The age-herald., 1897-10-10

The British premier. the Marquis of Salisbury, has not shown a sign of yielding an iota of the British claims in the Hnterland and the authorities at Lagos have been preparing for some time past to circumvent these French plans They have already sent numer- ous achievements of troops and gum boats to the front and on Friday they ordered Capt. Frederick Lutgart, a thorough experienced officer of the Royal Niger company, to go to the front. All the steamers from Liverpool to the west coast of Africa are taking officers, troops and large quantities. of munitions of war.
 In addition to this attempt at colonial expansion upon the part of the French preparing to swell the kingdom of siam The Temps, organ of the French foreign office, enumerates the points in dispute with Siam in such manner as to lead to the belief that the French govern ment intends to try and forca Siam mo vassalage unless Great Britain inter venes.
 An American diplomat who has just arrived here from Madrid says the con- dition. of Spain is even worse than the correspondents depict. Whoever is sent to Cuba, he adds, will attempt to buy off the insurgent .leader. The dip.omait fur theT says that the Spanish government is so a1ard pressed fer money that it is attempting to sell afi the public lands and buildings that can pcg5ibly be spared. Not only have the soldiers been unpaid since last March, but the pension | lists are in arrears.
 All social intercourse between the American minister at Madrid and the Spanish officials and the diplomatic corps has been suspended for more than a year. This was partly due to the fact that MT. Hannis Taylor, the former United States minister to Spain, was persona non grata ito most of the mem- bers of the diplomatic corps For eighteen months MT. Taylor had not been on speaking terms with the French and Austrian ambassadors and for a long time with the papal nuncio. The rupture with the French ambassador was because MT. Taylor protested against being omitted from the list of guests at recption given by the ann bassadors.
 There is no indication of an improve ment in the engineering strike. Seventy almost a certainty of a general strike throughout the ship building establish ments involving 10000 men. The strike has already entailed the Loss of s3,750,- 900 and is calculated to reach $10,000, 900 by Christmas.
 The railroad employees threaten to add to the chaos. They are to hold a confer ence at Birmingham in few days and will formulate demands which the com panies say 1t is impossible for them to grant, and in the event of the latter's refusal a general strike of 150,000 rail- road workers which probably will mean the idling of 1.50O,0O others will follow.
 The liberal newspapers, headed by the Daily Chronicle and the Westminster Gazette, are advocating war to the
 death and have opened subscription lists urging levy upon all unions ir support of the striking engineers and to befriend trade unionism, whose very ex- istence they say is at stake.
 In the meanwhile the entire navy pro- gram is disjointed. Work on dozen warships is at a standstill and several others which ought to have been launched during the past week are still on the stocks and must remain there for an indefinite period.
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