-Cleveland Plain Dealer.

policy. Indeed the probabilities are that Russia will effect an alliance with Great Britain safeguarding the

integrity of India in return for a free port in the Persian Gulf, and the right of entry into Mediterranean, where she could no longer threaten Britain's highway to India. The New York Outlook has the following to say about this epoch-making making treaty :

The official Russians continue to talk as if they had suffered temporary reverses; the world knows that the prestige of Russia in the Far East, and the fear of her power which has been a shadow over Europe for decades, are things of the past. The Russian people have a great future before them, but it will be a very different future from that which has shaped the policy of the autocracy in the East for generations.

In this dramatic unfolding of events nothing has occurred more significant of the changes already effected and the greater changes to come than the signing of the new treaty between Japan and England.

Its objects are four: The maintenance of peace in the regions of eastern Asia and India; the preservation of the independence and integrity of the Chinese Empire; the assurance of equal oppor

-Philadelphia Record.

mistakable, and the ultimate purpose of the two nations must be inferred from the clear purport of this impressive agreement. It makes three great facts in the Eastern situation clear.

English government in India has been expensive, but it has been thorough, upright, and intelligent. It has become a synonym for impartial justice between man and man, for integrity of administration, and for education. It has been and is a school in which India is learning the art of government; and it is very certain that when the Indians are ready to take their affairs into their own hands the little army of English administrators will quietly withdraw. English ideas are to be dominant in the East instead of Russian ideas; that brief statement involves changes the radical and far-reaching character of which have become very clear in the last two years.

The East is to be no more the foraging ground of the West, to be divided up and disposed of without taking into account the rights or wishes of its peoples. Eastern affairs have hitherto been settled in St. Petersburg, Paris, Berlin, or London; hereafter they will be settled in Peking, Tokio, or, in some future time, at Calcutta. The East will develop freely

again in her statecraft as well as in her arms. Now, why will not Germany, France, and Great Britain unite to do the same service for Europe, and thus insure the permanent peace of the world."

The French desire to see their Russian allies and their English friends come to an agreement on questions of mutual concern. What they are anxious for is that they themselves, at the same time as Russia and England, should be left in peace to attend to their own business without perpetual interference from Berlin.

should weigh well the consequences before they enter upon the dreadful game of war. After all it is not the Czar or Mikado who feel the cruel brunt of war, but the maimed and halt and crippled soldiers, so many thousands of whom leave their lives or limbs on the field of battle.

Great praise is given President Roosevelt for the tact and skill and persistency with which he brought the combatants together, and in spite of innumerable obstacles attained a reconciliation.

The Czar Nicholas has a tremendous task before him in giving representative institutions to the great chaotic mass of mujik, artisan and land-holder. The sternly repressive measures in Moscow and the great centres do not augur well for the new liberties promised the people, but the sun of modern progress will still shine brighter and brighter despite the efforts of the Czar to blow it out.

While business in Russia has almost collapsed, while strikes and lockouts paralyze the industry of the nation, the business in Japan has shown a remarkable increase. The little Island Empire possesses recuperative powers which her colossal rival seems unable to exhibit.

It is a curious irony by which the Czar summons the second Hague Conference. It was President Roosevelt who announced his intention to ask the powers to meet in such a conference immediately after

HISTORY IN CARTOON.

The clever cartoonists of the press often put into a thumb-nail sketch the whole political situation better than it could be described in a column of editorial. Naturally, the end of the war calls for congratulation. But the game of beggar-my-neighbor has brought with it tremendous burdens which the Japs and Russian peasantry will have to bear for many a long year, as is shown in one of our cuts.

There is one debt which never can be paid-the countless lives which have been lost, the empty homes in Russia and Japan, robbed of their bread-winners, and the nameless graves upon the slopes of Port Arthur and the plains of Mukden.

Out of the conflict the Czar comes with tarnished lustre and depleted purse. Having forced the campaign, he must pay the penalty. Kings and potentates

WILLIAM THE MEDDLESOME.

the Peace of Portsmouth, but the great peace-maker gracefully waived this privilege to the great war-maker. The cartoonists poke all sorts of fun at the situation, but doubtless, much good will come of it in the still further defining the rights of neutrals. The repeated seizure of British and German vessels by the Russian fleet, which was much more valorous in the capturing of unarmed vessels than in meeting the Japs, demands protective measures for the sea-borne commerce of the world.

The cordial relations of John Bull and La Belle France, so largely due to the diplomatic tact and skill of Edward the Peacemaker, form the theme of an ingenuous cartoon. It is not beyond the bounds of probability that these recently estranged countries may be again united in an alliance like that of the Crimean campaign, but we trust a more peaceful

one.

For a long time the United States and Western Canada, too, have practised a ruthless boycott on Chinese emigration. Not merely was the Chinese coolie excluded from the country, but men of high rank and college students were held up in a filthy pen and subjected to most offensive indignities. The Chinese boycott of American goods touched Uncle Sam on that sensitive point, his pocket, and will doubtless lead to a revision of the Exclusion Act. The employment of the boycott against British goods is also being adopted as a political movement in Bengal. It is a knife that cuts both ways, it injures the hand that uses it and the object attacked. Surely the resources of civilization can find some better modus vivendi than this.

The secession of Norway from Swelen is the theme of numerous cartoons. One of these indicates the disgruntled attitude

THE LITTLE WAR ON LAKE ERIE.

We are glad to note that the United States Government is commissioning a revenue cutter to prevent the poaching of the Erie fishermen in Canadian waters. Having destroyed their Own fishing grounds they now try to destroy ours. If not prevented there will soon be no fish in the lakes worth catching. Yet if blood were unhappily shed in guarding our fisheries much bad feeling would be aroused. The best way is for each country to see that its own fishermen do not trespass on its neighbor's rights.

1

The tendency of the age is towards integration. This is seen in the unifica

THE HON. WILLIAM MULOCK, K.C, LL. D.,

Ex-Postmaster-General of Canada.