tion of all important executive positions. Mello also claimed to be fighting for a policy that would lead to the pacification of the justly rebellious province of Rio Grande do Sul. It should be remembered that there is no well developed public opinion in the vast imperial territory of Brazil; that there is no real freedom of the press; that facilities for the distribution of news are imperfect and unreliable; and that there can therefore be no such thing as the existence of a clear and simultaneous public sentiment throughout the country. Bishop Peterkin came away with the impression that, all things considered, the balance of sentiment was probably in favor of Mello. If Peixoto's new ships, bought and fitted out at New York, should be successful against the very limited fleet controlled by Mello, the war would of necessity be at an end and Piexoto would be master of the situation. On the other hand, if Mello should succeed in destroying or disabling the "Nictheroy" and the vessels accompanying that ship, the Bishop was of opinion that Mello would quickly gain a footing on land and would stand a very good chance of obtaining control of the government. further interesting to learn from Bishop Peterkin that he did not, by any means, find that in the general consciousness among Brazilians Mello stood clearly for the restoration of the monarchy. If Dom Pedro's heir had been a son, the empire would in all probability have continued for many years to come. But Dom Pedro's daughter was married to a thoroughly unpopular European nobleman, and she herself was believed to be under the absolute control of the Jesuits;-whereas army leaders and practical men of affairs in Brazil seem for the most part to have adopted some form of positivism or rationalism, and to have assumed an attititude of decided hostility against any connection between church and state.

It is

So much for the merits of the case. As a Will There be a Fight matter of course the immediate event most

at Sea? intently looked forward to, is the news of an encounter between Mello's ships and Peixoto's New York outfit. Strange to say, the nations of the earth, great and small, have spent not merely hundreds but thousands of millions of dollars within recent years in building modern vessels of war on new principles as to defensive armor and offensive armament, and yet we have not a single instance on record of two modern ships of war engaged in hostile encounter. England very indecently used some of her largest vessels to bombard the helpless city of Alexandria; but not one of the ships of her vast modern navy has ever fired a shot at a ship belonging to another power. It is no wonder then that the whole world is watching with intense interest for the news of a naval encounter somewhere off the coast of Brazil. For our part, we cannot regard as anything else than lamentable the fact that American officers and sailors, in the capacity of mere adventurers and mercenaries, have manned the ships bought with Peixoto's money.

England's

Naval

One proof that the Imperial temper has not quite died out among the English Supremacy. is the unanimity with which all parties insist, at least in words, on the maintenance of naval supremacy. The approaching expiry of the Naval Defense act; the apprehensions aroused by the FrancoRussian alliance and the opening of French harbors in the Mediterranean to Russian men-of-war, together with the comparative weakness of England's fleet in those waters, have given rise to a vigorous agitation with a view to making the British Navy what it should be. The absolute necessity of maintaining the command of all the seas is admitted by men not generally suspected of Imperial enthusiasm. Mr. John Morley, speaking at Manchester, declared that England must maintain an "all-powerful" navy. Lord Charles Beresford requires as the minimum standard of efficiency a fleet one-third greater than any possible combination of two hostile fleets. present England has sunk far below that point. To reach it will require an outlay of several million pounds. Mr. Gladstone at last seems ready to consent that the aspirations expressed by Lord Spencer on the one hand, and Mr. John Morley on the other, shall be fulfilled to the letter.

Sir Robert Morier.

SIR ROBERT MORIER.

At

The death of Sir Robert Morier, who had for so many years represented Britain at St. Petersburg, is a great loss to the cause of European peace. Sir Robert Morier was trusted by the Czar more fully than any British Ambassador who has been sent to Russia since he came to the

throne. It will be most difficult to replace Sir Robert. Even if the best man were secured, he could not step at once into the position which his predecessor had won by years of honest, sturdy, straightforward diplomacy. The peace of the world depends on the Czar, and it is of supreme importance that the man who speaks for England in the Russian Court should have his confidence, and should be a man of transparent honesty and simple truthfulness. Sir Robert was anything but a diplomat in the usual sense of the terin; he was often a very clumsy bull in a very crowded china shop; but he was a man of his word. He had brains enough to understand where the truth lay, and courage enough to speak plainly when occasion arose. The selection of his successor will be the most difficult and delicate task that has fallen to Lord Rosebery's lot since he became Foreign Minister. Asto Sir Robert Morier personally, he was a man who alike

THE LATE PRINCE ALEXANDER.

for his qualities and for his defects left a very deep and lasting impression upon the minds of all his friends. The late Lord Derby said that Sir Robert had more knowledge of men and affairs in modern Europe in his little finger than all the rest of the diplomatic corps possessed in their combined heads. Sir Robert Morier had studied the transformation of modern

Europe from behind the scenes. He knew every one, had been everywhere, and could throw a flood of vivid light upon almost all the incidents of modern history. No dry light, or colorless light, by any means; for Sir Robert was a man of fierce antipathies and strong predilections. He was a Berserker of a man in some things. His language, when he let himself go, was something to remember rather than to repeat; but these idiosyncrasies added to the fascination of his discourse. Like many men of his type, he was a pessimist in Home Politics. Home Rule made him foam at the mouth; but he loved his country with a passionate devotion, and almost to the last he cherished hopes that he might be able to serve her in the Senate. He was a man bursting with information, and he inundated his chiefs with dispatches which were often too long for the patience of the Foreign Secretary, who as a rule does not care for encyclopedic knowledge served up in dispatches. Sir Robert was by nature a journalist rather than an diplomatist, and he very narrowly escaped being an editor instead of an ambassador. In St. Petersburg he recognized the opportunity his position afforded him of promoting the peace of the world and the overthrow of Prince Bismarck, and before he died he had the rare satisfaction of feeling that in both objects he had been completely successful. The same month which records the death of the Ambassador who had done so much to promote friendly feeling between Russia and England witnessed the decease of the brilliant young adventurer, Prince Alexander of Bulgaria, whose personal influence among British Royalty it was once feared might have involved this country in hostilities with the Czar.

The

The Employers' Liability bill, in spite of Employers' obstruction, safely passed through all Liability Bill. stages in the Commons. The chief interest of the debates centred in Mr. W. McLaren's amendment to allow employers and employed, under carefully specified conditions, the liberty of "contracting out." It was stated that the vast majority of the workmen now covered by the mutual insurance arrangements of certain great railway and other companies had voted or petitioned for exemption from the proposed law. But the Commons held, by 236 votes to 217, that citizens, however much they desire to do so, may not relieve the State of its obligation to secure for them that compensation for injury and that consequent protection from injury which the bill has in view. A great landlord undertaking, with the consent of his tenants, to defend their life and property from aggression might as logically expect to contract himself and his estates out of the jurisdiction of the police. Mr. Chamberlain got back from America just in time to speak against the bill on its third reading. His speech will possibly be best remembered by its ingenuous allusion to "his Radical days" and the explanatory confession," I was a Radical once." It remains to be seen whether the covert obstruction of his present allies will prevent the passage through the Commons of the other measure down

for this winter's work,-the Parish Councils bill. The House of Lords, as was to have been expected, has refused to pass the Employers' Liability measure without first inserting the objectionable contracting clause.

English Topics in General.

The House of Commons, meanwhile, has been working with tremendous energy, in the face of constant obstruction, to pass at the end of the longest parliamentary year on record the Parish Councils measure. It is a vast code of local government, in completion of the preliminary outline contained in the County Councils bill of four years ago. The condition of the unemployed in England is frightful this winter. But the local authorities, and the local authorities alone, are, by Mr. Gladstone's reply to Mr. Keir Hardie, left to deal with this evermore obtrusive problem. The national Government is to limit itself to issuing circulars and Blue-books. In November a Blue-book was published by the Labor Department of the Board of Trade containing much valuable information about methods for dealing with the unemployed, but practically going no further than negative or suspensive criticism; and at the end of the month was promised a report on the same subject from the Labor Com.mission.

Affairs in Germany.

The wants and woes of the workingman are the preoccupation of the hour in all the civilized world. The official statistics of the elections to the Reichstag, which was opened in Berlin on the 16th, showed that the Social Democrats had polled more votes than were cast for any other party, and had increased their total in three years by one-third of a million. The Social Democrats have also won further victories in the Berlin municipal elections. The German Emperor, with his genius for dramatic contrast, may hurry from opening the Diet, elected on a wide popular suffrage, to tell 12,000 soldiers freshly sworn, "You must have but one will, and that my will;" but all this parade of military autocracy fails to lay the menacing spectre of the Social Democracy. The dynamite outrages have temporarily checked the boldness of socialistic utterance, but they have not really weakened the movement. Meanwhile, Chancellor von Caprivi has succeeded in clinching his new reciprocity treaties with Roumania, Servia and Spain. The excitement over the capture of French spies at Kiel has abated, the spies suffering nothing worse than temporary imprisonment in a fortress. To the world at large no news from Germany is more interesting than that which tells of the great new fortified camp established by the German government at Malmedy, on the Belgian frontier. Belgium is naturally alarmed and indig

stronger than ever, and the government is manned with men of force, character and experience. Dupuy retired from executive office with high honor and general esteem, and there are no stains on the reputation of Casimir-Périer. In his cabinet are such men as M. Spuller, Minister of Public Instruction; M. Burdeau, Minister of Finance, and, notably, M. Raynal, Minister of the Interior. President Carnot's seven-year term is nearing its end, and this new year 1894 will witness a French presidential election.

PRINCE WINDISCHGRÄTZ, AUSTRIAN PREMIER.

Royal assent to the Hungarian Civil Marriage bill marks the breaking of another bar to progress in the bi-partite realm.

The Fall of the French Ministry.

The crisis in France supplies perhaps the most startling illustration of the power of the new Labor or Collectivist movement. The Chambers assembled on the 14th of November with a clear majority of 100 for the Moderate Republicans. Against their 325, the Socialists numbered only 50, Radicals and Socialists together only 185. The ministerial programme was announced on on the 21st by M. Dupuy, and wore a strongly antiCollectivist complexion. He "repudiated all doctrines claiming to substitute the impersonal tyranny of the State for individual initiative," and he would have nothing to do with a progressive income tax, separation of Church and State, or revision of the constitution. But the new leaven was at work in his own cabinet-M. Peytral, the Finance Minister, being wedded to the project of a progressive income taxand the vigorous Radical criticism in the Chamber, coming on the top of the ministerial dissensions, led to the resignation of the ministers in a body, their majority in the Chamber notwithstanding. M. Spuller, a great friend of Gambetta, who is said not particularly to favor the Russian alliance, was asked to form a new ministry. Eventually, however, M. Casimir-Périer became Premier and Minister of Foreign Affairs, with M. Spuller as Minister of Public Instruction.

PREMIER CASIMIR-PÉRIER, OF FRANCE.

Carnot is supposed to wish a second term, and both Constans and Casimir-Périer are regarded as aspirants for the high office. All are safe men, in whose hands French republican institutions would prosper.

Greece

Gone

There has been quite an epidemic of ministerial crises. Austria, Greece, Italy, France Bankrupt. and Servia have all succumbed. Spain and Portugal have been threatened. The Greek Chamber was opened on November 8, with the announcement of a certain funding scheme as the only way of escape from financial collapse. Next day the Government was defeated by a majority of more than two to one, and the King, on receiving their resignations, called M. Tricoupis back to power. But not even the new Premier's abilities could cope with the situation. He has had to declare that Greece could no longer fulfill her foreign engagements, and desired therefore to come to "an honorable compromise with her creditors, offering them such terms as the state of the country would permit." The smallness of the Hellenic kingdom does not destroy the importance of the fact that in a continent overburdened with debt the precedent of national bankruptcy has been revived.

the report of the committee appointed to inquire into the charges revealed gave irregularities in the dealings of Ministers with the banks. The violent debate which ensued next day, and in which the Premier, Giollitti, was personally denounced, ended in the resignation of the Ministry. After four days' negotiation, Signor Zanardelli was intrusted with the formation of a new Cabinet. But Zanardelli (then President of the Chamber of Deputies) was unable to bring together a body of Ministers that the people's representatives would sustain. At length the King was compelled to summon Crispi from his retirement, and this experienced statesman formed a government which was completed on December 14. The new Cabinet is of rather non-partisan complexion, and its object is patriotic in the broadest sense. It will endeavor gradually to reduce the needless military burdens which have drained the Treasury, and to improve the relations between Italy and France, upon which Italian commercial prosperity is so dependent. Italy's membership in the Triple Alliance has been frightfully expensive and wholly unnatural. It remains to

be seen what Signor Crispi, who was induced by Bismarck to bring Italy into this military combination with Germany and Austria, can now do to extricate his country from its resulting plight. President Cleveland on December 19 nominated Hon. Wayne MacVeigh Ambassador to Rome in place of Mr. Van Alen, who declined the post. England has sent there the Right Hon. Sir Clare Ford, G. C. B., in place of the late Lord Vivian.

Dynamite in the French Chamber.

The principal anarchist sensation of the year was caused by the explosion of a dynamite bomb in the French Chamber of Deputies on December 9. The audacious attempt at Paris is the gravest of all recent crimes in the name of social reconstruction. The bomb was thrown from the gallery of the Chamber by an Anarchist named Vaillant,-an artisan of considerable superficial intelligence, who has frequently been convicted of petty crime, and whose extreme socialistic views have apparently grown out of hostility to the virtues as well as the evils of the established order of things. Vaillant meant to kill Dupuy, who was occupying his new position of President of the Chamber, having been elected to that post on his retirement from the Premiership. But the course of the bomb was diverted by some one who caught Vaillant's arm; and the missile exploded against a cornice, wounding the thrower himself, together with some eighty others. Dupuy quieted the Chamber with a noteworthy exhibition of self-control, and business was speedily resumed. The first answer made by the Chamber to the fiendish conspirators who belong to the Anarchist party was to let it be known that public servants would go straight on with their duties; that if they were assassinated their places would be filled, and that the foundations of society would be strengthened rather than shaken by such cowardly assaults. The second answer was the adoption of measures for the much more thorough ferreting out of dynamite plots, and the more severe restraint of the socialist press. Every indication points to the probability of international co-operation to rid the world of this new class of criminals. Meanwhile the cause of peaceful socialism has been discredited and set back throughout all Europe; for unfortunately the dividing line between the socialism that seeks an orderly and lawful development of the industrial functions of the state and the revolutionary socialism that preaches destructive attacks upon government and private capital is not sharply drawn. If the Socialists have any real remedies to offer for social wrongs and grievances, they have at hand political and educational modes of propaganda that are all-sufficient.