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THE MOST REV. FREDERICK TEMPLE, D.D., THE NEW ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY.

FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY RUSSELL AND SONS, BAKER STREET,

Europe in Sight Again.

LONDON, November 4, 1896. Yesterday a very important announcement was made from the French Tribune. M. Hanotaux, Minister of Foreign Affairs, speaking in reply to an interpellation on the Eastern Question, made an announcement which, if it can be accepted in its literal sense, is an event of the first importance; more important even than the American Presidential Election. For M. Hanotaux announced, almost in so many words, that the paralysis of the Powers was at an end, and that Europe was once more in sight. It seems that when the Tsar visited Paris precise views were exchanged, and community of points of view and interests had been arrived at between France and Russia, with the result that M. Hanotaux declares his firm confidence that the solutions now contemplated will answer the views of all the other Cabinets, and the needs of the situation in the East. What these solutions were he did not explain beyond laying down certain principles with which we are First, that heartily in accord. the territorial integrity of the Ottoman Empire must be preserved ; secondly, that there must be no isolated action on the part of any Powers; thirdly, that in order to prevent the territorial disruption of Turkey and the single-handed action of any Power, it is necessary to deprive the Sultan of any direct authority over the provinces nominally left in his control. The fourth condition is fairly deducible from the somewhat involved and mysterious utterances of the French Minister. What the Powers intend to do remains still shrouded in mystery, but that is of not so much importance; the great thing is that at last, if we may believe M. Hanotaux, they have actually made up their minds to do something, and if they do anything, they will have to do much.

Yesterday, Mr. McKinley was elected The New American President of the United States after the

President. greatest poll ever taken in the history of the world. The full details of the polling have not yet come to hand, but sufficient is known to make it clear that McKinley has been elected, and that by a smashing majority. The millionaires have triumphed with a vengeance, and they have done so because they used the machine to manipulate the

The

of the Poll.

million-headed electorate. Money and organisation, however, by themselves might have failed to secure the overwhelming victory which has rewarded the efforts of the Republicans. The real secret of their overwhelming poll must be sought in the deeply ingrained Conservatism of the American people, their constitutional disinclination to venture into new paths, the effective methods by which the inherent absurdity and material risks of the free silver scheme were brought home to the common sense of the people, and lastly, to the moral enthusiasm which was roused by an appeal to the sentiment of national unity and of common honesty. If Bryan's platform had been as good in every plank as were the best of its proposals, he would still have been defeated, although not by so overwhelming a majority. As it was, all the excellent and liberal proposals which he advocated were hopelessly handicapped by their association with the demand which could be plausibly represented as a repudiation of fifty per cent. of all debts. However much it may have been desired Significance that the liberal and anti-monopolist features in Bryan's programme should have saved him from the overwhelming defeat by which, in the American phrase, he has been "snowed under," there is no doubt that the earthquake which has engulfed him and his sup porters will tend to increase public confidence in the stability of the American Republic and in the sober second thoughts of the American democracy. It is evident, even from the partial returns now before me, that the Republican rally is by no means confined to any district or section of the community. Both in the South and the West, Bryan has failed to hold States which he confidently calculated upon carrying by decisive majorities, while in the Middle States, which held the casting vote, he has been simply beaten out of the field. Mr. Altgeld, who for the last four years has been one of the most conspicuous personages in American politics, has been cast out of his Governorship by, a six-figure majority. Altogether, there seems to be little doubt that the citizens of the United States are what we always believed them to be, only a trifle more conservative, and more disposed to put up with evils which they know than to resort to remedies which are new and untried.

The

of the

The Election in itself, apart from the Significance personality of the candidates, had in it something of the sublime. The summonElection. ing of a nation of sixty-five millions, more polyglot and multifarious in their origin than the conglomerate assembly of the day of Pentecost, to give a deliberate judgment about anything is in itself an imposing thing. But when the issue upon which this national jury is invited to decide is a question of currency a question, that is, upon which experts differ as much and as hotly as theological polemists upon the definition of the Trinity or the nature of the Sacrament—the appeal is enough to impress the imagination of the most heedless. Nothing, not even Gettysburg and the suppression of the Rebellion, illustrates more characteristically the heroic matter-of-factness of our American kinsmen. The currency question having arisen, it was necessary to settle it, and as there is in a Republic only one Supreme Court of Appeal-the mass vote of the whole nation-the case was carried thither and argued out with painstaking minuteness in every detail before the million-headed jury. Yesterday, counsel on both sides having been fully heard, the verdict was returned at the ballot box. Whatever we may think either of the issue or of the result, no one who reflects upon the immense difficulty of bringing a complex and obscure question like the currency home to the minds of any popular constituency, can refrain from hearty admiration for the splendid way in which the American people have demonstrated, on a scale without previous example in the history of the world, how a self-governing democracy so large as to need a continent for its habitation can debate and decide in full Agora the most abstruse of political and financial problems. It gives one a new hope for the human race. After this we need not despair even of a national referendum on the doctrine of Filioque or the nature of interstellar Ether. In either case we might at least expect the problem would be debated with equal warmth, the issues stated and illustrated with the same painstaking energy, and the verdict pronounced with equal confidence. result might be wrong, but that may be said of every human judgment, even of that of the infallible Pope

himself.

How it was Conducted.

The

The contest, some account of which will be found elsewhere, appears to have been one of the best conducted campaigns in electoral history. Both candidates were men of good character, and from first to last they debated the questions at issue with a seriousness worthy the

theme and the occasion. Mr. McKinley stood on his doorstep, and from day to day harangued pilgrim thousands whom the railways brought to do homage from the uttermost parts of the Union. Money was no object with the Republican managers, and there is obviously a great advantage in sparing your candidate the racket of a stumping tour across a continent. In Mr. Bryan's case—the cash being lacking-the mountain would not come to Mahomet, so Mahomet had to go to the mountain, and this he did with a vengeance. Mr. Bryan justified his choice from the point of view of the stump. Never before has a candidate for the Presidency made himself personally visible and audible to so many millions of the electors. It marks a great change in American electoral methods. Formerly the presidential candidate was kept almost in seclusion, as a kind of Mikado in incubation, until the election was over. This year this tradition has been reversed. Both candidates being capable speakers it was decided they should do their own talking, and they did it with a vengeance. But for the sounding-board of the press all their talking would, however, have failed to reach more than a fraction of the electorate. Thanks to the newspapers, every man, woman, and child, from Maine to California, had ample opportunities long before the day of election for forming a judgment upon the merits of the question. It is probable that if all American children between ten and twenty had been admitted to yesterday's poll, they would have voted as extensively and possibly not less intelligently than the adult males who were permitted to cast their ballots. The same thing may possibly be said about women-miracles, apparently, being the order of the day in the United States.

The

of the Ballot.

According to the odds quoted in the Uncertainty papers-but nothing is known as to how far the quotations were honestly collected over the whole area of the Union-Bryan started first favourite, the votes being even with a preference for Bryan. Then he gradually receded to two to one, then to three to one. The day before the poll the quotation was four to one. Betting is a re prehensible feature of an election, but the quotations of the odds at least have one advantage. stake with some approach to quantitative precision the prevailing estimate of respective chances. Judged by this test, Bryan receded steadily in popular estimation from the day after his nomination. McKinley had all the money there was in the fight. The Republican machine worked with the steadiness

They

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of a dynamo. An overwhelming majority of all the articulate forces of press and pulpit were on his side. From ordinary data it was Lombard Street to a China orange against Bryan. Yet so impenetrable is the secret of the ballot, so impossible is it to divine in advance the preferences of the inarticulate million, that the best judges held their judgment in suspense, feeling only that if Bryan were returned, it would be the landslide of a continent.

How it was regarded in England.

No contest has been watched with more interest in England, despite the scan. dalous failure of our press to provide any adequate narrative of the great duel in the United States. Occasionally a correspondent would make a foray from New York, but the most of them remained glued to their chairs in Broadway, cabling everything across as seen through the New York press.

In this country the general sentiment has been that it would be better for England if McKinley were elected, despite his tariff-for Bryan's election would, it was feared, create a panic injuriously affecting all investments and all business. Personally, writing this on the eve of the polling day, I should prefer to see McKinley returned by a small majority. Bryan's defeat would probably dispose of Free Silver; and if he made any figure at all with the odds against him, it would give the hidebound Conservatism of the American plutocracy a much-needed shock. If McKinley won hands down, the Money power of trusts, railways, and combines of all kinds would feel so strong as to render by no means impossible a quasi-revolutionary reaction. The real permanent element behind Bryan is not Silver, but Altgeld. And we may expect, if Bryan polls up, to see the two great parties in future arranging themselves somewhat on English lines. The Republicans will be even as our Unionists, the Democrats as our Radicals-with the difference that the Republicans are more Conservative than our Tories, and the Democrats are hardly as advanced as our old Whigs.

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over

The most absolute sovereign in Europe was whelmed with adulation by the Republic which is the heir and embodiment of the principles of the French Revolution. A monarch whose every servant-if Orthodox-must take the Sacrament at least once a year in token of their sincere belief in the mysterious dogmas of the Filioque which divides the Eastern from the Western Church, was accorded more than royal honours by a nation which, so far as it believes anything as the eldest son of the Western Church, and so far as its real belief goes, is Voltairean, free-thinking and materialistic. At Cherbourg, at Paris, and at Chalons, the Tsar and Tsaritsa were overwhelmed by the devotion and the enthusiasm of the whole people. These two nations-France and Russia-represent the opposite poles of political and religious thought. They are the extremes of Europe, yet they have met, met and mingled with a warmth of enthusiasm hitherto without precedent. And why? What alembic has been powerful enough thus to dissolve the ancient traditions of national hate and to enable the two peoples to fraternise despite every conceivable difference of race, religion, civilization, language, and ideals? The alembic of fear. The dread of war, and the distrust of a common neighbour-it is these devils which have driven out the other devil of national antagonism, and confronted the world with the Franco-Russian Alliance.

Another Alliance

or

Wanted They greatly mistake, and there are many such in Paris, who imagine that the Franco-Russian Alliance advances France Pact of Peace. a stage on the road to the Revanche and revindication of Elsass-Lothringen. In reality its effect is precisely the reverse. It is, in effect, a virtual guarantee of the Treaty of Frankfort by the signature of Russia. The Alliance is defensive, not offensive, and it is based on the status quo. France is not to disturb the peace, either by attacking Germany about Elsass or England about Egypt. Such at least is believed in well-informed quarters to be the understanding underlying the new Pact, which, by salving French amour propre and consecrating the status quo, operates as a New Pact of Peace. Europe therefore has two peace Leagues: the Triple Alliance

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