deplored the Cockerton judgment, against which the London School Board appealed.

After these few words of explanation of a somewhat complicated situation, it may be recorded that on February 25, in the House of Lords, Lord Reay, the chairman of the London School Board, asked the Lord President of the Council whether the Board of Education contemplated any administrative or legislative measures to deal with the difficulties created by the Cockerton judgment. The Duke of Devonshire entirely refused to follow the lead offered by Lord Reay. He could not concur, he said, in the suggestion that the Board of Education should introduce certain administrative and legislative measures in order that further litigation might be avoided. Indeed, the learned judge in delivering his judgment described the questions raised as being of such great importance that it was desirable that they should be decided by the House of Lords. The VicePresident of the Council had already stated in the other House that until the appeal had been heard the status quo would be maintained, and therefore no one would be prejudiced by any delay which might occur. As at present advised, the Duke considered that the code for elementary day schools contained all that was essential for elementary education properly so called, and on the part of the Government he could not accept, or make any approach to accepting, any contention which would make School Boards the authorities in this country for secondary education.

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The annual meeting of the General Committee of the National Liberal Federation, which was held at Rugby (Feb. 27), was chiefly remarkable for an almost desperate attempt to maintain a semblance of Liberal agreement on the South African question. Other subjects, of course, were touched upon. Thus a resolution was passed regretting the absence from the King's Speech of any promise seriously to undertake social legislation, notably as to the questions of temperance and housing; viewing with grave apprehension the ever-increasing national expenditure, and objecting to the "squandering of public money in doles to favoured classes," and in particular to the proposed renewal of the Agricultural Rating and Tithe Relief Acts. resolution was passed in favour of the policy called "Home Rule all round," or local legislatures for purely internal business in each of the countries of the United Kingdom, with the management of joint and Imperial affairs left to the existing Imperial Parliament; and to this declaration was appended the interesting expression of opinion that "the Colonies should be invited to send representatives to the Imperial Parliament as soon as they desire to share with the mother country the burdens of Empire. In regard to the war, the product of much closet discussion before the open meeting was the withdrawal of all amendments, and a general acceptance of the following long and ineffective resolution :

That this committee records its profound conviction that the long continuance of the deplorable war in South Africa, declared for electioneering purposes to be over last September, is due to the policy of demanding unconditional surrender, and to a want of knowledge, foresight and judgment on the part of the Government, who have neither demonstrated effectively to the Boers the military supremacy of Great Britain, nor so conducted the war as to induce them to lay down their arms; this committee bitterly laments the slaughter of thousands of brave men on both sides; the terrible loss of life from disease, owing in no small degree to the scandalous inadequacy of sanitary and hospital arrangements provided for our forces, and the enormous waste of resources in actual expenditure upon the war, in the devastation of territory, and in the economic embarrassments which must inevitably follow; the committee calls upon the Government to announce and to carry out, on the cessation of hostilities, a policy for the settlement of South African affairs which will secure equal rights to the white races, just and humane treatment of natives, and such a measure of self-government as can honourably be accepted by a brave and high-spirited people."

This compromise-declaration was spoken to by Liberals of very diverse points of view, and, after the proposal and withdrawal of an amendment specially denouncing Sir Alfred Milner, was carried unanimously.

Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman was not present at the Liberal Federation Committee's meetings, but in a speech which he delivered (March 2) at a joint dinner of the Eighty and Russell Clubs at Oxford he took occasion to put his own construction, which would hardly have been accepted in its entirety by all parties to the South African resolution, upon what had passed at Rugby. After that meeting, he said, there was no question at all as to what was the Liberal policy. "It was directed to two main objects (1) that we should clearly make known to the peoples of the belligerent States, not in vague but in definite terms, that our purpose was not conquest but conciliation, not humiliation but friendship and true freedom; (2) these terms should include the re-establishment in their homes of burghers who by capture or by the operations of war had been dispossessed and the establishment, as soon as order was restored, of free, self-governing institutions." He further trusted that the Liberal party would adhere to and maintain and persist in its objection to the establishment of what we knew as the Crown colony system of government in South Africa.

If the General Committee of the National Liberal Federation had held its meetings a few days later its members would have found material for mutual congratulation in the victory of the Progressive party in the London County Council elections. The polling, which took place on March 2, resulted in the return of

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84 Progressives, 2 Independents and only 32 Conservatives and Unionists, as the quondam "Moderates " had called themselves in the campaign preceding these elections. The change of name had certainly done them no good, for the Progressive majority at the 1898 elections stood at only 22, and in 1895 each party returned an equal number of candidates. Having regard to the immense majority of Unionist Members of Parliament returned by the metropolis in 1900-51 to 8 Liberals-it was. clear that large numbers of electors reasonably insisted on voting at the municipal elections for the candidates, or the party, they thought best fitted for municipal responsibilities, independently of their views on Imperial questions. Rightly or wrongly, on this occasion the average voter looked upon the ex-" Moderates" as less concerned for his interests than, for example, for those of the shareholders in the water companies, who had lately been making an endeavour, which they were constrained to abandon, to force some irritating new regulations upon their customers. And, generally speaking, the Progressives were looked upon as more sympathetic towards social reform -housing, licensing and other than their opponents, though perhaps less concerned to keep down the rates.

The "crisis in the Church," or the perhaps always somewhat artificially cultivated belief that there was one, showed no signs of reviving in the early months of 1901. Under date January 16, there had been issued what, but for the immediate absorption of the national mind in the illness and death of Queen Victoria, would have excited a good deal of public interest-a letter signed by the Archbishops and Bishops of the Church of England to the clergy on the subject of obedience. With great earnestness the prelates maintained collectively the duty of submitting to the decisions recently given by the Archbishops, on questions of ritual and practice referred to them in accordance with the directions in the Book of Common Prayer. Acknowledging thankfully the very general recognition of this duty given by the clergy, they observed that unfortunately this obedience was not universal, and that its absence, even in a few instances, was certain to hinder the fulfilment of any hope or desire of obtaining for the Church a real measure of self-government. The prelates asked for the help of the clergy as a whole in setting the Church "free from the injury and discredit which she suffers when men see within her cases of persistent disregard of her constituted authorities."

No member succeeded in raising ecclesiastical questions during the debate on the Address, discursive as it was, but on February 28, in response to a question of a somewhat controversial character from Mr. C. M'Arthur (Exchange, Liverpool), Mr. Balfour said he believed the efforts of the Bishops had had and were having a great effect in diminishing practices in the Church of England which were unlawful or inexpedient. He had heard of no employment of the veto by any Bishop except

in the case of Colonel Porcelli, who was not a parishioner of any of the London churches of which he complained, and represented no responsible body or association.

It may well be recorded here that the vacancy in the See of London was filled by the promotion of Dr. Winnington-Ingram, Suffragan-Bishop of Stepney, who in that capacity, and for several years previously as head of the Oxford House in Bethnal Green, had secured an exceptionally strong hold upon the working men of the East End of London. This was the first of a series of selections for vacancies on the episcopal bench which, exceptionally numerous in 1901, were filled in a manner that elicited, on the whole, general satisfaction among Churchmen of all parties.

The somewhat sluggish interest with which affairs in the Far East had been followed since the relief of the Pekin Legations was stimulated in March by two series of incidents, both of which excited, at least temporarily, the traditional irritability of the British public in regard to Russia. The first was the attempt of that Power, while negotiations were proceeding between the representatives of the Allied Powers at Pekin and those of the Chinese Government in regard to the measures of expiation and redress to be accorded by the latter for the outrages of the previous year, to come to a separate arrangement with China on the subject of Manchuria. It was reported, and generally believed here, that the Convention on that question pressed by the Russian on the Chinese Government was of such a character as to place Russia permanently in a position of exclusive advantage and influence, if not of technical sovereignty, in Manchuria, and of extensive privilege even in Mongolia. A despatch from Sir Charles Scott, the British Ambassador at St. Petersburg (published here March 8), reported a conversation with Count Lamsdorff, in which that Minister had assured him that it was untrue that there was any attempt or desire to establish a virtual Russian protectorate over Manchuria, or to alter in any way its permanent position; and that all that was on foot was the endeavour to arrange for a modus vivendi pending the evacuation of the province by Russian troops. This view, however, did not appear to be accepted by the representatives of the Allied Powers, for, France excepted, they all-Germany, Austria, Italy, the United States and Japan-were reported to have, with England, urged China not to conduct negotiations, at the present time, with any individual Power, tending to impair her sovereignty over any part of her territory, and Japan was said to have threatened that, if Russia obtained the virtual possession of Manchuria, she would insist on "compensation elsewhere. In the end-to anticipate slightly-Russia's diplomatic representatives were instructed (April 3) to inform the Courts to which they were accredited that, in order to avoid involving China in "various difficulties," Russia renounced any

attempt to conclude a special agreement about Manchuria, and would "quietly await the further course of events." As Russia was in military occupation of Manchuria, and could practically fix her own time, if any, as well as her own conditions for withdrawal, it did not appear perfectly clear that the opposition offered by the Allied Powers to the Manchurian agreement had secured any permanent result.

The other question which excited considerable interest and even anxiety in this country for several days was a dispute with reference to the limits of the new Russian concession at Tien-tsin and the property of the Pekin Railway, which was under the control of British subjects. This led to the dangerous situation involved in an entrenchment of British and Russian troops-though in small numbers-over against one another, with French soldiers hard by, openly sympathising with the latter. There was some excited writing in the newspapers, but, as will appear from a statement shortly to be recorded as made by the Foreign Secretary in the House of Lords, the question was amicably arranged.

It was disagreeable, but not surprising, that in the German Reichstag Count von Bülow was under the necessity (March 8) of explaining that the German Emperor's long visit to England at the time of Queen Victoria's illness and death was a proceeding dictated entirely by human feeling, and was not to be regarded as in any way inconsistent with the neutrality observed by Germany with respect to the South African war. In language which, though irreproachably correct, was cold, and compared markedly with the emphasis with which he went on to speak of the "great and momentous interests uniting Germany with Russia, Count von Bülow said that there had been no political change in German relationships with England since the declaration in December, 1900, that Germany would be "most willing, on the basis of mutual consideration and absolute parity, to live with England in peace, in friendship, and in harmony." The Minister had been particularly challenged on the subject of the bestowal of the Black Eagle on Lord Roberts, and he was at pains to point out that the Emperor enjoyed, under the Prussian Constitution, the absolute right to bestow Prussian Orders on whomsoever he chose for such honours, and that, for the rest, Lord Roberts not being a political personage, the distinction conferred upon him had no political significance. All this was not the most pleasant reading here, but it was observed with satisfaction that Baron von Richthofen, the Foreign Secretary, who spoke on the same occasion, stated that while the German Government condemned the harsh treatment which they held that some innocent Germans had suffered at the hands of the military authorities in South Africa, the Germans who had violated their neutrality must share the blame for such treatment.

Before reverting to the story of the session, there may con