the declaration, "To my mind the great attraction of this Bill is that I believe it will turn- out a great machinery for the saving of life." If he had added that when life is lost or health destroyed the attendant suffering will be greatly minimised, he would have exactly described the attitude of the country towards the Bill..

On Monday last Mr. Arnold-Forster seized the opportunity of the Colonial Vote to raise the South African question. The leading idea of his speech was that daring all the South African troubles there had been "a conflict of wealth and influence on one side, and of national interests on the other." Mr. Arnold-Forster pointed out what we have often insisted on in these columns,—namely, that it is largely a myth to say that Mr. Rhodes conferred enormous benefits on the Empire. "The whole of the territory up to the Zambesi was as far back as 1882 and 1883 in the power of her Majesty's Government." No doubt Mr. Rhodes entered and possessed the land, but it was quite secure without his intervention. A good deal of Mr. Arnold-Forster's speech was not very judicious in tone, but it was marked by true patriotic feeling, and honour is due to him for his courage in making it. He should, however, have avoided even the appearance of casting imputations upon the Government. They may have come to a wrong decision—we think they have—in deciding not to

abolish the Chartered Company, but that decision, right or wrong, was taken, as all reasonable men know, on public grounds. Mr. Balfour's reply was too severe in tone, but no doubt the hot night, the character of Mr. Arnold-Forster's -speech, and the need for defending the Chartered Company were irritating, conditions. Mr. Chamberlain's defence of himself for not producing the Martin Report was a reason- able one. It contains a very severe condemnation of the 'Chartered Company, and to this condemnation the Com- pany are making a reply. Mr. Chamberlain does not think it fair that the accusation should be published till the reply can be laid with it.

On Thursday Mr. Gerald Balfour brought in a Bill for -decreasing the number of Irish Judges. Though we are glad to see this much-needed reform, it must be confessed that the proposal is not of a very heroic nature. There are now "twenty Irish Judges. In future there will be seventeen. The Probate Court and the Bankruptcy Court are to go altogether, and the work is to be done by the High Court, which in future is to be divided into only two Divisions,— the Queen's Bench and the Chancery Division. The saving, which will be 27,500 a year, will be carried to a special Irish credit to be used for Irish purposes. Mr. Dillon, it is needless to say, was not satisfied. He was characteristically anxious that the changes should not result in any improvement in the salary of a particular Judge, "as his promotion would be looked upon as a reward for the part he played in the recent troubled times in Ireland." There can be no necessity for urging Mr. Gerald Balfour to neglect this comment.

We have noticed elsewhere one portion of Mr. Reid's impressions of England given in the Daily News of Wednesday, but must refer here to the wise words he used as to our relationship with the Colonies. The Australians, said Mr. Reid, will not stand Imperial Federa- tion. "Your Australian is a very nice fellow if you leave him free, but if you lasso him he is apt to prove mighty troublesome, in spite of the rope. So if you lasso the Colonies with some of the suggested schemes of closer formal union, they will be restive. The real unity of the Empire is that brotherhood, that one blood, which requires no constitu- tions to create or Parliaments to seal. Even to talk about it is unnecessary. It,is there, as will be proved when the time comes." The test of unity would be when the next war comes. H it is a war of defence, not of aggression, the Colonies will bear their share. Mr. Reid ended his interview with the -declaration, "In Mr. Chamberlain as Colonial Secretary I have every confidence." We note also that on Wednesday, near Birkenhead, Mr. Reid made two capital little Free-trade speeches. If Free-trade is ever seriously attacked here we shall have to borrow Mr. Reid to help us fight the battle.

The Daily Chronicle on Saturday last and on Wednesday published portions of Sir Richard Martin's Report to the Colonial Office on the administration of the Chartered Com- pany,—a Report which the Colonial Office has hitherto refused to make public. The Report shows that our fears as to the establishment of slavery by the Company under the form of compulsory labour were only too well founded. After mentioning that Lord Grey and Mr. Vincent do not allow that any regulation exacting compulsory labour was ever promulgated by the Government, Sir Richard Martin con- tinues :—" This no doubt is correct, but that a system of compulsory labour did exist I have no doubt, and it is difficult to believe that it was put in practice as universally as it appears to have been throughout Matabeleland without the knowledge of the Government." The following are the principal conclusions arrived at by Sir Richard Martin :— "(1) That compulsory labour did undoubtedly exist in Mata- beleland if not in Mashonaland ; (2) that labour was procured by the various Native Commissioners for the various require- ments of the Government, mining companies, and private persons ; (3) that the Native Commissioners in the first place endeavoured to obtain labour through the Indunas, but failing in this they procured it by force." It is hardly possible to conceive a worse administrative record than this. There is, no doubt, little risk of the scandal being repeated, nor do we doubt that the London Board were entirely free from any desire to tolerate such infamies. But what are we to say of

a system which allowed slavery is its worst form—slavery in mines—to be established under the British flag ?

The telegraphists—ought not the word to be telegraphers ? —of the Post Office, especially those who control that centre of the nerves of the world, the great room in the Post Office, are bitterly discontented with their position. They think them- selves underpaid—which is true as far as the older men are concerned—and treated with an indignity not shown to other civil servants. After memorialising the Department for some months in vain, they decided to use their liability to overtime as their pivot of complaint, and to compel a hearing by refusing on Monday next to regard any order to work over- time as compulsory. As this would be most inconvenient, the Department listened, and informed them that, provided the threat were withdrawn, their grievances should be immediately considered. They therefore withdrew it on Wednesday subject to further discussion. They appear to have a real grievance in the shape of a reduction of the pay to which they can rise automatically, and an inadequate solatinm for overtime; but, as we have argued elsewhere, the battle-ground they have chosen is a very bad one. The com- munity—which, when interested, is, as all soldiers know, an exceedingly hard taskmaster—will not allow telegraphists to interrupt its communications by refusing to work overtime. The journals which are most interested are perfectly savage in their condemnation, even the Daily Chronicle abandoning its cardinal principle that strikers must be in the right and employers in the wrong. The clerks should ask plainly for better pay, which is what they want after all, and not talk trash about the indignity of being liable to overtime.

We regret to record the death of Jean Ingelow,—a poetess better known thirty years ago than at the present day. Miss Ingelow, who was by birth a Lincolnshire woman, died on Tuesday at her house in Kensington, at the age of seventy - seven. Her first book met with a very great success, partly owing to the undoubted charm and to the simplicity of feeling shown in her verses, but more perhaps to the fact that it appeared at a period of slack water in English poetry. In 1863, when her first book was published, Swinburne, Rossetti, and Morris had hardly begun to write, or at any rate had not caught the popular ear, while the public were for the moment not as appreciative of Tennyson as they were both before and after that period. Browning, on the other hand, had not yet won his special place. But though Miss Ingelow obtained for a time a popularity beyond her strict right, she showed real poetic feeling. Her best- known, and perhaps also her best, poem was the ballad, "High Tide on the Lincolnshire Coast."

The week has been curiously fall of instances of unusual courage. The Times on Saturday published an account of the loss of the 'Aden,' written by a Mr. Gillett, one of the passengers who survitted. It is as impossible to con- dense it as to condense one of Mr. Stanley Weyman's stories, but the man who can read it without wishing to know Mr. Gillett and his wife is sensible into heroism. (Note, by the way, the remarkable literary skill which nowadays displays itself among men who are in no way literary.) The Pioneer received on Monday contained an account of a Sikh orderly who, in the midst of the treacherous attack at Maizar, "picked up a gun weighing 200 lb. single-handed and carried it to the gun- mule. The mule was shot dead, so he carried it to the relief- mule. Then he went back and brought in Lieutenant Cruickshank's body." And we have all been reading how Herr Andree, the Swede, with two companions, left Danes Island on July 11th by balloon for the Pole. He hopes to see and photograph the tree Polar region, and then drift on to Alaska, a journey of twelve hundred miles. That is to say, he and the two men of science with him face an imminent risk of a horrible death in an unknown land. whence their fate cannot even be reported, in order to extend the domain of human knowledge. It is a perfectly useless enterprise, even a ridiculous one, but is there a man capable of understanding the adventure who is not a little prouder because the world contains Herr Andree ?

Bank Rate, 2 per cent.

New Consols (21) were on Friday, 1121.