Cuban situation will have close attention, and there will be revived discussion of the purchase of the Danish West Indies. The army bill, as we have remarked on a previous page, will absolutely demand immediate attention. There will be some highly interesting matters concerning the development of the navy involved in the dis. cussion of the naval appropriation bill.

The

Canal.

As respects the trans-Isthmian ship Nicaragua canal, the full report of the Walker Commission is going to be available for the guidance of Congress. Probably the commission will take the ground that it would be practicable to build the Panama Canal, but that for the purposes of the United States the Nicaragua route would be preferable. American sentiment, so far as it has now been formed, is clearly in favor of the Nicaragua route. The public is also in favor of the ownership of the canal by the United States Government and its construction out of the national treasury. Let us hope that the opinion will prevail that it is neither dignified nor safe for the sovereign government of the United States to construct a great public work like this canal upon alien soil. Whatever the initial difficulties may be, the one simple and clear solution of all questions involved in the future control of the canal lies in the acquisition by our Government of full sovereignty over such a strip of land as may be needed for canal purposes. We have made some annexa

Let

SENOR VILLUENDAS.

(Secretary of Cuban Convention.)

tions of territory under President McKinley's administration; but none that could be compared in importance with the annexation of the requisite strip of territory in Central America. Sooner or later, such annexation is bound to come; and it will be much better to accomplish it in advance of the construction of a costly canal than to bring it about by force at some future period. To succeed in such a piece of negotiation would count for more, in the estimation of future generations of Americans, than any other of the diplomatic achievements of Mr. McKinley.

Cuba's Convention.

We publish elsewhere a frank and pertinent article on the Cuban constitutional convention from the pen of Mr. Walter Wellman, of Washington, whose opportunities for information are exceptional. The Havana convention, which held its opening session on November 5, bids fair to have a very protracted existence. There will be plenty of opportunity, therefore, to pass deliberate judgment upon it. Its early sessions were somewhat stormy, by reason of serious charges of fraud in the election of certain members. The convention has first to formulate a constitution for Cuba; and, second, to enter into a special agreement with the United States as to the relations that are to exist between the two countries. The oldest delegate, Señor Llorente, was elected temporary president, and the youngest, Señor Villuendas, temporary secretary. One of the

first acts of the convention was to congratulate Governor-General Wood and telegraph expres. sions of good will to President McKinley. There are some able men in the convention, and its work will have great interest..

and

Yellow Fever The existence of a considerable Our Sanitary amount of yellow fever in Havana Supremacy. last month gives fresh and timely warning to the people of the United States of the proximity of Cuba to our own coast, and of the necessity that there should be maintained, at all cost, some close and well-established relationship. Our Southern States have suffered untold losses and miseries for generations past from yellow fever and other epidemic diseases that have come to us from Cuba, and that no quarantine regulations have availed to exclude. United States Government should henceforth be the supreme sanitary authority, so far as yellow fever and cholera are concerned, not alone for our own States on the Atlantic seaboard and the Gulf of Mexico, but also for the island of Cuba. Experience has shown that our own States, separately and individually, are not competent to

ROBERT W. WILCOX.

(Hawaiian Delegate-elect to Washington.)

The

manage yellow fever as a concern of local sovereignty; and if Florida is not competent, certainly Cuba is not. The sanitary reform of the city and port of Havana should be carried through under the auspices of the government of the United States; and in the agreement that is to be made touching the future relations between Cuba and this country there must be no barrier erected against the effectiveness with which the United States may reduce Cuba to a condition of complete freedom and immunity from yellow fever.

Race Lines in Hawaii.

An election was held in Hawaii, on November 6, in consummation of a very remarkable campaign. Three parties were active-namely, the Republican, Democratic, and Independent Native. This last party was successful; and the consequence is that Robert W. Wilcox, half white and half native Hawaiian, is elected Delegate to Congress by a small plurality over the Republican candidate, the Hon. Samuel Parker, a well-known gentleman of high ability. Wilcox, who has long been a disturbing element in Hawaiian politics, played in every manner upon the ignorance and prejudice of the natives, with the secret aid, it is said, of the ex-Queen Liliuokalani. He received 3,632 votes, as against 3,563 for Mr. Parker. The Democratic candidate was Prince David, who received 1,468 votes. The business men of Hawaii, it is said, will not avail themselves in any manner of the presence of Wilcox at Washington, as he is not trusted by them. Wilcox's Native party has also carried the Hawaiian legislature. It will be hard to govern Hawaii efficiently under the present law, which admits too many ignorant natives to the franchise.

Porto Rico's

There was an election in Porto Rico Election. in October, and a scholarly lawyer named Frederico Degetau, of San Juan, where he has been president of the Board of Education, was chosen as the first Delegate to Congress from that island. He is admirably qualified, having been prominent in the affairs of Porto Rico for a long time. The new delegate represents the Porto Rican party that is in sympathy with President McKinley and the United States. Education is making great progress in the island, and crop conditions and industry generally are improving. It is agreeable to note the fact that we have so soon been able to terminate the military régime in Porto Rico. About the middle of December, the Supreme Court at Washington proposes to take up all the cases that involve the constitutionality of the tariff between the United States and Porto Rico; and also, for that matter, the tariff between this country and the Philippines. Our trade with Porto Rico is now about four times as large as it was before the war with Spain, and it has only begun to grow.

Liberal The elections for a new Dominion

Victories in

Canada and Parliament held on November 7 reNewfoundland. sulted in a very decisive victory for Sir Wilfrid Laurier and the present Liberal government. The Liberal majority is increased, and many of the principal Conservative leaders are excluded from Parliament by reason of their failure to carry their own constituencies. Among

In

these is Sir Charles Tupper, who has been active and prominent in Canadian politics for almost half a century. He has decided to retire permanently from public life. In a house of only a little more than two hundred members, the Liberals will have a majority of more than fifty. The great Province of Quebec went almost entirely for the Liberals, while Ontario gave about fiveeighths of her 93 seats to the Conservatives. England, the Conservative government organs were very generally pleased with the success of Sir Wilfrid Laurier, who is regarded as ardently British, although a Frenchman and a Catholic, and who was also deemed an imperialist of the approved type. In Newfoundland, the most intense interest was developed in the election, the issues of which were explained in these pages last month. The defeat of the monopolist, Mr. Reid, and his political representative, Mr. Morine, was decisive, and Mr. Bond comes into control of the legislature and the government.

It is evident that the Chinese negoFar-Eastern tiations are to be very tedious.

The

The

Imbroglio. Chinese peace commission, of which Li Hung Chang is the prominent member, has professed great eagerness for a prompt settle. ment. It has begged the aggrieved powers to content themselves, in so far as they could, with money indemnities, and to recognize the great practical difficulty involved in beheading the very people now high in a government with which the European powers are supposed to be peaceably negotiating. The Czar was ill last month at Livadia. It was reported that he had a mild form of typhoid fever, but no reliance was to be placed upon the news as to his condition.

It was

plain, however, that his illness was interfering with the development of Russian policy in the far East. The announcement of the agreement between England and Germany led to much talk in the Russian press of a counter-movement in which the United States and Japan were to be associated with Russia and France. Strange as it may seem, Russia now shows a disposition to give Japan a free hand in Korea, in return for Japan's moral support of Russia's policy in Manchuria. Unquestionably, the Russian forces in that great region of Northern China have been pursuing a horrible career of devastation and slaughter. for the Chinese Government, it has degraded Prince Tuan and some other prominent officials from their positions and emoluments, and condemned them to as severe punishment as it dares. Representatives of the powers at Peking have, with great deliberation, been putting the final touches upon the list of the demands which are to form the basis of the negotiations.

As

In Germany, Baron von Richthofen Affairs in has succeeded Count von Bülow as Germany. minister of foreign affairs. At the opening of the Reichstag, on November 14, the Emperor William made a pacific address, in which he declared that the outrages in China had united all nations. The periodical publications of Germany all show plainly that the Chinese question is the one absorbing theme of discussion. The Socialists, and some other large political bodies of Germany, condemn the government's aggressive Chinese policy in unsparing Chancellor von Bülow defends it.

terms.

It

As we were closing these pages for the In France. press, the French nation was aroused to a high pitch of excitement over the arrival at Marseilles of President Krüger, of the Transvaal, where an immense demonstration was prepared for him, -the English for the most part looking on without much show of irritation. was well understood that the French Government, while permitting the outburst of sympathy for Mr. Krüger and the Boers, would not allow any expressions of hostility to England. Mr. Krüger's mission was announced to be that of a negotiator of peace on any terms except those of annexation. This, obviously, was a hopeless mission. The Paris Exposition, which opened on the 14th of last April, was closed on November 12, having been open 212 days. The World's Fair at Chicago, seven years ago, was open 178 days, and had about 27,500,000 visitors. reported that this years exposition had more than 50,000,000 visitors. The Waldeck-Rousseau ministry, which the Nationalists had promised to upset as soon as the exposition was past, received a vote of confidence on November 8 by a majority of 79. The success of the exposition has stimulated the long-discussed project of removing the inner line of fortifications and adding to Paris the populous suburbs.

It is

A matter to be noted as of imporIn England. tance in England is the institution of the new system of municipal government in London, under which the subdivisions of the metropolis, heretofore governed by vestries and district boards, have been erected into a series of separate municipalities, each having a mayor and municipal council, but all of them subject in certain large matters of common concern to the superior authority of the great London County Council. We have alluded on a previous page to Lord Salisbury's speech at the lord mayor's banquet on November 9, and to some of the ministerial changes by virtue of which several prominent young Tories,-several of them closely connected

with Lord Salisbury's own family, and all of them, with an exception or two, belonging to the titled aristocracy,-have received promotions from under-secretaryships to full cabinet posts. Everything is now pointing in England towards the reentry into politics of Lord Rosebery as the chief of the newly organized Liberal party. The return of the C.I. VS., London's crack regi ment of volunteers, from an absence of some months in South Africa-where the regiment conducted itself without discredit and lost perhaps ten men-was the scene at the end of October of the most overwhelming and unrestrained demonstrations of enthusiasm ever witnessed in London, making the rejoicing over the return of Wellington after the battle of Waterloo altogether a tame affair. The English people have never shown in any former period the unbalanced judgment and the tendency to hysterics that have prevailed since the war in South Africa began. It is Frenchmen nowadays who are phlegmatic and self-restrained, in comparison with their neighbors across the Channel.

By courtesy of the proprietors of the Woche.

FREIHERR VON RICHTHOFEN. (New German Minister for Foreign Affairs.)

Obituary Notes.

Ex.

In the obituary list of the month oc. cur, among foreigners, the names of Prof. Max Müller and Prince Christian Victor, the Queen's grandson. We publish in this number a contributed appreciation of the life-work of Max Müller. We publish also a brief sketch of the late Marcus Daly, of Montana, who died in New York last month. Mayor William L. Strong, of New York, belonged to the highest type of the American business man. His name was a synonym for integrity in private affairs, and his public career was of credit to himself and usefulness to the city. Of Mr. Henry Villard, who completed the Northern Pacific Railroad in 1883 and was identified with other large enterprises, something more extended will be published in the next number of this REVIEW. His career was full of interest.

POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT-AMERICAN. October 26.-Governor Roosevelt makes a campaign speech in New York City.

October 27.-A great "prosperity" parade is con

HON. W. E. STANLEY. (Reëlected governor of Kansas.)

"sound-money" parade in New York City.

November 5.-The Cuban Constitutional Convention organizes at Havana, with Señor Llorente, Justice of

HON. HEBER M. WELLS. (Reëlected governor of Utah.)

popular pluralities by States, as divided between the two leading candidates for President. As these estimates of popular pluralities are made in advance of the complete official canvass, the figures are not to be accepted as final; but it is believed that they correspond very closely with the actual results of the balloting in most, if not all, of the States:

Elections to the Fifty-seventh Congress result as follows: 202 Republicans, 155 Democrats and Populists. The following State governors are chosen: Colorado, James B. Orman (Fusion); Connecticut, George P. McLean (Rep.); Delaware, John Hunn (Rep.); Florida, W. S. Jennings (Dem.); Idaho, Frank W. Hunt (Fusion); Illinois, Richard Yates (Rep.); Indiana, Winfield Durbin (Rep.); Kansas, W. E. Stanley (Rep.); Kentucky, J. C. W. Beckham (Dem.); Massachusetts, W. Murray Crane (Rep.); Michigan, Aaron T. Bliss (Rep.); Minnesota, Samuel F. Van Sant (Rep.); Missouri, A. M. Dockery (Dem.); Montana, Joseph K. Toole (Fusion); Nebraska, Charles H. Dietrich (Rep.); New Hampshire, Chester B. Jordan (Rep.); New York, Benjamin B. Odell, Jr. (Rep.); North Dakota, Frank White (Rep.); South Carolina, M. B. McSweeney (Dem.); South Dakota, Charles N. Herriod (Rep.); Tennessee, Benton McMillin (Dem.); Texas, Joseph D. Sayers (Dem.); Utah, Heber M. Wells (Rep.); Washington, John R. Rogers (Fusion); West Virginia, A. B. White (Rep.); Wisconsin, Robert M. La Follette (Rep.).