the selling of tickets at low rates for railroads which are anxious to secure passengers at these rates, but do not care to inaugurate a rate war by offering cheap tickets at their own offices. Mr. Bland, of Missouri, said that the purpose of the bill was to legalize the pooling of passenger traffic, since the roads could fix rates as they pleased if ticketbrckers could no longer serve as agents in effecting reductions. Mr. Uptegraff, of Iowa, declared that "the measure ought to be entitled a bill to suppress competition in passenger traffic.'" If his party passed it, he said, it would mark the beginning of its downfall. Despite these protests, however, the bill, largely because of the number of petitions that had been worked up in its favor, was passed by a vote of 119 to 101. Among the petitioners in its favor were, of course, the railroad labor organizations, which had been persuaded to take the position that a bill increasing fares for the public would increase wages for themselves, though experience seems to show that increased fares, whenever they involve decreased traffic, result in the lowering of wages. The significant event in the A Socialist Mayor municipal elections in Mas sachusetts last week was the victory of the Socialists in Haverhill. Their candidate for Mayor received nearly 2,300 votes, as against 1,900 for the Republican, 900 for the Democrat, 900 more for a Conservative Independent, and another 100 for an Independent Socialist. This remarkable overturn of the Republicans took place, not in a community of German immigrants, such as furnished nearly all the Socialist votes six years ago, but in the most American of the larger places in Massachusetts-a place in which there are practically no Germans at all. The cause of the revolution was largely, of course, the severe cuts in the wages of shoe-operatives which have taken place in the last two years. A few years ago, however, the dissatisfaction which these cuts caused would have inured to the benefit of the Democrats. That the Socialists should now reap the fruits is explained by the Haverhill "Gazette," a Republican paper, on the ground that the people are looking with indignation upon the unfettered increase of aggregations of capital controlling the necessities of life, and the unwillingness of the Legislature to permit municipalities to obtain the public control of the natural monopolies furnishing them with water, light, and transportation. "Either," it says, we must have more equitable laws or more Socialists." Apparently, therefore, the extreme opposition of individualists to the alleged Socialism of public ownership of monopolies is sowing the seeds of real Sociali.m. Municipal ownership does not mean Socialism, as it respects the right of every capitalist to every dollar he has actually lent to the public, and merely prevents the payment of interest on capital never invested. By refusing to permit a moderate step in the direction of public control, the reactionaries have turned public sentiment in favor of the radicals. Friends of France, and The Court of Cassation that means practically and the Court Martial all Americans, will find new cause for hope in the action of the Court of Cassation, which has summarily ordered the court martial, before which Colonel Picquart was to be tried, to suspend its operations. The purpose of General Zurlinden was undoubtedly to keep Colonel Picquart from going on the witness-stand before the Court of Cassation and giving testimony in the Dreyfus case which might have a very disastrous bearing on the fortunes of the army officials who have had to do with that infamy, as Voltaire would have called it. With that insolent contempt for civil authority which always charac erizes the spirit of militarism, Colonel Picquart has been confined in a military prison, and ordered to be tried before a court martial, with entire disregard of the complete reinvestigation of the case now in process before the civil court. The Court of Cassation, however, has not lacked the courage of its duty and its opportunity; it has put the hand of a higher power upon the Military Governor of Paris, and has brought within its jurisdiction the complete disposal of the Dreyfus question. The spirit in which this action of the Court has been taken is not less significant than the action itself. Not long ago such a course would have made something like a revolution in Paris, and the lives of the judges would not have been safe; to-day it meets with prompt approval from a large minority of Frenchmen, rapidly growing into a majority; and it is quietly accepted by those who, if conditions were favorable, would have resisted it. The trial of Dreyfus has become the trial of France. The man is significant chiefly because he happens to be the person about whom the battle is being fought between reason and unreason, intelligence and passion, civil authority and militarism; and there is every reason to hope that France will acquit herself well in this grave crisis. England and France The English Government has determined, apparently, to leave no possibility of further misu: derstanding of its policy on the part of the French Government. The British Ambassador at Paris, Sir Edmund Monson, at a dinner on Tuesday evening of last week, cast aside the usual diplomatic reserve and de clared that the idea that Great Britain was Not long ago a French publicist, writing for one of the Paris papers, as quoted by the New York "Tribune," declared that the French "have inaugurated the policy of playing tricks on Great Britain—a policy which had no definite object and which was bound to turn out badly. We now find ourselves confronted by a people who have at last been exasperated by the continual pinpricks which we have given them." At every point, instead of resolutely meeting the English Government, the French Government has endeavored to interpose vexatious obstacles to the success of the English designs; and the English people are evidently as thoroughly wearied by this short-sighted policy as is their Government. England will make no further concessions; nor will she is worth while in this connection to call atpatiently endure any further pin-pricks. It tention to the fact that France has taken as Great Britain. There has been constant friction between the two Governments on the coast of Newfoundland for years past, and it is claimed that the .French have broken every treaty stipulation. Their appearance in the Soudan was simply the culmination of a long series of vexatious but indecisive interferences at many points. unduly submissive and prone to make impolitic concessions of which advantage could be taken was now thoroughly exploded. The outburst of public feeling in Great Britain quite as much land on the African continent provoked by the Fashoda incident had made it plain to all Europe that England would not concede beyond a certain point, and that she could no longer be trifled with; and the Ambassador urged upon France the wisdom of abstaining from what he called "a continuance of the policy of pin-pricks which must inevitably perpetuate intolerable irritation in England." He expressed the hope that such ill-considered provocation as the design to thwart British enterprise in Africa by petty maneuvers would be abandoned. Such plainness of speech at such a place as Paris, from such a person as the British Ambassador, may be taken as definite notice that the English Government is weary of the policy of irritation which successive French Ministries have kept up during the past few years. The Policy of Pin-Pricks The speech of the English Ambassador has been followed by a speech from Mr. Chamberlain in the same tone; and these speeches in turn were preceded, as the readers of The Outlook will remember, by a very frank speech from Sir Michael Hicks-Beach. The English Government is not far wrong in its position. The French Government had a perfect right to take its own line of policy and to oppose the English projects; but it has made a great blunder in the manner of its opposition. Its course has been one of constant irritation ending in constant failure. The Lippe-Detmold On the eve of his departure on his picturesque pilgrimage to the Holy Land the German Emperor reprimanded the Regent of Lippe-Detmold for the form of a communication which the Regent had addressed to him. The Emperor now returns to find that he has aroused the antagonism of all the smaller Princes of the Empire. The question at issue is minute: the reference of the question of the succession in Lippe-Detmold to the Federal Council by the Prussian Government. The German dynasty has two difficulties constantly confronting it: first, the growth of anti-absolutism among the German people, taking the form, for the most part, of Socialism; and, second, the jealousy and fear of the smaller States which are united under the general government of the Emperor. The Empire, it must be remembered, is a Federation of smaller States; the States and their rulers have certain privileges; of these privileges they are very jealous, and rightly so. Prussia has never been popular with them; and the extreme militarism which Prussia represents is essen tially antagonistic to the spirit of South Germany in particular. The Emperor's reprimand has irritated all the Princes of the Empire in the different States; and they are not in a mood to concede the claim of the Emperor that the Federal Council has a right to decide on claims of succession in the different States. They take the position that succession in each State is a purely internal affair; that if such a question arose in Prussia, the Prussians would not submit it to the Federal Council. They declare that if the Emperor had consulted and acted with his Ministers the Lippe-Detmold affair would never have occurred. It must be confessed that a personal rebuke addressed to the head of a State by telegraph was good ground for irritation. The Princes declare that the Emperor's personality is altogether too prominent in the administration of the affairs of the Empire. The situation is an interesting one, and significant, not of any serious disturbance, but of the thores which must from time to time remind the Emperor that, however definite his ambitions and claims, the fact remains that he is not an absolute sovereign. It is a quarter of a century William Black since English and American readers were breathing the fresh air and sharing the genuine charm of "A Princess of Thule." Many of the titles of Mr. Black's novels convey an im ression of the freshness of sentiment and love of nature which, in his earlier days at least, pervaded his work. 66 Shandon Bells," "White Heather," "White Wings," "Green Pastures and Piccadilly," bring to the ear very much the quality which these earlier stories convey to the imagination. One does not need to be told that Mr. Black spent his summers in the Highlands; that he was intensely fond of ou door life; that he was an indefatigable pedestrian. Born in Glasgow in the late autumn of 1841, he had a desultory education, the best part of which appears to have been frequent and long-continued ramblings through the Western High lands, by moorland and seashore, through rain and shine, until he had become familiar with that noble landscape and had formed an intimacy with nature. He was ambitious to become a landscape painter, and went to an art school for a year or two, until he satisfied himself that he had no skill in that direc tion. He entered literature through the door of journalism, writing criticisms, sketches of outdoor walks, and leading articles on public events. He became the editor of the London "Review," later of the "Examiner,” and still later was assistant editor of the "Daily News." "Love and Marriage," his earliest story, appeared in 1868; in 1875 he definitely forsook journalism for literature. An industrious writer, he left a long line of stories of varying interest and quality. His touch was light, his fancy graceful, his sentiment fresh. He did not deal with problems; nor did he touch the deeper psychology of life. His death, on Saturday of last week, removes a genial and kindly figure from contemporary English literature. Soudan Lord Kitchener's project of Education in the founding a college at Khartoum has excited profound interest in England. The half-million dollars for which he asked has been practically secured; for Lord Kitchener has only to express his desires and if England can give him what he wants he will get it without delay. That he should want a college throws an interesting light on the man's ideals as an English sol lier; and that the English people should respond so promptly shows the English conception of the duty of a civilized toward an uncivilized country. The founding of a school by English money, under English direction, in the heart of northern Africa is a striking illustration of the necessity of education at the very beginning of the building up of a new country. The Christmas Song The song of the angels over the fields of Bethlehem, like every great song, was a prophecy. In that age of the rule of force, with the Roman enthroned at the capital of the world and clothed with supreme authority in every civilized country, there would have seemed a touch of bitter irony in the sublime words of the shining choir if they had been heard by men of wider and keener intelligence. Force was everywhere triumphant; in the near future appalling disaster hung like a pal over Jerusalem; a thousand years of strife and disorder were before the race in the long process of reorganizing civilization along new lines; and beyond these thousands of years of struggle stretched other centuries, full of battle and contention and bitter antagonisms. The first Christmas carol could not have been sung by other choristers than those who looked down from the heights upon the plains, filled with contending armies, and saw beyond the devastation and blackness the thousand years of peace lying like a sunlit landscape in the distance. Those thousand blessed years are not yet come; Europe is still in arms, and America has drawn the sword after a generation had learned the ways of peace and almost forgotten the horrors of war. There are sharp struggles for territory; there is contention for commercial advantage; there are roots of bitterness between nations; there are vast expenditures for armies and navies; there are grave anxieties for the peace of the near future. And yet the prophecy of the angelic song is vis bly being fulfilled. War between civilized countries must now find moral justification; and if such justification does not exist, the offending country endeavors to placate public opinion by inventing moral justification; when war comes, all the resources of science and public and private generosity are strained to the utmost to diminish its horrors. It is true, armies are still increasing, but the reluctance to use them increases still more rapidly; weapons become more deadly, but society grows more and more sensitive to the savagery of war, and shows a deepening repulsion to its waste and horror. Throughout the civilized world there is manifest a rising tide of conviction that war must soon take its place with other outworn instruments and methods of barbarous times. Settlements of serious disputes by arbitration are already to be counted by the score; and treaties providing for such settlements in all cases of difference between nations have come within appreciable distance of acceptance. And, most significant of all, within a few months past, the Czar of all the Russias, with the largest of armies behind him and with the least interference from public opinion in his empire, has called a conference looking to the reduction of armaments and the lessening of the burdens imposed on the people by their existence. Truly, they who believe in Christ, and who hear on every Christmas Day the music of the angels' song, have reason to rejoice and be of good cheer; for God's promises are the facts of future history. The Treaty of Peace The Treaty of Peace is signed. Its provisions have all been anticipated in reports from time to time, pending the negotiations, but they will be found summarized in this week's Outlook in our review of the week. They include the emancipation of Cuba, Porto Rico, and the Philippines from Spanish rule, payment to the Spanish Government of $20,000,000 for moneys supposed to have been expended by Spain in permanent improvements in the Philippines, and the "open door" in these islands—that is, commercial privileges for Spain, and impliedly for the other commercial nations, equal to those enjoyed by the United States. Of course the treaty has yet to be ratified, both by the United States Senate and the Spanish Cortes. Criticism of it is certain; some opposition to it is probable; but its defeat is hardly possible. The party which should defeat a treaty of peace thus negotiated would be responsible for re-initiating the state of war which this treaty brings to an end. It is, however, worth while to consider exactly what this treaty involves. 1. It has made Porto Rico United States territory. There had been no rebellion against Spanish authority in Porto Rico. It was as absolutely and unreservedly Spanish territory as the Province of Andalusia. It was as absolutely within the power of the Spanish Government to cede it to the United States as it was within her power in 1713 to cede Gibraltar to Great Britain. The welcome accorded to the American flag by the Porto Ricans indicates very clearly that this cession of that island is acceptable to them. Their acquiescence is as absolutely declared as if by universal suffrage. Porto Rico is United States territory, legitimately so-as legitimately as Louisiana or Florida, and made so by the same process. 2. The treaty has done nothing to change. the political relations of Cuba to the United States. From the American point of view, Spain had no moral right to cede Cuba to the United States, since there has been no time for many years when she has exercised an undisputed authority in that island. Cuba was a Spanish possession under protest; and Spain had no other title to it than such as superior might confers upon a conqueror. Democracy does not recognize a moral right based merely on superior force. If government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed, Spanish government had no just power in Cuba. She has not undertaken to give us any title to Cuba; and we could not have taken any title to Cuba without the grossest inconsistency. We went to war to emancipate Cuba from an intolerable despotism; it would have been absurd for us to have taken a title to Cuba from the despot. Cuba is free, and our military occupation of the island must end as soon as a reputable and stable government is organized to take the place of that which we have ousted. But when such a government is recognized, it may take such steps as it thinks best for the protection and well-being of the people. This is a part of its liberty; it is inherent in its independence. It may seek protection from France, Great Britain, or Germany; may ask to become a colony of either; and, by the same right, may seek protection from the United States, or colonial relat ons with the United States, or annexation to the United States. To deny this right to Cuba would be to deny her the very independence which our fleets and our armies have won for her. To impose a protectorate over her would be to violate all our own fundamental principles and our public professions; but to allow her to seek our protecting care, or even her admission into the Union, would be simply to allow her to exercise that liberty of choice which we have fought to win for her. We have fought, not for the Cuban Junta or the so-called Cuban Republic, but for Cuba and the Cubans. It is for them to determine what, if any, relationship they wish to see established between their land and ours; and when they have decided that question, it will be for us to decide whether the relationship which they desire is one which we also desire. It may well be that Cuba may become an independent State under the protectorate of the United States; it might become a colonial dependency of the United States; it might even become a State in the Union-though we earnestly hope not. But in this article we are neither discussing National policies nor prophesying the future; we are only interpreting the treaty with Spain. And we wish to make it clear that this treaty makes Cuba free and leaves us free to form whatever alliance or enter into whatever relationship the two desire in the future, provided it is entered into freely by Cuba, not under any form of compulsion, direct or indirect, express or implied. 3. Spain cedes to the United States the Philippines; but this does not make the Philippines United States territory. For a donor can never give a better title than he possesses; and the title of Spain to the Philippines is no better than her title to Cuba. It is a title founded on force and perpetually disputed by revolution. It is not materially a better title than Great Britain had to the United States from 1776 to 1783. Might does not make right; certainly a government which maintains a precarious authority in spite of continuous insurrections against it cannot be recognized as conferring moral rights by a people whose fundamental and publicly avowed principle it is that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. We purchased Louisiana from France; but Louisiana was undisputed and acquiescent French territory. We won Texas from Mexico by conquest; but the Texans desired annexation to the United States. It would be absolutely inconsistent with our fundamental principles and our his. toric precedents to convert the Philippines into United States territory with no better title deeds than can be given us by Spain. For it was because we denied her title deeds to Cuba, which had the same basis as her title deeds to the Philippines, that we challenged her to war. Her deed of Porto Rico is a warrantee deed; she had undisputed title, a title which no one questioned. She had a right to sell; we had a right to buy; and the transfer is welcomed by the people of Porto Rico. Her deed of the Philippines is only a quitclaim deed; her title has been under continuous dispute; she can give nothing, except a promise that she will relinquish in our favor whatever claim she ever had to the islands. If they are ever to become ours, they must be held by us through the only title which America has ever recognized-the consent of the governed. While thus the terms of the treaty are not the same in the case of the Philippines as in the case of Cuba, the result is the same. We have paid the debt which the Filipinos justly owed to Spain; we have a mortgage on their income for its repayment; we have a moral right to collect it by honorable means; we have also a claim on their loyalty and gratitude for the service which we have rendered to them. We have become a guarantor bound to secure to them a peaceful and orderly government. With this our rights and duties end. It is for the inhabitants of the Philippines, as it is for the inhabitants of |