Omaha daily bee., 1908-08-22
OTHER LANDS THAN Guns.


-
While King Edward is enjoying at
Marlenbad a season Of rest after his ardu-
Gus task as peace envoy to Emperors will
Ham and Francis Joseph. his majesty's rep
resentatives at home put out as a feeler a
remarkable peace proposal 1t is an
nounced that the government Is seriously
considering a proposal to procure a loan Of
half a billion dollars with which to finance
a naval program designed to insure for
years TO come the two-nation supremacy
of Great Britain. Coming on the heels OF
Lord Cromer's warning that England
should prepare for the coming conflict
which he predicted would occur in five
years, the suggested program is a response
TO home fears and a def to outsiders. The
debt OF the United Kingdom, in round fig
ures, is $3.50, O,OOO, and the proposed addi-
ton will send the total a substantial dis
lance over the four billion mark. II Ger
many intends to keep the pace It must
swell fivefold the 500, 600. 600 assigned for a
three-ycar naval program. The rivalry for
sea power is proceeding at a pace calcu-
lated to make peace conferences contribute
to the gaiety of the world.
The sturdy burghers of Holland are in a
state of joyous expectancy which the rude
capers of the president Of Venezuela do not
seriously mar. Official announcement has
been made that a royal stork is winging it's
Tight to the palace of the queen, and the
'customary reception will be held there in
due time. More significance is attached to
this visit than is usual in such cases. Po-
litical considerations make the stork's call
peculiarly welcome, as 1t will Danish for the
moment, II not permanently, the fear that
the historic house of Orange would cease
to be for lack of an heir, and prevent the
nation becoming a mere province OF the
German empire. A direct heir forestalls in
trisue and preserves the nations integrity.
sss
Among the remarkable developments Of
the bloodless revolution IN Turkey is the
growth OF the newspaper press in Constan-
uhople' Under the old regime four daily
newspapers. properly censored, served up
all the news the authorities thought the
people could safely asslmilate. Now there
are FORTY dailies in the capital, several of
them Issuing two or more editions a day.
ana as we remark in this country, the re-
turns are not all in. The contrast between
the new and the old way of printing the
news Is as striking as the increase in num-
OihhNii lhSy were not allowed to
print the news. Now everything goes. The
ten-fold Increase in the business in so short
a time indicates that the Turks are waking
up from a long sleep and taking notice.
zee
The extent to which the tide of pubIic
sentiment has turned against the dominant
liberal party of Great Britain since its
sweeping victory in January, 1906, is strik-
inglV shown hy @ - ~ --A
OF oy-elections. Sixty-nine of these cleo
tions have been held in two and a half
years. In twenty-eight constituencies the
liberals had no contestants. Fortv-one were
contested. and out of that number the lib
erals lost eight seats to the unionists. four
seats to the laborites and one seat to the
socialists. The liberals gained one seat from
the laborites, a faction of the party, but
did not score a single victory over the
unionists. whereas the latter scored a net
gain of eight seats. In these constituencies
the liberal vote fell away S5,5O7 and the
unionist vote increased 2O,SS9. In some
quarters the figures are considered proof of
the drift from free trade to protection. but
they are far from conclusive, as many local
issues were involved.
Ra
According to a London letter from Con-
stantinople the man who brought liberty
10 turkey is lsmail Kiamil Pasha, IS years
OF age, an Albanian by birth, Christian by
origin and Moslem by conviction. Klsmil
served In various minor positions of the
diplomatic corps of the empire in years
past, but did not gain distinction as a
loyal servant. Some nine years ago his
conduct aroused suspicion, and he was
slated to become one of Turkeys numerous
mysterious disappearance To accom-
plish his taking off in the usual suItanic
a Kiamil was appointed governor of
Tripoll. But he managed to elude the
watchful secret police in making his
preparations for the Journey TO Tripolf. and
with the aid Of British marines was rowed
to a British guardship, from which he took
passage to London, If this story of British
assistance is true, and Kiamirs influence
continues, not the least interesting feature
of the change will be the decline Of German
influence at Con~stantinople.
sa
The Anthony Comstocks of Germany are
prosecuting an energetic campaign against
the plague of debasing literature which is
spreading over the country. Greedy book
makers and persistent hawkers of porno-
graphic pamphlets, to whom the mark is
preferable to morals, have opened flood
gates of moral infection more dangerous
to national well-being than a foreign war.
The Durer union, organized to check and
eventually suppress the insldious yellow
plague, reports 10000 peddlers have dis
posed of 100000 900 copies of degenerate
stories in a single year, constituting a
stream of moral poison, which years OF
effort will not wholly eradicate. 1t Is not
confined to the lower classes. The upper
classes supply example of moral de-
generacy that smell TO heaven. such as the
Gutenberg case recently aired in court.
The openness of depravity in the higher
and lower levels of life forms a topic for
discussion in current periodicals. Sidney
Brooke, the London correspondent of
Harper's Weekly, ascribes the symptoms Of
moral decay to the materialistic spirit de-
veloped by the industrial progress of the
empire. Unity, prosperity, and imperial
ISM he says, have wrought a deep and
visible change in the character and social
outlook of the German people. Porno-
graphic literature of the most revolving
and debasing quality is becoming a greater
evil in Germany than IT ever was In
France. The marriage age among the
higher classes grows later and later. The
number Of unmarried women Of a mar
80 --