of this country were all of one mind—

which we know they are not- as to the expediency, and even as to the morality, of our fighting the Filipinos and seeking to occupy their island homes, it would be doubtful whether we should tolerate the want of vigor in the conduct of the war. Under other conditions our people certainly would not suffer themselves to be trifled with or imposed upon by such incidents as the press censorship at Manila, against which the newspaper correspondents have very properly protested, as being both vexatious and calculated to mislead. Nor would they feel as complacent as they do over the drowsy, humdrum management of the war and the little that has been achieved in subduing the revolt or in reducing the area of disaffection in the islands. This supineness in the nation's military designs we may hope now, under the new Secretary of War, to remove, especially if the President, under the new régime, is to leave politics out of the department's operations and organize a sharp and effective military campaign, which shall end the indecision and vacillation and give the country practical results rather than moonshine despatches and sugared cablegrams.

war lasts, we must have troops enough to garrison and occupy towns, and even provinces, wrested from the dominion of the enemy. We must also rid ourselves of our little unamiable prejudices with regard to the choice of officers in high command, from Major-General Miles downward, and see that we get men of the best fighting qualities and administrative competence for positions where active campaigning and the exercise of diplomatic art are needful. We ought first, however, to assure ourselves that extra-continental extensions of dominion are not only expedient, but moral, and that they do no violence to the traditional and ethical standards by which the nation claims hitherto to have been governed.

It is certainly time that we had this turning over of a new leaf and the fixing of the Administration's attention, not upon a new Presidential term, which the country has nothing to do with at present, but upon the serious business of conquest, if conquest is the game we are to play, despite the divided feeling in the nation in regard to imperialistic extensions of territory. If the expansion cry is, at all hazards, still to prevail, and the Administration really means to pursue its policy of aggression, then let hostilities in the Philippines be pressed and the pitiful war be brought in some decisive way to a close. To this end, if Congress will sanction it, let our regular army be increased, and that permanently, for there is no question that, in committing ourselves to imperialism, we shall want a large extension of our fighting force beyond that which, however creditably, is really indifferently, supplied by our volunteer auxiliary. Considering the unhealthful character of our tropical possessions, there must also be a large increase in our medical and hospital corps,—at the present moment there are said to be 3,000 men in the hospitals at Manila; and, while the

Anarchy and the Street Car Strikes

Ominous in Cleveland of late has been the triumph of rowdyism in connection with the city's street-car service. The prolonged trouble such as Cleveland has recently had, and as New York and Brooklyn has in some measure just had a taste of, if not sharply and effectively dealt with, menaces the whole country, and invites disturbance in other cities of the Union where American civilization is constantly confronted with the alien forces of discontent and anarchy. With labor and its cause all fair-minded men must have a hearty and even active sympathy, and where real injustice is done it, and where combinations of capital unscrupulously menace its welfare, there is justification for strikes, though not for terrorism and violence. It is curious how blind to its own interest labor often is, particularly at periods of class strife and disorder. At such seasons we see men commit outrages which are foreign to their nature and training as Americans, and resort to crimes which we have been accustomed to associate only with alien socialists or with labor just escaped from serfdom.

The mob rule which now for many weeks has disgraced the city of Cleveland no mere disregard of the rights of labor could justify or active sympathy tolerate. The killing and maiming, the stoning and blowing up with dynamite, and the other hideous outrages which have paralyzed trade and made the city a place to escape from, were crimes which no organization of labor, even if its plight were a hundred times worse than it was, is justified in resorting to, and must certainly merit the con

demnation of all. Especially must these disorders react with crushing effect upon the strikers and disturbers of the peace in Cleveland when we know them to be instigated not so much by a sense of personal wrong, as by chagrin and resentment at the employment of non-union men to take the discarded places in the service of the car corporations. It is here where labor always and most disastrously puts itself in the wrong, in interfering with the employing of substitutes during strikes, and in resorting to acts of foul violence to deter non-union men from entering the service of the companies or corporations with whom labor has had disagreement. Lawlessness nowhere serves its end, as everyone by this time ought to know. On whatever pretext it is resorted to, only trouble comes of it, as well as such havoc as injures the cause of labor and repels from it the countenance and support of those whose friendly aid might otherwise be helpful to it and on occasion serve it a good

turn.

The resort to the boycott shows the unscrupulousness as well as the vindictiveness of the strikers. Tyranny of this sort is not to be borne for a moment, and the city's administrators greatly fail in their duty, as well as show themselves lacking in a proper sense of right and wrong, by tolerating for a day such interference with the liberty of the citizen. To take the community by the throat in this way is little less criminal than shooting innocent persons in the streets, and as the resort of intimidators it ought to be most sharply dealt with. Men who resort to such acts to overawe and coerce the community put themselves beyond the pale of consideration and tolerance.

Close of the Peace Conference

☆

At the Conference of the nations just closed at The Hague, militarism, it is to be feared, rather than peace, has had its triumphs. Disarmament has not been entertained as a practical proposal, as from the first there was little expectation that it would be. Arbitration, thanks to the zeal and ability of our own delegates, influentially aided by those of Great Britain marshalled by Sir Julian Pauncefote, has, however, won honors; and as an active principle, to be morally binding on nations before resorting to war, it has received the hearty endorsement of the Conference. The commitment takes the

practical form of a suggestion for a permanent court of mediation, to which nations will be expected to bring their disputes before drawing the sword. The details governing the institution of the proposed Court are, as we write, not before us; nor do we know as yet what its composition will be or how its decrees are to be enforced. Much, in the way of expected results must necessarily depend on the details of the plan. Two things, for instance, we must know: first, what compulsion, if any, is to be used; and secondly, what penalties are to be levied and how they are to be exacted, in the case of defiance by a nation bound to go to war in any event and refusing to submit its case to the Court.

To invoke the good offices of friendly Powers will always be deemed a moral act in the case of a well-meaning nation anxious to do right and desirous of making use of arbitration before slipping the leash from the dogs of war. But how about the nation that does not look upon war in the same righteous way and is not likely to be actuated by any moral scruples? If there is only a moral obligation to submit causes of dispute to the Court, is the weight of the obligation likely to be felt and deferred to? If not, what then? What, moreover, are to be the penalties for disowning or rendering nugatory the judgments of the court of arbitrators, and how are they to be exacted? For answers to these and other problems which naturally arise in considering the suggestions thrown out by the Conference for a court of high arbitration we must await the details of the proposal which will shortly be in the hands of all. Whatever the details are, and however the Court is to be organized and practically made to do its humanitarian work, there is little question that arbitration is a happy as well as a desirable way out for nations that meet with differences in relation to each other and that may not relish the harsh arbitrament of the battlefield. If the historical gathering at The Hague concludes its labors with no other result than to exercise a restraining influence on nations tempted at times to resort to war, and to make morally incumbent upon them the duty of first submitting international contentions to some authorized and permanent court of mediation before appealing to arms, it will have accomplished a great and salutary

work. It is on such an achievement as this that we understand the Conference deservedly plumes itself, and we eagerly await the confirmation of the cable news to add our tribute of commendation and thanks for the measure of success that, despite all foreboding, has crowned the international delegates' work.

Hopeful Solution President Kruger would of the Transvaal seem at last to be yieldDifficulty ing to the pressure of the situation, moral and political, that environs him. He has seriously proposed concessions in regard to the franchise which, though not wholly satisfactory, are in the main acceptable to the Outlanders. His fear has hitherto been that if the aliens of the Transvaal were given political power, Boer ascendency would be at an end and the Dutch burgher republic would merge into the imperial possessions. To those who sympathize with the Boers and their pathetic history it is difficult to regard such a possible event with indifference, however hard may be the lot of the intruding Outlander and rigid his exclusion hitherto from civil rights in the Transvaal. Too much, perhaps, is made of the hypothesis that were the alien population given a voice in the affairs of the country it would mean loss of independence to the Boers. The statement is obviously an exaggeration, for the present at least; while against it has to be put the argument that if the aliens are to be kept in political subjection there will be trouble, which will bring about interposition by the paramount Power, and possibly, in the long run, British absorption of the Transvaal. This contingency may well make Mr. Kruger complaisant and the Raad yielding. The Volksraad, indeed, already contemplates the passing of a seven years' retrospective franchise and a qualified measure of representation for the alien population. The concession, if made in good faith and with no lurking qualification to place in peril its practical working, may well be acceptable to the aliens in the Republic; though it is merely the minimum of the demand put forth in their interest by Sir Alfred Milner, England's High Commissioner at the Cape, and by Mr. Chamberlain, the Colonial Secretary.

The astute Dutch Pharaoh who presides over the fortunes of the Transvaal may be trusted to go only so far in the way of concession as will avert a rupture, while

conserving the narrow interests of the Republic and making his burghers safe against the aggressing alien. Whether England, having actively intervened in the interests of her subjects in the country, will be content with the minimum of concession by the Boers, is probably doubtful, though war is not an expedient she is likely to resort to, save as a reluctantly accepted alternative. Imperial interests in South Africa are now so weighty that she cannot afford to be lukewarm in the matter, even though the Afrikander element at the Cape and in the others of her British African possessions is both large and influential. Nor, considering her world-wide empire,- not to speak of her rights as suzerain,— is she likely to brook delay or suspense, however tolerant her feeling for the Boers and prudent her statesmanship. Nevertheless she cannot afford to be a passive onlooker at the wrongs of her subjects who have petitioned her for redress; still less can she be indifferent should these wrongs lead to disturbance and consequently imperil British interests throughout South Africa. In this whole matter we should not overlook what England's rights are in the Transvaal, even apart from the moral claim of the Outlanders to fair and equitable treatment in the Republic which is supported and enriched by their labors. By the terms of the London Convention right of entry and residence for British subjects and other foreigners in the Transvaal was explicitly stipulated, and this gives the British a status in their demand for civil rights and the redress of grievances which cannot lightly be set aside by Boer susceptibility or sharp dealing.

ritories to the British Crown

The Transfer of The transfer which has just the Niger Ter- been authorized by the British Parliament of the great area of western equatorial Africa under the administration of the Royal Niger Company to the rule of the British Crown is worthy of note among the records of great present-day movements in the once Dark Continent. It is only within the past eighteen years that British trading enterprise entered the great valley of the Niger and sought to wrest the country from bart arism and to secure its trade. In 1882 an English company was formed for the acquisition by treaty of the vast stretches of the

African continent in the Niger district, including the native kingdoms of Sokoto, Borgu, and Gando, lying between Say on the upper Niger eastward to Lake Chad and southward to the Benue River and the northern boundary of the German Kameruns. The inducement was great to exploit this region, for it is not only very populous and of vast area, but is rich in native products, which comprise among other exports hides, gums, oils, india-rubber, and ivory.

In 1886 the National African Company, Ltd., was granted a charter by the Crown, the new organization taking the name of the Royal Niger Company, with a capital of £1,000,000 sterling. The Governor of the institution is Sir George Goldie, K. C.M. G., and it has at its command a frontier force of imperial soldiers, chiefly Hausas, which was raised in 1897 under Colonel Lugard, C.B., when international complications with the French threatened over boundary disputes, as well as to repress native disaffection. The force consists of artillery, engineering and telegraph detachments, and a medical service corps. Under the administration of the Royal Niger Company great and valuable extensions of territory have been made. In adjoining tracts in the Niger basin other interests have also been in operation, which at times clashed with those of the Niger Company. These include the Lagos district, under the administration of the Colonial Office, and the Niger Coast Protectorate, whose affairs have been directed by the English Foreign Office.

be safe from turbulent native potentates, as well as from aggression on the part of rival European Powers. Whether the expropriation of the Niger Company's interests foreshadows similar government action in Rhodesia and other African regions operated by chartered companies in British interests, it is at present impossible to say. The course taken would seem to portend extinction for these trading organizations; but if they are amply compensated for their labors as pioneers of empire, and the Crown makes a good bargain for itself in absorbing their possessions, there can be little for the British taxpayer to object to, while trade unquestionably is the gainer. Money, moreover, would seem to be little of an object where imperial interests are to be substantially aided and advanced.

Recently it has been decided that the Crown shall assume entire responsibility for the management of the whole region, absorbing the Royal Niger Company's interests, with its territorial rights, which have been acquired by treaty. This has now been done, the Royal Niger Company being compensated for the sale of its interests, and all now passes into the possession of the Crown. The area of British interests in Africa is thus largely extended, covering a territory of some 500,000 square miles, with a population estimated at 30,000,000. Trade will of course be actively stimulated throughout the acquired territory, while it will be pushed with greater confidence, since the British interests in the region have been nationalized and brought under the direct control and protection of the Crown. This is an important gain for commerce, for trade will now

Santo Domingo A hideous crime, the assas

Again sination of the President of Santo Domingo, occurs at an inopportune moment for this country, should it lead to another uprising in the island republic so menacing as to call for active interference by the United States. American interests in the island, it is well known, are important and the protection of these interests, should they be imperilled by the confusion into which the affairs of the republic are cast by the killing of President Ulysses Heureaux, may impose upon this country the unhappy necessity of intervention. Should this occur, we shall look upon it as a real misfortune, particularly at the present juncture, when the nation is suffering from an epidemic of expansion, and the fit is on us to throw the ægis of this country over one more of the hapless islands, always ripe for revolution, in the Antilles. Santo Domingo, or Haiti, as perhaps it should be called, has had from the earliest occupation by the Spanish an ill-starred history. At first it was a dumping-ground for slaves, then it became the prey of buccaneers, and in the stormy days of the French Revolution it made for itself an ill reputation for color revolt, massacre, and insurrectionary violence. The factions that internal strife gave rise to were naturally hostile to peace, and since the days of Toussaint l'Ouverture and the later Dominican Republic the dual island has been the theatre of almost continuous warring and bloodshed. The present crisis may possibly revive the annexation sentiment in the United States

which President Grant encouraged and which to-day is unhappily rife in many sections of the Union. That it will be opposed, as it was in Grant's day, as an unwise departure from the best traditions of the Commonwealth, we should like to believe, if intelligence and character and common sense have not utterly gone from among us. In the general interest of civilization it may be there is a mission in these islands for the active agency of a higher race: doubtless there is; but there are other ways of exerting the influence of a dominant race upon communities devoid of any political idea than by the hazardous expedient of annexation and the taking up and quixotically bearing to them "the white man's burden."

The Dreyfus Trial

The curtain rises at Rennes

on what we hope is to be the last act in the Dreyfus drama. That it will be a brief act, characterized by despatch as well as by vigor, we can hardly hope, seeing that no less than seventy witnesses have been summoned to give evidence before the new courtmartial. This means, we suppose, that each witness will be permitted to add to the insatiate curiosity of Frenchmen by lengthened depositions, while it will afford each the opportunity to pose elaborately before a deeply interested concourse of people and a highly excitable nation. The evidence, we understand, is happily to be narrowed to the single question whether Captain Dreyfus did or did not communicate to a foreign power the precise documents enumerated in the incriminating bordereau, and the burden of proof is now, we believe, to be shifted from the victim of the discredited 1894 court-martial to the prosecution. That justice will now triumph and the Court of Cassation will be justified in its review of the evidence which recalled Dreyfus from exile and gave him a re-trial, must be the hope of all. After what has occurred, not only the honor of the accused, but the honor of France, is now in the scales, and on the justice and dispassionateness of the Rennes tribunal will depend the verdict of history, not only upon Dreyfus himself, but upon France and her army. Much is due to the new Minister of War, General de Gallifet, for his vigor and firmness not only in smoothing the pathway to re-trial, but in disciplining those high in army commands who would, if they could, have

blocked the wheels of justice and saved the army from the snub which it receives in the reopening of the Dreyfus inquiry. But the situation is still critical, for the temper of the nation is ugly, and with army chiefs smarting under dismissal and anti-Dreyfusards chagrined and sullen, one hardly knows what may at any moment happen in France. The odds, however, may always be laid on gallantry, moral courage, and the resolute hand.

That the investigation within the lines proposed may be thorough and searching we must all hope, since the enemies of revision can only thus be effectively silenced and the honor of an innocent and greatly wronged man be vindicated. There is no knowing, however, how far the conspiracy against the unfortunate officer may still go, though the new Minister of War has done much to disabuse the army chiefs of their notion that they are supreme in the State, while he has put an end to their theatrical struttings and gasconading talk. If justice can be furthered, the perusal of the pathetic but manly "Letters of Captain Dreyfus to his Wife," which have just been authoritatively published, ought to convince anyone that Dreyfus is an innocent man, ever seeking in his lonely exile - as the letters show — reunion with those dear to him, and the rehabilitation of his character and good name. As a rule we are not partial to the lifting of veils from private affection, but the conspiracy against Dreyfus has been so diabolical and persistent, and his case otherwise apparently so hopeless, that one feels kindly to this act of a wife in her hour of extremity,- her loyal desire to convince the world that her husband is no traitor but a true man, and that his passionate reiteration of innocence should win for him redress of his wrongs and what is happily at length within his reach - a just re-hearing of his pitiful case. After all the poor officer has gone through, however, there seems a refinement of cruelty in subjecting him to the ordeal of this new trial. While the Court of Cassation, in its recent prolonged inquiry, was empowered only to settle the question whether there were grounds for revision, it seems hard that when it found that there had been an illegal and iniquitous conviction, which it quashed and annulled, it should not have finally acquitted Dreyfus and relieved him of all future prosecution.