p. 22 | Current Mention

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D.C. · Dec 21, 1905

Current Mention

— The Illinois Manufacturers’ Association is concerned over recently gathered statistics which show that 132 leading manufacturing concerns of the country have been obliged, chiefly on account of tariff restrictions, to establish branch plants in Canada.

— The United States government is proceeding with the prosecution of the beef packers at Chicago, and proceedings have also been instituted at Philadelphia and Kansas City against shippers, freight agents, and others, on the charge of having procured or accepted rebates, indictments having been brought against these persons by federal grand juries.

— According to testimony given before the insurance investigating committee in New York concerning the Prudential Life Insurance Company, policyholders have paid in in premiums to this company since its organization $287,000,000, and during the same time have received back from the company $92,000,000, from which it appears that the balance of gain is heavily on the side of the company.

— The trouble between France and Venezuela has reached an acute stage. A Washington telegram says: “The Franco-Venezuelan situation has taken a decided turn for the worse, and to-day it was authoritatively stated that the French government will not tarry much longer in taking action against Venezuela if Castro continues to be obstinate. The French fleet is at Martinique, and is ready to go to Venezuela at any time the Paris government may see fit.”

— A committee of twenty appointed by the National Board of Fire Underwriters for the purpose of investigating risks in Manhattan has made a report in which it reaches the conclusion that fire protection in New York is wholly inadequate, and danger of a conflagration similar to that of Chicago and Baltimore hangs over the city. The committee also reports that New York City is threatened by a water famine, that the mains are no longer adequate, and that the fire-alarm system and the building laws are not what they should be.

— American residents of the Isle of Pines, lying south of Cuba and belonging to that republic, are organizing a revolt, with the apparent intention of bringing the island under the sovereignty of the United States. A letter from the president of the Isle of Pines Association, which is at the head of the movement, says: “The last mail from the United States brought additional guarantees of $40,000 in cash, and of men, and all the ammunition needed to defend our rights and uphold the American flag in this isle. This makes over $200,000 in cash, 6,000 men, and all the munitions needed should we elect to use force in maintaining the rights of Americans on American territory.”

— The Russian government has apparently decided on making a final effort to stay the tide of revolution, by the use of the severest measures of repression. The whole force of the Cossacks will, it is said, be mobilized if necessary to crush all opposition. The revolution is to be drowned in blood, and the concessions already made by the czar are to be set aside. The following view of the situation is given by the New York Sun: “The truth is that repression has begun, that revolution and reaction are already engaged in a death grapple; and that, in spite of Count Witte’s personal adherence to a conciliatory policy, preparations are making over his head to inaugurate a ‘White Terror’ and to drown the aspirations of Russian liberals in blood. The three most precious privileges granted by the czar’s manifesto of October 30, indispensable preliminaries to the realization of the promised representative institutions — freedom of speech, of the press, and of public meeting — have all been extinguished by the fiat of Minister of the Interior Durnovo, who no longer makes any pretense of obeying the ostensible premier. To him, and not to Count Witte, must be imputed the re-establishment of a censorship of the press, the arrest of Mr. Krustaleff and other members of the executive committee of the Workmen’s Council in St. Petersburg, the simultaneous arrest at Moscow of the employees of the post-office and the telegraph operators, and doubtless also the mowing down of railroad strikers at Riga by machine guns and artillery.” Count Witte’s resignation is expected.