\
A Weekly Newspaper and Review .
DUM VOBIS GRATULAMUR, ANIMOS ETIAM ADDIMUS ÜT IN INCCErTIS VESTRIS CONSTANTER MANEAT.S.
From the Brief of His Holiness Pius IX . to T he Tablet, June 4, zbjo.
Vol. 94. No. 3095. L o n d o n , S e p t e m b e r 2, 1899. pr.ce Sd., by post sjm.
[R e g i s t e r e d a t t h e G e n e r a l P o s t O f f i c e a s a N ew s p a p e r .
C h ro n ic le o f t h e W e e k :
Page
M r. Chamberlain’s Warning to President Kruger— Debate in the Cape Parliament — The Dreyfus Trial : Handwriting Experts— The Panizzardi Telegram— More E x perts-Evidence of M . de Freycinet— M. Déroulède’s D e f ia n c e President Mackinley and the Philip p in es-H o lid ay Excursions to Khartoum— An Emperor’s Discretion— The Bequests of the Baroness Hirsch— \ Bold Swindle— Abolition o f Slavery in Zanzibar— The Death of Baron Grant . .
357
L e a d e r s :
The Church and the Poor .. 361
CONTENTS
L e a d e r s (Continued) :
Page
Archbishop Courtenay and Appeals to the Pope ......................... 361 The Rev. Robert Belaney, M .A . 363 An English Squadron at San
Remo ......................... _ •. 364 The Catholic School Committee and the Education Department 364 Social Position and the Work of the Catholic Laity in England . . 365
N o t e s ~
—
R e v ie w s :
Studies in Dante . . A Queen o f Atlantis
- 369
37° 37 «
So c ia l a n d P o l i t i c a l . .
C orrespon d e n c e :
Page
- 371
Rome :— (From Our Own Corre
spondent) . . . .
. . 373
N ew s from t h e D io c e se s :
Westminster . . . . . . 384 Birmingham . . . . . . 384 Funeral of Bishop Schmitz . . . . 384
S U P P L EM E N T . The Catholic Truth Society :
Annual Conference at Stockport 389
.
Tuesday Morning’s Sitting :
The Origin and Course of the
P a g i
Anglican Movement . . . . 39a The Anglican Position . . - - 392 Tuesday Afternoon :
The Popular Use o f the Scriptures 394 Wednesday Morning:
The Layman in the Church . . 375 The Layman in the Mediaeval
Parish ....................................... 377 The Afternoon Session :
The Attitude of Catholics towards
Legislation on Secondary Education . . 380 The Christian Measure of Great
ness.................................................. 383
Rejected MS. cannot be returned unless accompanied with address and postage.
CHRONICLE OF THE WEEK.
WARNING TO PRESIDENT KRUGER. T
MR. CHAMBERLAIN’S
'H E grave words used by Mr.
Chamberlain to the Liberal Unionists at Birmingham on Saturday show that the Transvaal situation has reached a point which is at the parting of the ways. The Government have all along handled the matter with infinite patience, and Mr. Chamberlain’s warning, serious as it is in its import and tone, is only an echo of the words already used by Mr. Balfour and Lord Salisbury. Three months of negotiation with President Kruger have as yet brought no satisfactory settlement. As Mr. Chamberlain said : Mr. "Kruger procrastinates in his replies. He dribbles out reforms like water from a squeezed sponge, and he either accompanies his offers with conditions which he knows to be impossible, or he refuses to allow us to make a satisfactory investigation of the nature and the character of these reforms. What we have asked is admitted by the whole world to be just and reasonable and moderate— so moderate indeed, that the proposals which were made by Sir Alfred Milner at the Bloemfontein Conference appear to many to verge upon weakness. We cannot ask less, and we cannot take less. The issues of peace and of war are in the hands of President Kruger and of his advisers.” The present crisis would never have occurred if President Kruger had listened to the advice tendered to him four years ago or had accepted the compromise offered three months ago»by Sir Alfred Milner. Even now at the eleventh hour he had ft in his hands to settle the issues and pave the way to a better understanding. But would he speak the necessary words and accept the reasonable reforms pressed upon him? “ The sands are running down ill the glass. The situation is too fraught with danger, it is too strained for any indefinite postponement. The knot must be loosened, to u Mr. Balfour’s words, or else we shall have to find other ways of untying i t ; and if we do that,if we are forced to tha , then I would repeat now the warning that was given by Lord Salisbury in the House of Lords, and I would say, 1 we are forced to make further preparations, and if this delay continues much longer, we shall not hold ourselves limited by what we have already offered, but, having taken
N e w S e r i e s . V o l . L X I I . , No. 2 ,4 ° 4
this matter in hand, we will not let it go until we have secured conditions which once for all shall establish this, which is the Paramount Power in South Africa, and shall secure for our fellow-subjects there, at all events, those equal rights and equal privileges which were promised to them by President Kruger when the independence of the Transvaal was granted by the Queen, and which is the least really that in justice ought to be accorded to them.” I f a rupture should take place he would have against them the opinion of the vast majority of the people of the British Empire.
DEBATE IN THE CAPE PARLIAMENT.
Apart from somewhat conflicting statements as to the effects of Mr. Chamberlain’s speech, there is little direct news from the Transvaal. There has, however, been a heated discussion in the Cape Assembly which throws considerable light upon the attitude of the two parties. The debate was a consequence of the action of the leader of the Opposition, Sir J. Gordon Sprigg, who moved the adjournment of the House in order to call attention to the removal of large quantities of munitions of war to the Orange Free State. He said that a larger quantity had been removed in the seven weeks from July than in the six months previous. It had been removed at a time of acute crisis, when Mr. Schreiner had written to the papers disapproving of Imperial interference. This action looked like active interference on the part of the Government of this colony. The Customs Convention was not in point. Unfortunately we were on the brink of war, and it rested with the Government of the Transvaal to say whether it should be war or not. He contrasted the action of Portugal, and said that he might surely ask the Ministers of her Majesty to do as much. He asked for an assurance with regard to future action. In his reply the Premier, Mr. Schreiner, maintained that peace existed and in his belief was not going to be broken. Under those circumstances we had simply no right under our Convention with the Free State to forbid the export of arms. He had just received a telegram from President Steyn, of the Orange Free State, on the subject. No communication had been previously sent to Mr. Steyn, so that the telegram was quite voluntary. It sa id : “ No need to deny false malicious reports that Free State take arms against British colony and British Government. Would only take arms to defend ourselves or enforce treaty obligations. Think differences between Transvaal and Britain capable of peaceful settlement. War would be offence against civilization.” Continuing, Mr. Schreiner expressed his own belief that the difficulty would be settled without war. He would not give
