The San Francisco call., 1896-01-26


Englishmen all approve the large con-
cesslons that Lord Salisbury has made to
the French in various directions, and
would be willing to see still others made,
II only they could make sure that France
would show gratitude by cutting loose
from Russia and helping England to form
new Western Europe combination
against despots of all descriptions. There
are vague notions cherished that if the
French would do this Italy and probably
Austro Hungary could be gathered in
from the worn-out and crumbling Triple
Alliance, but all this is still in the air.
There is absolutely nothing TO say about
the Venezuelan matter. The English
papers continue to discuss it, but they
only do so because their American cor
respondents continue to telegraph long
accounts of what this, what that and the
other person or paper, very often OF tenth
rate Importance, says on the subject. The
London Daily News, for instance, has i'm
posed on it extended anti-Cleveland re-
marks by that old star-route remainder,
Bob Ingersoll, and this was actually
treated as an American opinion.
There is, perhaps, grain of Importance
in the report which ascribes to Chamber
lain much more vigorous Venezuelan at
titude than Salisbury and Balfour were
disposed for.
Perhaps this seems more reasonable to
me because l always suspected and said
that Chamberlain was at the bottom of the
whole business, but his extraordinary
speech the other night. in which he
calmly strutted about in the domain of
foreign affairs as if Lord Salisbury was
non-existent, and told what England
would or would not do, certainly warrants
the notion that he is acting as the lingo
force in the Cabinet. Other signs indi-
cate that Salisbury, Balfour and their fol-
lowers are by no means delighted by this
apotheosis of Brummagem, and no one
Will be surprised If evidence of genuine
dissensions in the Cabinet be forthcoming
within the next month or two.
The meeting of Parliamentis now barely
a fortnight away and the politicians are
already tiocking 10 town excited by the pros
pect of a session crowded with big events.
The chances are obviously not less than
even that great foreign war is at hand.
but there is also the semi-domestic prob
lem of the chartered company, which is
superior in interest ana dramatic possi-
bilities to anything that Westminster has
dealt with for generation.
The question of the Indian cotton du-
ties, though less popular in its appeals for
attention, is a matter of very grave i'm
portance. How seriously it is regarded
may be gathered from the fact that the
Times to-day has nearly three columns of
dispatches from Calcutta and Bombay,
largely small type extracts from Sir James
Wheatland's speech delivered last Thurs
day in the Legislative Council, which must
have cost at least $1,000.
The Tory Government, in order to make
a show of keeping the cam paign promises
to Lancashire by which it won nearly
twenty seats, has hit on a compromise
which only indifferently pIacated Man
chester, but infuriates the Indian mill
owners and merchants and will inevitably
be the occasion for prolonged fighting in
the House of Commons.
General Weyler's going to Cuba is re-
garded here, and in Madrid, too, 1 am
told, as the inaugural step in a policy
which. very possibly, will destroy all that
is left of the Spanish empire. This policy
has been forced on the timid Ministry by
the lond, ignorant bowling of the Madrid
press, which is by far the lowest and most
vicious product of Latin journalism and
frankly caters for and represents only the
mobs of the large towns.
General Weyler's speeches and news
paper encomiums show that his expedition
is regarded strictly from the matador's
point of view. He promises to hang or
shoot all rebels falling into his hands, and
the rabble roars as exultingIy as if the
blood of bulls and horses was being talked
about. But soberer minds can already
foresee that this sort of thing is bound to
excite deep feeling in the United States
and only less so in England, and it seems
TO be hardly within the bounds of posi-
bility that Spanish butcheries will be al
lowed to go on without Intervention.
Rontgen's Photographic discovery in
creasingly monopolizes scientific atten-
ton. Already numerous successful ap-
pications OF it to surgical difficulties are
reported from various countries, but per-
haps even more striking are the proofs
that IL will revolutionize methods in many
departments of metaIlurgical industry.
Carbon can be readily distinguished
from iron, ard imperfect fusions in bronze
and other compounds can be detected at
once; so that an ideally simple system of
testing great blocks or bars OF metal, as in
cannon, railroad wheels, rails, bridge Sec
tions, armor- plates, etc., seems at hand
Experiments already made warrant the
expectation that the new method of test
ing viii be of some value in practically
every branch of Inetallurgy.
Poor old Tracy Turnereli gets amicably
compassionate obituary attention from all
shades of newspapers to-day. OF late
years he had grown to be a chronic bore
whose letters clogged the waste baskets of
every editor in the land. He had even
sent round to the press some years ago
photographs of the tomb that ne de-
signed fol himself and erected, inscription
and all. But there has not been any re-
production of it now, when certainly it
would be opportune, which forces the sus-
picion that these also went into the dust
bin as dignifed Offset to Alfred Austin's
extraordinary doggerel sung at the AL
mbra, and two other musc-hall lingo
songs, which are still cheered to hoarse-
ness nightly.
Swinburne's magnificent lode to the