The Shah in London. LONDON, Sept. 1st, 1902. The Shah of Persia, who has been spending the summer in Europe, paid a visit last month to the British capital. This Oriental Sovereign, until he crossed the Channel, had never quitted terra firma. The weather was fortunately propitious, and his first experience was not unpleasant. He arrived in London a fortnight after the Coronation, and everything was done to make his visit interesting and amusing. He acted very much like a country cousin went to Madame Tussaud's, the Zoo, the Hippodrome, Hampton Court and the Crystal Palace, where he was entertained by fire work display of unprecedented magnificence. From a political point of view no importance is believed to have attached to his visit. He neither sought nor was granted an alliance, but it is believed upon minor points concessions were made which will tend to render Sir Arthur Hardinge's task at Teheran less difficult than it has been in the past. With all due deference to Captain Mahan, who seems to hold the opposite view somewhat strongly, there are no reasons why a Persian question should arise to trouble the relations between Russia and England; but the extension of German influence in the direction of the Persian Gulf is no doubt a constant source of danger. Germany will then have another potent reason for sowing dissension between those who ought to be and who might be, but for the evil tradition of the British Foreign Office, the best of friends in Asia. For OF THE WORLD. The Outlook in China. At the other end of Asia the outlook is not very satisfactory. The decree abolishing the likin duties has been issued, but it remains to be seen whether the formal abolition of these dues will really effect the object which it has in view. British enterprise does not seem to have done anything towards utilising the concessions which were obtained for the purpose of forwarding British industrial interests in China, and the action which the Governors of the provinces are said to be taking in collecting the indemnity affords a timely illustration of the difficulty of making any progress in that country. The Governors who have been entrusted with collecting the money required to pay the indemnity are said to have improved upon the ancient Oriental precedent in such cases. Usually, whenever a foreign Power compels the Chinese Government to pay £1,000, double that sum is extorted from the unfortunate taxpayer, the high officials retaining 50 per cent. of the proceeds as compensation for their trouble in collecting the rest. But this time the Governors are said to be not only exacting double dues, but they have also raised the money twice over by means of a local loan, the subscription to which is compulsory rather than voluntary. in every part of the Empire, with the exception of the Colony over which Mr. Seddon ruled. With regard to the accuracy of my statement, Mr. Seddon replied oracularly:"Time will show," a statement which has been generally regarded as a virtual admission that I was not misinformed in the matter. Concerning the dates I cannot speak positively, but it is practically certain that Mr. Seddon will first return to New Zealand in order to wind up his affairs, bid farewell to his loving subjects, and then gathering together his goods, chattels, wife, family, and other appurtenances, he will transfer his energies to South Africa, where one of two things will happen. Either he will be financially successful, in which case he may become a pillar of the mining industry, or he will be only moderately successful, in successful, in which case we may expect to see Mr. Seddon taking up the somewhat tempting but rather embarrassing rôle of the champion of the Socialistic Labour Party in the goldfields. One of the reasons which Mr. Rhodes alleged to one of his Dutch friends as to why he wished to control the situation at Johannesburg was precisely in order that the growth of Socialism might be checked. It would be rather curious if the would-be Colossus of Africa were to set himself to bring about the very end which the first Colossus wished to avert. The Liberal stituency of Sevenoaks in Kent. In North Leeds a Unionist majority of 2,500 was converted into a Liberal majority of 758. But at Sevenoaks a Tory majority which at the last election stood at 4,812, was reduced last month to 891, and that after no more than six days' campaign on the part of the Liberal candidate. A drop of 4,000 votes in Kent is a much more startling phenomenon than the turnover of 1,600 votes in North Leeds. Its significance no one can dispute. Ministers are doomed, and if a General Election were to take place at this moment the Unionist majority would disappear. Carlyle used to say that the millennium would come if the supreme scoundrel were well hanged. We have at least the consolation of knowing in this country that although our supreme criminal in a political sense is not yet hanged, he is in the condemned cell awaiting execution. One of the most satisfactory things about these English by-elections is Rank and File. the evidence which they afford of the absolute indifference of the rank and file of the Liberal electors to the 'petty personal squabbles which have disgraced those who call themselves leaders of the Liberal Party. The Liberal Party is without leaders. The electors, whose votes at Bury, North Leeds and Sevenoaks have struck terror into the heart of the Unionist whips, are not against the Government for any particular love of the beautiful eyes of Lord Rosebery or of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman. They are animated much more by a common antipathy to an incompetent and reactionary Ministry than by any devotion to the alternative Cabinet. They do not know whether there is So much as an alternative Cabinet in being. What they do know is that they won't have the present Cabinet much longer at any price. If Lord Rosebery and his Liberal Leaguers on the one hand, and Lord Spencer and Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman on the other, cannot adjust their differences, so much the worse for them. The reaction against the Ministry whose policy has been one of war all round-war in South Africa, war against School Boards, and war against the cheap loaf is so strong that the internecine feuds at headquarters do not count as an appreciable minus in the forces which will eject the Ministry at the first opportunity that is offered to the constituencies. seriously. We all have laughed at the fly upon the wheel. That is ridiculous enough, but what are we to think of half a dozen fussy flies sitting upon the axle, angrily debating which one it is makes the wheel go round, each one threatening, if his pre-eminent claim is not recognised, to fly off and so bring the wheel to a dead stop? There is some reason to hope that Lord Rosebery is somewhat ashamed of his last outburst; but he is not of sufficient importance to the cause for anyone to insist that he should do penance in sackcloth and ashes even for that extraordinary and unworthy performance. Henceforth the best that Liberals of the rank and file can do is to forget that they have got any leaders, or have ever had any leaders, or that they will ever want any leaders, and to fight all along the line under the inspiring watchword of "Turn the rascals out!" The Reason Why. There have been a great many explanations of the cause of this decisive manifestation of hostility to the Government on the part of English constituencies which have had a recent opportunity of expressing their opinion upon the political issues of the hour. Some ascribe it to the swing of the pendulum; others to the third unpopularity of the Education Bill; a favourite explanation is the re-imposition of the tax on bread; while a fourth is dissatisfaction with the war and the way in which it has been conducted. There is no reason to put forward any one of these explanations as the only cause of Ministerial reverses. They all contribute to the unpopularity of the Government. John Ball is recovering from his Jingo debauch -his head is aching, the bills are still unpaid. His wits have sufficiently returned to him to see that his Ministers have played ducks and drakes with his interests, and that in the administration of his business they are, to use a vulgar phrase, "all over the shop." Trade also is beginning to decline; the outlook ahead --commercially-is darkening. What wonder that Mr. Balfour is in for a very bad quarter of an hour? It is not only in England that that Ministers are faring badly. Ireland as a whole is hopeless from a Unionist point of view; but the northeast corner of Ireland has hitherto been a place where Ministers could confidently count upon unfailing support. Last month, however, the by-election for South Belfast led to the defeat of the Government candidate in circumstances which are very significant. The Unionists nominated Mr. Buller Et tu Belfast! Photograph by] The Earl of Dudley. The New Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. as their official Mr. Sloan, an was [Lafayette. candidate. He was opposed by independent working-man, who nominated by the Protestant Association, with the result that when the poll was taken the official candidate was defeated by a majority of 826. On the subject of Home Rule Mr. Sloan is as irreconcilable as Mr. Buller, but his election is an indication that the Orange rank and file in Ulster are taking alarm at what they consider the Romanising tendencies of Mr. Balfour. It would be a curious outcome of the attempt to pay the Anglican clergy for their political support of the Education Bill if the net result were to land English Nonconformists and Tory Orangemen in a Protestant crusade against the Ministry. There is reason to believe that it is a danger to which the leaders of the Irish Party are fully alive. This disaffection on the part of the extreme Protestants of Ulster is not likely to be much lessened by anything which may be done by Lord Dudley, who has now succeeded Lord Cadogan as Viceroy of Ireland. Lord Dudley is an amiable young nobleman, who has married a charming wife, and who has sufficient means to maintain the vice-regal state; but John Bull: Anti-Clerical. it will require more than youth, money and a charming wife to disarm the sullen suspicion of the black North. In the month of August, especially a Coronation August, political agitation tends to slacken. It is only the accident of the by-elections which enabled us to see how rapidly popular feeling is turning against the Government. People are already beginning to speculate what the Government will do. with their Education Bill. Mr. Gould's cartoon happily hits off the difficult position of the Prime Minister. The clergy are no doubt stronger as against the Liberationists than they were thirty years ago, but that is due very largely to the fact that they had failed utterly in their attempt to enforce Church rates, keep up University tests, and generally assert their ascendency over people who resented it. Their present attempt to quarter the Church schools on the rates and taxes, thereby trampling under foot the fundamental principle that public money should never be granted for institutions that are not under public control, is suicidal. No amount of chop logic will induce the ordinary ratepayer and taxpayer to believe that it is just that he should pay eleven-twelfths of the whole cost of educating a child at a denominational school, while his representatives are in a permanently impotent minority in their management. John Bull at the bottom of his heart hates clericalism, has always hated it, will always hate it, and this antipathy is often quite as strongly developed among Churchmen as it is among the non-church-going classes. Mr. Balfour has unwittingly run his head against a stone wall. The Boer Generals in London. The welcome given to the Boer Generals when they arrived in England on the day of the Coronation Review was another pleasant indication of the change in public sentiment. The cheering crowds which followed Botha, De Wet, and Delarey through the streets from Waterloo Station to their hotel did not probably intend to do anything more than testify their respect and admiration for brave men who had put up a first-class fight on behalf of their independence. But even if we grant that the popular tribute was very much akin to that which is paid to a successful jockey or victorious prize-fighter, the homage paid to the triumvirate by the King and Mr. Chamberlain was much more serious and significant. That the King should have received them, should have bidden them a hearty welcome, was fit and proper, and they received it with the simple dignity which is their characteristic; but that Mr. Chamberlain and all his claque should have been so desperately anxious to impress the Boers by parading before them the British Navy, illustrates better than anything else the fear and awe which the Boers have shot into the minds of our governing classes. But there is an unmistakable feeling that the Boers, even now, have not been sufficiently impressed by the might, majesty and power of the Empire, and that it was necessary to parade the Fleet before them in order to complete the demonstration which had been afforded by the capture of their people and the devastation of their country. This speaks volumes as to the moral effect that has been produced by the series of reverses through which we have passed in South Africa. War The idea that war may be a good investment is at the present moment as an Investment. considerably discounted by the experiences of Great Britain. If ever there was a country in which British trade ought to have advanced by leaps and bounds (if there were any truth in the doctrine that trade follows the flag, and that expenditure on war is recouped by an increase of business) Egypt is that country. For the last eighteen years that land has been garrisoned by Great Britain. We have spent millions in subjugating it and extending our sovereignty over an enormous area of territory in the higher Nile; but from the statistics just published by the Board of Trade it is evident that our trade in Egypt has remained stationary, while that of the United States and Germany has considerably increased. The same lesson is taught by the figures as to British exports to British Colonies. We have been extending our frontiers, and enormously increasing the area over |