THE TABLET.

A W eekly N e iv spaper a n d R ev iew .

DUM VOBIS GRATULAMUR, ANIMOS ETIAM ADDIMUS ÜT IN INCCEPTIS VESTRIS CONSTANTER MANEATIS.

From the B r ie f of H is Holiness Pius IX . to T h e T a b l e t , June i8fo.

V ol. 91. No. 3019. London, March 19, 1898.

P rick sd., by P ost sJ£d.

[Registered a t th e G eneral Post O ffice as a N ewspaper.

-Chronicle of the Week

Page

Imperial Parliament: The Admiralty and the Contractors — Grants for the West Indies—The New Vaccination Bill — “ Home Rule All Round”—Mr. Balfour’s Rejoinder—The Prisoners’ Appeal ■ Bill— The Unrest in South Africa —The Situation in Cuba—Spain and the United States— Trade Between England and Germany— The “ Entente Cordiale"—Land and the Labourers—The 1 Prime Minister’s Health— The Dum Dum Bullet—A Dervish Defeat.. 433 ■ Leaders :

The Anglican Archbishops’ Reply 437 M. de Mun .. .. .. . . 438 The Jesuits in Albania . . ..439 The New Prisons Bill . . . .4 4 0 N otes ... . . — — . . 441 .Reviews :

The Autobiography of Arthur

Young ..

.. ..443

CONTENTS.

Reviews (Continued):

Through the Goldfields of Alaska

Page to Bering Straits........................444 The Days of Jeanne d’Arc .. 445 The Making of Abbotsford and

Incidents in Scottish History .. 446 The Life of St. Augustine, Bishop and Doctor .. .. . . 446 Consolidation .. .. _.. 446 The Teaching of the Russian

C h u r c h ................................447 Blessed Thomas More and Savo­

narola .. ......................... . • 447 The Society of St. Vincent de Paul 447 Correspondence :

Rome :—(From Our Own Corre­

spondent) ..

— — 449

News from Ireland — — 451 News from France.................... 451 Letters to the Editor :

T h e Daughters of B le s sed

Columba at Perug;a .. .. 453 “ Sir Tatton’s Memory " .. .. 453 Carmelite Nuns Settled in France 453

L etters to th e E d itor (Con­

tinued : Necessitous Schools and the Dis­

Page tribution of the Aid Grant .. 453 “ The Ambrosian Liturgy ” .. 453 Joan of A r c . . .. . . .. 453 The Anglican Archbishops and the

Vindication......................... .. 453 A Catholic Lecture to non-Catholics 453 Diamond Jubilee of the Bishop of

Plymouth ..

.. .. 454

The “ Maine” Disaster .. . . 454 American Notes .. . . .. 455 The “ New Liberals ” and St. Ed­

mund’s House .. .. .. 456 St. Patrick’s Day in London .. 45b O’Connell and “ The Dublin ” .. 457 Russian^ Opinion on the Italian

Question .. . . .. .. 457 A Search by Priest-Hunters .. 457 A Judges Query .. .. .. 458 The Late Father W. Eyre, S.J. .. 458 A ppeals to th e C haritable . . 458 j Books of the W eek..........................459

Obituary .. .. „ J 4 5 9 Social and Political .. ., 460

SUPPLEMENT. N ews from th e Schools:

The Irish Catholic University

Question .. .. .. .. 465 Town Council and School Board at Lancaster .. . . .. 465 The Transference of Church

Schools to Boards . . .. 46 Birkdale Farm School .. .. 466 Superannuation for Teachers .. 466 Football .. .. .. . . 466 N ews from th e D ioceses :

Westminster ..........................467 Southwark......................... . . 468 Birmingham................................ 468 L i v e r p o o l ................................468 Middlesbrough ......................... 469 Northampton ..........................469 Nottingham.. ..........................469 Salford ................................... 460 St. Andrews and Edinburgh . . 470 Religion in American Day Schools 471

Rejected MS. cannot be returned unless accompanied with address and postage.

CHRONICLE OF THE WEEK.

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THE ADMIRALTY AND THE CONTRACTORS. T

.IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT :

H IN G S naval occupied the attention o f the House of Commons of Friday night with the result that a party attack was made on the Government because it had not put into force the Penalty Clauses against those contractors who had failed to carry out the orders placed with them owing to the Engineers’ strike. Mr. Goschen on the previous evening had put three questions to Mr. E. Robertson, which showed the difficulty in which the Government was placed. In the first place if a labour war began with a strike and was followed by a partial lock-out, was the strike or the lock-out to be held the cause of the delay in the fulfilment o f the contract ? Again, if a lock-out of twenty-five per cent, o f the men of a firm were followed by the strike o f the remaining seventy-five per cent., was the result of the stoppage of work due to the lock-out or the strike ? Then there was the question of responsibility for the delay of work owing to a strike or a lock-out in other quarters. Mr. Robertson brushed these considerations impatiently aside, and contended that the Admiralty, supported by the Board of Trade, should have enforced the Penalty Clause by which they could have deducted from the contract price a sum for each day’s delay in the delivery of a vessel beyond a specified time. In reply Mr. Macartney pointed out that it had been decided in 1876 that it was absolutely immaterial whether the word lock-out were contained in the contract or not so long as the contractors were not acting mala fide. A s the Attorney-General afterwards explained, that view of the law had not been doubted since the judgment referred to by Mr. Macartney, and it had been endorsed by the late Lord Coleridge.

Several attempts were made on Monday to

—grants for (jraw Mr. Curzon by awkward questions on west indies. the progress of affairs in the Far East, but

Sir Ashmead Bartlett and those who imitated him succeeded in obtaining but little information from the Under-Secretary of State. When the House went into Committee o f Supply Mr. Chamberlain explained at con-

New Series Vol. LIX., No. 2.328.

siderable length why a vote amounting in all to ¿£120,000 was required for the West Indies. The Government could give no account of what they might propose should be done in order to meet the temporary crisis from which our West Indian colonies were suffering, until the negotiations which werej being conducted with the United States and the Dominion of Canada on behalf of reciprocity arrangements between those countries and the West Indies had been brought to a conclusion. Whatever might be the issue of those negotiations, the grants of ¿£90,000 for deficits, and o f ¿£30,000 in aid of roads and for land settlement, were a matter of present necessity. The former was in no way a dole, but rather one of the necessary expenses of Empire. Such grants were common enough in the case of Crown colonies and in the development of Protectorates like Uganda, and the wonder was that they were not asked for more frequently. France spent over three millions sterling per annum over her colonies. We could not be an Imperial Power unless we were willing to fulfil the responsibilities o f Empire. This general obligation was reinforced by the Report of the Royal Commission, which pointed out that the negro population had been placed in the West India Islands by force. Besides, the failure of the sugar indhstry had been largely brought about by the bounty system, so that the British taxpayei had been reaping benefits from the very circumstances which had been so disastrous to the West Indian trade. Everything that could be done had been done to reduce the expenditure and to increase the taxation of the islands, but to no purpose. The grants were therefore necessary, and the only alternative to the loss of possessions which took nearly three millions of Irish produce. The ¿£30,000 intended to be spent in Dominica and St. Vincent was to be devoted to the encouragement of fresh industries by the promotion of peasant proprietorship. In St. Vincent land would have to be bought, but in Dominica, where there were about 90,000 acres of excellent Crcwn land, the great necessity was the opening out of adequate means of communication. Mr. Labouchere made a speech in opposition to the Government proposals, and gravely lectured his leaders on the text that the duty o f an Opposition was to oppose. His strictures elicited a very satisfactory reply from Sir E. Grey, who was one of the members of the Sugar Commission. Whilst admitting that M i. Labouchere was a great authority on the duties of opposition, he thought that he would hardly carry his theory so far as to say that when one had signed certain recommendations, and the Government had adopted them, any other course was open but to support them. Precedence