Omaha daily bee., 1890-08-23

with the Fren III, and it is not improbable
they will undertake it, but it will cost
colossal sum, and if built can it be kept up
and made TO payi
-
The painful certainty that the poorest aud
most crowded half of ireland is on the very
brink of famine brought about the only all
night sitting of the late session of parliament.
There is now no doubt that in that whole Sec
tion of the unhappy island south of line
drawn diagonally from Waterford across to
Sligo the potato crop is the worst since 1879,
and as generally happens in peculiarly inn
poverished localities, ii is almost total fail
ure. Literal starvation will have descended
upon the more helpless of these congestcd
mountain districts before parliament meets
again in the late November; yet the govern
mcnt could think Of no better provision for
relief than at the last moment to rush in
bill appropriating between 100000
and S3,0OO00O for building series
of light railways in various parts of
Munster and Connaught a few of the
drawer Irish members protested against
this as sham measure of relief which would
help nobody for fully a year to come except
the shareholders in the railway company,
who got this money without interest. Led
by Healy and Labouchere, the little minority
vainly fought the bill to secure amendments
which make the bill of immediate service,
and especially to defeat the clause which lays
SlOOOO0 taxation for these fantastic railways
upon the poverty-stricken ratcpaycrs of
County Galway. But they got only insults
for their pains, and parliament adjourned
without any further pretcnse of aycrting the
famine which hangs over ireland than this
wrctchcd parody upon the memorable farce
of the labor rate act of 1877. Then too, money
was voted for railways instead of for food,
and this money went TO the landlords and
contractors, while the people died on the
roadsides with grass in their mouths.
~.
While England and Germany are disputing
over Zan Zlbar France has quietly extended
her protectOrate over number of populous
countries south of the north fork of the
Niger. The new territory which is thus in a
fair way of coming under the French flag will
round out the French domains in western Al
RIGA, and will, sooner or later, secure to
France a colony that will havea coast line,
probably unbrollen, from Cape Bon, opposite
Sicily, to the Blight of Benin, which used to
be the headquarters Of the slave trade, 1t
will constitute an empire, for parallel to
which we must turn to the British posses
sions in IIindostan How many people the
territory contains there are no means of esti-
mating; the numbers are probably far in eX-
cess of any published estimates and when
the domestic slave trade is stopped and the
wars between tribes are checked, population
can not but increase with rapid strides, as
it does in every tropical country where peace
regns and food abounds. 1t would not be
surprising if, in the course of the twentieth
| century, French Africa should come to be one
| of the nations of the world, with military
| strength which would be felt in any future
convulson in Europe.
~
1t would be difficult to arouse religious
war in western Europe. 1t would be easy TO
do so in eastern Europe, where civilization is
alta low ebb and fauatcism is rampant, and
where for centuries all sorts of oppression for
conscience's sake have been perpetrated. The
| Greek and other Christians of European
| Turkey have suffered much because of the +
religion. Hitherto they have been almost
helpless. But now they form a majority of
the population and they have the sympathy
ofother nations at their back They see,
moreover, the Ottoman power weaker than
ever before. The patriarch of Constantinople
resigns, and thus arouseS every Christian in
the peninsula. Prince Ferdinand prepares
to proclaim himself king of Bulgaria, and be
| no more tributary vassal. Russia increases
| her army on the frontier and demands $780,
| OO0,OO0 from an empty treasury. And the
! Sheill-ul Islam, with the grip Of blind fana
ticis IN, holds the helm and keeps the Otto
man ship of state headed straight for the
dot M q h1.nn lEnl