NEWS OF THE WEEK.

THE Austrian Chancellor, Count Goluchowski, on Satur- day made a speech to the Delegations which was intended to be unreserved. He stated that the war between Turkey and Greece had produced great agitation in the Balkan States, which the Concert, and more especially Russia and Austria, had been called upon to repress. They had suc- ceeded, and had now to settle the Cretan question upon the basis of autonomy, which involved "the honour of Europe." He considered the state of affairs in Turkey a permanent danger for peace; and if the Sultan would avoid European interference in the affairs of his Empire, he must take the initiative in "radical reforms," which, though they could not be of the Western kind, would at least "secure protection for life and property." The Triple Alliance remained the "funda- mental basis" of Austro-Hungarian policy, but she had brought about a new development of her relations with Russia, under which there would be the "closest agreement" with that Power in regard to Eastern Europe. The basis of that agreement was the status quo in the Balkans, and the non-interference of the two Powers with each other there. Austria-Hungary had no quarrel with France, and in spite of some differences of opinion excellent relations subsisted with Great Britain. Count Goluchowski finished with some sentences about the economic struggle between Europe and Transoceanic peoples, which would, he believed, be the preoccupation of the twentieth century, and would involve the "very existence" of the European nations. We have made elsewhere some observations upon this portion of the speech, the whole of which was received by the Delegations with an enthusiasm unusual in Austria.

The situation in Cisleithan Austria is at last becoming dangerous. The Germans are mad with rage at the decree equalising the official position of the German and .' Mimic languages, thinking it fatal to their ascendenoy, and actually talk of inviting aid from their kinsfolk in the North. On the 24th inst. the Members of the Reichsrath indulged in a free-fight, tearing each other's hair, beating each other's faces, and in one case at least drawing knives. The majority accordingly, with the permission of Government, carried on Thursday a kind of coup d'etat. By a vote, said to be illegal, and passed amidst a wild conflict, they invested the President, Herr Abrahamovitch, with power to suspend a disorderly Member for any number of sittings not exceeding thirty, and permitted the Executive to appoint two Parliamentary officers with power to maintain order by armed force. The Germans declare that if these votes are acted on they will secede ; but in that event the majority will pass the Ausgleich, and guard themselves with still more stringent rules. We never believe in harm happening in Austria, but we confess on this occasion we see danger. The Germans think that without ascendency they will occupy a degraded position in the Monarchy.

A serious revolt has broken out in Albania. Even the Albanians, who are Mussulmans, find Turkish rule im- possible, and have risen in arms to be rid of it. According to a message in the Daily Telegraph of Friday, sent by a correspondent who clearly derives his information from Viennese officials, the Turks have forwarded ten battalions to suppress the movement, and the fighting has been sharp and sanguinary. A hint is given that Bulgaria is aiding the rebels, which is nonsense, and also Prince Nicolas of Monte- negro, which is exceedingly unlikely. The Servian and Bulgarian Governments are hurrying forward troops to watch their frontiers ; and should the Turks be defeated, the Austrian army cantoned in Bosnia would doubtless appear upon the scene. The revolt will probably be suppressed by the Turks ; but it is one more indication that there will be no rest in the peninsula until the Asiatic power departs. The matter does not at present concern Great Britain.

The figures of the Egyptian Budget for 1898 (telegraphed by Reuter) were presented to the Council of Ministers on Thursday by Sir Elwin Palmer, Financial Adviser to the Khedive. The receipts and expenditure are both estimated at the same amount,—namely, 2E10.440,000. The receipts are expected to be better by 2E205,000 than in the Budget of 1897. The increase is justified by the actual receipts of the past year. The Budget shows that 2E440,000 will be paid to the Conversion Economies Fund, and 2E344,000 to the General Reserve Fund. The former fund now amounts to 2E2,700,000. This cannot be employed without the unanimous sanction of the Powers. The General Reserve, which amounts to 2E3,000,000, cannot be touched without the sanction of the Caisse of the Public Debt. Thus the Powers, in one capacity or another, have impounded nearly 26,000,000 of money urgently wanted for internal develop- ment, and are every year adding to this useless hoard. There never was so absurd a position. The firm is quite solvent, but the brokers once in remain in, and impound money which ought to be going into the business. In spite, however, of this criminal absurdity, Egypt continues to flourish greatly under our rule. No one now believes in its supposed tempo- rary character, and hence men trade as confidently as in Singapore or Hong-kong.

The Dreyfus epidemic is still raging in Paris, every day producing a new story, and some slander against a man previously not named. A whole faction believes that Captain Dreyfus was condemned by officers who knew him to be guilt- less, while another faction affirms that he was certainly guilty, but is protected by "a Jew Syndicate" which buys up the Press. According to one story, the German Emperor telegraphed to M. Casimir-Perier his personal word of honour that Captain Dreyfus was innocent—which, if it were only true, would be final—while according to another the Government sacrificed the accused to prevent six hundred thousand Germans rushing into France. The latest general impression seems to be that Captain Dreyfus is innocent, and that Count Esterhazy, needing money, sold to the Govern- ment forged documents showing that the Jew Captain had betrayed secrets ; but there is no evidence for this impression. except that Count Esterhazy was at the time a spendthrift. There is to be a trial, but it awaits the evidence of Colonel Picquart, who was the head of a branch department of the "Intelligence," and is on his way from Tunis to be cross- examined. His chambers in Paris have meanwhile been ransacked by the police. Till proof is furnished we impar- tially disbelieve all the atories, and disbelieving, are bound to say that as yet all that is certain is that a Court-Martial tried Captain Dreyfus, that it found him guilty, and that French officers have implicit confidence in Courts-Martial, because, by a law passed, we believe, under Louie Philippe, a commission in France is the officer's "property." He cannot be dismissed except by a Court.

The Chinese L.:sign of Ole German Emperor is evidently quite serious. IL is now admitted that Kiao-Chow has been occupied by a German squadron, with the intention either .)f !seeping it, or, if Russia is irreconcilably opposed to that conclusion, of exchanging it for some equally favourable position. Prince Henry of Prussia, who would be Regent if the Emperor died before his sons were grown up, has been appointed is command the fleet in Chinese waters, the force of Marines is to b.. increased, and negotiations have been opened with all the great Courts. It is said that Russia is not unfriendly, bat that France is hostile, being of opinion that a Chinese naval station will inevitably lead to a great increase in the German Navy. That is, of course, the first object of the German Emperor, but it is by no means certain that he will succeed. The German masses as yet seem to believe that the great cost of a large Navy will certainly fall on them, while the profits of trade, besides being uncertain, will largely go to capitalists. It is remarkable that the ancient English argument that no King can use a fleet against his owa people does not impress the Germans. They see that the Army is quite sufficient to "maintain internal order.° The news from the Indian Frontier is still of the same un- satisfactory character. Sir William Lockhart is said to have resolved to change his base from Kohat to Peshawar, and has consequently organised a strong but lightly equipped column to march from Tirah to Bara. It is necessary to this march to reconnoitre a nearly unknown country, and on the 22nd inst. a brigade under General Westmacott, but accom- panied by General Lockhart himself, was sent to Datoi, seven miles off, through a perfectly awful defile and network of freez- ing streams. They got there easily enough, though with a few casualties, but found Datoi useless, and retired on the 23rd, whereupon the clansmen swarmed up as usual, and the march back became a running fight which lasted for hours. We lost two officers and some thirty men killed and wounded. Observe as a marked fact in the telegrams that we are getting more and more dependent on the Sikhs and Ghoorkas, —a good thing while the fighting lasts, for the men love ex- citement and danger, but likely, when battle is done, to pro- duce talk in native lines. All Asiatics, even the best, have one incurable fault, they grow presumptuous in prosperity.

This fresh outbreak of Plague in India is a very terrible thing. We have a letter before us written—not to us—by a native lady-doctor who is working hard in Surat. She says two-thirds of the population have fled, and life seems to be arrested among the other third. There is no trade, and no work for the poor, and entire streets are deserted. The disease has assumed a most virulent form, and is so horribly infectious that the men who carry the bodies to be buried die within twenty-four hours. In one case the death of thirty men could be traced to the carrying of a single corpse, each bearer becoming a centre of infection. There seems to be no cure and no remedy except burning infected quarters, to do which is to use ruin as a disinfectant. It should be added that in Surat this native lady accompanies every search-party, SO that there can be no scandalous rumours as in Poona. The lady writes as if her heart were breaking, though her pluck must be most admirable. Going with an Indian search-party into plague-stricken houses must be appalling work, and she does it every day in the seven.

On Saturday Sir H. H. Fowler made a long, and in parts admirable, speech to his constituents at Wolverhampton about the Indian Frontier War, We have said enough about it elsewhere, but may state here, just to keep up our record, that the first half of the speech was a cautious, even gingerly, attempt to prove that in making a road to Chitral we broke faith with the mountain clans, and the second half was a most lucid and well-reasoned attack on the Forward policy. As regards the breach of faith, Sir Henry Fowler, in our opinion, answers himself completely, and we can only regret that he did not confine himself to a defence of reasonable policy. It appears from a letter from Mr. A. Balfour published in Thursday's Times that the question of breach of faith was never publicly raised by the Liberal Government in their correspondence with Lord Elgin, but that Sir H. Fowler did in a private telegram broach that topic to the Viceroy, who entirely refused to admit that any breach would be committed.

Sir William Harcourt made four speeches at Dundee on Thursday last. In the first speech, acknowledging the pre- sentation of the freedom of the city, he assumed the character and manner of the distinguished statesman of an older and nobler day, wise, bland, moderate, and reminiscent. After telling a pleasant bat not very important story of himself and Lord Russell, in which, characteristically enough, the narrator was the chief figure, he related a really excellent anec- dote of Lord John. Sir William Harcourt, "with the hyper- critical impertinence of a young man," asked of a passage in Walter Scott, "What does it mean ? " Lord John, with reminiscences of his earlier days, replied : "That is just the question that Lord Holland put to Scott, and Scott said : 'The critics have made so much nonsense of my sense that I will now leave them to make sense of my nonsense." "I com- mend," added Sir William Harcourt, "that admirable maxim to the imitation of all critics, not only of poetry but of speeches as well." Later on the new Burgess gave his fellow- citizens some really excellent advice on matters of trade. After noticing the folly of those who think that "by depriving other nations of the means to buy your goods you will find a better market," Sir William pointed out that our traders ought to practise more than they do "the arts of solicita- tion,"---i.e., the art of getting at the customer by finding out exactly what he wants and giving it to him. Sir William Harcourt always shows hard good sense on economic questions.

Daring his second speech at the luncheon, and in his third speech at the Chrysanthemum Show, Sir William retained the manner appropriate to the genial, august statesman of Plantagenet lineage. At the political demonstration in the evening he appeared in a perfectly different moral costume, and he was once again the great party gladiator. He began by pointing out that the Liberal party were the real builders of the Empire. That is perfectly true. It was no doubt the policy of Lord Russell and Lord Grey, which allowed the Colonies to shape their own destinies, that made them strong and loyal. But the Liberal party to which Sir William referred is not the Home-rule party which Sir William Harcourt now leads. The old Liberal party always maintained the Empire by steadily refusing to repeal the Union and to create a Parliament in Ireland. Sir William went on to nail his, political weathercock to the mast. He is quite as much for Home-rule, Local Veto, Disesta.blishment, aid to Labour, and the abolition of the veto of the Lords as ever he was. His attack on the Lords was very cleverly compounded of extracts from the former speeches of Mr. Chamberlain, Mr. Goschen, and Lord James. Mr. Chamberlain said of the House of Lords : "It has protected every abuse and sheltered every privilege. It has denied justice and delayed reform. It is irresponsible without independence, obstinate without courage, arbitrary without judgment, and arrogant without knowledge." Mr. Goschen said of the Peers : "They are a permanent Con- servative or High Tory Committee." Lord James of Hereford described them as "an additional wing of the Carlton Club." That is quite excellent as a Parliamentary "score," but does it help on the solution of the problem in the very least P

On Wednesday, in the Town Hall, Birmingham, Mr. Chamberlain delivered his annual address to his constituents. The passage in which he dealt with the Army shows that Mr. Chamberlain has realised the essential conditions of the problem. After pointing out that our Army, though it must be small, must also be specially well organised and equipped, he noted that the conditions of service must be made such as to attract the ordinary soldier, and he declared

the intention of the Government to deal thoroughly with the whole matter. That is good hearing, and makes us regret that the duty of reorganising the Army is not in the hands of Mr. Chamberlain. He would not be afraid of doing bold and far-reaching things, and these are what are wanted. After defending the agricultural policy of the Cabinet, and refuting the absurd notion that the Imperial grant in aid of rates had gone into the landlords' pockets, he asked: "Have you ever seen the pocket of a landlord ? I do not believe you will find our relief at the bottom of it." Mr. Chamberlain ended his speech by stating what the Government propose to do next Session. Besides Army reform, they intend to give Ireland local government, and to endow those of the London districts which may ask for them with municipal privileges. This, however, is to be done without abolishing the County Council, which will remain to deal with needs common to the whole Metropolis.

Lord Wantage, who as the head of the Wantage Com- mittee enjoyed an exceptional opportunity for acquiring information as to the conditions of Army service, writes an interesting letter to Thursday's Times. His main object is to defend the present system. Practically his argument comes to this. The old long-service system was at the end only producing boys and gave us no Reserve. The present system may also only attract boys, but at least it gives us a Reserve of eighty thousand men. Let us, then, keep the short service and the Reserve, and get men instead of boys by greatly improving the conditions. Lord Wantage's opinion must always be treated with great respect; but he does not meet the very serious allegation that under the present system the service in the Reserve is a most serious deterrent to enlistment among the very class we should like most to enlist. The best young men of the working class are disgusted with the Army by the spectacle of Reserve men reduced to the greatest possible straits to get a living. As Lord Wantage himself admits, we want to increase the attractions of the Army "by showing the benefits accruing to those who have served in the ranks." Important as it is to have a Reserve, it is still more important to have an Army. But is so-called long service, say twelve years with the colours, incompatible with the formation of a Reserve ? Surely men are quite fit to be soldiers up to forty. At the end of his letter Lord Wantage makes a valuable suggestion, —that is, to offer men such varied terms of service "as may aommend themselves to them; for instance, allowing a man to extend from year to year up to twelve years." That is common-sense. Of one thing we are certain, we must think first of the efficiency of the men with the colours, and only after that has been secured of the Reserve.

There is no end to the number of witty and agreeable speeches which Lord Rosebery is capable of producing. On Tuesday he presided at the annual meeting of the Scottish Historical Society, and delivered a most effective short address on Scottish history. One remark in it will come home to the hearts of every author and man of letters. Lord Rosebery described how in writing a preface to one of the historical collections published by the Society he put in an extract which he had duly copied from a veracious authority. "Bat when I was challenged as to my authority I have never been able to put my hand on it from that day to this, or to find the pamphlet from which I extracted it." That, said Lord Rosebery, is only one more confirmation of the in- valuable advice given by an aged sage to one who sought his guidance in life, "Always wind up your watch at night, and verify your quotations." Who is there, except perhaps Sir Monntstuart Grant Duff, who has not got a most apt and telling passage in his head or his notebook which he dare not quote because he has not the faintest idea where it came from or who wrote it? It is much too good to be one's own, yet even the most learned friend when he has it confided to him in private fails to discover its origin. In the afternoon of the same day Lord Rosebery acted as spokesman at a ceremony in the hall of the Students' Union, when Dr. Masson—the author of the Life of Milton — was presented with his portrait, and the Senatus with his bust in marble. Lord Rosebery cinttrived to confess that he had not read Professor Masson's petit wink through, and yet managed to make the fact a compliment. That was a tour de force worthy of Lord Chesterfield, On Thursday Sir Michael Hicks-Beach took part in a debate on the reform of the House of Lords, held at the Oxford Union. In his speech, which was characteristically sensible, moderate, and unimaginative, Sir Michael Hicks-Beach pointed out that if there had been no House of Lords the Home-rule Bill would have been passed in 1893. Bat in 1895 it would have almost certainly been repealed by the new Parliament. The House of Lords, by vetoing great changes which were not clearly the will of the country, saved us from reaction. That is very true and very important. No nation moves along the path of reform with such a steady, unbroken pace as the English. Sir Michael Hicks-Beach denied that the House of Lords always obeyed the dictates of the Tory party. He had been behind the scenes, and knew something of the independence of the House of Lords. He could tell them that that independence very nearly brought about a Ministerial crisis in 1896, and that even a few months ago "there were anxious minds in the councils of the Govern- ment as to the course which the House of Lords might take upon a very important measure." Sir Michael's own pro- posals for reform were : more life Peers and the introduction of the elective system for the English Peers. At the proposal that Peers should be allowed, if they could find seats, to enter the House of Commons, Sir Michael Hicks-Beach was very indignant. There spoke the great squire. The country gentlemen of old family and great position always look upon the notion as something utterly unsportsmanlike. Let the Peers keep to their own land, and not poach on other people's preserves.

London was on Friday week menaced with a conflagration. About 12 o'clock a fire was detected in Wells Street, City, in the warehouse of a dealer in ostrich feathers, and it spread through the clumps of warehouses of which Jewin Street is the centre, and raged for nearly twenty hours. More than forty engines and two-thirds of the Fire Brigade were em- ployed in suppressing it ; but a hundred buildings were destroyed or gutted. St. Giles's Church, Cripplegate, was injured, though not seriously, and property wasidestroyed to the value, it is said, of two millions sterling. That is probably an exaggerated estimate, but the loss will exceed a million, and the greater part was not covered by insurance, the offices being as a rule responsible only for the actual buildings. They will not have to pay, we are told, more than half a million in all, a sum which they will not greatly feel. No lives were lost, though the Brigade tisked themselves almost recklessly, and it is possible that the true lesson of the fire, which is the value of thick dividing walls, will be learned by builders. The theory in their minds is that the risks caused by unstable building are covered by insurance, which is true, but is not comfort to insurance stock-holders who may be rained, or to the citizens of London who may be burned alive.

The Times of Monday contains an interesting item of news from Cairo. Dr. Borchardt, who is helping to catalogue the contents of the Gizeh Museum, has just ascertained that a Royal tomb found last spring by Mr. De Morgan is that of King Menes, the founder of the First Dynasty. Up till now the existence of King Menea was regarded as more than doubtful by most Egyptologists. Now we may all see the calcined fragments of his body, and an ivory plaque found in the tomb, bearing the name used by the Pharaoh during his lifetime,—namely, Menes. This inscription shows that the hieroglyphic system of writing was already fully developed, and that Menes was entitled King of Upper and Lower Egypt. After this we shall not be surprised to hear of King Arthur's body being discovered at Glastonbury Tor. Menes is said to have been eaten by a crocodile. Some day a learned German will doubtless discover the marks of the teeth on the "calcined fragments of the body." Meantime the reputation of Manetho—the high-priest of Heliopolis, who compiled a. chronological history of Egypt for Ptolemy Philadelphus—as a veracious historian is more securely established than ever.

Bank Rate, 3 per cent.

New Consols (2,1) were on Friday. 1131.