McKinley and

President McKinley issued his party manifesto on September 10th, and Bryan on Trusts. before the middle of October millions of copies of it will have been distributed throughout the States. After the usual complacent survey of the excellent results which have followed a Republican administration in improving the national credit, Mr. McKinley insists upon the importance of a merchant marine for America. At present 91 per cent. of American trade is carried in foreign ships. He predicts that next session will make provision for the sure accomplishment of the construction of the Nicaragua Canal. The following The following is what Mr. McKinley has to say on the subject:— "Honest co-operation of capital is necessary to meet new business conditions and extend our rapidly increasing foreign trade; but conspiracies and combinations, intended to restrict business, create monopolies, and control prices, should be effectively restrained." He points to publicity as a helpful influence, and suggests uniformity of legislation in the several States. "Combinations of capital which control the market in commodities necessary to the general use of the people, by suppressing natural and ordinary competition, thus enhancing prices to the general consumer," he considers "obnoxious to the common law and the public welfare"; calls them "dangerous conspiracies," and says they "ought to be subject to prohibitory or penal legislation."

It is interesting to compare this with what Mr. Bryan has to say upon the same subject:

Our platform, after suggesting certain specific remedies, pledges the party to an unceasing warfare against private monopoly in nation, State and city. I heartily approve of this promise; if elected, it shall be my earnest and constant endeavour to fulfil the promise in letter and spirit. I shall select an Attorney-General who will, without fear or favour, enforce existing laws; I shall recommend such additional legislation as may be necessary to dissolve every private monopoly which does business outside of the State of its origin; and if, contrary to my belief and hope, a Constitutional amendment is found to be necessary, I shall recommend such an amendment as will, without impairing any of the existing rights of the States, empower Congress to protect the people of all the States from injury at the hands of individuals or corporations engaged in inter-State com

merce.

The Future of Cuba.

Mr. McKinley claims that America has done excellent work in Cuba; her garrisons have been reduced from 43,000 to less than 6,000 soldiers, and a constitutional convention is to meet on the first Monday in November to frame a constitution upon which an independent government for the island will rest. "All this is a long step to the fulfilment of our sacred guarantees to the people of Cuba." The question of the future of Cuba appears to be pretty warmly discussed in the United States. Mr. Olney, President Cleveland's former Secretary of State, has rallied to the side of Mr. Bryan, chiefly on the ground of his opposition to the Philippine annexation, but in the declaration which he has published in support of Mr. Bryan's candidature he declares that "Cuba is the key to the Gulf of Mexico, and absolutely essential to our defence against foreign attack." Mr. Beveridge, of Indiana, goes a step further, and declares that "the United States needs Cuba for our protection, but Cuba needs the United States for Cuba's salvation." Dr. Shaw contests the assumption of Mr. Beveridge that Cuba is really to be given her independence in the fullest and most unqualified sense. “Mr. McKinley," he says, was in no way responsible for the absurd and mischievous pledge made by Congress to the effect that we were not going to annex Cuba." Dr. Shaw's method of evading the fulfilment of that pledge is to give Cuba five years more of its present régime, régime, "after which it ought to have perhaps ten years of territorial government like that of Oklahoma, New Mexico; and then it ought to be admitted as a sovereign state into the Union." This may be best for Cuba, but it would be somewhat difficult to reconcile it with the pledge to give Cuba the independence which even Senator Lodge thinks ought to be scrupulously fulfilled. Note that the American garrison of Porto Rico has been reduced.

The Philippines.

The question of the Philippines naturally occupies a leading place in President McKinley's manifesto. He declares "it is our purpose to establish in the Philippines a Government suitable to the wants and conditions of the inhabitants, and to prepare them for self-government and to give them self-government when they are ready for it, and as rapidly as they are ready for it." He maintains that the opposition of the Democrats to his policy is encouraging the hopes of the insurgents, and so protracting the war. "But for these false hopes," he "a considerable reduction could have been made says,

The

in our occupation of the Philippines, and the realisation of a stable government would already be at hand." This may be so, but it was something more solid than the visionary hopes of a Democratic success which enabled the Filipinos at the close of last month to surprise a detachment of American troops in ambush, and inflict upon American arms one of the most serious reverses that they have experienced in the course of the present war. The issue, however, between the annexationists and non-annexationists can hardly be said to be clearly joined, seeing that Mr. Bryan has committed himself to the doctrine that the Americans must establish a stable government in these islands as a preliminary to their conversion into an independent Republic. Governments established by foreign armies are never stable when those armies are withdrawn. It is easy to understand Mr. Bryan's dilemma, but if he had had the vast and varied experience which John Bull has had in attempting to establish stable governments in various countries, Egypt included, he would have thought twice and even thrice before he had committed himself to the doctrine that Americans have to establish a stable government before retiring from the Philippines. The situation in China continues very much in statu quo. Every Chinese Puzzle. week has brought forth a fresh crop of stories as to what this, that or the other Power was going to do, but September closed with the announcement that the Russians intended to stick to their declared policy of evacuating Peking, and withdrawing both their legation and their garrison. to Tientsin. Germany has taken the lead in the negotiations, but so far they have led to no result. The German Emperor proposes that the punishment of the criminals responsible for the massacre should be preliminary to any settlement of the Chinese question; and to-day the papers contain a curious letter addressed by the Kaiser to the Emperor of China, in which he maintains more emphatically than ever that those responsible for the massacres must be punished. The Empress and Prince Tuan remain in the interior; nor are these demands for condign punishment of all responsible for recent massacres calculated to lure them back to Peking. It is tolerably plain that, although the Dowager Empress may have vacillated from time to time in her support of the Boxers, the Boxer movement had her hearty sympathy, and that she would have been only too well pleased if all the foreigners in China had had but one neck between them, and she could have severed it at a blow. Prince Tuan is even more

directly responsible for the massacres which the German Emperor declares must be expiated by the punishment of their authors. In other words, while the German Emperor with one hand extends an invitation to the Dowager Empress and Prince Tuan to return to Peking, with the other he tells them that the first thing they have got to do is to permit him to cut off their heads. "Ducky, ducky, come and be killed!" is not an invitation which either in the poultry-yard or in the Chinese Empire is likely to meet with a cordial response.

What Should be Our

It is much to be deplored that in the
General Election neither party appear

Policy in China? to have any definite idea as to the true policy to be pursued in China. Lord Salisbury has not yet replied to the German Emperor's Circular, and Lord Rosebery makes no allusion whatever to what ought to be done in China. Yet compared with the importance of deciding what course we should adopt in China, the South African problem is a mere affair of the parish pump. The Russians have officially contradicted the story that they have annexed Manchuria, yet there seems to be too much reason to believe that the punishment of the Chinese for the attack upon Russian territory has been carried out with a severity and a brutality against which there would have been stronger protests in this country if our hands had not been reeking with innocent blood unjustly shed in the Dutch Republics. One secret both of the strength and the weakness of Russia as a civilising Power in Asia is that she is much more Asiatic than European, and General Gribsky's proclamation that any shot fired against a Russian soldier would be followed by the immediate extermination of the entire population of the village from which the shot was fired, is even more barbarous than the order said to be issued by Lord Roberts that every Dutch homestead in the Transvaal within a radius of ten miles should be reduced to ashes whenever any attack was made upon railway communications. Two blacks do not make one white, and there is not a word to be said in justification of a policy of massacre even in the Far East; but as for protesting against it in the name of humanity, that must be left to nations with a cleaner record than that of which we can boast.

first, making war upon the de facto Chinese Government, and secondly, the assumption of the responsibility for governing the Chinese Empire. We are neither morally nor materially equa ic the task. The only result of attempting to undertake it would be to render inevitable that partition of some of the Chinese provinces which will sooner or later bring about a general war. It is very grievous to have to admit that murderers should escape unwhipped of justice. But Europe decided a few years since that even the punishment of wholesale massacre should not be attempted if it entailed an imminent risk of a European war. To have punished Abdul Hamid would have been child's play compared with the task of avenging the massacre of missionaries and the German Ambassador in China. Our policy in China, as elsewhere in Asia, is to work together with Russia. Her interests are mainly political; ours are exclusively commercial. ought to be no difficulty in arriving at an understanding with the Tsar for adopting a common Chinese policy, which would have as its chief aim the maintenance of the status quo and the avoidance of any action calculated to replace the Chinese Government by a European Administration.

There

Sir Francis Plunkett,

(Recently appointed British Ambassador to Austria from Belgium.)

we could not treat with the Chinese Government; but after their rescue, no state of war existing between the people and Government of the United States and those of China, it remained to plan for the withdrawal of our troops as soon as prudence and common sense might justify such a step, and then to negotiate with the Imperial Government of China for a reasonable indemnity and guarantees of future good behaviour. Our Government was ready enough, therefore, when a month ago Russia proposed the withdrawal of troops from Pekin, to express approval of that plan, provided it could be generally agreed to.

It is a notorious fact that the European Powers have been greedily planning to seize and cut up China at the very first opportunity. The thing that is necessary is to encourage and to require the firm establishment in authority of a liberal Chinese imperial government, such as the young Emperor himself could successfully carry on if the Dowager Empress and a dozen of her malign advisers could be deported for life.

England in a languid way prefers that China should not be partitioned; these things should not happen; but England meanwhile is making all her plans to console herself by seizing, as she has always done in the past, a good deal more than anybody else, if the game of grab once fairly sets in. France, also, is definitely prepared to advance from her existing bases. If China had been wise enough to maintain a liberal government for a considerable length of time, the country would have made such progress that it could have relied upon its own army to protect it efficiently against these unscrupulous European foes. It will be the duty of the United States to speak with the utmost plainness in condemnation of the European policy of Chinese spoliation, but it will not be possible for us to fight about it; and the only thing

Reviews, says:

The programme of the United States has been clear from the beginning. Until the foreigners were rescued,

they show a readiness to permit the Europeans to partition and annex their country, the thing will inevitably come to pass.

There are intelligent Chinese Ministers in the principal capitals of the world. These ought to secure from whatever imperial authority may exist in China the permission to ask that the whole perplexing situation be submitted to a court of inquiry of the kind provided for in the treaty adopted at the Hague. And the United States, in any case, could hardly err in earnestly promoting that view. Of course, there can be no military withdrawal until order has been restored in China and a government capable of maintaining authority is in undisturbed control of the situation.

in the

In South Africa the resistance of The War goes on the Boers collapsed more rapidly Transvaal. than was anticipated, and the departure of President Kruger to Lorenzo Marques has been generally accepted as a signal that the war was at an end. This is, however, very far from being the case. Although nearly every day brought a fresh bulletin of the victorious capture of the flocks and herds of the Boers, Lord Roberts has been unable to prevent them from destroying or removing the whole of their artillery. Generals De Wet and Botha, by far the ablest Boer generals, are still at large, and apparently can command the devoted allegiance of some 10,000 desperate men. The Transvaal, like the Free State, has been annexed by proclamation, but throughout the whole of the territory which we are supposed to have conquered the area of our authority is strictly terminated by the range of our guns. Even to-day brings news of the capture of a British convoy in the colony of Natal, and we shall indeed be lucky if before Christmas we are able to report the cessation of active hostilities at the seat of war. The C.I.V.S are being sent home, and some 35,000 militiamen, but we shall probably find that on New Year's Day it is necessary to maintain an

army of 100,000 men in South Africa.

condemning the treatment of the sick British prisoners in the hands of the Boers. It would seem from the report that one Dr. Veale, who happens to be an Englishman and a graduate of Cambridge University, was chiefly responsible for the neglect. complained of. The remembrance of the miserable breakdown which attended our own attempts to look after our own men should lead us to moderate the censure which we pronounce upon the little rustic commonwealth which was suddenly exposed to the strain and stress of foreign invasion. Mr. Hales, the admirable war correspondent of the Daily News, has drawn a terrible picture of the incompetence-and worse of our own medical authorities, who appear to have neglected the most elementary provisions for securing the health of our own men. Mr. Hales maintains that at least half of those who have died in our camps would be living to-day if those in authority had taken ordinary care to provide for sanitation. Nothing can get over the salient and terrible fact that the percentage of deaths from disease in the British Army in South Africa is three times as high as the death-rate which prevailed in the German army when campaigning in the dead of winter in France in 1870-71. The Germans put 900,000 men into the field, and the total number of deaths from disease in the course of the whole campaign was only 11,000 We put 200,000 men into the field, and we have to lament 6,000 deaths, and this, too, in the healthiest climate in the world, and at a time when the undivided resources of the Empire were available for providing for the health and comfort of our troops.

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The Ratification of the Hague Convention.

It is a pleasure to turn from the contemplation of these fields of bloodshed and rapine to the Hague, where on September 4th all the Powers represented at the Peace Conference, with the exception of China, duly deposited the formal ratification of the Conventions at the Foreign Office of the Dutch Government. Nations that are in a quarrelsome mood will no longer have the excuse for pleading that the Hague Convention has not been yet ratified. The work of constituting the permanent bureau at the Hague ought to be at once taken in hand; and each State will be requested to nominate those persons whom it deems most worthy of inscription on the international roll of arbitrators. President Cleveland is said to have declined the nomination offered to him, but ex-President Harrison, it is expected, will accept. Nothing has been done in England to nominate arbitrators. The post of Lord Chief Justice has not yet been filled up, nor has any indication been given as to those whom the Government will deem worthy of the post of British arbitrators on the international roster.

and

Two Conferences of a very different The Socialists nature were held in Paris last month, Internationalism, the International Socialist Conference, and the Conference of Peace. Both Conferences were composed of men who are passionately opposed to militarism and to war, but while the Socialists condemned the Hague Conference root and branch, apparently because it was held on the initiative of the Tsar, the Peace Conference regards it as the great charter of future peace. Although the Socialist Conference was distracted by the bitter feud which rages between the two sections of the French Socialists-the uncompromising and intolerant section which follows Guesde, and the more practically minded section which followed Jaurès-it nevertheless showed astonishing energy and enthusiasm. The whole drift of the Conference was in the direction of internationalism. They appointed a committee, consisting of two delegates from each nation, to combat 'militarism, and at the same time decided to form an international committee of direction to sit at Brussels, on which Mr. Hyndman and Mr. Quelch are the English representatives, for the purpose of arranging simultaneous action throughout the world in favour of their own ideals. There is also to be an Inter-Parliamentary Socialist Conference, meeting every year for the purpose of joint action by all the Socialist groups in the various Parliaments of the world. The temper of the Socialists was that of

uncompromising opposition to the vote of a sou or the despatch of a man for the war in China. It is probable that the International Socialist Conference will be a more effective instrument for international action than the Inter-Parliamentary Conference, which failed so lamentably in Paris this year to deal with any of the practical questions of the day.

The

and

the War.

The Conference of Peace Societies

Peace Congress has at least succeeded in avoiding the pitfall into which the Inter-Parliamentary Conference fell. Tae latter shrank from formulating any explicit condemnation of the conduct of the British Government in appealing to the sword when the way of arbitration was open, because of the objection taken by the British Delegates, who feared to repeat before the foreigner the condemnation which they had so frequently expressed in their own country. The British Delegation at the Peace Conference was hampered by no such scruples. Instead of vetoing a vote of censure, the British Delegation took the initiative in that direction, and when the Congress met it was confronted with the unanimous demand of the British group that they should launch an anathema against the British Government for its violation of the principle of seeking peace by arbitration. The original resolution of the British Delegation was debated for two days in committee and in the full Congress, but finally it was passed in the following terms. After emphatically affirming the unchangeable principles of international justice, the resolution read :—

(1) The responsibility for the war now devastating South Africa falls upon the one of the two parties which repeatedly refused arbitration-that is, upon the British Government.

(2) The British Government, in ignoring the principles of right and justice which have been the glory of the great British nation-that is to say, in refusing arbitration and in using menaces only too likely to bring about war in a dispute which might have been settled by juridical methods has committed an outrage against the rights of nations calculated to retard the pacific evolution of humanity.

The Congress also passed a special resolution expressing their admiration for the courage of the British delegates in thus boldly arraigning the policy of their own Government, and further decided upon drawing up an address to the British people, appealing to them to return to the paths of justice and arbitration.