Mr. Hay, Secretary The Diplomatic Service of State, has already made an unequaled reputation as the initiator of reforms and policies which redound impressively to the credit of our Government. The latest is the policy, on a considerable scale, of transference in the diplomatic service on the merit system. Last week Mr. Loomis, United States Minister to Venezuela, was transferred to Portugal, and Mr. Bowen, Minister to Persia, to Venezuela; Mr. Griscom, First Secretary of Legation at Constantinople, was made Minister to Persia; Mr. Eddy, Second Secretary in the Paris Embassy, was made First Secretary in the Constantinople Legation, and the Third Secretary at Paris was made Second Secretary. This list of promotions will do more than anything else to convince men that the spoils system, with its inevitable failure at reaching any training for the diplomatic service, is under Secretary Hay distinctly shelved-let us hope permanently; for the first time in its history, our service offers something like a prospect of advance to deserving men. Canadian Railways Recent events in the railway world are interesting as showing the part which the Government may play. In Canada two agreements have been made by the provincial Manitoba Government, one with the Northern Pacific Railway, the other with the Canadian Northern Railway. Under the first agreement the Government has taken over the lines of the Northern Pacific in the Province of Manitoba, the lines there having a total length of about two hundred and seventy miles. The Canadian Northern Railway is at present constructing a road from Lake Superior to Winnipeg, and has agreed with the Manitoba Government to assume the agreement made between the Government and the Northern Pacific; it thus stands practically in the place of the Government. It further agrees, on the completion of its road, to let the Government fix the freight rates upon it. The present rate for wheat from Winnipeg to Fort William, on Lake Superior, is fourteen cents per hundred pounds. The intention of the Government is to lower the rate to ten cents. The object of the Government in acquiring the Northern Pacific system is to enable the Canadian Northern Railway to reach shipping points in Manitoba. The Government has already taken over the Northern Pacific lines and transferred them to the Canadian Northern, which road already announces a reduction of freight rates. In return for the concessions given by the Canadian Northern the Manitoba Government guarantees its bonds to the extent of $28,000 per mile, and it also becomes liable for the purchase money of the Northern Pacific road. The great objection urged against the contract is the extent of the liability which the Government assumes- a liability estimated at from thirteen to seventeen million dollars. If the Canadian Northern carries grain at ten cents per hundredweight, the Canadian Pacific, which now has almost a monopoly of Manitoba shipments, will undoubtedly have to reduce its prices, and thus the people of Manitoba will receive a direct benefit from the agreement, outside the saving on shipments over the Canadian Northern alone. Between Winnipeg and Fort William the Canadian Northern runs through a comparatively poor and desolate country, and unless shipments from Manitoba largely increase it is doubtful if the road can be made to pay. In such an event the position of Manitoba would be serious. There is a feeling in some quarters that the people of Manitoba have undertaken too heavy a liability. The Canadian Pacific Railway offered to take over the Northern Pacific lines and reduce its rates to Lake Superior, but the feeling in Manitoba against the road is so bitter that the Government found it impossible to make an agreement that would receive the assent of the Legislature. One of the few privileges English Liberals of a private member of the British House of Commons is that of moving the adjournment of the House in order to call attention to any matter of definite public interest. To avail himself of this privilege a member has only to secure the support of forty of his fellowmembers; and, with that support assured, he can, at the opening of any sitting of the House, secure an opportunity for debating any grievance, or calling attention to what he and his supporters regard as a public wrong. Sir Harry and his party went through herds of elephants, zebras, and antelopes, which approached fearlessly within ten yards. Lions and rhinoceroses were constantly seen. The most important outcome of this expedition, however, seems to have been the discovery of the fossil remains of the helladotherium-a kind of ruminant mammal. In his report to the Government Sir Harry advises the maintenance of this district as a national park. The British Commissioner has been introducing a considerable degree of civilization where civilization has never before existed. Order is maintained by means of a trained force of Sudanese-it may be remembered that the British sphere merges indefinitely with the old Sudan provinces of Egypt. Regular criminal courts have been set up, and there is a kind of native parliament. Since the British occupation many roads have been constructed, but outside trade is still contingent on the completion of the railway from the coast. Last week Mr. Brodrick, War Secretary, had stated that there were over forty thousand persons in the concentration camps, and that the deaths there during May had numbered nearly a hundred men and women, and over three hundred children. Mr. Lloyd-George, the leader of the Welsh Radicals, then moved the adjournment of the House in order to call attention to the shocking condition of things as revealed by Mr. Brodrick's statement. Mr. Lloyd-George could, of course, have had no expectation that his motion for adjournment would be carried. The Government forces were ready to save the administration from any such serious reverse. But his speech on the motion to adjourn enabled him and Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, the Liberal leader, to bring before the country the actual condition of affairs in South Africa, and to drive into the minds of readers of the Parliamentary debates the terrible expedients to which Lord Kitchener has had to resort since he succeeded Lord Roberts in command of the troops in South Africa. Little has been heard of these from the newspaper correspondents. Most of the correspondents returned to England when Lord Roberts left; and of late England has been reliably informed on these matters only by such answers from Ministers in the House of Commons as that from Mr. Brodrick, which preceded Mr. Lloyd-George's motion to adjourn. The debate on the motion secured this end; and the division, although favorable to the Government, was not without its significance. brought out once more the division in the Liberal party on the war. But it also showed that of the two groups, that which is acting with Sir Henry Campbell-Ban-defense. At Brown University Presinerman, Sir William Harcourt, and Mr. John Morley is larger than that which is acting with Mr. Asquith, Sir Henry Fowler, and Sir Edward Grey. It Last week Sir Harry Johnston, Uganda British Commissioner for Uganda, returned to England after an absence of two years. His report of that part of Africa has excited universal interest. He announces that there is a large stretch of country near Mount Elgon entirely uninhabited by human beings. In this region Last week was crowded with col College Commencements lege Commencement exercises. At Smith College, Northampton, Mass., President Seelye delighted his auditors by announcing the gift to that institution of one hundred thousand dollars from a donor "who wishes his name kept secret." We note a justifiably growing tendency on the part of the benefactors to keep their names secret. Modesty has always been one reason for such a course; but the overwhelming number of applicants for aid, whenever the name of a donor is published, must constitute another and very valid reason for secrecy-namely, self dent Faunce gave the good news that even more than the two-million-dollar fund had been raised. This fund was started three years ago. The second million, like the first, was raised upon the foundation laid by the gift of Mr. J. D. Rockefeller upon the condition that the University should raise the remainder of the million. The gift of the late John Nicholas Brown, not including the John Carter Brown library of rare books, much augmented this fund, until, with other gifts, it now exceeds the second million. At the University of Chicago the convocation address was delivered by Mr. Rockefeller, the founder of that institution. Referring to Mr. Carnegie's gifts to Scottish education, he called for three cheers for the one "who had given away more money than any living man." This was an exhibition of noble rivalry between enormously rich. men, since, as "Punch says, "it is a mistake to call such gifts 'princely;' no prince could possibly give away so much money." The Outlook would add that it now remains to be seen whether the quality of instruction in our colleges will keep pace with the great gifts from wealthy men; it must never be forgotten that men, not money, make a university great.- -Sunday of this week Baccalaureate Sunday in many college towns. At New Haven President Hadley alluded impressively to the sudden and lamented death the day before of a Yale graduate, Adelbert Stone Hay, elder son of the Secretary of State. At Williams President Carter's sermon had a note of pathos from the fact that it was the last which he would preach as President of that College. Herman Grimm was The report of the death of Herman Grimm brings before the notice of men one whose enduring work can hardly be too strongly emphasized. Herman Grimm (he always left off the extra "n" in his first name) was the son of Wilhelm and the nephew of Jakob, the great brothers Grimm, whose name has become a household word everywhere by reason of their fairy tales. Herman was born in 1828 at Kassel. He studied at Berlin and Bonn. Thirty years ago he became Professor of the History of the Fine Arts in the University of Berlin, his appointment to that position being due to the notable character of his essays and books on artists and art, which had been appearing during the previous half-decade. His professorship by no means checked the ability to produce literature, although he gave ample time to the duties of his university position. Among his best-known books are three biographies, which, in the opinion of many, have never been equaled as to their respective subjects. These are the lives of Raphael, Michael Angelo, and Goethe. The four volumes of his collected essays, however, are of almost equal worth. Aside from his interest in artists, he had a special fondness for Emerson and Carlyle. As a teacher, Herman Grimm was without the winsomeness and dignity which characterized a Curtius or a Mark Hopkins, and without the magnetism of those two Berlin colleagues still living and teaching, Professors Paulsen and Harnack. Yet Herman Grimm had a real power over his students. Despite many a crotchety eccentricity, his intense absorption in his subject was so evident, and the range of his knowledge so wide, that his lectures became in an unusual degree illuminative and helpful. He was especially appreciated by the foreign students at Berlin; they crowded his lecturerooms, because his words were at every point illustrated by the great wealth of photographs, engravings, etchings, and prints at his disposal, and the foreigner quickly acquired a knowledge of the German language impossible to be achieved in any other way. Those who knew Herman Grimm in his home have carried away a particularly vivid memory of the man. There his idiosyncrasies seemed all the more marked when contrasted with those of his wife, born Gisela von Arnim, a daughter of the celebrated Bettina von Arnim, one of Goethe's admirers in the poet's later days. The Episcopal Church and Divorce The report of the joint commission on the revision of the canons of the Protestant Episcopal Church of this country was made public last week. The matter in this revision which ing clause respecting marriage : most interests the community is the follow No minister shall solemnize a marriage between any two persons unless nor until, by inquiry, he shall have satisfied himself that neither person has been, or is, the husband or the wife of any other person then living; unless the former marriage was annulled by a decree of some civil court of competent jurisdiction for cause existing before such former marriage. If the report of this commission should be adopted by the General Convention, it would put the Episcopal Church in the same position respecting marriage as the Roman Catholic Church, which regards marriage as a sacrament absolutely indissoluble by the civil courts, though the marriage may be annulled by the Church for reasons antedating the marriage and making it illegal ab initio. It is hardly. necessary to say that we are in hearty sympathy with the movement to make divorce more difficult and marriage more permanent; but the clause recommended by this commission seems to involve a doctrine not consonant with that taught by Jesus Christ in the Gospels, since he seems to recognize adultery by either of the parties to marriage as justifying a dissolution of the marital relation. When it is remembered that adultery is not a crime in the eye of the law in most of the States of the Union, it must at least be questioned whether the action of a Church which puts the innocent and the guilty on the same plane, and denies to the one as to the other the privilege of remarriage, will not do more to encourage or at least to condone adultery than it will to sanctify marriage and make it enduring. judgment, the position which, as we understand it, has hitherto been occupied by the Episcopal Church in this respect is more tenable philosophically, more in consonance with the teachings of Scripture, and more likely to promote the highest moral life than the extreme sacramental doctrine involved in the newly proposed canon. The second annual meeting of the Actors' Church Alliance was held last week in New York City. Church and stage people seemed united in perfect harmony in the enjoyment of the interesting exercises. Bishop Potter, President of the Alliance, called the meeting to order and offered prayer. Communications warmly commending the movement were received from Mr. Edwin Markham, the Rev. Messrs. Heber Newton and Charles H. Eaton, Mr. Frederick Warde, and Miss Clara Morris. In his annual report the Rev. Walter E. Bentley, General Secretary, showed that the Alliance had doubled its membership during the year. Of the nearly sixteen hundred members at present, about half are chaplains (clergymen of all denominations, from Roman priests to Jewish rabbis) in over three hundred and fifty cities and towns in the United States and Canada. The dues are a dollar a year; members The Actors' Church Alliance of any Church and of the dramatic profession are eligible. Calendars of the Alliance, containing the names and addresses of the chaplains, together with their churches, hours of services, and a cordial invitation to attend services, are posted on the stage of nearly six hundred theaters, and good results are already apparent. Eleven special services have been held in various churches in New York City, six in Boston, and others in Cincinnati, Louisville, and other cities. Regular monthly receptions have also been held in New York, Boston, and other centers, some of them being in theaters. Strong efforts have been made against Sunday performances with some success, and an appeal signed by the five principal officers of the Alliance has been sent to all members and chaplains. During the summer the Secretary will help in the extension of the Actors' Church Union of England, of which Dr. Talbot, Bishop of Rochester, is the President. Thus the two organizations will be brought closer together and another bond added to the unity of the English-speaking race. Bishop Potter's address showed the need of such a movement to counteract many theatrical productions that were at least far from elevating, even if they were not tainting the life of the community. The fourth annual The Zionist Congress Convention of the Federation of American Zionists, which met at Männerchor Hall, Philadelphia, June 16 and 17, represented the American sentiment in regard to the resettlement of the Holy Land by the Jews—the dream of all Israel since the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus. The Congress was attended by the representatives of about a hundred and fifty societies, located in nearly thirty States and in almost a hundred cities, from New York to Manila and from Boston to Matanzas. The principal business transacted was the discussion of obtaining ways and means for a materialization of the Zionistic dream. The Jewish Colonial Trust, the financial nerve-center of Zionism, while capitalized at about ten million dollars, is as yet in no condition to move actively, for so far only nine hundred thousand dollars has been paid in. The Congress voted adversely on the question of compelling every delegate to purchase a share in the Trust before taking his seat, but decided to form "share clubs" to dispose of shares in the Trust. Second in importance was the decision to establish an official organ for American Zionists, for, aside from the inaccuracy of the Jewish press, the Congress realized the necessity of having a mouthpiece to spread its propaganda. Another feature of interest was the attitude of the Congress toward the Sultan of Turkey, who was acclaimed the best friend of Israel among rulers, as he had always protected Jews and had permitted sixty thousand of them to settle in Palestine during his reign. No reference seems to have been made to William II.'s influence in the matter. Governor Crane's message accompanying his promised veto of the new Boston subway bill threv the legislators back of that measure into utter confusion, and but little more than half of them voted for it again in the face of the message. When the measure passed the House, the vote had stood 159 yeas to 45 nays, but when it came up for passage over the veto the vote was changed to 98 yeas against 135 nays. Rarely have so many legislators on record in favor of a measure yielded to the weight of argument of a veto message. This argument therefore deserves National attention. In the first place, as was anticipated, the Governor pointed out that "previous Legislatures have referred to the city of Boston for its acceptance or rejection acts relating to rapid transit; and the results of the ballots so taken show that the voters have acted intelligently and with a full understanding of the issues involved." In the second place, as was also anticipated, the Governor pointed out that the contract under which the existing subway was built after it had been accepted by the voters was much more favorable to the public than the one which the Legislature was now asked to force upon the city without obtaining the voters' consent. But the message did not rest with a forcible statement of these two essential points. Governor Crane took up the proposed contract in detail, examining it as a business man representing the business interests of the public. He showed that the contract did not actually require the company to pay more than $6,000,000 for the construction of the subway, since a skillfully worded subordinate clause foisted any additional expense upon the public. He showed furthermore that the proposed contract giving the company control of the new subway until 1942 would enable it to dictate terms to the city when its lease of the present subway expires in 1917. The city should be left free to utilize the advantages it obtained in the earlier contract. In the last place, he showed that a forty-year contract was clearly unnecessary, and that it would jeopardize the interests of the next gener ation. The surrender of rights which belong to the public, even for a brief term of years, should be permitted only after the most careful consideration, and for controlling reasons of public policy; but no exigency has been shown to exist to justify the taking away of such rights from generations yet unborn. ... No one can foresee what advance may be made in the methods and cost of transportation, in the volume of travel, or in the facilities that may be required for its accommodation in the next forty years. This bill, however, while it does not restrict the company, ties the hands of the community. . . . A consideration lowed if exclusive rights had been granted to a street railway company forty years ago to continue until the present time illustrates the limitations which this bill would impose upon of the disastrous results which would have fol the public, and the unwisdom of its enactment. These words ought to be considered everywhere. Contracts between the public and private corporations are essentially onesided contracts, unless the public retains the right of periodical revision; for in the rare cases in which unexpected developments prove unduly onerous to the companies, as happened in some of the natural gas contracts, the public can always be induced to modify the terms in the interests of justice; but in the many cases in which new developments favor the private company, it always insists upon exacting the full measure of the bond. This generation has a right to legislate for itself, but it has not the right to subject the next generation to the rule of its own "dead hand." Governor Crane's message not only guards the rights of the next genera |