President Faure at Chalons, had notified to the world the existence of a friendly understanding, and to their words nothing could be added. Thereupon there went by the board the last lingering hope that the friendly understanding had been converted into a binding treaty. Russia, in 1890, sought in vain for the renewal of the secret treaty with Gerwhich was to all intents and purposes equiva many, lent to a quasi-guarantee of the Treaty of Frankfort, for it bound over Russia to to friendly neutrality in case France went to war to snatch back the lost provinces. It was not until Count Caprivi had refused to renew that treaty that Russia began to coquette with France. After all these years, the courtship does not seem to have got farther than an affectionate understanding entered into by Russia, quite as much for the purpose of preventing France disturbing the peace of Europe as for any, love of the Republic.

"And who may he be?" asked her visitor in amazement. 66 Why, Monsieur Hanotaux," said she; "he does very well. I see no need for a colleague." It is a pretty phrase, and will serve to gild the pill, although it may be more correct to say that France has become a Russian dependency than that the French Foreign Minister is the successor of Prince Lobanoff.

The Ger

The Reichstag

man Reich

stag has had an op

and Bismarck's Revelations.

portunity

of debating the revelations made by Prince Bismarck; first as to the existence of the Treaty with Russia, and secondly, its annulment by Count Caprivi. The Foreign Minister made the best defence he could, and avoided saying anything with even more than the usual official capacity for using noncommittal terms, but like most discussions in Parliaments on foreign affairs, it came too late to do any good. What a farce representative Government is when foreign affairs are on the carpet. Here is the German Reichstag, the representative assembly of the German Empire, discussing for the first time, in 1896, a treaty which was made in 1884, the very existence of which was never whispered, much less debated, during all the years in which it governed the policy of Germany, and which was annulled in 1890, equally without the knowledge or consent of the Reichstag. Could anything illus trate more forcibly the emptiness of the theory that the Reichstag has any control over the foreign policy of the German Empire? There are some who believe that our English Parliament has almost as little say in the matter, and that no doubt is true, with one important proviso. Our Parliament cannot control

dream of revenge. Still, with all their skill at make-believe, the French made a wry face over the news that there was no treaty to be announced. As consolation to our susceptible neighbours, may I quote a bon mot of Madame Novikoff? Her Excellency, the other day, was listening to a discussion about the person who was to succeed Prince Lobanoff as Foreign Minister, when she suddenly exclaimed, "Why two? We have a very good one already."

maintenance in office upon the vote of the majority of the Reichstag. But, notwithstanding this difference, Lord Salisbury is probably as little hampered by our Parliament as Prince Bismarck was by his. Lord Salisbury's speech at the Guildhall has been accepted throughout Europe as an utterance making for peace. Lord Salisbury spoke smooth

Salisbury

on Salvation through the Sultanate.

words and prophesied peace. He praised the European concert, abjured all notion of isolated action, and beyond a significant hint that the salvation of Turkey was to be sought for through the Sultanate he did not say through the present Sultan-nothing was said that could make even the most sensitive of the Great Powers feel that we were going to precipitate the much dreaded war. So the order of the day is to do nothing, but to let the ambassadors exercise such pressure as they can, by hinting at the possible deposition of the Sultan, and

assuring each other all the time that they are so horribly afraid of the responsibility of bringing about a war, that they would rather allow the Sultan to bring it about himself. A contingency by no means improbable.

Sick unto Death.

I hear from Constantinople that M. Nelidoff takes the very gloomiest view as to the prospect in Turkey. No one knows better the utter rottenness of the whole fabric than the ambassador who has done his best to patch it up. Massacres continue to occur occasionally, and the ambassadors are so powerless that they cannot even secure safe conduct for the philanthropic agents who are charged with the distribution of the charity of Europe to the Armenian remnant. Under these circumstances it is not inconceivable that the plan which Mr. Stride puts forward in one of the American reviews might be realised, and the long continued agony of the Christian East once more compel Western Christendom to organise knight-hospitallers who would undertake to succour the wretched, even although the distribution of relief entailed at the same time the maintenance of a sufficient armed force to keep the marauders at bay.

Rumours of Partition.

Although all the Great Powers are pledging themselves to do nothing to bring about the partition of Turkey, and are pledging themselves more emphatically than ever to the maintenance of the territorial status quo, rumours are gaining ground that the Cabinets are discussing the possible eventuality of the break up of the Ottoman Empire. The visit of the Grand Duke Nicholas to Vienna has been made the occasion of a rumour to the effect that he was to sound the Emperor of Austria upon a provisional scheme of partition. Austria, according to this story, was to be allowed to go to Salonica; Italy was to have Albania; Russia, Asia Minor; and France, Syria; and we were to be allowed to retain Egypt. Some such scheme as this may possibly be floating about in the minds of continental statesmen, but its translation into actual fact would raise so many difficulties that the statesmen and sovereigns, who, as Lord Salisbury said, are trustees for their peoples, may be pardoned if they shrink, as from a nightmare, from the thought of a general partition.

Tho November Cabinets.

The November Cabinets have been held, but with rather less than the usual number of more or less authentic

reports as to the decision of Ministers. It is stated that the Cabinet has decided not to pro

pose any more legislation than can be helped. It will introduce a bill for increasing a grant to denominational schools. To this it was committed by its promise of last session, but to what extent it will depart from last year's programme is probably not even yet settled by the Cabinet, from which, be it remembered, Sir John Gorst has been jealously excluded. Instead of including a bill for Secondary Education in the bill dealing with Elementary schools, it is to be introduced as a separate measure,a sensible course which ought to facilitate its passing, whatever happens to the bill for subsidising the denominational schools.

The Hamburg Strike.

It

The proposal made by the Chief Constable, the Mayor, and the Chairman of the Trades Court in Hamburg, that the dispute which caused the dockers' strike in that seaport should be referred to arbitration, is a good sign. They suggest that a board of eight members should be formed, four to be elected by the dockersno award to be made unless six members concur. is significant of the difference between the two countries that a proposal which in England was made by a cardinal, in Germany emanated from the Chief Constable. Of the strike itself it is not necessary to say much here. Hamburg is one of the greatest and most prosperous seaports in the world. And strikes always occur when trade is rapidly improving or rapidly diminishing. It is the interest of all civilised men, and especially of a great commercial nation like the English, that these disputes should be settled as speedily and as peacefully as possible. But because Tom Mann, in his capacity as dockers' champion, was busy enough to get himself locked up at Hamburg as a foreign agitator, the German newspapers discover that the whole quarrel is due to British jealousy of German trades-a kind of outward and visible sign of John Bull's dislike to the demand for things "Made in Germany"! The commercial wars of modern times seem to be capable of generating as much insane jealousy per square inch as the revolutionary wars of a century since when Pitt was the bogey of the French nursery.

East Bradford Election.

The bye-election in East Bradford resulted in the return of a Unionist in the place of a Unionist. But he only polled a minority of the constituency, Mr. Billson, the Liberal, having 4,526 votes; Mr. Keir Hardie, the Independent Labour candidate, 1,953, or 6,479 votes against the Unionist candidate. Mr. Keir Hardie may be anything you please, but he is certainly not an advocate for things as they are in

Ireland or any other place. It is a pity that in a place like East Bradford some means could not be devised for taking a second ballot. This might at least be done experimentally. There would be no difficulty in getting to know every one who voted at the last election. Both parties might then agree to appoint an Election Committee, to issue ballot papers to all the electors who voted, after which they could be collected in sealed envelopes. Then, and not till then, we should be able to form some definite idea as to how many Unionists swell the I. L. P. poll. If we judge by the figures of the last election, Mr. Hardie drew 922 votes from the Unionists and 613 from the Liberals. But last election affords no stable data for calculating how things stand now.

The Coming Session.

There is an all round disposition to belittle the work of next Session. Parliament will meet on January 19th, and Ministers, it is expected, will content themselves with an irreducible minimum of measures to be announced in the Queen's speech. It is not expected that they will yield so far to the clamour of the Church party as to introduce any measure sanctioning Rate Aid for Voluntary Schools. What is more probable is that there will be a central grant, not made to all schools, but to needy schools -the need of the schools to be decided by some local representative body. Such, at least, is Sir William Hart Dyke's suggestion, and there seems some probability of its being accepted.

The Power Behind the Throne.

In discussing the Education Bill, it is well to remember that neither Lord Salisbury nor Lord Hartington will really decide this matter. All political questions are in the end financial questions, and the man who keeps the strong box of the Cabinet is a very strong man indeed. Sir Michael Hicks-Beach is not an heroic figure; he is not a very popular speaker; but upon most questions that come up in the Cabinet he has more to say than any of his colleagues. Take, for instance, this matter of educa tion. It is he who holds the strings of the purse, and although the Anglican Church plays the role of the importunate widow, it may weep and wail from morning until night without relaxing the heart of Sir Michael. In like manner it is probable that it is he who will decide definitely what is to be done in the way of carrying out the recommendations of the Recess Committee in Ireland. He is believed to hold very strong views in opposition to the finding of the Commission on the financial relations of the two countries, and although he is no more Irish

Secretary than he is Minister of Education, it will be found that he is the predominant Minister when these matters come up for settlement. It may be good advice, therefore, to journalists and politicians generally to keep their eye on Sir Michael HicksBeach.

Sir Michael's Veto.

A very remarkable illustration of the imperturbable doggedness of the man was afforded by his speech at Bristol last month. Lord Lansdowne was the chief speaker, and Lord Lansdowne, as Secretary for War, took occasion to launch a very carefully prepared manifesto in favour of the increase of the army estimates. He pointed out that the cost of the army had remained stationary, while that of the navy had more than doubled. For, at the present moment, instead of having a home battalion for every battalion abroad, there are no fewer than eleven battalions on foreign service which ought to be serving at the home depôts.

So

Lord Lansdowne went on pointing out that even if the army were regarded solely as the handmaid and fidus Achates of the navy, it must be kept up, if only for the sake of the coaling stations, without which our ironclads would be but logs in the water. It was a powerful manifesto, and there was much in it to which it would be very difficult to frame a plausible reply. But Sir Michael HicksBeach was present, and no sooner had Lord Lans downe sat down than he got up, and in a very few sentences made it perfectly clear that as long as he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, Lord Lansdowne might whistle for his money. With a calm outspokeness, almost approaching to brutality, he told Lord Lansdowne that the army had money enough already, and should make better use of the money it had instead of clamouring for more. A Chancellor of the Exchequer who is capable of saying that on the spot immediately after the delivery of such a manifesto by the Secretary of State for War, is clearly one who does not intend to allow any of his prerogatives to perish of atrophy.

and Montrose boroughs, there was by no means any passionate indignation against those who might be held responsible for Lord Rosebery's resignation. Neither was there any passionate enthusiasm for calling Lord Rosebery back again. The Scotch people seem to have taken their countryman's resignation of the Liberal leadership with phlegmatic indifference, nor were there any signs that Sir William Harcourt stands less well than he did in the estimation of the Scotch electorate. Mr. Morley made reference to the American Presidential election in terms which were as judicious and well weighed as those of Lord Salisbury were the reverse.

Lord Salisbury's ndiscretion.

It would be a mistake to take too seriously the angry protests that have been made in the United States against Lord Salisbury's declaration. that the victory of Mr. Bryan would have wrecked the peace which lies at the basis of civilisation. It would have been wiser if Lord Salisbury had not said it, because it is never well for the head of a foreign government to echo the invectives which the victorious political party has hurled against its adversaries. It is like interfering between a man and his wife when they are quarrelling: the immediate result is to unite both parties against yourself. As a matter of fact, Lord Salisbury has neither the time nor the opportunity to form a dispassionate judgment of the issues which divided parties at the last election in the United States. What he did was to take the New York correspondence in the London daily papers as sufficient guide, and as these correspondents, notably Mr. Smalley, were heart and soul with the McKinleyites, they naturally made out that Mr. Bryan and his supporters were enemies of the human race. An English friend of mine in the United States writes to me, declaring, apropos of this and other matters, that if ever England and the United States should be so unfortunate as to quarrel, the blame will lie more at the door of Mr. Smalley than any other man. It is a thousand pities that so prejudiced an observer should be the chief medium for communicating American news to the British public.

seven.

But far more significant than the votes of the States is the popular vote. Never before in an American election has the winning candidate polled 2 million more votes than his adversary. Sometimes, indeed, as in the case of Benjamin Harrison, the winning candidate polled fewer votes than his opponent, but as the majority in the Electoral College voted for Harrison, the majority of the mass vote did not count. This year the plébiscite and the majority in the Electoral College will be in accord, and Dr. Shaw, I see, regards the vote as final and conclusive. Mr. Bryan evidently does not think so, and the Free Silverites are putting about strange stories as to the way in which the unprecedented popular majority was obtained for McKinley. An American correspondent who has been in the thick of the fight sends me an extraordinary story about an alleged band of four hundred colonisers or repeaters who were sent down to Chicago on polling-day in order to vote at the election. Each of these colonisers had registered in 150 precincts or polling-stations, of which there are 900 in Chicago. By this means each of the 400 were able to vote 150 times, a practice which would account for 60,000 of the McKinley votes in Chicago. This story, which, frankly speaking, I totally disbelieve, is said to rest on the authority of one of the gallant 400 who revealed the secret, and maintained that he and his friends received £10 a day and their expenses. There is no doubt that money was spent like water by Mr. Hanna on behalf of Mr. McKinley, but that colonising on anything approaching such a colossal scale as this was carried on in Chicago, or anywhere else, is simply incredible. At the same time we may expect to hear some strange stories as to the way in which McKinley's majority was piled up. The net result

of the election leaves the territorial distribution of parties much the same. The democrats have lost two of the Pacific States, and the fringe States of Kentucky, West Virginia, and Maryland. Everywhere else they hold their own, and so far as mere area of territory goes, without regard to the number of inhabitants, the United States are more for Bryan than for McKinley. When six millions of adult male citizens have recorded their votes for a candidate, who better than any other embodies their aspirations and their hopes, it is an indiscretion, perhaps even a blazing indiscretion, for the Prime Minister of another country to proclaim to the world that their victory would have wrecked the principles that lie at the base of human society.

The Next

Candidate.

The House of Representatives is, of course, overwhelmingly Republican. Republican The Senate will be very evenly balanced, and the best authorities show consider able reserve in making a calculation as to the ultimate balance of parties among the senators. One of the most interesting features of the November elections was the return of Mayor Pingree of Detroit at the head of the poll as Governor of the State of Michigan. Governor Pingree, as we must henceforth call him, is a Republican, who, so far as an outsider can see, of all Republicans will stand the best chance of being next President after McKinley. Mr. Pingree has long been far and away the most remarkable mayor in the United States, and he, more than any of the notable Republicans, is in sympathy with all that is good and true on the Bryanite platform. The election of Mr. McKinley by the combined forces of the party bosses and the great moneyed monopolists will inevitably produce a reaction; and if the Republican party has not to be swamped at the polls of 1900, it will have to put in the field a candidate who will be as different as possible from McKinley on the crucial question of subservience to the money power. Now, if all the United States were searched through, they would show no man who would more exactly meet the exigencies of such a position than Governor Pingree. It will be more than three years before the Republic Convention has to choose its candidate ; but speaking, as I say, from the outsider's point of view, and only taking into account the great issues and the leading tendencies both political and personal, I see no man on the American horizon who is more likely to occupy the White House in succession to Mr. McKinley than Governor Pingree.

Virements in the

Council.

During the French Empire a practice became very popular in the great London County spending departments which was known by the convenient name of Virements, Virements was the term used to describe the transfer of money voted by one department for the expenditure of another. After the Empire fell, rigid Republican investigators discovered that the system had been carried to such an extent as to entirely destroy any financial check. Money that was voted for the fleet would be used for building a prefect's house, while moneys voted for buying powder and shot would be appropriated to decorating an Imperial pavilion. This last month the London County Council discovered among the officials of its Works Department the beginning of a system of virement which, if it had not been promptly checked, might