The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-12-06
TO CHEAPEN CABLE RATES England Is Discussing
 the Question. A SocIALISTIc CABINET Lord Rothsehid and the Licensing Bill. Rich Peer Received a Majority of House of Lords to Fight Measure
 Figures are Firm as to
 Cost of Hunting in London.
BY W. HAMILTON RHODES.

London. Dec. 5-Mr. Hennfker Heaton's proposal for cheapening the rates of international telegraphic com munication is meeting with strong support. In the Times number of extracts have been given from the letters of various public men which should go far towards convincing the Postmaster-General of the state of popular feeling on the matter. As MT. Heaton suggests, the first step must be to call a conference of Post masters General; and there Is really no reason why such a conference sh ould be delayed.
 In Australia a business man can telegraph three or four thousands miles in any direction for a penny a word: in India the rate Is only a half penny per word In the far vaster area of the Bristish Empire the merchant must either pay huge tariffs amounting up to $1.75 a word, or, if he be not wealthy must wait weeks or months for replies to his letters, while the private person does not cable at all. This is one of the stupid anomalies for which British offilcialdom has an unenviable reputation. The one deprecatory note has been sounded by the Duke of Northumberland, who Is of opinion that the facilities for coms munication are quite numerous enough, and that the multiplication of them will only add to the worry and wear of life. These things" he says, ''only add to to the great evil of the present day--namely, that there Is no time for reflection" If reflection" Is the sole and only attribute of the human species, as has been said by a phiIo- sopher, this is needed a most serious question.
 The Socialist View.
 A Socialist newspaper, the Christian Commonwealth" has been taking the views of it's readers as to the con- stitution of the first Socialist Cabinet in England. George Bernard Shaw has been allocated by a very large vote to the Lord Lieutenancy of Ireland, a position, in which. presumably, his Socialist colleagues consider that he would have the freest play for his peculiar humer. It is noteworthy that lists were unable to And an Irish Socialist available for the Chief seo- retaryship, which they. according con- feEred- on Mir. Peta curratl. It looks as. if even in the Socialist millennium, English Governments find precisely the same reasons aA exist now for excluding the Irishmen from having any voice in their own affairs. Mir. Curran Is by parentage Irish, but to all intents and purposes he is an English politician. Philip Snowden is named for the Exchequor. Ramsay Mcdonald for the Foreign of1ce, while Sidney Webb is to be fobbed off with the Board of Trade, and Victor Grayson is named for the Post master -Generalship, selection which, doubtless, Is justified by some stroke of 7humor too subtle to be visible to the indivi6ualist eye.
 The revelation that Lord Rothschild had obtained the signatures of 140 members of the House of Lords to a memorial to Lord Lansdowne. calling on him to move the rejection of the Licensing Bill on its second reading in the Lords oecasioned no small sensa- ton. Lord Rothschild is said to have acted at the instance of the bank and insurance companies holding large blocks of brewery debentures who regarded the Bill as an attack on pri- Fate property. It is unprecedented for a member of the RothsctiId family to take a prominent part In a move ment of this kind, and Lord Rothschild has, shown som mething less than the usual caution of his house in putting himself forward as the champion of the trade
 The action is rendered still more by the fact that several of his relatives are ardent temperance reformers, and exercise in more than one case where they are the ground landlords of villages a very effective vote on the multiplication of public houses on their property. It was said that Lord Lansdowne, Lord St. Aldwyn.