prevent contraction of the currency. But it worked the other way, interfering with easy expansion. The banks will issue larger volumes of circulating notes when there is demand for money, if it is made easy for them to retire these notes when the demand slackens. Congress was rather timid about passing the bill increasing the future salaries of members of the two houses from $5000 a year to $7500. It was a proper measure and the country approves of it. The disapproval of a salary increase on a certain occasion many years ago was due to the fact that it gave back pay to the men passing the bill. The increased cost of living at Washington has proved a hardship to public servants. MR. ANDREW CARNEGIE. (Who is especially prominent this month by reason of several important occasions.) On Behalf of Peace and Order. The ratification of the treaty with San Domingo, under which our Government may exercise certain financial control, is a matter of great importance and will have future consequences that will make for peace and order in the West Indies. The Algeciras treaty also was duly confirmed. The ship-subsidy bill was not enacted. Provision was made for two battleships much larger than any now in our navy. Our confirmation of the Algeciras treaty, our valuable work of an international character in San Domingo, our protection of all interests, foreign and domestic, in Cuba, and our varying successes as peacemaker in Central America, together with our fortunate removal of all danger of strain with Japan, and our progress in negotiations with the Dominion and Great Britain, are some of the matters which will give us enhanced prestige at The Hague when the second great congress of the nations meets there in the early summer. It can be shown that since the first Hague Conference we have done a good deal to promote the cause of international peace. Besides Mr. Choate, General Porter, and Judge Rose, we shall be represented at The Hague by Mr. Hill, our Minister to Holland, and Mr. Buchanan, who was chairman of our delegation at the recent Pan-American Conference at Rio. Gen. G. B. Davis and Rear-Admiral Sperry will represent us as military and naval experts. Mr. Carnegie's Institu Meanwhile, the unofficial groups and organizations that are espetions. cially interested in the cause of peace will hold what is called the national Arbitration and Peace Congress at New York, on the 14th day of the present month. It will be under the presidency of Mr. Andrew Carnegie, and many distinguished foreigners will attend. On April 11, Mr. Carnegie will assemble at Pittsburg a number of notable guests who will participate in the opening of the new buildings of the Carnegie Institute. An account of the wonderful institution Mr. Carnegie has been building up at Pittsburg has more than once been presented to the readers of this magazine. Elsewhere in the present number of the REVIEW we present an article from the pen of the well-known artist and critic, Mr. Frank Fowler, who writes of the Carnegie Institute from the artistic standpoint. The Greater Pittsburg has its chief center of attraction in the splendid library, gallery, and museum that Mr. Carnegie has provided. Mr. Cleveland EX-PRESIDENT CLEVELAND, FROM A RECENT PHOTOGRAPH. Mr. Carnegie will be seventy will be seventy next year. These and many and Others years old next November, and he other men of great intellectual activity and at Seventy. was never at any time more vig- public usefulness are showing that old age orous of mind or more actively and influen- need not arrive until long after the period tially concerned with affairs of large signifi- of three score and ten. There has been much cance. Ex-President Cleveland was seventy comment of late upon the continued strength years old on the 18th of March. He is a and brilliancy of the writings of Prof. great favorite in the university town of Goldwin Smith, who is in his eighty-fourth Princeton. As our only living ex-President, year. Dr. Edward Everett Hale is a little he maintains in the country's regard and re- older. Senator Allison is seventy-seven ; spect a very lofty position. President Eliot, President Diaz and the Emperor Francisof Harvard, was seventy-three last month; Joseph are seventy-six, and, in short, the list Mark Twain is in his seventy-second year, of active and prominent personages between and Mr. Bryce, the new British Ambassador, the ages of seventy and eighty is a long one. American An appropriation of $12,000,000 by the German Government,Supremacy. on condition that German manufacturers raise a larger sum,-to encourage cotton-growing in the colonies of the Fatherland, has called attention anew to the supremacy of America in the production of this great staple. In average years the fields of the United States produce more than threequarters of the cotton crop of the world. We hold our own, although, since our Civil War, many and costly attempts have been made in various parts of Asia and Africa to compete with our cotton-growing States. To-day Texas alone produces nearly as much as all non-American countries combined. During the year ending September 1, 1906, our cotton crop aggregated 11,319,860 bales, of which 6,716,351 bales were exported to Europe. During the same period, the East Indies, Egypt, and the rest of the world produced 2,562,000 bales. The production of Russia is increasing rapidly. According to Baron Kaneko, three-quarters of all the raw cotton used in the Mikado's empire comes from this country. The fact underlying the whole situation is that the world's demand for cotton is expanding far more rapidly than the world's supply. War in Central America. would be dominant figures. A number of minor engagements between Honduran and Nicaraguan troops took place late in February and early in March, and, as we go to press, the war is not yet ended. Mexico as the Peace. While not contemplating any "Guardian of active interference, the governments of the United States and Mexico have been exerting their best efforts to settle the difficulties. The neighboring republic of Mexico is, as time goes by, being more and more regarded in the light of one of the "monitors" of the Monroe Doctrine, a sort of tacitly recognized guardian of the peace among the republics between our frontier and Panama. Señor Creel (see our article on page 489 this month), the new Mexican Ambassador to Washington, has been assiduous in his efforts to smooth out the trouble. Perhaps, after all, there will be no permanent peace in Central America until, to quote Gen. Domingo Vasquez, exPresident of Honduras, there is a strong arm thrown around the five republics. There can be but one end to these affairs, and that is the establishment of a protectorate by the United States, and the sooner this condition of affairs arrives the better off will be Central-American nations." It is interesting to note that the Louisiana State Lottery has finally died in Honduras. was driven from this country in 1892, but was transferred to the Central-American republic, where it flourished until its suppression in the early days of February. London's Election. It It is difficult to clearly understand the real causes of the war now being waged between Honduras and Nicaragua, with Guatemala, Salvador, and Costa Rica more or less actively involved. During July and August of last year, it will be remembered, a revolution in Guatemala finally resulted in war between Proceedings in the British Parthat republic and Salvador, into which Hon- Municipal liament divided interest with the duras was drawn. In 1903 a dispute over London municipal election durterritory between Nicaragua and Honduras ing the spring weeks in England. Elections was submitted to King Alfonso of Spain for membership in the County Council, held for arbitration. That monarch decided in on March 2, resulted in a substantial victory favor of Honduras. Nicaragua, however, for the so-called municipal reformers, who never really acquiesced in this decision, now have 85 out of 120 seats. They will and this fact, together with the ambitious designs of a number of Central-American politicians and military le. ders, has probably been the underlying cause of the present trouble. There was, of course, the Honduran mule which, we are gravelv told by the newspaper correspondents, was stolen by citizens of Nicaragua. But even in Central America there had to be a deeperlying cause for war than a mule. President Zelaya, of Nicaragua, is known to cherish an ambitious scheme for a Central-American union, in which, of course, he and his party control the municipal affairs of London,the greater city and the boroughs. This election, which has been widely heralded as a "socialistic rout" and "municipal reaction," was the result, primarily, of an increase in the tax-rate necessitated by the extensive improvements made in the greater city, its parks, highways, transportation, gas, and electric systems. Under the régime of the County Council (superseding the old, antiquated Metropolitan Board of Works) the Progressives, as they were called, held control for eighteen years of all the municipal activities of London. The reform and remaking of the British metropolis was sadly needed, but it was extensive. While the citizens of London cannot be said to have decisively and permanently rejected the policy of municipal ownership, they certainly have administered a check to certain injudicious experiments in municipal operation. There has been, also, a reaction in the metropolitan district from the wave of radicalism which two years ago swept the Liberal party into power by such tremendous majorities. Reorganizing In Parliament a number of highBritain's ly important national and interArmy. national problems are receiving consideration. Secretary of War Haldane's scheme for a reorganization of the British army is being discussed with great heat. Mr. Haldane's idea, in brief, is to convert those divisions of the British forces which are known as the militia, the yeomanry, and the volunteers into a territorial army of 300,000 men. The field force, or regular army, would be 160,000 strong. It is not necessary to go into other details of the scheme further than to say that the plan would result in a slight reduction in the number of men, probably a considerable increase in the efficiency of the army, and a reduction in expenses of from five to six million dollars annually. What Parliament will do with Secretary Haldane's scheme remains to be seen. Meanwhile, although lending a willing ear to the advocates of army reduction, the British admiralty goes on building warships. The building item of the navy estimate for 1907-8 alone is $40,000,000. Disestablishment Proposed. A motion unique in the history of the House of Commons was introduced on February 27. It declared the sense of the British people to be in favor of the disestablishment and disendowment of the Established Church in England and Wales. It is true that the government refused to assume any responsibility for the motion, but it is also true that Chief Secretary for Ireland Birrell, than whom there is no one higher in the councils of the Campbell-Bannerman ministry, spoke warmly in favor of it. The motion was carried by a vote of 198 to 90. So far as Wales is concerned it has been generally understood that the present Liberal ministry is committed to the policy of disestablishment, but official separation of government and church in England is another matter. The prepon derance of Anglicans in the Liberal ranks. will probably preclude any radical action by the present government. Of course the attitude of the established church in the matter of the Liberal educational program has seriously tried the patience of the present British Government. Since, however, it is not at all improbable that the Anglican church commands a majority of the voters of the Kingdom, at least in England proper,-disestablishment is probably not an event of the near future, at least not before the abolition or drastic reform of the House of Lords has been accomplished. The Coming Colonial Conference. On the 15th of the present month the British Colonial Conference will begin its sessions in London. The program includes discussion of the following topics: The constitution of the conference, including the question of an imperial council; preferential trade and the connected coasting and treaty questions; defense; naturalization; immigration; British interests in Pacific (Panama Canal), and the metric system. Already the three important dependencies of Australia, New Zealand, and Cape Colony have declared their intention of advocating the formation of an imperial council for the British Empire, an imperial system of defense, and the adoption of the principle of preferential trade between the mother country and the colonies. Just what our neighbor, the Dominion of Canada, will do, cannot be said at this writing, since no program has as yet been published. Her Prime Minister, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, however, and four of his colleagues, will speak for her at the conference. The status of imperial and local rule in the Transvaal, with particular reference to the recent election, is set forth by Mr. W. T. Stead on another page (428) this month. While the French Government Strength of the Clemenceau and the Vatican have been markMinistry. ing time in the struggle over the disposition of ecclesiastical property in the republic the Clémenceau ministry has been strengthening its position with the French voters. An unexpected and virtually unanimous strike of the electricians of Paris left the French capital in darkness all the night of March 8 and caused the stoppage of most of the business, including, of course, the theaters and the publication of newspapers. The workers of Paris are very strongly unionized. The striking electri cians demanded that in carrying out recent concessions from the municipal council the electrical company recognize the eight-hour day and old-age pensions, which are compulsory conditions of all government work. This the company refused to do. The strikers grew riotous and threatened all sorts of dire vengeance. Premier Clémenceau's vigor AN INTERPELLATION IN THE FRENCH PARLIAMENT. (Premier Clémenceau and Education Minister Briand listening to a question as to governmental policy on the religious question.) Franco- A subject of particular current interest to both Frenchmen and Americans is the announcement of the completed arrangements for the International Maritime Exposition to be held at Bordeaux, France, between May 1 and November 1 of the present year. There the republic will pay a high tribute to Robert Fulton, the inventor of the steamboat, who, it will be remembered, began his experiments in navigation upon French rivers. The United States will have the place of honor at this exposition, which will devote a great deal of attention to Fulton relics and memorabilia. It is interesting to note in passing, also, that this year's French lecturer at Harvard on the Hyde Foundation, who began the series late in February, is the Vicomte Georges d'Avenel, who has rendered to France services similar to those which Thorold Rogers rendered England. M. d'Avenel is the author of a monumental work in several volumes which not only tabulates the cost of living and the sources of income of every class of French society from the year 1200 up to the beginning of the nineteenth century, but also gives a vivid picture of the ordinary daily life of every class. He has supplemented this work by a study, of which five volumes have thus far appeared, entitled, "Le Mécanisme de la Vie Moderne," in which he has applied the same method to describing his contemporaries as he employed in the earlier work in describing their ancestors. These two works entitle him to be ranked as the first social historian of the republic. Religious Apathy in France. ous police and military measures soon righted the situation, and upon a vote of confidence The religious situation in France put by the Socialist leader Jaures in the is slowly clarifying. It is, howChamber of Deputies the Premier was apever, a remarkable comment on proved by a vote of 378 against 68. Later the religious state of the French people the electrical company acceded to the de- that, with the exception of certain secmands of the men. The sympathy of the civilized world went out to the French people during early March, when the news came of the terrible accident to the two French warships Jean Bart and the Jena. The Jean Bart foundered and will be a total loss, although her crew was saved. An explosion on the battleship Jena (March 12), one of the finest vessels of the French navy, resulted in the total destruction of the vessel and the loss of 118 lives. The republic also lost last month one of her finest-souled statesmen. On the same day as the blowing up of the Jena M. Jean Paul Casimir-Perier, ex-President, died in Paris. tions in Brittany, the people at large, particularly the educated classes, have long ceased to take any active interest in the Christian religion. Frenchmen who are nominally Catholic regard its practice as consisting chiefly in rites and ceremonies,a kind of convention which ought to be correctly performed, but which has no direct, practical bearing upon everyday life. Hence the astonishing absence of any strong popular feeling against the government, which has expelled the religious orders, disestablished the church, disendowed the clergy, and laid profane hands upon church property. The government believes that, so long |