of these is the general subject of taxation; and Mr. Bryan comes forward as the earnest advocate of a national income tax, with pronounced views on the reconstruction of the tariff and the internal-revenue system. Upon the very delicate subject of the foreign relations of the United States, Mr. Bryan is also set in the forefront as the man whose lead the people should implicitly follow. Thus he antagonizes the exceptionally pleasant relations that have existed between our Government and that of England during the last three years, and holds that we should have acted in some manner different from that which we have actually pursued toward the struggle in South Africa. He has been doing everything in his power to stir up the nationality prejudices of voters of Irish and German descent, together with those of other nationalities, on the ground that Mr. McKinley has placed the government of the United States on unduly friendly terms with a country that Irishmen in Ireland and Germans in Germany at present very much dislike. The following cartoon, published in Mr. Bryan's interest, represents the point of view that Democrats were expressing last month. It is intended to convey the impression of a close understanding between President McKinley and Lord Salisbury.

THE ONLY CURE.-From the Verdict (New York).

period he has been brought forward, successively, as the highest authority in this country on three subjects of vast importance. First, he has been declared supremely wise with respect to matters of monetary science and policy, including banking systems and the various departments of public finance. Second, the country has been asked to accept his leadership as the man best qualified to deal with the results of the Spanish War, to save us from the dangers of militarism and imperialism, and to apply rightfully the Constitution and the principles of the Declaration of Independence to our new territorial problems. the third place. Mr. Bryan has been confidently placed before the American people as the man best qualified to deal with a question far more difficult than either of those other two great problems-namely, the true economic and political treatment of the present colossal movement in the direction of the concentration of productive capital. There are other questions of no small degree of importance concerning which it is claimed that Mr. Bryan is an authority of the first rank, in knowledge and statesmanship. One

In

FRIENDS AND ALLIES.

THE PRESIDENT: "Congratulations, my Lord. Your policy in South Africa has been nobly vindicated." LORD SALISBURY: "Many thanks, Mr. President. Hope you will do as well in November."

From the Times (Washington).

A Unique

Instance.

It has not been of advantage to Mr. Bryan's reputation that he has been heralded as the one man in the United States who knows most about the money question; most about what to do with the Philippines, and how to manage the army and navy; most about the intricate subject of trusts and great corporations; most about the manifold problems of taxation, and most about diplomacy and international law, relationships, and policy. It gives one the feeling that if some other huge question, no matter what, should suddenly loom into unexpected prominence, Mr. Bryan would just as confidently be named as the only man who has always known all about it. Even in the case of statesmen like Gladstone and Bismarck,-preeminent in the eyes of the whole world for half a century,-expert knowledge on all subjects has never been looked for. And in the United States no great political party has ever before brought forward a man who alone, exclusively, in his own person, represented the party's wisdom on all leading subjects. Washington relied on Hamilton for wisdom in questions of taxation and finance, and on men like Jefferson and Jay as authorities in matters of foreign policy. Mr. Lincoln had his Sewards, Chases, and Stantons. Mr. McKinley's statesmanship has been shown in the sagacity and good judgment that knows how, when, and where to take and apply expert counsel rather than in his own preeminent and solitary possession of superior statesmanship in half a dozen different fields. But Mr. Bryan stands out alone, and unrelieved, as the one Democratic authority on all the ques tions of the day.

As to Cabinet Advisers.

Who of his conspicuous supporters, for instance, are, in case of his election, to be his main reliances when he comes to deal with the question of trusts? Surely not the three great lawyers of cabinet rank and national fame who have come most vigorously to his support in the campaign— namely, the Hon. Richard Olney, of Boston; the Hon. Edward M. Shepard, of New York (who presided at the great Bryan meeting of October 16), and the Hon. Bourke Cockran. These three men, any of whom might well be expected to go into Mr. Bryan's cabinet, are all of them diametrically opposed to his views on the subject of trusts, and are all reputed to be corporation lawyers of large practice. Again, on the subject of the management of the Philippine Islands and kindred questions, Democrats like Senator Morgan, of Alabama, who have been heretofore most prominently identified with the foreign policy of the country and its results, do not entertain views that resemble Mr. Bryan's. The Hon.

Carl Schurz, and some others of his way of thinking, now zealous supporters of Mr. Bryan, were his most vociferous opponents four years ago, on account of monetary views which Mr. Bryan has not, meanwhile, altered in the slightest degree. The President's cabinet is not merely a group of men charged severally with the management of particular departments of administration. It is also charged with the duty of advising the President in a general way on all subjects. Mr. McKinley's cabinet is in harmony upon questions that affect the treasury and financial policy of the Government, as well as upon questions relating to Cuba, Porto Rico, and the Philippines, the position of the United States in China, and all other leading matters, both domestic and foreign.

Mr. Bryan

as an

Autocrat.

But how could Mr. Bryan, who stands. with equal and uncompromising boldness for the immediate free coinage of silver; the immediate imposition of an income tax; the immediate renunciation of our SOVereignty in the Philippines; the immediate reversal, in important respects, of the present policy of the United States in Cuba and Porto Rico; the immediate smashing of trusts, and the immediate and peremptory snubbing of England,-how could Mr. Bryan, with his positive programme, embracing all these and some other demands, with his unyielding strength of will and his scorn of half-measures and compromises, form a cabinet from his best-known supporters? In case of his election, it will be for him to answer the question; and, most assuredly, he will answer it in his own way, without casting about for hints and suggestions. There is, after all, something superb in Mr. Bryan's poise and self-confidence. There is nothing of a Hamlet about him, either in mind or in temper. His strength and vigor as a man are, in some sense, a disqualification for public affairs; for we do not get the best results from autocrats as presidents. And Bryan is the most autocratic person now in American public life, not excepting Hanna. To see what he would really do if put into the White House would be so interesting as to afford at least a partial compensation for some of those harmful consequences that the conservative mind has conjured up as probable.

The people of the British Isles have A Quick Campaign chosen a new House of Commons. in England. Their Parliamentary elections are not all held on the same day, but run through a period of about two weeks. This arrangement is for the benefit of proprietors owning land in different places, who are entitled to travel about the country and cast a vote wherever they have holdings. One of the chief demands of the Liberals, for a number of years past, has been "One Man-One Vote," as in the United States; the multiple vote of property-holders redounding chiefly to the benefit of the Tories. This year's

voting, which began on Monday, October 1, and ended virtually on the 13th, was upon the basis of the old registration of five years ago, and, of course, also upon an unchanged basis of distribution of seats-or apportionment, as we would say. The use of a five-year-old registration list or voting-roll" operated as a practical disfranchisement of many voters; and this was distinctly detrimental to the Liberals. The whole thing was put through with something like indecent haste. It was announced on September 17 that the old Parliament would be dissolved on September 25, and that its newly elected successor would assemble at Westminster on November 1. (It has now been decided, however, not to hold a session until February.)

The results of this English election With the Expected were a foregone conclusion. The Result. Ministerialists-to use the word that came to be quite generally adopted for those who were supporters of the Salisbury-Chamberlain government-have secured almost exactly the same majority in the new Parliament that they won five years ago. Although this is a large majority, about 132 in a total house of 670,-it is by no means, under all the circumstances, a highly brilliant victory. Modern England had never indulged in such transports and paroxysms of enthusiasm over anything else as over the pitiable war for the destruction of the two tiny Dutch republics of South Africa. And the election was held on the eve of Lord Roberts' formal announcement of the annexation of the Transvaal-the annexation of the Orange Free State having been accomplished several months earlier. To most Englishmen, the South African struggle has presented itself as a life-and-death matter for the British empire; and the ministry-perhaps less worthy of the nation's enthusiasm on its own pure merits than any ministry that England has had for a very long time-has been indorsed, not because it has been genuinely admired, but because there has seemed, to the majority of Englishmen, to be a supreme necessity for presenting to the

and united opposition, with an acknowledged leader and a definite policy of its own. The great army in South Africa-the largest ever sent so far away from home by any European country in modern times-was still encamped on hostile soil, not with great battles to fight, it is true, but with an irritating and difficult state of guerrilla warfare to contend with. This was not the moment for changing parties, nor was it a reasonable time for holding an election. The war cannot now be undone, needless and bad though it was; and the annexation of the Boer republics could not be reconsidered without producing a convulsion throughout the British empire. was indeed inevitable, when Krüger issued his ultimatum and made his appeal to arms, that British supremacy should be completely established in the Transvaal. As we have maintained from the beginning, there was nothing in the

It

practical alternatives that lay before Mr. Krüger and his colleagues at Pretoria that in the least justified war. So long as the contest was simply a diplomatic one, the people in England who sym. pathized with Mr. Krüger as against Mr. Joseph Chamberlain's diplomatic methods were many and influential. The only hope for the Boers lay in appeals to English public opinion. This chance was forfeited when resort was made to force. We do not, of course, justify the English Government in refusing arbitration; but the Boer ultimatum and invasion of Natal left England with nothing else to do than fight. And when a war comes, no matter what provoked it, any nation worthy to exist will fight as hard as it can. The English were at once committed irretrievably to the permanent reduction of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State.

the Work of

Standing by There may have been other solutions the Army in more ideal; but there was no other Africa. that was practical, in view of the exigencies of the British empire and the facts of human nature. The thing most to be desired, therefore, was that the war should be prosecuted with the utmost vigor, and brought to an end promptly, with the least suffering and loss of life on either side. The stubborn resistance of the Boers, after it was certain that they must yield in the end, may have been heroic from one point of view; but it was too cruel and useless to be admirable. Heroism is a word that should be kept to apply to cases where brave and self-sacrificing deeds have an adequate reason and motive. To continue fighting in a hopeless cause, merely through vindictive determination to make an enemy's victory cost him the more dearly, is not

SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN. (Liberal leader in House of Commons.)

heroic in the best sense. Considering their numbers, the Boers have displayed an amazing military prowess, and their officers in particular have shown qualities. by comparison with which the British officers have not gained admiration anywhere except in their own country. But the great, blundering British army in South Africa. has been brave, has done its best, has shed an appalling amount of blood, and has suffered almost indescribable hardships incident to the horrible regions in which it has had to march and fight and suffer from fevers. And from the point of view of this great army, still suffering in South Africa, and from that of the tens of thousands of enfeebled men invalided home, it would have been wellnigh inconceivable that the country should not have put the stamp of its approval upon them and their work. But how else could it show its appreciation and express its purpose to evolve some kind of valuable result out of the army's painful achievement except by taking the patriotic view of the war and the situation, and by voting to sustain the government.

are,

The Fate of the

Boers.

66

The vote was, therefore, not so much a vote of confidence in Salisbury, Chamberlain, Lord Lansdowne, secretary of state for war, and the rest of the ministry, as a vote recognizing things as they and indicating John Bull's firm determi nation to see a difficult piece of business clear through to a fixed and stable conclusion. Thoughtful people, in their calm and reflective moods, must admit that there are worse fates for small outlying regions in Asia, Africa, and other remote parts than to be brought under the protecting folds of the British flag and accorded the