IS EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR?

GREAT

*REAT excitement has been produced in Great Britain by the report, published on the authority of the Hongkong correspondent of The London Times, that a Russo-Chinese treaty has been negotiated whereby China grants extraordinary concessions to Russia, including the right to anchor her fleet at Port Arthur and to construct and operate railways in Manchuria. Such a treaty is characterized in the English press as a virtual agreement for the commercial annexation of China by Russia, and as entirely incompatible with English political and commerical interests. War is declared to be preferable to submission to such an arrangement. Other powers, including Japan, are understood to be indignant with Russia, and the news is everywhere regarded as startling. Some doubt is expressed in the authenticity of the report, but it is eagerly discussed in press and diplomatic circles, and we make room for a few Old-World and American comments.

Cabled European Comment.

"Even war with Russia would be less disastrous than to allow her, without a blow, to get such a grip upon China. She could throttle all the other powers and choke off their commerce. Unless Russia and China give the necessary assurances, it is a case for an ultimatum and perhaps the most serious step our diplomacy has had since the Crimean War."-The St. James's Gazette, London.

"Neither England, the United States, Japan, nor Germany will sanction a partition of China which would virtually render the Pacific Ocean a Franco-Russian lake and seal the markets of China against their commerce."-The Globe, London.

"It is not inconceivable that if Russia attempts such a step England and Japan will form an offensive and defensive alliance. If Lord Salisbury will only be able to make up his mind what to do and how to do it, he has a chance to gain high credit for himself."-The Chronicle, London.

"Even if the Mandarins sanctioned such a treaty it would only be with the comforting assurance that they would face the opposition of Japan and the powers. The covenant would be mere waste paper."-The Standard, London.

"Should The Times's Hongkong dispatch be confirmed, and the Czar's advisers unfortunately persevere in their determination to disturb the balance of power in the far East, Japan wili look for friends, and those friends are, obviously, Great Britain and the United States. The little anxiety in the Foreign Office now would be cheaply bought if it is led thereby carefully to consider the future diplomatic and naval relations between the old country and her strenuous sons across the Atlantic, and realize that the English-speaking world can better employ its strength than in internal squabbling over such petty matters as the boundaries and obligations of Venezuela and Nicaragua."-The Westminster Gazette, London.

"We can only conceive that Germany's consent to the alleged agreement between Russia and China would be given in exchange for equivalent concessions to Germany. If the agreement is made without the consent of Germany, then Germany will be freed from all obligations in regard to the evacuation of the Liao Tung territory by the Japanese."-The Kreuz-Zeitung, Berlin.

American Comment.

if

"The United States could scarcely be drawn into such a war, war there should be. But it could not regard it with anything resembling indifference. Its sympathies would, of course, be with Great Britain and Japan, and against the Russian spoliator. That would be in part because of our very considerable commercial interests in those regions, which under the present system bid fair to increase and prosper, but which under Russian domination would be almost entirely destroyed. It would also be in part because of sentiment-such sentiment as is sometimes stronger than all other considerations."-The Tribune, New York. "Should England now try to play her familiar rôle of dog in the manger, and prevent by force the execution of the arrangement said to have been made with relation to Port Arthur, she

will have to fight single-handed against Russia and France.

Nothing could be more ridiculous than the assertion of The London Globe that in such a wrongheaded contest England would be supported by the United States, Germany, and Japan. Why should we connive at an attempt to deprive of an outlet to the ocean the Russian Government, which has always shown itself our friend, to gratify the jealousy and greed of England, which in all our times of trouble has shown herself our enemy? We ought to look with cordial sympathy on the development of Siberia, which is likely to follow the acquisition of an ice-free harbor; and, altho Englishmen may lose their present virtual monopoly of the trade of China through the opening of that country by a system of railways constructed under Russian auspices, American citizens would be no sharers in their loss. On the contrary, with Russian influence dominant at Pekin, American industry and American enterprise will have free scope in a field wherein England had expected to play the principal part.”—The Sun, New York.

"Should the report of the treaty be affirmed, it is not hazarding too much to say that Russia is not likely to yield any of her advantages, no matter how much England may expostulate. Russia is as land-hungry as Great Britain and equally audacious as to methods. Besides, Great Britain is not likely to resort to force, as she has too many complications throughout the globe to compel her to maintain the peace."—The Ledger, Philadelphia..

HOW IS LYNCHING TO BE STOPPED?

THE

HE horrible reports of the Braden lynching case, confirmed by more recent inquiries, have again brought to the front the question of how the evil is to be met and American civilization vindicated from the charges based on the frequency and cruelty of our lynching cases. "Is our civilization indeed a failure?" many papers ask, and in their answers the necessity of energetic and extraordinary measures to prevent the repetition of such barbarities as were committed at Braden is most strenuously urged. Even those papers which have excused lynch law in dealing with a certain class of criminals find no justification whatever for torture and mutilation. In many quarters the problem seems to be regarded as insolvable, but there is a general disposition to give due consideration to any feasible plan of reform. The Buffalo News has a suggestion to make in the following

editorial:

"There is, of course, one way to stop these brutal exhibitionsthat is by sufficiently elevating that portion of the negro classes who are guilty of the provoking offenses to a plane of morals that will prevent their repetition. To do this, however, the white people will have to treat the black with greater consideration than they do at present. The inimical spirit must cease and the negro be recognized as entitled to the same freedom in fact, not alone in name, as the rest of the population. To punish brutishness with the atrocity we have heard of at the hands of a mob of murderers thirsting for revenge is not only cowardly but an assurance that they themselves are worse than outlaws because they defy the law with impunity, not to rob but to take delight in the worst forms of cruelty and barbarism for its own sake.

"If in every district in the States where lynching is prevalent anti-lynching parties were to be organized and drilled, ready at short notice to assist the authorities in cases of this kind, and empowered to act when called upon by the marshals and governors of jails, backed up and encouraged by the churches, possibly these exhibitions might ultimately cease. We surely must not, at this end of the nineteenth century, be compelled to admit that the white population in these States are unanimously in favor of this treatment of the black criminal, however base he may be, and indorse the action of those who defy the law in their lust for a poor, miserable human being's blood."

The Troy Telegram does not seem to have much hope. It

says:

"It may be that these barbarities will be stopped. There are great men in the United States who, if they were in the Presidential chair, would declare the State under martial law in which such crimes were repeatedly committed, and try and punish the

The

the first two sales did not accomplish the purpose, because the notes redeemed on the one hand were paid out on the other, to meet the deficiency in the public revenue. The third sale has partially accomplished its purpose, but not adequately. revenue being now equal to the expenditures, notes which are presented for payment in coin are not and can not be reissued, even if they are not canceled. They are and must be put aside subject to future cancelation whenever authority thereto shall be given by Congress.'

Rhodes's Journal of Banking meets the argument of the friends of the greenbacks as follows:

"Some of those who deprecate the retirement of the legal-tender notes, etc., have been very anxious to place the blame for the difficulties under which the Treasury has labored upon the deficiency in revenue, saying that when the revenues became sufficiently in excess of expenditures the reserve would take care of itself. This is not untrue, but why should an excess of $70,000,000 of revenue be raised by taxation every eighteen months for a purpose that is entirely unnecessary?

"The amount that has to be borrowed when there is a deficiency in the revenue indicates the amount of revenue that is wasted in maintaining the gold reserve when there has been a surplus. If the $70,000,000 which had to be borrowed during eighteen months just to keep greenbacks at par is a fair indication of the sum that has been used for this purpose in previous years, when the expenditure was not so apparent on account of its payment from a large surplus, then the annual expense of maintaining specie payments has been about $46,000,000.

"This expense or something like it has been incurred, it may be inferred, for nearly twenty years, and would, had it not been for the reissue of the notes redeemed, have retired the old issue of legal-tender notes in about nine years. Of course by the reissue of the notes the Treasury is reimbursed for the expense of redeeming them. The figures, however, show how easy it would have been to get rid of this dangerous form of floating debt if a proper policy had been permitted by Congress when a surplus revenue existed. Now that there is a deficit the necessity of a wiser policy becomes more evident. The debt has increased $70,000,000 in eighteen months with no real improvement in the condition of the Treasury to show for it."

Reply to Professor Bemis.-The statement of Professor Bemis regarding the causes of his dismissal from the Chicago University has elicited a reply signed by Professor Small, head of the Sociology department, and Nathan Butler, director of the University Extension Bureau. They make "the most emphatic and unreserved assertion" that the freedom of teaching has never been involved in the case, and President Harper's letters to Professor Bemis are explained by the remark that they had no reference to any other teachings or utterances than those made before promis. cuous audiences by the latter "at a time when agitation of any kind was universally regarded as imprudent." The reply continues as follows: "Mr. Bemis's real complaint was not that he was asked to resign from the University-Extension staff, but that he was not transferred to a corresponding position on the staff of instructors inside the University. We state now only our opinion when we say that, so far as we are able to judge, every member of the faculty who is acquainted with Mr. Bemis would indorse the President's conclusion that such transfer would have placed Mr. Bemis in a position which he is not strong enough to fill.. : To summarize, Mr. Bemis has compelled us to advertise both his incompetency as a University-Extension lecturer, and also the opinion of those most closely associated with him that he is not qualified to a fill a university position." The Chicago Journal says that this reply is so conclusive that with it vanishes Professor Bemis's "last vestige of excuse for the parade of his wrongs at the hands of capitalists," but certain other newspapers are not entirely satisfied with the explanation. Thus The Buffalo Courier says: "President Harper may be able to refer his kind expressions to a desire to let Professor Bemis down gently. Nevertheless, in the light of the language of this latest defense of the University's action, the use of the words 'competency' and 'A No. 1' were unfortunate."

MISS WILLARD lauds the bicycle, probably on the ground that a man can not sail one successively with three sheets in the wind or half-seas over.The Dispatch, Pittsburg.

PLATFORM OF THE WOMAN'S CHRISTIAN TEMPERANCE UNION,

UNUSUAL significance attaches to the action of the last an

nual convention of the W. C. T. U., held at Baltimore last week. Some new important steps were decided upon, and the resolutions embodying them have called forth considerable comment. The most notable of the resolutions are those commending the "Staten Island Basis of Union" as the best plan to secure the harmonious cooperation of the “reform forces of the nation” against the allied evils of intemperance and injustice, and inviting Catholic as well as Hebrew women to send fraternal delegates to the W. C. T. U. conventions and to establish branches of the White Ribbon Society within their own borders. Other resolutions adopted indorse the Prohibition Party" as the only political party with courage to speak out boldly in favor of woman suffrage and the total annihilation of the liquor traffic," favor an educational suffrage qualification for both sexes, condemn the use of tobacco and narcotics as liable to lead to the opium habit, and ask for the appointment of women on the divorce commissions of the various States.

In respect of attendance and enthusiasm, the convention is declared to have been one of the most successful ever held. The report of the secretary showed that over one hundred new branches, with a membership of over five thousand, were formed during the past year, and the chief of every department made a report indicating progress. The most general effort, according to the secretary, has been made in the social-purity department. "Each year," observed the secretary, "is making me more certain that we struck the keynote of ultimate victory when we made the discovery that each evil is allied with all other evils, and that therefore each reform should be allied with all other reforms." Miss Frances E. Willard, who has again been reelected president, spoke in her annual address of the need of radical political and social reforms, and touched on a large number of current topics. We quote the following as one of her most important utterances:

"The Labor movement is the natural ally of the White Ribboners. The 'working-class' are the only true aristocrats. The time is not distant when those who do not work will be drummed out of the camp and stung out of the hive, and will learn by what they suffer that it is a law of God, written in our members, that He who will not work neither shall he eat.' We are confronted by a vegetating aristocracy on one hand, and an agitating democracy on the other, and if the Federation of Labor, and the trades-unions, will, throughout their entire membership, decree that strong drink shall be left teetotally alone, they will within ten years become the arbiters of destiny.

"The records, as given to the world by the Labor leaders of England, show that the license system was devised in the interest of the aristocracy, who wished to keep the people down, and knew that they could do so if they were only sodden with drink.

"Intemperance in our great cities pushes people into the tenement-houses, and the misery and filth of the tenement-houses pushes them into the saloons. White-Ribbon women must be sworn foes of monopoly, of landlordism, and every other form of class legislation. The land belongs to the people, and while the farmer's domain should not be interfered with, since he turns it to beneficent use, a propaganda of education should be devised, whereby the single tax, and the issue of all money by the Government itself, should become two of the central planks in the platform of the party of the future."

We append a number of editorial comments on the work and spirit of the convention:

Accomplishing a Mighty Work. "The W. C. T. U. in a measure has changed front within a few years on the prohibition question. So far as theoretical principles go, the members of the Union believe in total abstinence for themselves and the abolition of the liquor traffic, but in practically dealing with the restriction of the sale of liquor there are indications of a difference of opinion within its ranks.

"The society, however, is accomplishing a mighty work. In

educating the young, in arousing lethargic public sentiment, in protecting the victims of vice and stirring healthy opinion on a variety of topics, the W. C. T. U. perhaps has no equal among the reform movements of the present day.

"Its meeting this year in Baltimore has been an exceedingly interesting one. Whether viewed from the standpoint of the members of the convention or from that of the outside observer, the gathering has been harmonious, enthusiastic, and highly promotive of those objects which bring the delegates together year after year.”—The Herald, Baltimore.

In Danger of Forfeiting Confidence.-"Miss Willard has just shown that she has learned nothing from this experience. Her annual address endeavors to commit the W. C. T. U. to free silver, which will force thousands of people most unwillingly to withdraw their financial support of her work. The address furthermore declares for other unpopular financial schemes. It also demands the referendum, the election of the President and Senators by direct popular vote, socialization of monopolies and other theoretical reforms which the most advanced economists and most experienced statesmen content themselves with tentatively discussing in all their bearings, and which should be dealt with with the utmost consideration on account of the magnitude of the changes their adoption would involve. If Miss Willard be not checked or rebuked by the organization she leads there is serious danger that she may undo the great good she has done, by forfeiting respect and confidence in the W. C. T. U. as a moral agency."-The Journal, Boston.

Frittering Away the Organization's Energies.-"Miss Willard's scheme to unite 'all the reform forces' and tie her original and noble cause of temperance to the collapsed and sinking economic delusion calling itself 'free and unlimited coinage of silver and gold at the ratio of 16 to 1' is the most unfortunate to which she has ever put her hand. It not only shows her to be a poor politician, but it shows her to be a superficial thinker when she gets away from her specialty. She has been too much in England of late to know that the free-silver craze is as dead for all practical purposes as its deceased grandfather, the greenback folly. But if her judgment of practical affairs had been worth anything she would have been able to detect the fiat falsehood in the free-silver doctrine at a glance. She apparently did not see it, and she must suffer the fate of the pet starling that was caught in the cornfield with the crows.

"It is a matter for sincere regret that Miss Willard's great organization has come in these later days to fritter away its energies in a windmill fight with pretty much everything above ground, instead of sticking to the point and accomplishing one thing." The Journal, Chicago.

"The Women's Christian Temperance Union in session at Baltimore this week has discussed almost an infinite variety of topics. Not only has temperance in the use of alcoholic beverages been considered, but there has been much talk about Sunday desecration, the evil of shooting birds, woman-suffrage, an educational limit for both sexes, the tobacco habit, and lynching. No doubt these women are very earnest in their advocacy or denunciation of this, that, or the other thing, but it does seem as if they were a little intemperate in their selection of subjects for consideration. They should either limit their discussions to the temperance question or change the name of their organization to something more appropriate.”—The Journal, Providence.

"The truth is, Miss Willard is the victim of a radically wrong theory of reform. She is not such a multifarious innovator as to really hold to all these notions, but her plan seems to be to form an alliance with whatever new thing comes up which is not in conflict with the temperance cause. Her intention is honest, as everybody will admit who knows her, but the plan in itself is as reprehensible as it is impolitic. Nothing but the intrinsic merits of the cause which underlies the W. C. T. U. can save the organization from being destroyed by such a policy."-The Inter Ocean, Chicago.

"Miss Frances E. Willard deserves the love and confidence which have been evinced by her reelection for the seventeenth consecutive time as president of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. Her career is one over which all men and women who admire sincerity, devotion, courage, sympathy, executive capacity, combined with graceful and winsome personal qualities,

The Negro at the Atlanta Exposition.-Charges of extraordinary and outrageous discrimination against the negroes on the part of the directors and managers of the Atlanta Exposition are made by Editor Hagler, of The People's Advocate, a negro organ published at Atlanta. In an editorial headed "The Fakest of All Fakes," Mr. Hagler writes:

"Had it not been for the negro, the Exposition would not have attained to an international affair, for Congress would not have voted the appropriation of $200,000 for the Government exhibit, and given the Exposition the sanction of the American Republic. And now that the negro has done so much for the Exposition, what has he got for his pains? Fifty cents will admit him to the Exposition grounds, and then he must strike a bee line for the Negro Building, or he is in danger of being grossly insulted. However, when he has seen the negro exhibits he has seen a great part of the show. But the white man holds full sway here also, for all the day and night watchmen are white. Several of the buildings on the grounds the negro dare not enter. He is afraid to go to any of them, especially if he has a lady, for he might be told 'no niggers allowed in here.' Several of Atlanta's best people have been insulted in that way. They will hardly be insulted again, for they don't intend spending another cent on the big fake. They are disgusted, and rightly too, for negroes have not even a dog's show inside the Exposition gates, unless it is in the Negro Building. . . . Many persons have written asking whether the Exposition was worth coming to see. We can not write all a personal answer, but refer them to this article. If they wish to feel that they are inferior to other American citizens, if they want to pay double fare on the surface cars and also be insulted, if they want to see on all sides: 'For whites only,' or 'No niggers and dogs allowed,' if they want to be humiliated and their man and womanhood crushed out, then come.

The press has paid no attention to these charges. Mr. T. Thomas Fortune, the well-known negro journalist and editor of The Age, says in a letter in a New York paper: "If Editor Hagler has libeled the Atlanta Exposition and its managers, he should be prosecuted; if he has told the truth, the country ought to know it."

THIRTEEN YEARS OF LABOR WARFARE,

INTER

AND THEIR LESSONS.

NTERESTING results are presented in the report of Col. Carroll D. Wright, United States Commissioner of Labor, dealing with the strikes and lockouts of the period from 1881 to July, 1894. It is shown that during these years there were 14,930 strikes and lockouts which lasted a day or more. The number of workmen involved was 3,714,406, and the number of establishments affected, 69, 167. The loss in wages from strikes is given as $163,807,866, and from lockouts as $26,685,516, while the loss to employers is estimated as $82, 590,386 in strikes and $12,235,451 in lockouts. The loss in wages does not include $5,262,000 paid out by labor organizations in aid to strikers. In about 45 per cent. of the establishments the strikes were entirely successful, and in 12 per cent. the success was partial. The greatest number of labor controversies occurred in New York; Illinois is second on the list, and Pennsylvania third. As for the industries affected, the list is headed by the building trades, and then these follow in the order given: coal and coke, tobacco, clothing, food preparations, metal, transportations, etc. Women constituted only 8.78 per cent. of the employees involved.

What are the lessons of these figures? The moral generally drawn by commentators is that strikes are unprofitable to labor, and that arbitration ought to be more frequently resorted to. We reproduce a few of the comments.

Arbitrate Before Striking.—“A strike is a business matter, as it affects not only the profits of capital but the earnings of labor. Under the circumstances, those organizations or persons that make it part of their business to originate strikes should consider in advance whether or not they pay. If they do not, it would seem to be only ordinary good policy not to engage in them. . . "Strikes are labor's wars, and labor is not only most frequently defeated, but it is obliged to suffer the chief part of the physical distress of the war, and also to pay the greater part of the cost of it. There are times when even labor wars must needs come; but the histories of all contests of force between employees and employers show that there have been but few of them which could not have been prevented by arbitration. It is almost the rule that strikes are eventually settled by arbitration; either by that or the surrender of the strikers. But the offices of conciliation and peace are not often employed until the strikers begin to perceive that they can not succeed; then, however, their losses have been incurred, and they themselves are not in a position to deal with their employers on equal terms, which they would have been before the strike began. If Commissioner Wright's figures are not absolutely devoid of truth, strikes and lockouts do not pay; and what else these statistics should prove to wage-earners and employers is that an ounce of preventive arbitration is worth a pound of arbitration when the use of force has proved ineffective. The lesson taught by Commissioner Wright's figures is that arbitration should precede the strike, not the strike arbitration."-The Telegraph, Philadelphia.

Strikes Always Unwise. "The suffering, crime, and loss of life caused by the strikes can not of course be ascertained and stated, but it is known that the sum total was appalling. "Intelligent wage-workers will soon come to the conclusion that almost anything is better than a strike. Half a loaf is better than none, and in hard times a workingman can not do a more foolish thing than to quit work.

"Wages will fluctuate according to the state of the labor-market and the trade-laws of supply and demand. Strikes will not secure prosperous conditions, nor stimulate industry and commerce, nor make employers more generous. Whether profitable or not, they are generally unwise and should be discouraged by all intelligent toilers."-The Constitution, Atlanta.

Labor Not the Heaviest Loser. "I do not believe it is true, except in a very narrow and misleading sense, that the strikers in any of the great quarrels of labor and capital are the heaviest losers. It is constantly overlooked that the wages of labor are, for the most part, no sooner collected than they are redistributed among tradesmen in payment for food and family supplies. When they are cut off by a strike, the employees do not lose nearly as

much as the community. They go on living somehow, but they can not and do not pay their bills.

"Reckoning up all their lost wages and calling it all their loss is a false way of looking at it. It is not all their loss. A large part of it falls upon the small shopkeepers, another part of it falls upon landlords who fail to get their rents, and another part of it falls upon charitable people who subscribe to relief funds.

"In the last analysis the accumulated capital of the country as a whole is drawn upon to make good the losses of all great strikes. These truths are worth thinking about, for they point to the practical conclusion that it is impossible to separate with distinctness the losses of capital from those of labor in these industrial conflicts."- The Recorder, New York.

"There can be no doubt that the condition of workingmen has in some respects been ameliorated through the influence of these The demands; but this has been attained at extravagant cost. fact that while strikes have increased in number, the percentages of victories won by the labor element seems to have declined, shows how ill-directed is such warfare. The same object might have been attained in far greater degree by arbitration."— 1 he Courier-Journal, Louisville.

"If these enormous losses have done anything to teach both parties to such controversies the value of common sense and mutual forbearance the money has been well invested. It is certainly time to learn that neither the strike nor the lockout is to be resorted to by sensible and fair-minded men as a method of ordinary business."-The World, New York.

"It will be observed that those who had the least to lose lost the most, for the wage-earner's lost days count more heavilyfor the reason that they are apt to count finally-than the capitalist's lost business, which he may regain. These figures are potent arguments for the extension of the arbitration idea."-- The Transcript, Boston.

SENATOR CHANDLER ON THE RAILROAD POOL.

A

STRONG protest against the proposed pool of the nine trunk railroad lines of the country has been made by Senator W. E. Chandler in an open letter to President Cleveland. The object of the agreement, which is stated to be merely that of maintaining rates and carrying out the purposes of the InterState Commerce Act, is denounced by the Senator as a crime and direct violation of all our anti-trust and anti-pooling acts, and he calls upon the President to check the movement by writing to Mr. J. P. Morgan, who is believed to be at the head of the combination. The arrangements have not been entirely completed, but one of the Interstate Commerce Commissioners, Mr. Knapp, is reported as expressing the opinion that the proposed agreement is perfectly legitimate and even commendable, since it is directed against rate-cutting and discrimination against certain classes of shippers. In addition to his letter to the President, Senator Chandler has also appealed to Chairman Morrison, of the Interstate Commerce Commission. We give the following extract from the letter to the President:

"The proposed crime against the anti-trust and anti-pooling laws is a public fact, as distinct and evident as the Cuban rebellion, which your Attorney-General eagerly labors to suppress.

"I. All the competing railroads, with their $3,000,000,000 capitalization, are to agree that no one road shall reduce its rates to the public without the consent of the nine governors of all the roads. This is a conspiracy in restraint of trade and commerce, and a crime, according to the act of July 2, 1890.

"II. Each company agrees to deposit in the beginning and from time to time portions of its earnings with the nine governors. These earnings are to go back to the company if it continues to commit crime, but if it obeys the law it is to lose the earnings and they go to the other roads which continue steadfast in crime. This is a division of earnings forbidden by section 5 of the Interstate Commerce Law.

"III. Of course, like all great wrongs, these have their subter. fuge and false pretense.

'But, Mr. President, these stupendous crimes can by virtue of