nominations, though even this is not made compulsory for the few children whose parents object to it. The question of increased aid to the voluntary or denominational schools, which formed one of the chief debates in the last session of parliament (p. 418), will doubtless be urged in some form by the conservative majority in the coming session.

For the purpose of indicating the general lines of a satisfactory change in the laws, a conference, informal though important, of the convocations of Canterbury and York, including bishops, clergy, and laymen, met at Westminster, November 6. The archbishop of York presided. The archbishop-designate of Canterbury (Dr. Temple, since consecrated) moved resolutions which were seconded by the bishop of Manchester, and-after earnest discussion and slight changes-were adopted, to the following effect:

1. That the government be asked for a grant from the imperial exchequer of not less than six shillings per child in all public elementary schools alike.-This is statutory aid.

2. That the said grant, in the case of voluntary schools, be paid only to federations of schools.-Various provisions are added concerning the federations.

3. That aid be asked from the rates (i.e., local taxation), a, in school-board districts only; b, this aid to be expended within the district in which it is raised; c, to be payable only to federations of schools; d, not to exceed the total of all voluntary contributions.

Other provisions establish the right of any denomination to establish its own schools, and in them to appoint teachers and control the religious teaching, while using both the national grant and the local aid.

The spirit in which this elaborate system of changes is demanded by the Anglican Church is illustrated by the fact that the plan is deemed by the bishops a compromise. It seems scarcely possible that the government will introduce a bill enacting any such system into law. Yet the pecuniary bait which the plan evidently offers to every imaginable denomination may, in the view of its promoters, promise success.

Cardinal Vaughan and the Roman Catholic bishops also have issued an appeal to the people to place all public elementary schools on a basis of equality as to "maintenance."

The Irish Financial Question.-In Ireland, dry summer weather on the hills and floods of autumn rains on the lowlands have caused failure of the potato crop. In the lack of general diversification of industries, the condition is distressing and alarming.

Distress is the soil in which Irish questions take root. and flourish; and in the autumn a quite new and vigorous

question was supplied in the report of the royal commission on financial relations. This commission was appointed in connection with the home-rule debate in 1893, and its report is considered by Irishmen of all classes, and parties, and sects, as showing the existence through fortyfive years of a stupendous Irish grievance-indeed an actual robbery of the isle by its larger and far richer neighbor isle. On the

basis of that report the statement is made, that by reason of over-taxation England now owes Ireland not less than £100,000,000, and should both pay this and henceforth reduce Irish taxation by £2,500,000 a year. The Irish claim rests in part on the asserted principle that the tax-rate in a poor country should be lower proportionately than in a rich country, and in part on the fact that the excise tax is actually higher in Ireland than in England. The English reply to the principle is that it is absurd and impossible of application: to the fact the

reply is that as the excise is a tax on whisky the Irish can easily reduce it by reducing their harmful excess of consumption.

The case is too recently opened to admit full statement at this stage. A thorough discussion of it is in near prospect. Meanwhile it threatens the conservative-unionist party with the opposition of many of its Irish adherents.

The Welsh Land Commission.-The report of this commission appointed by Mr. Gladstone's government was issued about November 1. Its appalling length seems due to a great mass of irrelevant historical, scientific, and theoretical material.

Its recommendation for large amendment of the agricultural

holdings act of 1883 expresses a conviction already become quite general. Its proposal of a land court with power to fix rentals and conditions of tenancy, will be disputed. Other recommendations concern association of farmers and extension of agricultural education. It advises a commission for investigation of the whole question of taxation on realty and personalty.

The British Empire League.-At a meeting of the league at the Guildhall, London, December 3, the Duke of Devonshire was elected president. This body takes the place of the Imperial Federation League, for whose dazzling aspirations it aims to substitute practicable suggestions (p. 170). The duke, in a lucid address, while conceding that the practicable movement for constitutional changes in the relations between Great Britain and her colonies and for imperial commercial unity, had been in some degree disappointing, alleged that the public mind had been aroused and informed, and that "imperial unity as a sentiment, as an inspiration," had been promoted. "Throughout the colonies the vital bond of patriotism had been strengthened.

The tone of the discussions, while showing a general acceptance of Mr. Chamberlain's principle that the question of imperial unity is to be approached first on its commercial side, tended to emphasize as an immediate object the provision for defense of the colonial possessions. The Colonial Defense committee was praised for its complete and carefully studied scheme embracing every colony, assigning the large duties devolving on the admiralty, and defining the kind and degree of minor local defense which the several colonies ought to provide.

Intra-Imperial Communication.-One of the signs of growth in the sentiment of imperial unity is seen in the extended movements in the colonies to provide lines of communication among themselves and with the mother country.

The Pacific cable conference was in session in London in November. Its doings are not made public; but it is understood that the great practical difficulties of the enterprise are not to be allowed to prevent its being pushed to speedy success. At one end of the proposed line the new mining interest in British Columbia, and at the other end the demand for expansion of Australian trade, add urgency to this project.

As to transit and transport the intention is announced to establish a fast steamship line between Canada and Britain, rivalling in service and speed the best of the Atlantic lines. Local railway construction on a large scale is going on in nearly all the colonies.

English Agricultural Prospects.-Some economists are making forecasts highly encouraging to English wheat raisers. Their view is here given.

Britain has been flooded with American grain for fifteen years since 1882, when the region west of the Missouri was entered by a farming population. But now, while the population in the United States is increasing, the wheat acreage is not; and at last English wheat is underselling American. The era of low prices is ended. The grain export of Russia is no longer so heavy as to depress the market. Argentina is not, in spite of the rumors of increasing wheat production, to any great extent increasing its grain acreage: its agriculturists are said to be nomadic, abandoning about as much old land as they open new. India is no longer an exporter at all. A political bearing of this forecast appears in the prediction that for English. agriculture "the rock ahead is the labor bill.”

The New Archbishop of Canterbury.-On Sunday, October 11, during morning service in Hawarden church, occurred the sudden death from heart-failure of the Right Honorable and Most Reverend Edward White Benson, who for fourteen years as archbishop of Canterbury and primate of all England had held the highest ecclesiastical position in the English Church. He was the ninetysecond in succession from Archbishop Augustine, under whom the see of Canterbury was established in 601. For a biographical sketch of Archbishop Benson, see Necrology.

In the latter part of October the English Church and all England were startled by Lord Salisbury's selection of the Right Honorable and Right Reverend Frederick Temple, bishop of London, to be the new archbishop of Canterbury. Many things made this appointment a surprise. Dr. Temple was nearly seventy-five years of age; and the duties of the office are many and onerous. He is a broad churchman, or at least was bitterly denounced years ago for a breadth that, in the eyes of those who denounced him, passed into dangerous heresy-Lord Salisbury being a high churchman. He is a liberal in politics, whom in 1869 Mr. Gladstone appointed bishop of Exeter as a sequel to his vigorous advocacy of disestablishment of the Irish Church: his brusque manners and cold demeanor have repelled many who might have loved him had they been led fully to know him.

When the first surprise had passed, the public remembered that there are men younger at seventy-five than the average of men at sixty, and that Dr. Temple was one of the youthful old men-well known as a man of unlimited willingness to work, with an astonishing genius for busi

ness details, and with a wonderful record in his two bishoprics as an organizer and administrator. As to his theological unsoundness-as shown in the book Essays and Reviews, containing seven papers by seven authors, of whom every one disclaimed responsibility for aught besides his own production-men who felt sure that the unsoundness was there because they had seen it or heard

that many others had seen it there thirty-six years ago, met disappointment when they sought in its pages to enjoy anew the pious exhilaration of their former fright. Though they found in some of the essays what might be deemed wild speculation, lame logic, and theological misstatement; and in some others views novel a generation ago and therefore classed as dangerous, but now in part accepted and in part let alone as harmless; the book as a whole could no longer be dignified as a terror. And Dr. Temple's essay, the first in the book, seemed comparatively harmless. Behind his brusqueness of manner, it is now known, is not only justice but also sympathetic tenderness toward troubled souls. It is not strange therefore that the protest by which one person interrupted for a moment the service of his consecration on December 22 failed to command any respect.

TEMPLE, FREDERICK, son of a British official, was born in the Ionian Isles, November 30, 1821. He was educated in the grammar school at Tiverton, and, passing to Oxford, took his degree B. A. as a double first class in 1842, and was elected fellow and mathematical tutor of Balliol College. A few years later he was ordained deacon and priest. Appointed inspector of schools, he showed such administrative powers that in 1858 he was made head master of Rugby School, where his firm but kindly rule is well remembered. His nomination as bishop of Exeter by Mr. Gladstone raised a storm of op