The times., 1901-05-05
LONDON NEWS AND GOSSIP.
Recurring REPORTS That Lord Sails
bury Viii soon Retire

bury VIII soon Retire.
LONDON. May 4-Once again the poll
ticians talk of Lard salisbury's retire
ment as one of the certainties of the near
future. and point suggestively to the an
nouncement that Mr. Balfour will take
the Premier's place at Mondays demon
stration of the Primrose League, which
has always been pet appearance of the
Marquis. Such r,imors are inevitable in
the case of a man who is past his sew
enty-first birthday, and compelled under
medical advice to absent himself in
warmer foreign lands just when British
politics are at the keenest. It is quite Ger
tain that he would retire tomorrow If the
| succession were clearly defined. but know
ing, as he does, that his disappearance
must at once widen the gulf always eX-
listing between the Liberal Unionists and
the Tory sections of the Ministerial par
ty, he Will cling on from sheer sense OF
duty so long as the doctors permit.
1t is a marvel to unprecedented observers
that the Cabinet should come through the
budget crisis without an open split Out
side the Cabinet, Ministerial differences
are of the acutest, and the fact that the
Ministerial majority fell within the last
| few days from normal $50 to %, and
would have been pretty well wiped out
but for the accidental absence of certain
Nationalists, indicates by how slender a
| thread even the most powerful British
Governments hold office.
BY sheer force of character and the in
herent strength of his case, the Chancel-
! Ior of the Excheauer is overcoming the
strenuous political campaign directed
against his budget, and especially the coal
| tax The furious threats of the mine
owners and the workers in unison to
| strike, and so paralyze the industry of
the country, unless the tax is removed,
| leave the Chancellor unmOved. 1t Is too
palpable a trick. The position is well pic
tured in Punch this week, where King
| Coal enthroned on champagne bottles and
| swollen money bags protests that this
| paltry shilling per ton on exported coal
will bring him to beggary; but. neverthe-
| less. such agitations are very disturbing
| to Ministry dependent on votes.
So. also, in the vigorous campaign on
| which the opposition is embarking against
| the Government new army scheme, for.
while Liberals oppose the scheme on the
ground of it's militarism and its failure to
! get to the root of the question by reform
| in administration, many Ministerialists,
including the army spokesmen, oppose it
| on the grounds Of its tirnid reliance on
| volunteer soldiers and it's failure to give
, the empire a much larger professional
| army with increased pay. These Ministe-
| rial grumblers number eighty. Winston
| Churchill is one of them, and proposes an
| amendment postponing all army reform
until the war is over If the Liberal op-
| position and the NationaIists also support
| this amendment, the Ministry may be
! placed in tight corner To strengthen
| weak-kneed supporters, Mr.. Brodrick,
| Secretary of State for War, announced
| this week that the Ministry will stand or
fall by the army proposals in their
! tirety.
An educational problem of great poIit-
cal complexfty also faces the Ministry
| Their supporters in Parliament in
Church. and in the press demand that the
fullest advantage be taken in the inter
| ests of the church-schools of the Law
Courts decision that the school boards
act illegally In spending rate-payers'
money on any education beyond the
barest elements, the three RS in fact At
! last English cIericalsm sees its way to
the Scotch competition of State primary
schools, which is killing off their sec
tartan system. On the other hand, the
Ministerialistic party especially in the
! big centres, includes many warm friends
of school board education and the Min
istry has to choose which section it will
offend. Altogether the Ministry is feeling
most uncomfortable.
significant feature of the census re-
turns issued today is that towns of the
| second and even the third magnitude,
such as Manchester, Birmingham Liver
pool, Leeds. and Sunderland, are growing
faster relatively than London. This is ex-
planned by the magnetism of manufactur-
ing life and high wages. Only three out
| OF sNty-SeVen provincial towns have
| failed to increase Meanwhile the rural
| districts show a persistent decline. Eng
! land is fast becoming a land of town
| dweliers, while dotard agriculture goes on
/ IN the OLD way, despising the means of
| helping the farmer so successful in Amer
| lea. Australasia. and northern Europe
| Improved sanitation. longer holidays, In
| creasing addiction TO bicycling and sport,
and the ever-growing area of the town
| parks are, however, making urban resi-
| dence more and more healthy.
! The latest letters from Cape Town sug
! gest that Sir Alfred Miners need for rest
| official request for a holiday. The over
| whelming difficulties Of his position op-
| press him, and the persistent hostility of
! the leaders of the Cape Dutch and their
/ friends in England, which formerly
| passed unheeded, now are able to worry
| him. 1T is indeed, an open question with
| him whether his health may not. after
| all, induce him to ask the Ministry to re-
/ iieve him from the task of governing the
new South African colonies
The Ministry themselves would not pro-
| pose such a step. but undoubtedly Sir Al
| fred's voluntary withdrawal would great
| ly simplify the pacitication of the Beers
| and of Cape Dutch, for. as Mr.. Chamber
| lain admitted recently, his personality
| was the greatest obstacle with General
Botha and the fighting Beers in the recent
| peace negotiations. One section of the
| Ministry, alarmed at the protractfon of
| the war and its gigantic cost of seven and
one-half million dollars weekly, insist
that the time has come to declare the war
at end and treat all combatants found
with arms rebels. AS matters stand,
no one pretends to foresee the end of the
war for General Kitchener's task is no
less than this, to sweep out Is 900 agile
and desperate men broken up into rowing
bands moving among friends in a most
difficult country three times as large as
England Scotland, Wales, and Ireland to-
gether.