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The European press, and especially the London press, has been stirred by the report of the revival of the African slave-trade on German territory and under the sanction of the German representative. It was said that an open market had been held in Bagamogo; and what gives color to the rumor is the fact that a contest for the supremacy in East African trade between Zanzibar and the German settlements on the mainland is one of the necessities of the situation. The sultan of Zanzibar has nominally at least suppressed the slave-trade within his jurisdiction. The action at Bagamogo is supposed to be a bid for Arab patronage. The report is

so circumstantial and so antecedently probable that no evidence likely to be produced will alter the impression made on the news gatherers.

It is estimated that since 1857 England's small wars have cost her about $110,000,000. The war with China, in 1857-62, cost her $30,000,000; the Abyssinian expedition, in 1867-70, $41,500,000; the South African war, in 1879-80, $14,000,000; the Nile expedition in 1884–5, $6,250,000; the Afghan war, between 1880 and 1886, $15,000,000.

Mass-meetings are reported in Italy demanding a divorce law.

STATE, MUNICIPAL, ETC.

The first bill introduced in the Vermont Senate at the present session which commenced on Oct. 2d, was the bill to repeal the law allowing an officer to search the person of a citizen for liquors without a warrant. The law has been a dead letter since its passage. The first House bill is to change the weight of a bushel of apples from forty-six to fifty pounds.

About one hundred and sixty of the members recently elected to the Georgia Legislature are pledged to the Farmers' Alliance.

The committee to which the Mississippi Constitutional Convention referred the subject of memorializing Congress as to the expediency of repealing the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States reported on Sept. 30th, a series of resolutions in which, after picturing the bad consequences of the ineradicable incompatibility of the two races in Mississippi, they declare the remedy to be the disfranchisement of the blacks. They also resolved that Congress submit a proposition to the several States to repeal the Fifteenth Amendment.

A Pennsylvania inspector of mines says in his last annual report:

"The condition of the boilers has been examined once every six months, and reported and sworn to, but there is a serious doubt in my mind whether some colliery owners do not have them examined by persons who are not qualified to determine their condition. Boilers should be examined by none except boiler makers, or others who are capable of judging the strength of the iron and the deterioration of the boiler sheets. There have been some serious accidents already from inefficient examinations or by incompetent boiler inspectors."

A recent bulletin from the census office relates to the financial condition of counties.

"In 1870 there were 2,251 counties in the country, with an indebtedness of $187,565,540; in 1880, 2,436, with an indebtedness of $125,621,455, an increase of 185 in counties and a decrease of $61,944,085, or 33 per cent in debt. In 1890 there are 2,728 counties, and the indebtedness is $145,693,840, an increase of 292 counties and of $20,072,385 in indebtedness. Massachusetts is the only New England State showing an increase. Pennsylvania and Delaware are the Middle States in the same list. Seven out of thirteen Southern States had an increase during the decade. Illinois, Wisconsin, Missouri and the three Pacific States, California, Oregon and Nevada, show a decrease, but the rest of the West an increase. Kansas has increased from $7,364,277, in 1880, to $14,229,675, in 1890, having now the largest county indebtedness of any State in the Union Illinois is herein, as in population, the second State in the Union, only it is gradually improving on it, while Kansas shows an enormous increase during the decade. The interest charge in Kansas is $878,736, the total for the country being $7,318,374."

After paying an unexpected visit to the penitentiary and the hospital on Blackwell's Island, a committee of the grand jury at New York report that the institutions are grossly mismanaged.

The Waterbury prosecuting attorney is determined to stop the newsboys' yelling of Sunday papers. On Sunday, Sept. 28th, a chief of police and a few subordinate officers arrested several small boys who were yelling “Sunday papers!" The police officers had to disguise themselves skilfully for the successful war upon the thirteen-year-old criminals.

The reigning political sensation of the hour in Cincinnati is the discovery of corruption in the Board of Public Improvements. The governor of the State has demanded the resignation of a member whom he accuses of dishonesty, and he will soon be compelled to go into a general investigation of the board. The governor charges that the votes of the members have been offered for sale. It is interesting to note that one of the campaign issues on which the present governor was elected was a charge of mis-management and malfeasance against the board appointed by his predecessor.

A dispatch from Portland, Me., says that the grand jury reported three indictments against the aldermen of Biddeford. One charges conspiracy in falsely registering votes, another conspiracy in enabling aliens to vote.

Nearly twenty thousand children are without school accommodations in New York City.

INDUSTRIAL MATTERS.

Not one of the House "labor" bills was passed by the Senate. So disgusted was Senator Blair at the amendments offered in the Senate to the bills, that he preferred to let Congress adjourn without final action upon them.

When the Emperor of Germany visited Rhonstock, he issued a decree abolishing night work by women at the royal factories and other government establishments. The Socialist party declines to support this move, saying that the women thus banished from the factories would become "domestic drudges," and cease to work with the Socialists.

The municipal corporation of Liverpool has entered upon the work of providing good and attractive lodgings for the poor at low rents.

A Berlin judge has sentenced a workman to a three months' term of imprisonment for saying that the Emperor of Germany will sooner or later join the Socialist party.

Some months ago, a San Francisco editor named Barry asserted in his paper that a judge of that city had deliberately falsified a record in his court, with intent to defeat the ends of justice. As the case referred to in the charge was still pending at the time of publication, the judge deemed the attack a contempt of court, and the editor was sentenced to a fine and imprisonment. An application for a writ of habeas corpus was thereupon made to the Supreme Court, and last week the decision of that tribunal was rendered, directing the carrying out of the sentence. The San Francisco press criticises this decision, denying the right of judges to deal with their own accusers, and claiming the right of trial by jury for those who bring charges against judges. It is claimed that the statute with regard to contempt did not intend to make a judicial officer who has been libelled the judge in his own case.

Mr. Andrew Carnegie suggests a heavy tax on misers. What is a miser, Mr. Carnegie? How much money must he have to graduate in the degree, and to what extent must he hoard it? Vaporings of this sort make one long for a law which should make it necessary for blatant millionaires to wear a gag. - London Globe.

TO-DAY, OCT. 9, 1890.

A record of the facts and considerations which show that Individual Liberty is good for the people of the United States, and that, therefore, Legislative Regulation is injurious for them.

J. MORRISON-FULLER, WALTER C. ROSE, Editors.

Though, as the lord of treasures which outshine
The unrifled wealth of Araby and Indus,
The piles on which repose thy palaces
Filled up both oceans, Tuscan and Apulic;

Yet if dire Fate her nails of adamant,

Into thy loftiest roof-tree once hath driven, Thou shalt not banish terror from thy soul, Nor from the snares of death thy life deliver. Horace.

BOTH SCIENCE and Politics are concerned with Laws; and there the likeness ends.

The province of Science has always been to discover laws; the business of Politics has always been to manufacture laws.

Some of the persons who like to call themselves tariff reformers are very much exercised just now over the retention of the duty on works of art in the new tariff law. It is true that the obstruction of aesthetic culture is a very short-sighted policy, but as a means of revenue it would be difficult to find fault with a tax on the more expensive works of art. The shallowness of the movement in favor of "free art" is disclosed by the consideration that it was only the more expensive forms, as original works in marble or on canvas, which it was proposed to exempt from duties. All the cheaper forms of artistic representations engravings, etchings, chromos, plaster, and bisque figures were to be sacrificed to the tariff mongers. In other words, the rich were to be permitted to decorate their homes cheaply, but the poor were to be taxed heavily for every line and tint.

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Laissez faire is pessimism, Bishop Huntington tells us in the Forum. He also says that indiscriminate, stolid conservatism is pessimism, and he defines pessimism to be "the theory that the plan of the universe is bad in itself and that its on-goings are hopelessly bad." It seems as if he might have found two happier illustrations for this defiition, but hardly two worse ones; for what

must be the state of mind of an indiscriminate, stolid conservative? If he thinks that the world as it is is "hopelessly bad, in fact, the worst possible," is he likely to be a strenuous opposer of change? The opposite state of mind would seem to be more consistant with his course of action.— With an advocate of Laissez faire the case stands otherwise. If he pursues his let-alone policy because he thinks things are bound to go badly any way, and that he cannot help them, he may properly be classed as a pessimist. But suppose he pursues his policy because he is convinced that things will come out right in the end if only they are left to take their own course, and that they will be worse instead of better for his interference?

The comments of the Republican papers upon the final passage of the McKinley Bill are certainly interesting, if not edifying. "The little thereof which they darkly apprehend they admire; the rest, with religious ignorance, they humbly and meekly adore, seeing that through this law that class worketh of whom, through whom, and for whom are all things governmental." Here and there in the West may be found a Republican paper which has not bowed the knee to the image of Baal; but this defection is more than made up by the glowing eulogies contained in the subsidized press, not only upon this bill but upon every measure passed by the present Congress, and upon the Congress as a whole, eulogies as false and fulsome as any eulogies ever offered to any vicious, worthless prince by parasites and sycophants. That such servile flattery can be purchased in a so-called free country by the distribution of a few offices, and be given without exciting more public disgust, may be taken as an indication of how far the word "free" is from accurately characterizing the spirit which prevails through the land.

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The transportation of the mail over long distances is let out by the Government by contract to the railroads. And in the cities the horses and wagons for carrying the mail from the office of collection to the railroads are also provided by contract with private bidders. The only part of the service then that is directly controlled by the Government is the collection at local stations of the mail

matter from the boxes at one end of the route, and the distribution of it to the consignees at the other end. Even this service is omitted in towns of less than ten thousand inhabitants, the senders being obliged to deliver the letters at the local offices, and the receivers to go in search of them at the other end. The chief parts of the postal service are already performed by private enterprise; but the remainder is sufficient to corrupt the whole of American politics. The post-office, in American politics, is the equivalent of spoils. According to Mr. Clarkson, recently assistant postmaster-general, there were 150,000 names on the pay-rolls of that department. In all the other departments combined there is not over a quarter as much "patronage" and "spoils" placed at the disposal of politicians for their personal exaltation. It is needless to insist. The solution of the problem lies in the abolition of the post-office. Let the whole service be placed out on contract to the lowest bidder: in a word, let the Government stand aside while competition controls the price and private enterprise performs the service.

"If human experience proves anything at all, it proves that, if restraints are minimized, if the largest possible measure of liberty is accorded to all human beings, the result will not be equality, but inequality reproducing itself in a geometrical ratio. Of all items of liberty, none is either so important or so universally recognized as the liberty of acquiring property. All private property springs from labor for the benefit of the laborers; and private property is the very essence of inequality."

As

In this country the liberty of acquiring property has, during our national existence, been recognized to a greater extent than anywhere else at any time, even our industrial legislation, which interferes with this liberty in certain ways, having for its object to facilitate the accumulation of wealth. a result, or perhaps it is too uncertain an assumption to say as a result, the inequalities of condition and power which prevail here are as great as those which prevail in far older countries, and they are constantly increasing. One can hardly contemplate the distribution of wealth in this country without calling to mind that at one time six persons owned half of Africa, when Nero had them put to death.

This inequality of wealth and power is recognized as an evil by many, and reformers

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are plenty who wish to cure it. There is nothing good or bad in the world which some one or other does not wish to reform and make better. In this case, the reformers are divided into two schools, one of which hopes to retain, or even extend, liberty while modifying the inequality; the other wishes to diminish the inequality, even at the expense of liberty.- -The former are very moderate in their demands. They are aware that the laws of nature favor certain men, viz., those whose capacities are greatest, and that the laws of the State do so, perhaps in a higher degree, certainly in a higher degree compared to the power residing in the laws. They therefore ask that these statute laws, which intensify the inequality produced by natural laws, shall be abolished.- -Reformers of the other class, the Socialists aud Nationalists, are much more ambitious. They demand that the action of our industrial legislation shall be reversed, that statute laws shall run opposite to natural laws and counteract the tendency of the latter towards inequality. They themselves seem to be only in part aware that this is the nature of their demand; but unless they can show that unequal forces acting under the same conditions will, or ought to, produce equal results, their scheme of human equality must be conceded to be unnatural. At times, however, they seem to perceive whither their reforms would tend; they talk of doing away with competition and the struggle for existence, but I do not know that any one of them ever contended that competition is unnatural or artificial.

The Socialists win more adherents, for several reasons. In the first place, the plan of doing something is much more alluring than that of merely undoing; and then the results they promise are much greater than those promised by the other party. Doubtless, the results of carrying out their programme would be fully as great as they anticipate, but not altogether what they hope for. The chief advantage possessed by the Socialists, however, is the eagerness of governments to control that which most interests men. As, when the most important thing in this life seemed to be the worship of God and the preparation for a better life, governments concerned themselves much with religion and forcing upon men the true and saving faith, so now, when the worship of mammon and the laying up of treasure upon earth seems to

be the one thing needful, governments are very willing to force men to walk in the true way for securing this object. The governments failed completely in the former case, and the religion which accepted their aid has lost its hold upon men in consequence, — for a time at least. If they fail in their present attempt, the failure may not be wholly without value, for it may be that our descendants will be able to learn more from our mistakes than we have learned from the errors of our ancestors.

Just what view to take of the explanation offered by Mr. Yarros of the impropriety of his conduct in supplying Herbert Spencer with motives for changing his opinions-if they have been changed-is something of a tax on my indolent faculties. Doubtless a more agile fancy would discover the animum artis of his dissimulation. Perhaps he will assist my unskilful efforts by referring me to the number and page of Liberty where he begins an article under the heading MAN versus STATE.

In the mean while he may quiet his anxiety on behalf of the Denver Individualist. If I have misrepresented one of its writers, it is one well able to look out for himself.

There is no question of apology between Mr. Yarros and me. The thing I deprecate is the intellectual absurdity of switching off from the consideration of the soundness of Spencer's views to a perfectly gratuitous assumption about his motives in holding those views. I want an acknowledgment of this lapse of common-sense as an earnest of more serious thinking in the future. A man who lets his judgment be clouded by the vapors of personality will not be in a proper condition for argument. Between ourselves personalities may be left to take care of themselves; but it is a forfeit of all dignity to indulge the tendency in such a case as the present. I object to absurdities; but this is so trivial that I shall say no more about it. Mr. Yarros knows that Spencer is now, as he has been throughout his life, independent of everything but the truth.

"Integer vitæ scelerisque purus
Non eget Mauris jaculis, neque arcu,
Nec venenatis gravida sagittis,
Fusce pharetra."

Railways controlled by the government are not beyond the reach of labor disturbance. The experience of Australia, where all railways are built and operated by the government, is far from warranting the conclusion that State ownership of the transportation lines is desirable. The combination of labor is there more widespread and effective than in America; so effective, in fact, that the government is compelled to regard the dictates of these organizations in the management of the railways. A

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REPUBLICAN PARTY AND THE TARIFF.

POLITICAL PARTIES, like other members of the social organism, are subject to evolution and decay, but it is not always easy to determine what constitutes progress and what decline, much less to decide in each particular case which of these processes predominates. For it is true of the society as of the individual organism, that both processes, evolution and dissolution, are constantly and simultaneously going on. Equally does this double series of incessant and coincident, but opposite, changes characterize and qualify each of the several social institutions.

It is so of political parties. For POLITICS, while but a small part of the social whole, is itself a complex organ, a part of which may be undergoing degeneration while other parts are progressing. Centralization is, for some political purposes, a factor of progress; but for other and, it may be, for equally or for more important purposes, centralization may accompany retrogression, and, reacting on the forces which initiate the impulse, accelerate the retrogressive tendency. In the examination of any particular case, as of the present Republican party in the United States, the difficult thing is to determine which of the two tendencies predominates, the progressive or the retrogressive.

In 1854, when the Republican party-then called" Anti-Nebraska" party — first put in an appearance on the turbulent scene of political action, slavery, as the name taken by the leaders indicated, was the only point of essential policy on which the organization was drawn together. In that year Congress had passed the Kansas-Nebraska

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