NEWS OF THE WEEK.

THE world is in suspense, for the sword of war hangs over it by a thread. Till President McKinley has sent his Message to Congress on Monday no one can say whether there will be armed intervention in Cuba, which is of course war, or whether by some miracle peace will be secured. The Message to Congress was expected to be delivered on Wednesday, bat at the last moment it was announced that the President had decided to postpone his Message till Monday. No one is able to say exactly what was the ground for this sudden change of front, but the most probable 'explanation seems to be that the American Consul in Cuba had pressed for delay, in order that he might secure the departure of all American citizens before a declaration of war. There are, it is said, some two thousand Americans in Cuba, and it was feared that after a warlike Message from the President they would be exposed to massacre. Meantime Congress is seething with excitement over the postponement, and so is the extremer portion of the Press. Many of the newspapers, however, support the President ; and this is, we fancy, the opinion of the reasonable classes. They:trast the Executive rather than the Legislature in a grave crisis. With the rumours of foreign intervention we have dealt elsewhere. The Continental Powers do not love the American Republic, but we cannot imagine that they would be so mad as to risk a war with the whole Anglo-Saxon race, for that is the risk.

A curious item in the news from America must not be over- looked. It is the official, or semi-official, statement that if war takes place, America will not, as might have been expected, instantly recognise Cuban independence. The Teason given, and as we think a perfectly sound reason, is that if America takes the grave responsibility of intervening- i.e., turning Spain out of Cuba—she must be sure that a really sound and stable form of government is set up. Otherwise the last state of Cuba might be worse than the first. But if America recognised the Cuban Government Prematurely she could not invade the island without the leave of the Cuban Government, though from a military point of view such invasion might be absolutely necessary. People who do not stop to consider may be inclined to hold that this resolve shows that America is bent on " grabbing " Cuba ; but in reality it only shows that American statesmen do not want, if the war is carried into Cuba, to have their Generals suffer the intolerable things suffered by Wellington at the

hands of the Spanish and Portuguese Juntas. The Cuban Committee in New York is said to be furious at the insurgent Government being thus overlooked ; but we do not suppose its protest will have much influence at the White House.

Very little has been heard from Madrid since the failure of the Pope's attempt to arbitrate, but there comes from Vienna an apparently well-authenticated story that the Emperor Francis Joseph is supporting a scheme for turning Cuba into a sort of Egypt, with America in the position of England and Spain in that of Turkey. America, that is, is to be responsible for the administration, while Spain is to get an annual tribute. According to the very able Vienna correspondent of the Times, the United States, having the control of Cuban finance, is to guarantee a Spanish loan on this tribute at, say, 3 per cent., the interest being covered by the tribute. "The proceeds of this loan might be divided in a certain propor- tion between Spain and Cuba, both of which require imme- diate financial succour. One-third of it might go to Cuba, while the other two-thirds would go to Spain. By this means, first, an honourable peace would be secured both for the United States and Spain ; secondly, a regime which experi- ence in Egypt has proved to be sound and practical would be introduced in Cuba, not only without prejudice to Spain, but to her material advantage ; and, thirdly, both Spain and Cuba would be rescued from their financial distress." That is very ingenious from the Bourse point of view, but never- theless unworkable. Instead of quiet fellaheen, the Americans would have to deal with the insurgents, who in all probability would fight them almost as savagely, if not as persistently, as they fight Spain. The plan is one which would in the end suit nobody, except perhaps Spain.

The latest intelligence alike from Washington and Madrid almost precludes the possibility of peace. The Ambassadors of the six Great Powers, who have no doubt made many private representations, waited on Thursday on President McKinley, and made "a pressing appeal" for peace. Knowing that the use of force is out of the question, they were most guarded in their language, and offered no " mediation; " but the reply of the President was a dignified rebuff. He acknowledged the " goodwill " which had prompted the visit, but declared that the United States was "endeavouring to fulfil its duty to humanity by ending a situation the indefinite prolongation of which has become insufferable." In Madrid, also, a final effort has been made, and has failed. The Queen-Regent has askefl her Ministers to decree an armis- tice in Cuba, but they have declined, one Minister, it is said, saying openly that foreign war was preferable to civil war. The President's Message will, therefore, be Bent on Monday, and the Houses will, either on that day or Tuesday, authorise "armed intervention." A great many rumours are circulated as to the first steps to be taken, but we would warn our readers that, in spite of the habitual freedom of speech and writing, no Government keeps its secrets incre rigidly than the American.

The French Chambers have adjourned, not to meet again until the date of the elections, which are fixed for May 8th. The President of the Chamber delivered a short and very stately valedictory address, exhorting Republicans to unity, but the elections will probably be of a very agitated charac- ter. France is prosperous and its Government successful, but the electors miss something—a kind of bright colour in the movements of the State—and are by no means perfectly contented. A sentiment has sprung up, which in Paris is styled " Boulangism," that is in favour of personal and, preferentially, military government.

We should like to understand clearly in this Spanish affair what did happen about the Pope. It was at first alleged that his Holiness had offered his mediation at American instiga- tion, but this was indignantly denied in Washington. It was then asserted that both countries had accepted his offer, and this report obtained such currency that it affected the Bourses, and was even believed and endorsed by the Spanish Ambassador to Great Britain. It was not true, however, and we rather fancy that the story arose in this way. Leo XIII., who is greatly interested in diplomacy, and looks upon himself as the natural referee for the Christian world, offered to mediate. Senor Sagasta immediately and gladly accepted, as the Pope's intervention lightened his responsibilities ; and General Woodford, on being sounded, said something so polite that the Spaniards leaped hastily to the conclusion that they had found the road out. America, however, would not hear of the proposal. That America would reject this mediation or any other, as implying a right of Europe to intervene in American affairs, was almost certain, but we are a little sur- prised at the outburst of anti-Catholic feeling. Any Christian Bishop would think himself bound to strive for peace, and a Pope with certainties in Spain and only hopes in America would be apt, if he swerved at all, to swerve to the American side.

The Indian Frontier War has ended with a characteristic touch. The representatives of all the Afridi tribes, including the Zakka-khele, hearing that Sir William Lockhart was going home on leave, insisted on carrying him to his carriage. They would, they said, in future fight for the British against all their enemies. They were, we have no doubt, expressing a genuine feeling. They look upon war as a game of polo, they think we play fair, and they are quite ready to change sides. During the war it will be remembered the tribesmen sent many of their women into Peshawar to be petted by the doctors and the ladies. We do not doubt that if there were war in China we could raise thirty Afridi regiments, who away from home would fight just as well as Ghoorkas or Europeans. They understand that we are just, and that we never break promisee, and though the Russian pleasantness is more " popular " than our aloofness, it is justice which earns men's permanent respect, only it must be the justice of just men, not the justice of those who fear.

On Tuesday the Sirdar in Egypt ordered a reconnaissance under General Hunter with a force of cavalry, Krupps, and Maxims. The action is well described by the special correspondent of the Daily Telegraph. Colonel Broad- wood halted his troopers about eight hundred yards from Mahmoud's great oval-shaped entrenched zareba, and the Krupp battery and Maxims poured in a heavy fire, during which Captain Sir Henry Rawlinson got within 200 yards of the enemy's lines. "In the meantime, two bodies, numbering about a thousand each, of Baggara horsemen streamed out from either end of the zareba, and rode round Colonel Broad- wood's flanks, while about two thousand footmen with rifles advanced in a direct line. Mahmoud's guns were fired, but their effect was indifferent." Our guns played with great effect upon the enemy's cavalry, and then withdrew, still firing at successive stages. "The Egyptian cavalry then charged the enemy, going clean through them, the troopers lancing and sabring, and the officers pistolling the Dervishes, who displayed mach fear at the resolute bearing of the Egyptian soldiers." We lost six troopers in the charge, one English officer was wounded, and there were also ten men wounded. The Dervish loss was some two hundred. The reconnaissance was a very pretty feat of arms, but the conduct of the Egyptian cavalry was something more. It shows that we have actually organised a splendid fighting force out of the Egyptians. Remember the cavalry are fellaheen troops, not Soudanese, and that five years ago the idea of using them to charge Baggara horsemen in the open would have been regarded as madness. Colonel Broadwood, who organised the force, has the right to be a proud man. Probably, like most English officers, he has an ingenious explanation which shows that he can claim no special credit in the matter.

There is little news from China this week beyond the cession of Wei-hai-wei as described in Mr. Balfour's speech of Tuesday. hut France also has obtained her "satisfactions." She takes the little peninsula opposite Hainan, a right to build a railway in Yunnan, and a promise that the three southern- most provinces of China shall never be conceded. We, how-

ever, are to have the right to occupy Cowloon. It is said that China is waking up, for Prince Kung resigned and the Emperor wept when Port Arthur was surrendered; but the evidence is very slight on which to build such a conclusion. It is more serious that one of the Censors has publicly accused the Tsungli Yamen of being bribed, and has staked his own life upon the charge that Li Hung Chang obtained a million and a half of taels (£300,000) for himself. The Censors are apt to give voice to general Chinese opinion. In this instance we should rather doubt the charge, because, though Li Hung Chang is probably as corrupt as Talleyrand, Russia has no adequate motive for paying such a sum. It is worth noting, however, that Li Hung Chang, who is the head of the Chinese party in the State as opposed to the Tartar, is supposed to be devoted to Russian interests. In another year or two we shall know all about the personages of Pekin, —no small addition to the burden of facts with which all who are concerned with foreign politics have to conteid.

Mr. Balfour's anxiously expected speech on the Far East was delivered on Tuesday to a hushed audience, which in- cluded the best men in the land. It was a great occasion, but though Mr. Balfour did not fall below the level of his subject, his deliverance was hardly what had been anticipated. He had nothing new to reveal about British gains, he defended the new policy of the Government in quiet terms, and that policy created only moderate enthusiasm. It is, briefly, to oppose Russia in China on terms as equal as can be obtained. The Cabinet intended originally to struggle only for freedom of trade with China, but finding that Russia had de- manded Port Arthur with a view to naval preponderance, they thought it necessary to obtain a "naval base," which would place them in as strong a position as their rivals. They therefore demanded and obtained a lease of Wei- hai-wei, which the Japanese evacuate in May, to ter- minate at the same time as the lease of Port Arthur. From this point they can put as much pressure on Pekin as Russia can, and thereby prevent St. Petersburg from ruling all China and shutting Great Britain out. This cession is, of course, in excess of the promise to open three more ports, and to refuse to surrender any portion of the Yangtse Valley. Neither Germany nor Japan were unfriendly to the new demand. The speech was well received, but Members expected that Great Britain had obtained a little more, especially a dominant position on the Yangtse, and the enthusiasm was not glowing.

The speech of which we have given the substance was not so full of bright passages as Mr. Balfour's usually are, but he made a thoughtful remark on the origin of the present difficulty in the Far East. An entirely new state of things, he said, had arisen, due to the unaccount- able weakness of China, which was provoking attacks. The spectacle presented by that Empire has no precedent in the history of the world. "History, indeed, is full of accounts of the weakness and decay of great Empires, but I do not think that history shows a single case in which an Empire number- ing its inhabitants by hundreds of millions, which has never received any blow directed against a -vital part, whose inhabitants have many of the qualities which go to make great nations, being thrifty, industrious, enterprising, courageous,—I do not think that history shows a single case where an Empire of that kind has been apparently wholly unable to act against the feeblest form of attack." Europe will have cause, we fear, to remember that sentence, for if this weakness continues China will be dismem- bered, and it is hardly possible that Europe should fail to quarrel over the fragments. It is easy to say that there is room for all ; but people forget that each new annexation means a new frontier conterminous with that of some ambitious Power. There are few masses of territory, like India, bounded on three sides by the sea, and on the fourth by mountains 16,000 ft. high, and certainly China is not one of them.

Sir William Harcourt's speech in answer to Mr. Balfour was a poor one, owing to its House of Commons style. Its object was not to discuss policy, but to show that the policy was new, the Government having originally intended not to compete with Russia. This he showed conclusively, we think, by reading extracts from previous speeches, and incon- clusively by asserting that the new policy was only a.

pis aller. He did not attack it, for he had no intention of helping to hustle Government into a war, bat he wanted to know much more about it before he accorded approval. That was all a little flat, and Mr. Courtney, who followed, did not raise the debate much. His idea was that a European pact should be established guaranteeing equal -commercial rights in China to all Powers,—an excellent policy if there is any chance of its being adopted. Sir Charles Dilke, on the other hand, was quite fierce. He evidently believed that Wei-hai-wei was demanded on a sudden impulse to do something, and without any intention of utilising it as a place of arms. He doubted also if the proviso as to the Yangtse was of any use, for the valley had no natural frontiers, land we could not hold it without a great body of troops. The Government explained nothing as to the attitude of Germany or Japan, and, he contended, did not know clearly what policy they were going to pursue. The ablest speech of the evening next to Mr. Balfour's was that of Sir E. Grey, who sketched out an alternative policy under which we should have had an agreement with Russia instead of sustaining a reverse at her hands. He seeks alliances instead of splendid isolation, and remarked with acuteness that a policy was not necessarily a good one because a Cabinet was unanimous about it. Altogether the debate, like the policy, was a little of the second-best kind.

In the House of Commons on Friday, April 2nd, Mr. Cald- well raised the vexed question of the telephone service, and moved a Resolution in favour of the Post Office granting licenses to the municipalities and other responsible bodies to -compete with the National Telephone Company. Mr. Cald- well dealt strongly with the virtual monopoly of the National Telephone Company, and argued that unless the Government used its reserve right of granting licenses to bodies such as the municipalities the public would be at the mercy of the Company. He also argued, and as we think, rightly, that the municipalities were fit bodies to work the telephone system within their own areas. After a discussion, in which Mr. Faithfull Begg urged that the only true solution was the acquisition of all telephones by the State, Mr. Hanbury replied for the Government. He admitted that the policy of free competition adopted in the past by the Post Office and the Treasury had worked badly, and that the National Telephone Company had by buying up all other companies secured a virtual monopoly ; but he condemned the proposal to buy out the Company as- too expensive. He proposed, however, to appoint a Select Committee of the House which should decide "whether any change in the law should take place which would, by the removal of restrictions, make it possible for a municipality to engage in such an undertaking, and how far this extension of the telephone system in the hands of persons other than the Post Office was likely to damage their revenue."

In order, we suppose, to prevent it being said that the Session had closed without a single Irish scene, Mr. W. Redmond on Monday night managed to get himself ordered to withdraw from the House. Mr. J. F. X. O'Brien opened the proceedings by asking Mr. Goschen a question as to a seaman called Pilkington who had refused to remove a shamrock from his cap when ordered to do so by his superior officer. Mr. Redmond there- upon intervened, and asked whether Mr. Goschen would reduce the punishment, but Mr. Goschen naturally refused to interfere in a matter of discipline. There was no presumption that the officer had acted harshly. Mr. Redmond was not satisfied, and tried to argue the point, with the result that the Speaker called him to order, and declared that he was wasting time. After a farther alterca- tion, during which Mr. Redmond called something, but exactly what was not quite clear, "simply scandalous," he was ordered by the Speaker to withdraw. This he refused to do, and the Sergeant - at - Arms was then told to remove him. Ae Mr. Redmond left the House he exclaimed "Out- rageous scandal !" "Fourteen days for wearing the sham. rock !" "It is a scandalous outrage ! " "Fourteen days' imprisonment for wearing the shamrock !" "Simply out- rageous !" Having reached the bar, he turned to the Ministerial benches, "I ask the Member for York what he thinks of it? Did he ever punish a man for wearing the shamrock ? " On Tuesday the hero of this somewhat unreal

exhibition of Nationalist fervour declared to the Speaker that he had no desire to be discourteous to the Chair.

On Tuesday, Mr. T. P. O'Connor resumed the adjourned discussion of the Prisons Bill, but his speech was not convincing. Mr. Asquith followed with a speech full of good sense, and showing at the same time a wise and sane humanity of feeling. After denying that our prison system could be described as "an organised system of torture," or as one "which could not compare for a moment in point of humanity with the systems of other countries," Mr. Asquith spoke with great gravity as to the question of the equalisation and dura- tion of sentences. Mr. Asquith evidently thinks that terms of imprisonment are apt to be too long. As to the com- plaints about prison libraries Mr. Asquith was very emphatic. Whenever he visited a prison he always sampled the books, and he had always found them to contain a mass of excellent reading. Mr. Asquith ended his speech with a very able general statement on the prison problem. He was in favour of doing all that is possible in the way of enabling prisoners to earn relaxation and additional comforts, physical and in- tellectual, in order that they may make the best of their time, and prepare themselves for a more useful life. "Bat it must not be forgotten that prisons are not intended to be comfort- able places, and punishment must not, in becoming reforma- tory, cease to be deterrent." Subject to that overruling provision, however, it should be the first end of an enlightened system "not to add to the loss of liberty any superfluous degradation, or to quench any flickering sparks of self-respect."

Sir Matthew White Ridley, whose House of Commons manner should be the ideal for all Home Secretaries—he is never fierce or inflammatory, or opinionative or pompous— followed Mr. Asquith. The Home Office was doing what it could to improve the system. A good deal had been said about the so-called "scientific starvation," but Sir Matthew White Ridley showed that there had been a great deal of exaggeration, as under it out of a hundred and eighty prisoners ninety-seven had gained weight. Corporal punishment was being reduced, but the time was not ripe for its abolition. Mr. Burns, who followed Sir Matthew White Ridley, made a clever and interesting speech, but he had little that was prac- tical to recommend. He would rather they had, as in France, an independent Prisons Board "composed of unpaid members, scientific men, and even Members of the House, who would have the opportunity of revising the reports of the Governors and making recommendations as to the treatment of prisoners." He sincerely trusted the Home Secretary would do everything in his power to create such a Board. A more useful suggestion was that juvenile offenders should be placed under the charge of matrons. Personally, we should like to see a separate prison for children and young persons who are considered too criminal for a reformatory.

Natal, which is a small and by no means rich Colony, has done a very spirited and patriotic act. It has offered to supply 12,000 tons of steam coal annually for British warships calling at Durban. Mr. Chamberlain has, of course, cabled that the Government are very much gratified by the "generous offer, and highly appreciate the spirit which has dictated it," and that the Admiralty "will gladly avail themselves of the offer as far as possible." That "as far as possible" is delightfully British and official, but there can be no doubt as to the good feeling with which Natal's action will be received in all quarters here, private and official. Such action on the part of a Colony is one of the best and surest forms of Imperial Federation.

The daily accounts of Mr. Gladstone are very saddening. It is natural that men of his age should depart, but all England had hoped that he would retain his faculties to the last, and pass, as so many old men pass, in sleep and with- out pain. His sufferings, however, are occasionally very great ; he sleeps with difficulty, and the inability to read or write torments a mind which is as active and uneasy under quiescence as ever. He says of himself that be has had a life almost without physical pain, and must bear his due propor- tion; but the English people wish for a better account. He is not one of those who want training in fortitude, Bank Rate, 4 per cent.

New Consols (21) were on Thursday, 111.