News of the Week

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 2, 1901

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 78, No. 14.

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— Germany’s claim for indemnity from China is announced as $60,000,000.

— Minnesota prohibits the manufacture, sale, or use of cigarettes in the State.

— The Mexican Central Railway is now under the control of New York capitalists.

— President McKinley has appointed Frederick E. Coyne postmaster of Chicago.

— The surplus proceeds from the Passion Play at Oberammergau amounted to $54,720.

— The strike in Marseilles, France, is quieting down, though troops are still in the barracks.

— About $300,000 is to be expended in improving the Capitol at Washington, during the congressional recess.

— President Hadley, of Yale, is said to favor “the organization of educational trusts, in order to secure the best results.”

— Mrs. Nation is in Indianapolis; but the mayor says that he will allow no “smashing” of saloons. The saloons pay a license of $400 a year.

— The gold in the United States treasury “amounts to nearly $496,000,000—the largest amount of gold known to be held in any national treasury.”

— By a declaration of twenty per cent dividend, the 22d ult., the Standard Oil Company contributed $6,200,000 more to the immense fortune of John D. Rockefeller.

— The German wire nail trust charges foreign buyers only 312 marks a ton, while German buyers are obliged to pay 326 marks a ton—the result of “the protection of a customs tariff.”

— The Doukhobors who settled in Canada are already causing that country trouble. These “self-exiles” have “made to the government formal objections to the Canadian laws” relating to the forbidding of promiscuous marrying, etc.

— Count Cassini, Russian ambassador at Washington, continues to disavow “any intention by Russia permanently to acquire Manchuria or any other Chinese territory;” but he will not put any such statement in writing, which the Washington officials have hinted they would like to have him do.

— President Thwing, of the Western Reserve University at Cleveland, Ohio, says that “two influences in particular seem to be keeping college men from entering the ministry. One is the larger inducements which commercial careers are offering, and the other is the unsettling of doctrinal beliefs, and doubt as to the future relation of the Church to society. The question puzzles young men, whether the church is to be a place of worship, as in former days, or ‘a club of the new institutional type, where games are played, where there are gymnasiums, and where there are classes for secular studies.’”

— A Washington dispatch states that “there is no longer any doubt that the emperor of China, sustained by the advice of Japan, England, and the United States, has instructed Yang Yu, his envoy at St. Petersburg, not to sign the [Manchurian] treaty, and Yang Yu has had a convenient attack of vertigo, which makes it easier for him to obey orders. The Russians will wait for a narrower place in the road. They have Manchuria, and are actually enjoying all the powers and privileges granted them by the suspended treaty, which they will continue to exercise as long as they please by force until China is ready to make the concessions in a formal manner.”

— In an article in the World’s Work, praising the late Philip D. Armour, the writer gives the following as “his commercial creed:” “(1) To pay all debts in full, and to require full payments from those who owed him; (2) never to waste energy, money, or stock, and to make all work productive; (3) never to forgive one who wantonly injured him; and to make few friendships, but those lasting ones; (4) to destroy competition by absorption or by obliteration; (5) never to admit that any rival production or work of his own kind of trade was better than his own; (6) to work—work—work—and to save—save—save.” The writer adds that “to his last hour he held the grim determination to do these things.”

— A Japanese squadron has sailed from Nagasaki, for Korea.

— Gen. Sir A. P. Palmer has been appointed as commander-in-chief of the British forces in India.

— Edwin A. Abbey, an American artist, has been commissioned by King Edward, of England, to paint the latter’s coronation scene in Westminster Abbey.

— A few days ago King Edward, of England, was visited by deputations representing the various churches. He assured them all that “it would be his constant care to maintain religious liberty and toleration, and aid in the progress of truth, morality, and peace.” And to the delegation of Quakers “his Majesty said he prayed that his reign would witness the widespread acceptance of their principles, the establishment of peace among nations, and the growth of mutual help among the people of Great Britain.”

— Emilio Aguinaldo, commander-in-chief of the Filipinos, was captured by Brig.-Gen. Frederick Funston, March 23, and is now in jail in Manila. The capture was effected by stratagem: Funston and some friendly Filipinos, together with a few picked Americans, being conducted by a Filipino deserter, to the camp of Aguinaldo, as prisoners. As Aguinaldo was about to receive the supposed American prisoners, he was himself captured by them, without bloodshed. He will doubtless be deported to Guam.

— Japan is making every possible preparation for war with Russia; and, although “the refusal of China to sign the [Manchuria] treaty postpones the inevitable war,” still “it is the universal opinion that the struggle will come sooner or later, and that the battle ground will be Korea, the Liao Tung Peninsula, and Manchuria. The first point of attack for Japan will be the Russian naval station and arsenal at Port Arthur, and the Yellow Sea will be filled with hostile fleets. Russia is the more powerful of the two nations in wealth and numbers, but the fighting will be done on the eastern side of Asia, which is 7,000 miles from the base of Russian supplies. The naval strength of the two nations is very nearly even, but Japan has the advantage of being able to throw all her fleets directly into the war and keep them there, while it is necessary for Russia to have a reserve force at home.” However, with France’s powerful navy linked with Russia’s, Japan would be helpless without England’s support.

— Newspaper dispatches state that “the existence of human slavery in the colonies of Germany was openly admitted and defended in the Reichstag last week. Herr Bebel, the socialist leader, moved that all children born of slave parents under the German flag should be declared free, but the motion was defeated.” “The government authorities,” says the Springfield Republican, “simply took the position that slavery is necessary for European settlers in German colonies, and let it go at that. It is rather upsetting to reflect that slavery exists to-day under the flags of England, Germany, and the United States. Our own precious slaves in the Sulus are not yet freed, although President McKinley has autocratic civil power in the Philippines, and to keep a human being in slavery a single hour is a violation of the Constitution of the United States. So far as we know, Russia with all her absolutism and semi-barbarism, so-called, hasn’t a single slave to answer for within the reach of the czar’s authority.”

— During the year 1882 there landed in the United States 355,956 immigrants from Germany and the Scandinavian countries; 76,432 from Ireland; 32,159 from Italy; 50,740 from Austria-Hungary and Russia. In the year 1892 there arrived 185,463 immigrants from Germany and Scandinavia; 51,383 from Ireland; 61,621 from Italy; 199,984 from Austria-Hungary and Russia. In the year 1900 the number of immigrants was as follows: from Germany and Scandinavia, 49,658; from Ireland, 35,595; from Italy, 100,135; from Austria-Hungary and Russia, 205,634. Speaking of the problem of foreign immigration, the Christian Advocate (New York) says: “If we were permitted to select the immigrants, we would not choose those who are so vastly in the majority to-day. Twenty years ago nearly one half of the foreigners seeking our shores were Germans and Scandinavians, but to-day they comprise about one tenth of the vast horde; then there were 4 per cent of Italians, now there are 22 per cent; then 6½ per cent of Austrians, Hungarians, and Russians, now 46 per cent. Among those classified as ‘Russians’ this year, however,—90,787 of them,—there were 12,515 Finns, who will make good citizens soon; 37,011 Hebrews, 32,797 Lithuanians and Poles, and only 1,165 Russians of the genuine stamp. Formerly the problem of assimilation involved particularly the Irish and the Germans—a problem with many factors in it which guaranteed a satisfactory though gradual solution; but to-day the chief elements are the Slav, the Italian, and the Hebrew, and coalescing with these are various other elements, minor but difficult, which render the problem extremely complicated, and the outcome uncertain.”

— The Rutland, Vt., City Hall was totally destroyed by fire the 24th ult. Loss, $30,000.

— In a recent encounter between Cossacks and workmen, in St. Petersburg, 100 of the workmen were killed or wounded.

— The Chicago Times-Herald has absorbed the Chicago Record, and its future name will be the Chicago Record-Herald.

— In a recent speech, Lord Lansdowne, the British Foreign Secretary, stated that the “integrity of the Chinese Empire and principle of the open door must be upheld.”

— Speaking of the “triple alliance,” between Germany, Austria, and Italy, Premier Zanardelli, of Italy, significantly remarks “that Italy will not bind herself to its renewal ‘until after ripe reflection.’”

— William T. Stead, editor of the English Review of Reviews, “reiterates Bismarck’s prediction that South Africa will be the grave of the British Empire, and says that Britain’s only salvation is in a reversal of her policy toward the Boers.”

— Lord Salisbury, British Prime Minister, is seriously ill. His term of service is already longer than that of any of his predecessors.

— It is announced that Korea has “dismissed McLeavy Brown (English), Director-General of Customs,” and that Great Britain has “entered protest against his dismissal.”

— The Cubans have been promised a possibility of “free trade to Cuban sugar and tobacco,” providing they will accept “the Platt restrictions upon the island’s independence.” But what good will even that do the Cubans, since American capitalists will soon control all such industries in Cuba?

— Some think that Russia’s domestic troubles, which are indeed serious, will keep her from engaging in a foreign war just at present; but it should be remembered that “a foreign war is often waged by rulers in order to divert the attention of their people from domestic grievances.” In this light, says the Springfield Republican, “too much of a row at home would almost surely send Russia into a foreign war.”