nents had failed; hence their dislike of a partial arrangement. The deliberations have Deen made more difficult by Newfoundland's position. Sir James Winter, the representative of that colony, insists that, if the Canadian terms are such that Newfoundland cannot accept them, he shall be allowed to take independent action and secure his own terms from the United States. This is the attitude which resulted in the Bond-Blaine treaty which the Imperial Government promptly disallowed. It is not likely that Great Britain will permit any action by Newfoundland which would displease the Dominion; it is the imperial policy not to do so. American Soc al Science Association The American Social Science Association held its thirty-sixth annual meeting at Saratoga last week. The Hon. Simeon E. Baldwin, the President, delivered an instructive address on the "History of American Morals," in the course of which he characterized the factory system as a triumph of collectivism over individualism, thus involving the subordination of the man to the machine, every such workshop being a "school of fatalism." The report of the General Secretary, the Rev. Frederick Stanley Root, of New York, emphasizes the desirability of enlisting more women in the work of the Association, on the ground that some of the most important contributions to social science proceed from the pens of women students of social problems. The General Secretary reported a gain of one hundred and forty-five new members during the year, many of whom are men well known in literary fields. Perhaps the most significant act of the Association, on motion of Mr. St. Clair McKelway, was the transmission of a cablegram to the Czar of Russia, which read as follows: To the Czar, St. Petersburg: The American Social Science Association unanimously hails the lofty purpose of your overture for a better understanding among nations and for better economic conditions for their peoples, and confides in its eventual success. The Association unanimously and enthusiastically sustained the motion. The sessions of the Association maintained the usual prestige of expert discussion of topics of vital and universal interest, and among the speakers were the Hon. William P. Harris, United States Commissioner of Education, the Hon. F. B. Sanborn, of the Springfield "Republican," the Hon. Frank A. Vanderlip, Assistant Secretary of the United States Treasury, the Hon. St. Clair McKelway, and Dr. W. J. Holland, Chancellor of Western University, Pittsburg. Papers of Note 66 The paper of Mr. Charles A. Gardner, of New York, on the tained an extraordinary marshaling of statisProposed Anglo-American Alliance" contics in favor of such union, and the keynote of the paper was the phrase, "The grandest thought of the century is the convergence of the Anglo-Saxon rice." Hon. Josiah Quincy, Mayor of Boston, in his paper on "School Playgrounds and Baths," emphasized the widespread hygienic and moral influences, chiefly the latter, which had followed the effect of the action of the city authorities in promoting juvenile facilities in these directions. On Thursday morning, Jurisprudence Day, Dean Wayland, of the Yale Law School, presented some startling figures as to the increase of homicides and the tardy and infrequent infliction of penalty, and a brisk discussion followed as to the ethics of the legal profession in criminal defense. It was urged by one speaker with much earnestness of conviction and power of statement that the ethics of said profession might be as conspicuously strained in corporation practice as in criminal proceeding. On the day devoted to the health department, Dr. Elmer Lee, of New York, maintained that the present breakdown of competent medical direction in soldiers' camps was not due chiefly to general Government maladministration, but to the failure among various medical schools to standardize methods of treatment, especially in fevers. The session closed with an address by Dr. W. J. Holland "on the purification of municipal water supplies by filtration." The entire meeting of the Association was remarkable for largely increased attendance and renewed interest in the affairs of this, the oldest of all societies of its class. skill which united the landscape gardener's art with the proviaing for the practical needs of a great city population was largely directed by him. In many other ways Mr. Stranahan advanced the interests of Brooklyn, and earned for himself the title so often given him of its "First Citizen." He was one of the earliest and most influential promoters of the Brooklyn Bridge project, had much to do with the ferry and warehouse system, was at the head of the Sanitary Fair Commission which raised nearly half a million dollars for our soldiers in the Civil War, was a member of the boards of directors of the Brooklyn Institute, the Polytechnic, and the Academy of Music, and was constantly active in many forms of philanthropic and educational work. For three years over half a century he had been a resident of Brooklyn, and no one man has had his name so closely identified with the material growth and prosperity of the city. In all the undertakings with which he was connected, and more particularly in his administration as President of the Park Commission, he recognized merit and capacity as the only test for service, and was a living exponent of the principles of Civil Service Reform long before those principles won their political victory. Mr. Stranahan was a little over ninety at the time of his death, and he maintained in his old age much of the intellectual clearness of mind and executive force which made his life one of such great public utility. Such a man is in himself an honor to the great city which he had helped to form, and must long be held in grateful memory. The British Pacific Cable The British Pacific Cable scheme becomes complete by the adhesion of New Zealand, which is practically assured by the report of a legislative committee. The burden of the cost is apportioned by Great Britain and Canada assuming five-ninths, while New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, and New Zealand are to contribute one-ninth each. There has never been any serious opposition to the scheme in any of the colomies, the only obstacle being due to the company, of which the late Sir John Pender was President. The cable will be begun very soon, and will connect New Zealand and Australia with Vancouver, British Columbia, and probably take an intermediate station at one of the small British islands near Hawaii. This is part of a scheme to make communication within the Empire independent of the outside world. It is likely to be completed before our own cable, and may prove very useful to us if a connection should be made between Australia and the Philippines, or, after the completion of our proposed line to Hawaii, if a branch should be extended to the British intermediate station at the nearest islands. It is more than probable, however, that commercial needs, which are becoming more urgent every month, will prompt the construction of a complete and independent system of our own as a logical part of our commercial development. The Peace Proposals of the Czar The peace proposal of the Czar of Russia, which we print in full on another page, may easily prove, in its final results, to be the most important state paper of the century. The emancipation of the serfs in Russia, the emancipation of the slaves in America, were both far more important in their immediate results; but each affected directly only one nation, while, in its not improbable outcome, the Czar's proposal may affect the whole civilized world. These proclamations abolished different forms of slavery in two empires; this aims to abolish war throughout the civilized world. And it would be difficult to determine which of the two is the greater evil. Slavery produces the greater degradation, but war the greater suffering; slavery forbids growth, war perverts it; slavery is the mother of ignorance and idleness, war of passion and greed. Both are inhuman uses of force by the strong against the weak. Slavery is legitimate only as a transition from the idleness of barbarism to the free and joyous labor of a Christian civilization; war is legitimate only as a forcible means of destroying a power used for purposes of practical enslavement. Thus the proposal for peace comes naturally from the successor of him who gave to the anti-slavery movement throughout the world so great an impulse by his proclamation emancipating the serfs throughout the Russian Empire. Nevertheless, this proposal has startled Europe because of the source whence it Anglo-Saxons are wont to regard the g eat and, as it appears to all Anglo-Saxon comes. people, ill-organized Empire of Russia as but semi-civilized. Its aristocracy is indeed highly educated, as its bureaucracy is highly organized; but neither constitutes the nation. Anglo-Saxons are wont also to regard Russia as an Empire which rests upon force and depends for its existence on the power of its standing army. We are so habituated to local independence that we are unable to conceive the mental attitude of a people who are content to be governed, if indeed they do not prefer autocracy to the responsibilities of self-government. Thus philosophic thinkers have regarded the existence of Russia as the one insuperable obstacle to European disarmament. A great Cossack Empire, governed by force and controlled by an autocrat, an Empire which is purely military in its organization, and has heretofore been supposed to be so in its ideas also, has apparently compelled the rest of Europe to keep itself armed, much as the existence of a halfsavage tribe of Indians compels a border community to keep itself always ready for possible attack, though the attack may never come. It is this Cossack Empire whose autocratic head now proposes preparations for universal peace. No wonder that European statesmen and European journals know not what to make of the proposal. It speaks well for the reputation of the Czar that, with scarcely a single exception, his sincerity is not called in question. It would hardly have been strange had even the authenticity of his proposal been doubted. The reception accorded to it shows that the Czar is not mistaken in thinking that the time is ripe for the consideration of such a measure as he proposes. It is true that one morning London journal suggests cynically that Russia is not prepared for war with Great Britain, and that this is the Czar's method of delaying hostilities until she is ready; true that one or two French journals indicate that France will not consent to disarmament until she has won back Alsace and Lorraine; true that some of the German journals receive the suggestion of disarmament with a sneer. But these are the exceptions. Whatever may come later, the first expressions of the European press are, those of warm approval; the chief, if not the only, criticism is the supposed impracticability of the Czar's high ideals. It is ev.dent that the combined effect of the crushing burdens of war taxes, the dread of the results of another European war on the scale of that of the Napoleonic era, and the preaching of peace by such poets as Tennyson and such novelists as Tolstoï, Schlevinski, Suttner, and Zola have produced both a profounder and a wider impression than any one had supposed. It would be too much to say that Europe is prepared for peace; but it is well within bounds to say that Europe is quite prepared to consider whether international provision for universal peace is not possible. The reader may think that we are reading into the Czar's proposal what is not really there; that he proposes, not absolute disarmament and universal peace, but only a reduction of armaments which are imposing on the nations a burden too heavy to be borne, and threatening them with a conflagration which might involve universal ruin. It is true that the Czar is too wise a statesman to define with accuracy a policy. In form he indicates a discussion, not a revolution. He simply asks a question; he thus does what in him lies to avoid those race and national jealousies which any proposal of definite policy would be sure to excite. "We all agree," he says, in effect, "that peace is desirable. We have been increasing our military and naval equipments in order to protect ourselves and preserve the blessings of peace for our people. The evils of this method are many and manifest. Let us come together and see if we cannot devise some better way." But it is literally evident that there is but one other way—that of a permanent court of international law, whose decisions would be respected by common consent, or, if need be, enforced on the recalcitrant State by common action. International differences will continue to arise. their settlement, as for the settlement of controversies between individuals, only two methods are really possible-war and law. The one appeals to force, the other to reason. The methods by which reason may have an opportunity for expression are indeed various. But muscle or brain, force or reason, war or law, present the only possible alternatives. Two years ago, when the proposal was made in England and in this country for the establishment of a permanent Supreme Court for the settlement of all issues arising between these two countries, the proposal was treated by a certain class of journalists and politicians as wholly chimerical, the notion of visionaries and dreamers. Practically, though not in form, the Czar has enlarged this proposal to include all the nations of Europe, and by his presentation of it has introduced it at For once into the realm of practical international politics. But even more remarkable than the proposal itself, or the reception which has been accorded to it, is the spirit in which it is conceived. For it is, not in the political but in the sociological sense of the word, a thoroughly democratic document; and that a democratic state paper should issue from the greatest autocrat of Europe is quite as surprising as that an appeal to the nations on behalf of peace should issue from the most distinctively military power in Europe. There is, it is true, in this document nothing inconsistent with the paternal theory of government. It does not assume, it does not even remotely imply, any theory of self-government. But it appeals to the nations of Europe on the distinct ground that war armaments are not merely an economic loss to the nation, but have become an intolerable burden to the common people. Though it does not even remotely imply that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, it does assume that government to be just must be administered for the benefit of the governed. Though it is not based on those principles which we borrowed from France at the close of the last century, it is absolutely inconsistent with that Cæsarism which Russia has borrowed from ancient Rome. It must be regarded as a notable sign of the times that two of the most remarkable state papers of the last quartercentury the Pope's famous Encyclical on Socialism and the Czar's call for an International Peace Conference-issuing, one from the greatest ecclesiastical autocrat of Europe, the other from its greatest political autocrat, are both written in the spirit of human brotherhood, both aim at the welfare of the common people rather than at the preservation of the privileges of the classes, and both are even couched to a considerable extent in the phraseology of modern industrial democracy. It is this fact which will give to the Czar's proposal its chief political power. That it will lead to immediate disarmament we are not sanguine enough to believe. That the spirit of militarism can be exorcised by one call to peace, even though it proceed from the Czar of all the Russias, we cannot hope. So mighty an evil spirit is not so easily expelled from organized society. But this paper, so simple in its conception and so explicit in its phrasing as to be easily understood by the unlearned and the untrained, cannot but have the effect of weakening the power of militarism. For that power depends on the consent of great bodies of men to be led to the slaughter without knowing the reason, and indeed often without reason. Philosophers rarely affect such masses of men; they are a trifle more influenced by poets and novelists, but poems and novels are chiefly for the cultivated, and the power of militarism depends upon the unquestioning submission of the uncultivated. But now that the Czar has translated into a practical form the protests of Karl Marx and Count Tolstoï against war, it is certain that the fact will be reported in many a home which Karl Marx and Count Tolstoï never could reach. The discussion of the question to which the Czar invites the crowned heads of Europe will not be confined to Court circles; it wil! not be limited to the cultivated and educated classes. In spite of race prejudice, making the ignorant inhospitable to any idea not emanating from one of their own countrymen, the agitation which the Czar has initiated will permeate the classes of society from which the armies are recruited, and men who have never thought on the subject before will be incited to ask themselves the question whether it is for their interest to support great armies by their contributions of money and service, that a few may win glory in battle or live in ease in time of peace; whether all the benefits the common people derive from great armaments cannot be obtained by less costly methods. When once the common people begin to ask that question, it may be hoped that they will not be satisfied until they get an answer to their questioning. The process of disarmament will be begun when the spirit of popular inquiry is once really aroused. The relation which this epoch-making state paper has to the spirit of militarism in this country, and the reasons it suggests for a halt in the wild plans of indefinite increase in the army and navy of the United States, which have already appeared in some quarters, may well be left for future consideration. What part this country may take in the proposed conference remains to be seen. But it is certain that nowhere will the proposal be more intelligently read and studied and more warmly welcomed than in the United States; and hardly less certain that if Russia, Great Britain, and the United States were to combine in the effort to substitute law for war as the recognized method of settling interna tional controversies, the rest of the civilized world would be compelled in due time to accept the substitution, however commercial jealousy, race pride, and inveterate prejudice might delay the consummation of so desirable a revolution. The Method of a Statesman It was the habit of an American statesman, who rose to the highest official position, to prepare himself in advance upon every question which was likely to come before Congress, by thorough and prolonged study. His vacations and his leisure hours during the session were spent in familiarizing himself with pending questions in all their aspects. He was not content with a mastery of the details of a measure; he could not rest until he had mastered the principle behind it, had studied it in the light of history, and in its relation to our political institutions and character. His voluminous note-books show the most thorougn study, not only of particular measures and questions as they came before the country from time to time, but of a wide range of related subjects. He once said that for every speech he had delivered he had prepared five; and the statement was not only literally true, but it threw clear light on a career of extraordinary growth and success. For the characteristic of this career was its steady expansion along intellectual lines. It was exceptional in its disclosure of that inward energy which carries the man who possesses it over all obstacles, enables him to master adverse conditions, to secure education without means, and culture without social opportunity; but it was not unexampled in a country which has seen so many men of ultimate distinction emerge from entire obscurity., Its material success has been paralleled many times; but its intellectual success has rarely been parall·led. It disclosed inward distinction; a passion for the best in life and thought; an eager desire to see things in their largest relations. And so, out of conditions which generally breed the politician, the statesman was slowly matured. religion, literature, art, were objects of his constant and familiar study; and he made himself rich in general knowledge as well as in specific information. Tnis ample background of knowledge of the best which the world has known and done in all the great fields of its activity gave his discussions History, of specific questions breadth, variety, charm, and literary interest. Such a career, the record of which may be clearly traced, not only in public history, but in a vast mass of preparatory notes and memoranda of every description, illustrates in a very noble way the importance of that constant and general preparation which ought to include special preparation as a landscape includes the individual field. That field may have great value and ought to have the most careful tillage; but it cannot be separated, in any just and true vision, from the other fields which it touches, and which run, in unbroken continuity, to the horizon; and this preparation involves constant study in many directions with the definite purpose of enrichment and enlargement. No kind of knowledge comes amiss in this larger training. History, literature, art, and science have their different kinds of nurture to impart and their different kinds of material to supply; and the wise man will open his mind to their teaching and his nature to their ripening touch. The widely accepted idea that a man not only needs nothing more for a specific task than the specific skill which it demands, but that any larger skili tends to superficiality, is the product of that tendency to excessive specialization which has impaired the harmony of modern education, and dwarfed many men of large native capacity. In some departments of knowledge and activity the demands on time and strength are so great that the man who works in them can hardly venture outside of them without a loss in the totality of his achievement; but even in these cases it is often a question whether too great a price has not been paid for a narrow and highly specialized skill. There is not only no conflict between a high degree of technical skill and wide interests and knowledge; there is a clear and definite connection between the two. For in all those higher forms of work which involve, not only expert workmanship, but a spiritual content of some kind, the worker must bring to his task, not only skill, but ideas, force, personality, temperament; and, sound workmanship being secured, his rank will depend, not on specific expertness, but on the depth, energy, and splendor of the personality which the work reveals. Creative men feel the necessity of many interests and of wide activities. Their natures require rich pasturage; they must be fed from many sources. They secure the skill |