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the Liberal party, your place is not temporarily only, but permanently, in the ranks of those who uphold the rights of property, individual liberty, freedom of contract, the maintenance of the Union, and the imperial mission of the British Empire; in the ranks, to put the matter more concisely, of the Conservatives, not of the Liberals."

"A Mere Critic."

In the Progressive Review for November, the editor deems it the best way to promote the cause of Liberalism by publishing a carping criticism of Lord Rosebery, of whom he finds it difficult to say one good word, with the exception of the following guarded admission as to his critical abilities :

"We do not deny for one moment Lord Rosebery's powers as a critic, and never was his critical ability seen to greater advantage than in his recent able Edinburgh speech. But a good critic is usually a bad leader, especially where human and moral considerations are involved, and the specific charge against Lord Rosebery through his whole career is that, excepting in organizing jingo expeditions, he has invariably appeared in the guise of a mere critic."

The chief contention of the writer is that the choice of Lord Rosebery's successor must be made by a vote of the whole party :

For a

“As to leadership, it would be criminal folly for genuine Liberals to keep silence now. The essential point is this: the disastrous experiment of 1894 must never be repeated. Had Lord Rosebery been a ten times stronger man than he has proved to be, his career would have been vitiated ab initio from the manner of his appointment. A party which professes to be democratic must elect its leader in the best way actual conditions will permit. leader to be chosen by the outgoing Prime Minister and the Queen, aided by a cabal of self-interested political intriguers, is fatal to the peace, union and dignity of a party, especially of a soi disant party of progress. The first duty, therefore, of the Liberal party is to provide for the formal election by the party of its chief, and to set its heel once for all on private nominations and back stairs intrigues."

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By "A Conservative M.P."

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"A Conservative M. P.,” writing in the National Review, greatly exults in the Liberal divisions made evident by Lord Rosebery's resignation. He recalls the fact that twelve occupants of the Liberal front bench attended Lord Rosebery's Edinburgh meet. ing and voted for his return to the leadership. He specially remarks on Mr. Asquith's expressed conviction that Lord Rosebery was the only fit successor to Mr. Gladstone.' He concludes that "these eminent Radicals" do not wish to see Sir William Harcourt leader of their party. How then, he asks, can the tactics of the opposition be harmonious, even with the leadership left in suspense? In any case, Lord Rosebery weighs more with the country than any other of the Radical

chiefs-as witness the effect of his speech on Armenia-and if on the eve of a general election he were to insist on his conversion-of-the-predominantpartner line of argument on Home Rule, would he not shiver the party into such equally opposing fragments that only the polls could readjust? However that may be, "the most sanguine of Radicals cannot deny that the present detachment of Lord Rosebery will help to discredit what may be termed Gladstonianism and tend to strengthen many Unionist principles."

Disappearance of the Liberal Party.

Blackwood is naturally very jubilant on the subject. Lord Rosebery's retirement has simplified the general political issues.

"There is no longer any halting place between Conservatives and Destructives, and it may be that Lord Rosebery's appreciation of this truth had something to do with his retirement. But, however this may be, the Radicals represent a young, vigorous and earnest party, monopolizing all the vitality and energy which still remains to the opposition ; and they are led by a patrician demagogue of the type of Wilkes, Burdett and Duncombe, men who regard the interests of their own order, and even their own fortunes, as a feather in the scale when weighed against the immediate calls of personal ambition-political gamblers, in fact, by which name Burke describes them. This is the party of the future, with whom the Conservatives will have to cope.

"The old Liberalism is effete." The new Liberalism is Radicalism and nothing else. And Blackwood fervently desires that "the slippery compro mise ycleped Liberalism” will “disappear from our vocabulary." Though the working classes, as a whole, are by no means a Radical preserve, there is "a powerful residuum prepared to support a social and political revolution to the last cartridge.” But men are beginning to understand that our party conflicts are only part of the great struggle between the rival principles, on the one hand of authority, subordination, religion, property, law, order, and on the other of "the negation of all these."

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an readiness of satirical speech, and the same conroversial joy of battle.' If he had not Disraeli's brilliant literary gift he could wield the pen of the pamphleteer with undeniable vigor and effect. And people believed just as much or as little in the depth of his convictions and the soundness of the views which he undertook to advocate. 'Historicus' was recognized as a formidable disputant on points of international law-in a newspaper. The impression prevailed and became ineffaceable that Sir William Harcourt was a lawyer

of the 'elegant' rather than of the profound order ; and much the same suspicion of superficiality attached to his political convictions.

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Sir William Harcourt has never shared, as indeed no ambitious politician can afford to share, the perverse attachment of Cato to the losing cause. He has never been ashamed to display that preference for the winning side, in which, according to the Latin poet, he has at least the companionship of the gods to keep him in countenance."

His one unfortunate phrase was about his opponents" stewing in their Parnellite juice. But Mr. Traill allows that Sir William has made himself not only useful, but indispensable to his party. There was no one among his Gladstonian comrades who could for a moment challenge comparison with him as a debater.

"He is a parliamentary strategist and tactician of the first force. In a word he has proved, by the acknowledgment of both friend and foe, that he is a leader who can readily lead, and there is an ever growing conviction among his party that he is the only one of their leaders who can."

T

FREE SILVER ONLY THE FIRST STEP.

the November Arena Prof. Frank Parsons contributes the opening article, entitled "The Issue of 1896." The article is principally devoted to the silver question which is not, it should be frankly said, discussed in such a way as to throw any new light upon that subject. Mr. Parsons makes it quite evident that he cares really very little for the silver question except as a somewhat roundabout path toward the things that he has most in mind as desirable for the future welfare of the country. He expresses the real sentiment of all the Populist leaders and of most of the conspicuous supporters of Mr. Bryan (the silver mine owners and their friends excepted). in the following remarks, with which his article concludes: "In order to perfect our finances and readjust our industrial system to modern conditions, we must do much more than achieve the free coinage of silver. Bimetallism will still leave our currency open to private manipulation if combinations sufficiently large can be formed. Government ownership of the mines would help, but the only way to place the monetary system beyond the reach of private interest, and

secure its management in the public interest, is to make the monetary system a public institution-let the government issue all money in payment for public work, or in loans through postal savings banks that shall keep the people's money in absolute security, and lend to the manufacturer, the merchant, and the farmer on good security, as well as to the banker and the owner of bonds.

"Free silver is only one step,-the financial goal must be to place the movement of the currency volume under intelligent control, acting in the broad daylight in the interests of the whole nation; for this movement of the money volume is the power that gives control of prices and determines in a large degree the question of prosperity or panic. Then monopoly and special privilege of every kind must be redeemed to the public use. Government must be purified and improved, and labor out of place must be helped to readjustment and rendered secure in the opportunity to make an honest living.

"I stand at the junction of three great roadsone leads to the right up a smiling slope to the public ownership of monopolies, security of employment, elevation of labor, a national currency and postal savings banks, progressive taxation of incomes and inheritances, direct legislation, etc., etc.; on the left is the road of gold, that is full of puddles and mud and rocks, and leads forever down, over gulch and precipice, to a vaster congestion of wealth, a súrengthened money power, a more corrupted government, and a nation in slavery to privilege; the middle road is the silver road, and it looks as though it had a gully at the start, and some rocks and puddles beyond, but it has an upward slope upon the whole and turns after a while and runs into the road on the right. I'd like to travel the right-hand road from the start, but my fellow citizens say, 'No, we must take the left road or the middle; your choice lies between these two.' I find that the men who are going the silver road want about the same things that I want, they are opposed to private monopoly, believe in equal rights to all and special privileges to none, desire a rising market, the elevation of labor, etc.,-I find that the silver road runs into the anti-monopoly, equal-rights road a little further on. And I say, 'Well, if I can't get you to go on the right-hand road from the start,-if we must go on the gold road or the silver road, then I'll go with the men who want what I want, and on the road that leads into the road I want to travel.""

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men who attended the Indianapolis convention and who stand distinctively for the gold standard,—that the least possible governmental connection with money and its circulation is the thing most to be desired, as witness the following quotations from Mr. Codington's article:

"I think it will not be easy for the student of the future to repress a smile when he reads the history of the nineteenth century and discovers that learned men seriously discussed the question, 'How much money per capita ought to be in circulation among the people?' His vision being clarified, so that he will not look upon a due-bill or an evidence of debt or a 'promise to pay' in any form as money, he may be pardoned the smile. He will read how a great nation, waging a gigantic war, with an empty treasury, unable to meet its expenses with ready cash, found a patriotic people ready to supply its needs and accept its promises for future payment to an unlimited extent, and he will admire that patriotism; but he will wonder how it came about that afterward, when the government found itself in funds, the people who held its notes objected to having them paid, on the ground that it would result in contraction of the currency.' It is certain

that only the antiquary of the future will find any meaning in the phrase quoted. Assuming that some grave professor shall be able to explain it all, will not that same student wonder why a people, ingenious enough to augment a short supply of money by substituting therefor mere evidences of debt, and to curtail a long supply by refusing to coin one of its money metals, was not able to increase its crop of sugar or decrease an excessive crop of cotton by the same factitious methods?"

INTRINSIC VALUE OF MONEY.

"Gold and silver are commodities because they are produced by labor and exchanged for value. The mint performs no service other than putting the commodities into convenient parcels for the uses of commerce. The only reason why this service should be performed by civilized governments instead of by individuals is, that each parcel carries in its mint-stamp an absolute guarantee of weight and fineness, so that it does not need to be weighed or assayed each time it changes hands, as would be the case if it were coined by a less responsible party; a fine mint-stamp having the added advantage that loss by abrasion or defacement is easily detected.

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Money is intrinsically valuable, just as a railroad, a ship, a wagon, or a wheelbarrow is intrinsically valuable, and for precisely the same reason— namely, because it saves time and trouble in the exchange of commodities. If some better method of effecting exchanges than by the use of money shall ever be devised, then money may become valueless; similarly, if some better methods of transportation (only another name for effecting exchanges') shall be devised, then the railroad and the ship will retire from the volume of the world's assets."

MR.

THE ATTACK UPON CAPITAL.

R. GEORGE GUNTON in the November number of Gunton's Magazine has a vigorous article in which he condemns unsparingly what he calls "The Anti-Capital Crusade," which was, in his opinion, involved in Mr. Bryan's campaign. Mr. Gunton, perhaps more than any other current writer, has shown the inevitable economic drift toward the concentration of capital, pointing out the beneficent results that have already accrued. After a review of some of the denunciatory utterances against trusts which have lately been current, Mr. Gunton concludes as follows: 'It is high time that this irresponsible fanning of the flames of social antagonism was stopped; that a higher standard of intellectual integrity be established for the discussion of public questions, even in the heat of political campaigns.

They

"As in the case of the quotations we have cited from the World, most writers and speakers know that much of what they say about capital oppressing the public and trusts monopolizing industries to the detriment of the community is false. know, because the facts are so easy of access, that the trend of industrial improvement is not only along the lines of highly organized capital, but it necessarily involves it. All students of economics and government now know that it is with and through these higher forms of industrial organization, of which trusts are but a single type, that the great industrial improvement of the present century has come, and that the more complex industrial organizations are not the incident, but the instruments of this great onward movement. They know that the great cheapening of wealth and multiplication of modern improvements throughout the domestic and social, as well as industrial life, have been created by this very concentrated industrial organization. It is by this and this alone that during the thirty years from 1860-92, the purchasing power of the average laborer's day's work was increased 70 per cent.

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Any system of propaganda, for whatever purpose, which tries, through social prejudice, to array the laboring class against the forces which in a single generation have nearly doubled their power to command the benefits of civilization, is a social crime which should receive the anathema of all public spirited and patriotic citizens. Nothing has contributed so much to this vicious policy, which is gradually undermining the stability of our institutions, as the uneconomic and perverted attack upon trusts and corporate industrial organizations.

In another article Mr. Gunton remarks:

"It is difficult to believe that the people of the United States can be influenced to revolutionize our industrial and political institutions under the influence of a doctrine whose only foundation is social prejudice and economic superstition.”

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danger to Europe and America from the industrial competition of Japan and China, that Mr. John Barrett's article entitled "The Plain Truth About Asiatic Labor" in the North American Review for November is entitled to great attention. Mr. Barrett is United States Minister to Siam, and has appar ently made a very careful and thorough study of the new manufacturing developments of Japan, and of the two great Chinese centres of industry, Shanghai and Hankow. Mr. Barrett does not commit himself distinctly on the question whether or not the competition of Asiatic factories is likely to prove disastrous in the future, but he makes it perfectly clear that there is no immediate danger. denies emphatically the report that Japan is about to flood the American market with an excellent bicycle at the price of $12, declaring that the bicycle factories of Japan are capable as yet of a ridiculously small output, and that no American would think of riding the cheap Japanese wheels. He also makes it clear that Japanese labor, although now employed at very low rates, is constantly demanding higher remuneration.

He

It is from China rather than from Japan that Mr. Barrett thinks it likely that the most formidable competition may emerge.

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THE PROGRESS OF SHANGHAI.

Shanghai and Hankow are the only two points in China proper where large modern manufacturing plants are established and in operation. These cities are respectively the New York and Chicago of China. Shanghai is the gateway to the great rich Yang-tse-Kiang Valley. It is growing with the rapidity of some of our Western cities. Its foreign section would do credit to a prosperous home port, with its imposing buildings and well kept streets. For a manufacturing centre its location is unsurpassed. There are miles and miles of deep-water frontage. The largest steamers and ships are constantly leaving for all parts of the world. Coasting steamers touch at every port in China, Corea, Japan, Formosa, the Philippines, Java and Siam. River craft equal to those of the Hudson and Mississippi run regularly 600 miles up the Yang-tse to Hankow, and connect with smaller vessels that go 400 miles beyond, to Ichang, which in turn connect with junks that proceed 400 miles further, to the new treaty port of Chunking, where the United States have recently established a consulate.

I give this much attention to Shanghai because not only is it the leading port of the far East-not counting Hong Kong and Singapore, which are British colonies-but, in the opinion of the best informed authorities, it will become the great central manufacturing point of the Pacific seas, even surpassing ultimately Osaka in Japan. As evidence of its present business and of the reasonableness of

this prophecy, it is well to remember that nearly 3,000 merchant steamers cleared from the port of Shanghai in 1894."

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success.

Mr. Barrett remarks that as one passes by or through the manufacturing district of Shanghai "he could easily imagine himself in Fall River or Manchester were it not for the laborer himself, who, in his wage price, is the very secret of their There are six large cotton spinning mills with 125,000 spindles either working or about ready for operation. There are eight cotton ginning plants, with thirty-two to seventy-two gins each, most of which are running. Twenty steam silk filatures are operated, with a reeling capacity of 24,000 bales per annum. A paper mill, which would be a credit to Holyoke or Oregon City, is doing a large business."

ON CHINESE LABOR.

"The highest wage that I discovered paid in the Shanghai cotton mills to a native male employee was 50 cents, silver (26%1⁄2 cents gold), per day, the lowest 12 cents, silver (61⁄2 cents gold), while the average was about 20 to 34 cents, silver (10% to 18 cents gold). None of these sums included food. The wage of 50 cents per day was not paid to more than ten men in 1,000. The wage of 12 cents per day was paid to coolies who did the unskilled common work about the factories. Where women were employed, they received even less than the men, or from 5 to 20 cents, silver. In some establishments wages depended on the 'piece' scale. The employees generally had a healthy, vigorous look, as if life had no great cares. They were cheerful and in most instances attentive to work. The more skillful would glance at me as if to say: 'You foreigners may have made these machines, but we can show you how to run them!'

"The observer is especially impressed as he watches these thousands of Chinese laborers going in and out of these mills at shifting hours. Nothing that human beings do more resembles the action of bees in a hive. Then, again, they seem like part of a great stream that has no beginning and no ending, flowing from one sea to another-coming as they do from a reserve of countless millions. One doubts if a strike could ever succeed with hungry thousands to draw from for every one that goes out."

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MANUFACTURING IN JAPAN.

Japan in July boasted of sixty-five cotton mills with approximately one million spindles. In 1893 there were forty; in 1890, thirty; in 1888, twenty. Osaka is the central point, and it presents a most modern business-like appearance, with its large factories and lofty chimneys. Aside from cotton mills there are many other industries, of which the most interesting are the new watch and brush factories. From a personal inspection of the leading manufactories, and careful inquiry of the owners and managers, I learned the following facts: The

highest wages paid to native employees in the cotton mills are 75 cents, silver, per day, the lowest 5 cents (female labor); the average 25 cents for fairly skilled male labor and 18 cents for similar female labor. Large numbers of women and children earn only 5 to 10 cents. In the brush making establishment I counted one hundred women who were earning at piecework only 7 cents per day, and yet they worked long hours. The watch and clock factory is not a large establishment and the wages are higher. Some employees received as much as $1, while the majority earned about 40 cents. In a dozen miscellaneous industrial plants other than those named, wages ranged from 15 cents to 80 cents, with an average of 35 cents. In Kobe's celebrated match factories several hundred women and children were working with extraordinary dispatch and skill and earning by piecework only 5 cents a day."

WOMEN IN JAPANESE FACTORIES.

"The average number of hands employed in the six leading Osaka cotton mills is 820 women and 390 men, a total of 1,200. The women outnumber the men in the majority of mills two and a half to one, and four to one in a few. In the great Kanegafuchi plant, at Tokyo, the women outnumber the men four to one. In this establishment the wages of the women were about half that of the men. In the Osaka Company, at Osaka, which has a capital of 1,200,000 yen and 37,513 spindles, there are employed 600 men besides women, and the wages of the former are one-third more than those of the latter. At Miye the female employees num. bered 1,700 and the male 625. This may be a feature of Japanese labor that will have a vital bearing on the future. Many employers informed me that, besides being cheaper, the women gave less trouble, were more faithful, and quicker.”

WAGES IN JAPAN.

"Some miscellaneous wages in and about Yokohama which I authenticated are as follows in gold': Carpenters, 25 to 50 cents per day; compositors, 25 to 45 cents; tailors, 25 to 65 cents; plasterers, 26 to 40 cents; tea workers, 30 to 40 cents; farm laborers, $1.50 to $3 per month; personal household servants for foreigners, $8 to $10 per month-all of which are a great advance over two years ago; and they bid fair to go 50 to 100 per cent. higher in the next two years. Labor and wages in the silk, lacquer, porcelain, screen, matting, tea, curio and other industries, which have always been characteristic of the country, I do not discuss beyond noting that the work is chiefly done by piece, not in great factories, but in private houses. So true is this of Japan, that the entire land might be regarded as one vast workshop with infinite subdivisions."

Mr. Barrett ends his elaborate and valuable article with a number of conclusions. One, Japanese exports to the United States are not great enough to amount to anything alarming in the way of com

petition. Two, the advance in the cost of labor in Japan is altering the situation rapidly. Three, Japanese labor is beginning to organize, and is learning how to use the boycott and the strike, although in general Asiatic labor is easily contented. Four, piecework in the little homes of Japan is being abandoned for factories in the cities, and important social changes are likely to result. Five. Japan is now in the midst of a "boom," which suggests the industrial situation in the United States after our Civil War, and this may lead to overproduction and financial disaster. Six, the eagerness of the Japanese manufacturers to make large immediate profits is resulting in the production of great quantities of goods of poor quality, with consequent loss of markets. Seven, even though the Chinese and Japanese manufactures may be obtaining control of their own home markets, the Oriental demand is so different from that of Western countries that it is certain to be some time before they can produce largely, in general lines of manufacture, for American and European consumers. Eight, the Japanese government is at least doing one thing which may enable her manufacturers to compete in foreign lands, and that is the establishment of numerous subsidized steamship lines. Nine, the old treaties that hampered Japanese industry and trade are about to be abrogated with the consequence that there will be an enlarged field for foreign capital in Japan. Ten and finally, Mr. Barrett thinks that the situation need not discourage American manufacturers and exporters from entering vigorously into the trans-Pacific field. In an article last March in the North American Review Mr. Barrett endeavored to show in what direction American exporters might hope to find ample reward for endeavoring to extend their markets in Asia.

WORKMEN'S WAGES IN FRANCE.

N the first October number of the Revue des Deux

rate of wages in the Middle Ages. It is a striking picture that he draws of the vast nameless army of laborers who have from century to century carried on a bare struggle for existence. He allows two hundred and fifty working days in the year, and on that basis he reckons that the workmen in the Middle Ages at the beginning of the fourteenth century began with 782 francs a year, and gradually increased to 860; while between 1376 and 1400 the pay amounted to 1,040 francs. In the fifteenth century the rate of pay oscillated between 1,100 and 1,240 francs a year. It was then incontestably superior to the pay in 1896. when, for a working year of 300 days, it does not amount to as much as 1,020 francs a year. On another basis of calculation, if we equalize the number of working days in comparing the Middle Ages with to day, the advantage of the workman of old times may be expressed somewhat as follows: From the 1,240 francs which he received from 1476 to 1500 the

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