History for ready reference, Volume 6

by J. N. Larned

Map of Alaska.

The following is an English statement of the situation of the
controversy at the time the Joint High Commission adjourned:
"The adjournment of the Commission with nothing accomplished
is fresh in all our memories. Nor is it easy to determine on
whose shoulders lies the blame of this unfortunate break down.
America has been blamed for her stubbornness in refusing to
submit to an arbitration which should take into consideration
the possession of the towns and settlements under the
authority of the United States and at present under their
jurisdiction; while they have also been charged with having
made no concessions at all to Canada in the direction of
allowing her free access to her Yukon possessions. I am
enabled to say, however, in this latter respect the Americans
have not been so stiff-necked as has been made to appear.
Although it was not placed formally before the Commission, it
was allowed clearly to be understood by the other side, that
in regard to Skagway, America was prepared to make a very
liberal concession. They were ready, that is, to allow of the
joint administration of Skagway, the two flags flying side by
side, and to allow of the denationalisation, or
internationalisation as it might otherwise be termed, of the
White Pass and the Yukon Railroad, now completed to Lake
Bennett, and the only railroad which gives access to the
Yukon. They were even prepared to admit of the passage of
troops and munitions of war over this road, thus doing away
with the Canadian contention that, should a disturbance occur
in the Yukon, they are at present debarred from taking
efficient measures to quell it.
{9}
This proposition, however, does not commend itself to the
Canadians, whose main object, I think I am justified in
saying, is to have a railroad route of their own from
beginning to end, in their own territory, as far north as
Dawson City. At one time, owing to insufficient information
and ignorance of the natural obstacles in the way, they
thought they could accomplish this by what was known as the
Stikine route. They even went so far as to make a contract
with Messrs. McKenzie and Mann to construct this road, the
contractors receiving, as part of their payment, concessions
and grants of territory in the Yukon, which would practically
have given them the absolute and sole control of that
district. The value of this to the contractors can hardly be
overestimated. However, not only did the natural obstacles I
have referred to lead to the abandonment of the scheme, but
the Senate at Ottawa threw out the Bill which had passed
through the Lower House, affording a striking proof that there
are times when an Upper House has its distinct value in
legislation. It has been suggested (though I am the last to
confirm it) that it was the influence of the firm of railroad
contractors, to whose lot it would probably fall to construct
any new line of subsidised railway, which caused the Canadian
Commission to reject the tentative American proposal regarding
Skagway, and to put forward the counter claim to the
possession of Pyramid Harbour (which lies lower down upon the
west coast of the Lynn Canal), together with a two mile wide
strip of territory reaching inland, containing the Chilcat
Pass, and through it easy passage through the coast ranges,
and so by a long line of railroad to Fort Selkirk, which lies
on the Yukon River, to the south and east of Dawson City. It
is said also, though of this I have no direct evidence, that
the Canadians included the right to fortify Pyramid Harbour.
It is not surprising that the Americans rejected this
proposal, for they entered into the discussion convinced of
the impossibility of accepting any arrangement which would
involve the surrender of American settlements, and though it
is not so large or important as Skagway or Dyea, Pyramid
Harbour is nevertheless as much an American settlement as the
two latter. I am bound to point out that just as the Dominion
of Canada, as a whole, has a keener interest in this dispute
than has the Home Government, so the Government of British
Columbia is more closely affected by any possible settlement
than is the rest of the Dominion. And British Columbia is as
adverse to the Pyramid Harbour scheme as the United States
themselves. This is due to the fact that when finished the
Pyramid Harbour and Fort Selkirk railroad would afford no
access to the British Columbia gold fields on Atlin Lake,
which would still be reached only by way of Skagway and the
White Pass, or by Dyea and the Chilcat Pass. But quite apart
from this view of the matter, we may take it for granted that
the United States will never voluntarily surrender any of
their tide-water settlements, while the Canadian Government,
on the other hand, are no more disposed to accept any
settlement based on the internationalisation of Skagway, their
argument probably being that, save as a temporary 'modus
vivendi,' this would be giving away their whole case to their
opponents."
H. Townsend,
The Alaskan Boundary Question
(Fortnightly Review, September, 1899).
Pending further negotiations on the subject, a "modus vivendi"
between the United States and Great Britain, "fixing a
provisional boundary line between the Territory of Alaska and
the Dominion of Canada about the head of Lynn Canal," was
concluded October 20, 1899, in the following terms:
"It is hereby agreed between the Governments of the United
States and of Great Britain that the boundary line between
Canada and the territory of Alaska in the region about the
head of Lynn Canal shall be provisionally fixed as follows
without prejudice to the claims of either party in the
permanent adjustment of the international boundary: In the
region of the Dalton Trail, a line beginning at the peak West
of Porcupine Creek, marked on the map No. 10 of the United
States Commission, December 31, 1895, and on Sheet No. 18 of
the British Commission, December 31, 1895, with the number
6500; thence running to the Klehini (or Klaheela) River in the
direction of the Peak north of that river, marked 5020 on the
aforesaid United States map and 5025 on the aforesaid British
map; thence following the high or right bank of the said
Klehini river to the junction thereof with the Chilkat River,
a mile and a half, more or less, north of Klukwan,—provided
that persons proceeding to or from Porcupine Creek shall be
freely permitted to follow the trail between the said creek
and the said junction of the rivers, into and across the
territory on the Canadian side of the temporary line wherever
the trail crosses to such side, and, subject to such
reasonable regulations for the protection of the Revenue as
the Canadian Government may prescribe, to carry with them over
such part or parts of the trail between the said points as may
lie on the Canadian side of the temporary line, such goods and
articles as they desire, without being required to pay any
customs duties on such goods and articles; and from said
junction to the summit of the peak East of the Chilkat river,
marked on the aforesaid map No. 10 of the United States
Commission with the number 5410 and on the map No. 17 of the
aforesaid British Commission with the number 5490. On the Dyea
and Skagway Trails, the summits of the Chilcoot and White
Passes. It is understood, as formerly set forth in
communications of the Department of State of the United
States, that the citizens or subjects of either Power, found
by this arrangement within the temporary jurisdiction of the
other, shall suffer no diminution of the rights and privileges
which they now enjoy. The Government of the United States will
at once appoint an officer or officers in conjunction with an
officer or officers to be named by the Government of Her
Britannic Majesty, to mark the temporary line agreed upon by
the erection of posts, stakes, or other appropriate temporary
marks."
In his Annual Message to Congress, December 3, 1900, the
President of the United States stated the situation as
follows:
"The work of marking certain provisional boundary points, for
convenience of administration, around the head of Lynn Canal,
in accordance with the temporary arrangement of October, 1899,
was completed by a joint survey in July last.
{10}
The modus vivendi has so far worked without friction, and the
Dominion Government has provided rules and regulations for
securing to our citizens the benefit of the reciprocal
stipulation that the citizens or subjects of either Power
found by that arrangement within the temporary jurisdiction of
the other shall suffer no diminution of the rights and
privileges they have hitherto enjoyed. But however necessary
such an expedient may have been to tide over the grave
emergencies of the situation, it is at best but an
unsatisfactory makeshift, which should not be suffered to
delay the speedy and complete establishment of the frontier
line to which we are entitled under the Russo-American treaty
for the cession of Alaska. In this relation I may refer again
to the need of definitely marking the Alaskan boundary where
it follows the 141st meridian. A convention to that end has
been before the Senate for some two years, but as no action
has been taken I contemplate negotiating a new convention for
a joint determination of the meridian by telegraphic
observations. These, it is believed, will give more accurate
and unquestionable results than the sidereal methods
heretofore independently followed, which, as is known, proved
discrepant at several points on the line, although not varying
at any place more than seven hundred feet."
ALEXANDRIA:
Discovery of the Serapeion.
See (in this volume)
ARCHÆOLOGICAL RESEARCH:
EGYPT: DISCOVERY OF THE SERAPEION.
ALEXANDRIA:
Patriarchate re-established.
See (in this volume)
PAPACY: A. D. 1896 (MARCH).
ALIENS IMMIGRATION LAW, The Transvaal.
See (in this volume)
SOUTH AFRICA (THE TRANSVAAL):
A. D. 1896-1897 (MAY-APRIL).
ALPHABET, Light on the origin of the.
See (in this volume)
ARCHÆOLOGICAL RESEARCH: CRETE.
AMATONGALAND:
Annexed, with Zululand, to Natal.
See (in this volume)
AFRICA: A. D. 1897 (ZULULAND).
AMERICA:
The Projected Intercontinental Railway.
See (in this volume)
RAILWAY, THE INTERCONTINENTAL.
AMERICA, Central.
See (in this volume)
CENTRAL AMERICA.
AMERICAN ABORIGINES.
See (in this volume)
INDIANS, AMERICAN.
AMERICAN REPUBLICS, The Bureau of the.
"The idea of the creation of an international bureau, or
agency, representing the Republics of the Western Hemisphere,
was suggested to the delegates accredited to the International
American Conference held in Washington in 1889-90, by the
conference held at Brussels in May, 1888, which planned for an
international union for the publication of customs tariffs,
etc. … On March 29, 1890, the International American
Conference, by a unanimous vote of the delegates of the
eighteen countries there represented, namely: The Argentine
Republic, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica,
Ecuador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua,
Paraguay, Peru, Salvador, United States, Uruguay, and
Venezuela, provided for the establishment of an association to
be known as 'The International Union of American Republics for
the Prompt Collection and Distribution of Commercial
Information,' which should be represented at the capital of
the United States by a Bureau, under the title of 'The Bureau
of the American Republics.' This organ, so to speak, of the
independent governments of the New World was placed under the
supervision of the Secretary of State of the United States,
and was to continue in existence for a period of ten years,
and, if found profitable to the nations participating in its
advantages, it was to be maintained for successive periods of
ten years indefinitely. At the first session of the
Fifty-first Congress of the United States, that body, in an
'Act making appropriations for the support of the Diplomatic
and Consular Service, etc.,' approved July 14, 1890, gave the
President authority to carry into effect the recommendations
of the Conference so far as he should deem them expedient, and
appropriated $36,000 for the organization and establishment of
the Bureau, which amount it had been stipulated by the
delegates in the Conference assembled should not be exceeded,
and should be annually advanced by the United States and
shared by the several Republics in proportion to their
population. … The Conference had defined the purpose of the
Bureau to be the preparation and publication of bulletins
concerning the commerce and resources of the American
Republics, and to furnish information of interest to
manufacturers, merchants, and shippers, which should be at all
times available to persons desirous of obtaining particulars
regarding their customs tariffs and regulations, as well as
commerce and navigation."
Bulletin of the Bureau of American Republics,
June, 1898.
A plan of government for the International Union, by an
executive committee composed of representatives of the
American nations constituting the Union, was adopted in 1896,
but modified at a conference held in Washington, March 18,
1899. As then adopted, the plan of government is as follows:
"The Bureau of the American Republics will be governed under
the supervision of the Secretary of State of the United
States, with the cooperation and advice of four
representatives of the other Republics composing the
International Union, the five persons indicated to constitute
an Executive Committee, of which the Secretary of State is to
be ex-officio Chairman, or, in his absence, the Acting
Secretary of State. The other four members of the Executive
Committee shall be called to serve in turn, in the
alphabetical order of the official names of their nations in
one of the four languages of the Union, previously selected by
lot at a meeting of the representatives of the Union. At the
end of each year the first of these four members shall retire,
giving place to another representative of the Union, in the
same alphabetical order already explained, and so on until the
next period of succession."
{11}
"The interest taken by the various States forming the
International Union of American Republics in the work of its
organic bureau is evidenced by the fact that for the first
time since its creation in 1890 all the republics of South and
Central America are now [1899] represented in it. The unanimous
recommendation of the International American Conference,
providing for the International Union of American Republics,
stated that it should continue in force during a term of ten
years from the date of its organization, and no country
becoming a member of the union should cease to be a member
until the end of said period of ten years, and unless twelve
months before the expiration of said period a majority of the
members of the union had given to the Secretary of State of
the United States official notice of their wish to terminate
the union at the end of its first period, that the union
should continue to be maintained for another period of ten
years, and thereafter, under the same conditions, for
successive periods of ten years each. The period for
notification expired on July 14, 1899, without any of the
members having given the necessary notice of withdrawal. Its
maintenance is therefore assured for the next ten years."
Message of the President of the United States.
December 5, 1899.
AMERICANISM:
Pope Leo XIII. on opinions so called.
See (in this volume)
PAPACY: A. D. 1899 (JANUARY).
AMNESTY BILL, The French.
See (in this volume)
FRANCE: A. D. 1900 (DECEMBER).
ANARCHIST CRIMES:
Assassination of Canovas del Castillo.
See (in this volume)
SPAIN: A. D. 1897 (AUGUST-OCTOBER).
Assassination of the Empress of Austria.
See (in this volume)
AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: A. D. 1898 (SEPTEMBER).
Assassination of King Humbert.
See (in this volume)
ITALY: A. D. 1899-1900;
and 1900 (JULY-SEPTEMBER).
ANATOLIAN RAILWAY, The.
See (in this volume)
TURKEY: A. D. 1899 (NOVEMBER).
ANCON, The Treaty of.
See (in this volume)
CHILE: A. D. 1894-1900.
ANDERSON, General Thomas M.:
Correspondence with Aguinaldo.
See (in this volume)
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1898 (JULY-AUGUST: PHILIPPINES).
ANDRÉE, Salamon August:
Arctic balloon voyage.
See (in this volume)
POLAR EXPLORATION, 1897, 1898, 1899, 1900-.
ANGLO-AMERICAN POPULATION.
See (in this volume)
NINETEENTH CENTURY: EXPANSION.
ANGONI-ZULUS, The.
See (in this volume)
BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA PROTECTORATE.
ANTARCTIC EXPLORATION.
See (in this volume)
POLAR EXPLORATION.
ANTEMNÆ, Excavations at.
See (in this volume)
ARCHÆOLOGICAL RESEARCH: ITALY.
ANTIGUA: Industrial condition.
See (in this volume)
WEST INDIES, THE BRITISH: A. D. 1897.
ANTITOXINE, Discovery of.
See (in this volume)
SCIENCE, RECENT: MEDICAL AND SURGICAL.
ANTI-IMPERIALISTS, The League of American.
See (in this volume)
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1900 (MAY-NOVEMBER).
ANTI-REVOLUTIONARY BILL, The German.
See (in this volume)
GERMANY: A. D. 1894-1895.
ANTI-SEMITIC AGITATIONS.
See (in this volume)
AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: A. D. 1895-1896, and after;
and FRANCE: A. D. 1897-1899, and after.
ANTI-SEMITIC LEAGUE, Treasonable conspiracy of the.
See (in this volume)
FRANCE: A. D. 1899-1900 (AUGUST-JANUARY).
APPORTIONMENT ACT.
See (in this volume)
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1901 (JANUARY).
ARBITRATION, Industrial:
In New Zealand.
See (in this volume)
NEW ZEALAND: A. D. 1891-1900.
ARBITRATION, Industrial:
In the United States between employees and employers
engaged in inter-state commerce.
See (in this volume)
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1898 (JUNE).
ARBITRATION, International: A. D. 1896-1900.
Boundary dispute between Colombia and Costa Rica.
See (in this volume)
COLOMBIA: A. D. 1893-1900.
ARBITRATION, International: A. D. 1897.
Nicaragua and Costa Rica.
See (in this volume)
CENTRAL AMERICA (NICARAGUA-COSTA RICA): A. D. 1897.
ARBITRATION, International: A. D. 1897-1899.
Venezuela and Great Britain.
Guiana boundary.
See (in this volume)
VENEZUELA: A. D. 1896-1899.
ARBITRATION, International: A. D. 1898.
Argentine Republic and Chile.
See (in this volume)
ARGENTINE REPUBLIC: A. D. 1898.
ARBITRATION, International: A. D. 1898.
Treaty between Italy and the Argentine Republic.
See (in this volume)
ARGENTINE REPUBLIC: A. D. 1898.
ARBITRATION, International: A. D. 1899.
The Treaty for the Pacific Settlement of International
Disputes concluded at the Peace Conference at the Hague (Text).
The Permanent Court created.
See (in this volume)
PEACE CONFERENCE.
ARBITRATION, International: A. D. 1900.
Brazil and French Guiana boundary dispute.
See (in this volume)
BRAZIL: A. D. 1900.
ARBITRATION, International: A. D. 1900.
Compulsory arbitration voted for at Spanish-American Congress.
See (in this volume)
SPAIN: A. D. 1900 (NOVEMBER).
ARBITRATION TREATY, Great Britain and the United States.
Its defeat.
See (in this volume)
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1897 (JANUARY-MAY).
----------ARCHÆOLOGICAL RESEARCH: Start--------
ARCHÆOLOGICAL RESEARCH:
The Oriental Field.
Recent achievements and future prospects.
"Three successive years have just added to the realm of
Egyptian archaeology, not only the period of the first two
dynasties, hitherto absolutely unrecognized from contemporary
remains, but also a long prehistoric period. Assyriology
likewise has lately been pushed back into antiquity with
almost equal rapidity. Though the subjects will probably
always have their limitations, yet the insight of scholars and
explorers is opening up new vistas on all sides. … Our
prospect for the future is bright. Egypt itself seems
inexhaustible. Few of the cities of Babylonia and Assyria have
yet been excavated, and each of them had its library and
record office of clay-tablets as well as monuments in stone
and bronze. In Northern Mesopotamia are countless sites still
untouched; in Elam and in Armenia monuments are only less
plentiful.
{12}
In Arabia inscriptions are now being read which may perhaps
date from 1000 B. C. The so-called Hittite hieroglyphs still
baffle the decipherer; but as more of the documents become
known these will in all likelihood prove a fruitful source for
the history of North Syria, of Cappadocia, and of Asia Minor
throughout. Occasionally, too, though it is but rarely, an
inscription in the Phaenician type of alphabet yields up
important historical facts. When all is done, there is but
scant hope that we shall be able to construct a consecutive
history of persons and events in the ancient world. All that
we can be confident of securing, at any rate in Egypt, is the
broad outline of development and change, chronologically
graduated and varied by occasional pictures of extraordinary
minuteness and brilliancy."
F. LL. Griffith,
Authority and Archaeology Sacred and Profane,
part 2, pages. 218-219
(New York: Charles Scribner's Sons).
ARCHÆOLOGICAL RESEARCH: In Bible Lands:
General results as affecting our knowledge
of the ancient Hebrews.
"The general result of the archaeological and anthropological
researches of the past half-century has been to take the
Hebrews out of the isolated position which, as a nation, they
seemed previously to hold, and to demonstrate their affinities
with, and often their dependence upon, the civilizations by
which they were surrounded. Tribes more or less closely akin
to themselves in both language and race were their neighbours
alike on the north, on the east, and on the south; in addition
to this, on each side there towered above them an ancient and
imposing civilization,—that of Babylonia, from the earliest
times active, enterprising, and full of life, and that of
Egypt, hardly, if at all, less remarkable than that of
Babylonia, though more self-contained and less expansive. The
civilization which, in spite of the long residence of the
Israelites in Egypt, left its mark, however, most distinctly
upon the culture and literature of the Hebrews was that of
Babylonia. It was in the East that the Hebrew traditions
placed both the cradle of humanity and the more immediate home
of their own ancestors; and it was Babylonia which, as we now
know, exerted during many centuries an influence, once
unsuspected, over Palestine itself.
"It is true, the facts thus disclosed, do not in any degree
detract from that religious pre-eminence which has always been
deemed the inalienable characteristic of the Hebrew race: the
spiritual intuitions and experiences of its great teachers
retain still their uniqueness; but the secular institutions of
the nation, and even the material elements upon which the
religious system of the Israelites was itself constructed, are
seen now to have been in many cases common to them with their
neighbours. Thus their beliefs about the origin and early
history of the world, their social usages, their code of civil
and criminal law, their religious institutions, can no longer
be viewed, as was once possible, as differing in kind from
those of other nations, and determined in every feature by a
direct revelation from Heaven; all, it is now known, have
substantial analogies among other peoples, the distinctive
character which they exhibit among the Hebrews consisting in
the spirit with which they are infused and the higher
principles of which they are made the exponent. …
"What is called the 'witness of the monuments' is often
strangely misunderstood. The monuments witness to nothing
which any reasonable critic has ever doubted. No one, for
instance, has ever doubted that there were kings of Israel (or
Judah) named Ahab and Jehu and Pekah and Ahaz and Hezekiah, or
that Tiglath-Pileser and Sennacherib led expeditions into
Palestine; the mention of these (and such like) persons and
events in the Assyrian annals has brought to light many
additional facts about them which it is an extreme
satisfaction to know: but it has only 'confirmed' what no
critic had questioned. On the other hand, the Assyrian annals
have shewn that the chronology of the Books of Kings is, in
certain places, incorrect: they have thus confirmed the
conclusion which critics had reached independently upon
internal evidence, that the parts of these books to which the
chronology belongs are of much later origin than the more
strictly historical parts, and consequently do not possess
equal value.
"The inscriptions, especially those of Babylonia, Assyria, and
Egypt, have revealed to us an immense amount of information
respecting the antiquities and history of these nations, and
also, in some cases, respecting the peoples with whom, whether
by commerce or war, they came into contact: but (with the
exception of the statement on the stele of Merenptah that
'Israel is desolated') the first event connected with Israel
or its ancestors which they mention or attest is Shishak's
invasion of Judah in the reign of Rehoboam; the first
Israelites whom they specify by name are Omri and his son
Ahab. There is also indirect illustration of statements in the
Old Testament relating to the period earlier than this; but
the monuments supply no 'confirmation' of any single fact
recorded in it, prior to Shishak's invasion."
S. R. Driver,
Authority and Archaeology Sacred and Profane,
part 1, pages 150-151
(New York: Charles Scribner's Sons).
ARCHÆOLOGICAL RESEARCH: Babylonia:
Earlier explorations in.
For some account of the earlier archæological explorations in
Babylonia and their results,
See (in volume 1) BABYLONIA, PRIMITIVE;
and (in volume 4) SEMITES.
ARCHÆOLOGICAL RESEARCH: Babylonia:
American exploration of the ruins of ancient Nippur.
[Footnote: Quotations in this account from Professor
Hilprecht's copyrighted reports in the "Sunday School Times"
are used with permission from the publishers of that journal.]
"In the summer of 1888, the University of Pennsylvania fully
equipped and sent out the first American expedition to the
northern half of the plains of Babylonia to effect a thorough
exploration of the ruins of Nippur—the modern Niffer, or, more
correctly, Nuffar—on the border of the unwholesome swamps of
the Affej, and to undertake extensive excavations. A few
intelligent citizens of Philadelphia had met in the house of
Ex-Provost Dr. William Pepper, and formed 'The Babylonian
Exploration Fund,' a short time before this with the purpose
of effecting a systematic exploration of ancient Babylonia.
What science owes to this unselfish undertaking can be
adequately estimated only by posterity. … Two professors,
Peters and Hilprecht, were entrusted with the management of
the expedition, Dr. Peters as director, and Dr. Hilprecht as
Assyriologist."
H. V. Hilprecht, editor,
Recent Research in Bible Lands,
page 47.
{13}
Professor Hilprecht, who conducts for the "Sunday School
Times" a most interesting and important department, in which
the proceedings and principal results of archæological
exploration in Bible Lands have been currently chronicled
during several years past, gave, in that journal of December
I, 1900, the following description of the scene and the
historical importance of the ruins in which the excavations
above mentioned have been carried on: "Nuffar is the modern
Arabic name of an old Babylonian ruin situated about half-way
between the Euphrates and Tigris, at the northeastern boundary
of the great Affej swamps, which are formed by the regular
annual inundations of the Euphrates. In a straight line, it is
nearly eighty miles to the southeast from Baghdad. A large
canal, now dry, and often for miles entirely filled with
rubbish and sand, divides the ruins into two almost equal
parts. On an average about fifty or sixty feet high, these
ruins are torn up by frequent gulleys and furrows into a
number of spurs and ridges, from the distance not unlike a
rugged mountain range on the bank of the upper Tigris. In the
Babylonian language, the city buried here was called Nippur.
According to Jewish tradition, strongly supported by arguments
drawn from cuneiform texts and archaeological objects found at
the ruins themselves, Nippur was identical with the Biblical
Calneh, mentioned in Genesis 10: 10, as one of the four great
cities of the kingdom of Nimrod. It was therefore natural that
the public in general should take a warm interest in our
excavations at Nuffar. This interest grew considerably in
religious circles when, a few years ago, I announced my
discovery of the name of the 'river Chebar' in two cuneiform
texts from the archives of Nippur. It became then evident that
this 'river Chebar,' which hitherto could not be located, was
one of the four or five large canals once bringing life and
fertility to the fields of Nippur; that, furthermore, a large
number of the Jewish captives carried away by Nebuchadrezzar
after the destruction of Jerusalem were settled in the plains
around this city; and that even Ezekiel himself, while
admonishing and comforting his people, and holding out to them
Jehovah's mercy and never-failing promise of a brighter
future, stood in the very shadow of Babylonia's ancient
national sanctuary, the crumbling walls of the great temple of
Bêl at Nippur. The beginning and end of Old Testament history
thus point to Nippur as the background and theater for the
first and final acts in the great drama of divine selection
and human rejection in which Israel played the leading role."
In the same article, Professor Hilprecht indicated in a few
words what was done at Nuffar by the first three of the four
expeditions sent out from Philadelphia since 1888. "It was
comparatively easy," he said, "to get a clear idea of the
extent of the city and the life in its streets during the last
six centuries preceding our era. Each of the four expeditions
to Nuffar contributed its peculiar share to a better knowledge
of this latest period of Babylonian history, particularly,
however, the third and the present campaigns. But it was of
greater importance to follow up the traces of a very early
civilization, which, accidentally, we had met during our first
brief campaign in 1889. By means of a few deep trenches, the
second expedition, in the following year, had brought to light
new evidence that a considerable number of ancient monuments
still existed in the lower strata of the temple mound. The
third expedition showed that the monuments, while numerous,
are mostly very fragmentary, thereby offering considerable
difficulties to the decipherer and historian. But it also
showed that a number of platforms running through the temple
mound, and made of baked bricks, frequently bearing
inscriptions, enable us to fix the age of the different strata
of this mound with great accuracy. The two lowest of these
platforms found were the work of kings and patesis
(priest-kings) of 4000-3800 B. C., but, to our great
astonishment, they did not represent the earliest trace of
human life at Nippur. There were not less than about thirty
feet of rubbish below them, revealing an even earlier
civilization, the beginning and development of which lie
considerably before the times of Sargon the Great (3800 B. C.)
and Narâm-Sin, who had been generally regarded as
half-mythical persons of the first chapter of Babylonian
history."
Of the results of the work of those three expeditions of the
University of Pennsylvania, and of the studies for which they
furnished materials to Professor Hilprecht, Professor Sayce
wrote with much enthusiasm in the "Contemporary Review" of
January, 1897, as follows: "In my Hibbert Lectures on the
'Religion of the Ancient Babylonians' I had been led by a
study of the religious texts of Babylonia to the conclusion
that Nippur had been a centre from which Babylonian culture
was disseminated in what we then regarded as prehistoric
times. Thanks to the American excavations, what were
prehistoric times when my Hibbert Lectures were written have
now become historic, and my conclusion has proved to be
correct. … For the first time in Babylonia they have
systematically carried their shafts through the various strata
of historical remains which occupy the site, carefully noting
the objects found in each, and wherever possible clearing each
stag away when once it had been thoroughly examined. The work
began in 1888, about two hundred Arabs being employed as
labourers. … The excavations at Nippur were carried deeply and
widely enough not only to reveal the history of the city
itself but also to open up a new vista in the forgotten
history of civilised man. The history of civilisation has been
taken back into ages which a short while since were still
undreamed of. Professor Hilprecht, the historian of the
expedition, upon whom has fallen the work of copying,
publishing, and translating the multitudinous texts discovered
in the course of it, declares that we can no longer 'hesitate
to date the founding of the temple of Bel and the first
settlements in Nippur somewhere between 6000 and 7000 B. C.,
possibly even earlier.' At any rate the oldest monuments which
have been disinterred there belong to the fifth or sixth
millennium before the Christian era. Hitherto we have been
accustomed to regard Egypt as the land which has preserved for
us the earliest written monuments of mankind, but Babylonia
now bids fair to outrival Egypt. The earliest fixed date in
Babylonian history is that of Sargon of Akkael and his son
Naram-Sin. It has been fixed for us by Nabonidos, the royal
antiquarian of Babylonia. In one of his inscriptions he
describes the excavations he made in order to discover the
memorial cylinders of Naram-Sin, who had lived '3200 years'
before his own time. In my Hibbert Lectures I gave reasons for
accepting this date as approximately correct. The recent
discoveries at Niffer, Telloh, and other places have shown
that my conclusion was justified. …
{14}
"Assyriologists have long had in their possession a cuneiform
text which contains the annals of the reign of Sargon, and of
the first three years of the reign of his son. It is a late
copy of the original text, and was made for the library of
Nineveh. Our 'critical' friends have been particularly merry
over the credulity of the Assyriologists in accepting these
annals as authentic. … So far from being unhistorical, Sargon
and Naram-Sin prove to have come at the end of a
long-preceding historical period, and the annals themselves
have been verified by contemporaneous documents. The empire of
Sargon, which extended from the Persian Gulf to the
Mediterranean, was not even the first that had arisen in
Western Asia. And the art that flourished under his rule, like
the art which flourished in Egypt in the age of the Old
Empire, was higher and more perfect than any that succeeded it
in Babylonia. … Henceforward, Sargon and Naram-Sin, instead of
belonging to 'the grey dawn of time,' must be regarded as
representatives of 'the golden age of Babylonian history.'
That they should have undertaken military expeditions to the
distant West, and annexed Palestine and the Sinaitic Peninsula
to the empire they created need no longer be a matter of
astonishment. Such campaigns had already been undertaken by
Babylonian kings long before; the way was well known which led
from one extremity of Western Asia to the other. …
"It is Mr. Haynes [Director of the explorations from 1893] who
tells us that we are henceforth to look upon Sargon of Akkad
as a representative of 'the golden age of Babylonian history,'
and his assertion is endorsed by Professor Hilprecht. In fact,
the conclusion is forced upon both the excavator and the
palæographist. Professor Hilprecht, who, thanks to the
abundant materials at his disposal, has been able to found the
science of Babylonian palæography, tracing the development of
the cuneiform characters from one stage of development to
another, and determining the age of each successive form of
writing, has made it clear to all students of Assyriology that
many of the inscriptions found at Niffer and Telloh belong to
a much older period than those of the age of Sargon. The
palæographic evidence has been supplemented by the results of
excavation. … As far back as we can penetrate, we still find
inscribed monuments and other evidences of civilisation. It is
true that the characters are rude and hardly yet lifted above
their pictorial forms. They have, however, ceased to be
pictures, and have already become that cursive script which we
call cuneiform. For the beginnings of Babylonian writing we
have still to search among the relics of centuries that lie
far behind the foundation of the temple of Nippur.
"The first king whom the excavations there have brought to
light is a certain En-sag(sak)-ana who calls himself 'lord of
Kengi' and conqueror of Kis 'the wicked.' Kengi—'the land of
canals and reeds,' as Professor Hilprecht interprets the
word—was the oldest name of Babylonia, given to it in days
when it was still wholly occupied by its Sumerian population,
and when as yet no Semitic stranger had ventured within it.
The city of Kis (now El-Hy-mar) lay outside its borders to the
north, and between Kis and Kengi there seems to have been
constant war. … Nippur was the religious centre of Kengi, and
Mul-lil, the god of Nippur, was the supreme object of Sumerian
worship. … A king of Kis made himself master of Nippur and its
sanctuary, and the old kingdom of Kengi passed away. The final
blow was dealt by the son of the Sumerian high priest of the
'Land of the Bow.' Lugal-zaggi-si was the chieftain who
descended from the north upon Babylonia and made it part of
his empire. … Lugal-zaggi-si lived centuries before Sargon of
Akkad in days which, only a year ago, we still believed to lie
far beyond the horizon of history and culture. We little
dreamed that in that hoar antiquity the great cities and
sanctuaries of Babylonia were already old, and that the
culture and script of Babylonia had already extended far
beyond the boundaries of their motherland. The inscriptions of
Lugal-zaggi-si are in the Sumerian language, and his name,
like that of his father, is Sumerian also. … The empire of
Lugal-zaggi-si seems to have passed away with his death, and
at no long period subsequently a new dynasty arose at Ur. …
According to Professor Hilprecht, this would have been about
4000 B. C. How long the first dynasty of Ur lasted we cannot
tell. It had to keep up a perpetual warfare with the Semitic
tribes of northern Arabia, Ki-sarra, 'the land of the hordes,'
as it was termed by the Sumerians. Meanwhile a new state was
growing up on the eastern side of the Euphrates in a small
provincial city called Lagas, whose ruins are now known as
Telloh. Its proximity to Eridu, the seaport and trading depot
of early Babylonia, had doubtless much to do with its rise to
power. At all events the kings of Telloh, whose monuments have
been brought to light by M. de Sarzec, became continually
stronger, and the dynasty of Lagas took the place of the
dynasty of Ur. One of these kings, E-Anna-gin, at length
defeated the Semitic oppressors of northern Chaldæa in a
decisive battle and overthrew the 'people of the Land of the
Bow.' …
"The kings of Lagas represent the closing days of Sumerian
supremacy. With Sargon and his empire the Semitic age begins.
The culture of Chaldæa is still Sumerian, the educated classes
are for the most part of Sumerian origin, and the literature of
the country is Sumerian also. But the king and his court are
Semites, and the older culture which they borrow and adopt
becomes Semitised in the process. … For many generations
Sumerians and Semites lived side by side, each borrowing from
the other, and mutually adapting and modifying their own forms
of expression. … Sumerian continued to be the language of
religion and law—the two most conservative branches of human
study—down to the age of Abraham. … The new facts that have
been disinterred from the grave of the past furnish a striking
confirmation of Professor Hommel's theory, which connects the
culture of primitive Egypt with that of primitive Chaldæa, and
derives the language of the Egyptians, at all events in part,
from a mixed Babylonian language in which Semitic and Sumerian
elements alike claimed a share. We now know that such a mixed
language did once exist, and we also know that this language
and the written characters by which it was expressed were
brought to the shores of the Mediterranean and the frontiers
of Egypt in the earliest age of Egyptian history."
A. H. Sayce,
Recent Discoveries in Babylonia
(Contemporary Review, January, 1897).
{15}
The third of the Pennsylvania expeditions closed its work at
Nippur in February, 1896. There was then an interval of three
years before a fourth expedition resumed work at the ruins in
February, 1899. In the "Sunday School Times" of April 29 and
May 27, 1899, Professor Hilprecht (who did not go personally
to Nuffar until later in the year) gave the following account
of the friendly reception of the exploring party by the Arabs
of the district, from whom there had been formerly much
experience of trouble: "The Affej tribes, in whose territory
the large mounds are situated, had carefully guarded the
expedition's stronghold,—a mud castle half-way between the
ruins and the marshes, which had been sealed and entrusted to
their care before we quitted the field some years ago. They
now gave to the expedition a hearty welcome, accompanied by
shooting, shouting, dancing, and singing, and were evidently
greatly delighted to have the Americans once more in their
midst. In the presence of Haji Tarfa, their
commander-in-chief, who was surrounded by his minor shaykhs
and other dignitaries of the El-Hamza tribes, the former
arrangements with the two shaykhs Hamid el-Birjud and Abud
el-Hamid were ratified, and new pledges given for the security
and welfare of the little party of explorers, the question of
guards and water being especially emphasized. In accordance
with the Oriental custom, the expedition showed its
appreciation of the warm reception by preparing for their
hosts in return a great feast, at which plenty of mutton and
boiled rice were eaten by some fifty Arabs, and the old bond
of friendship was cemented anew with 'bread and salt.'" …
"Doubtless all the advantages resulting for the Affej Bed'ween
and their allies from the presence of the Americans were
carefully calculated by them in the three years (February,
1896-1899) that we had withdrawn our expedition from their
territory. They have apparently found out that the
comparatively large amount of money brought into their country
through the wages paid to many Arabs employed as workmen, and
through the purchase of milk, eggs, chicken, mutton, and all
the other material supplied by the surrounding tribes for our
camp, with its about two hundred and fifty persons, has done
much to improve their general condition. The conviction has
been growing with them that we have not come to rob them of
anything to which they attach great value themselves, nor to
establish a new military station for the Turkish government in
order to gather taxes and unpaid debts. Every Arab engaged by
the Expedition has been fairly treated, and help and
assistance have always been given cheerfully and gratis to the
many sick people who apply daily for medicine, suffering more
or less during the whole year from pulmonary diseases, typhoid
and malarial fevers, easily contracted in the midst of the
extended marshes which they inhabit."
In the "Sunday School Times" of August 5, in the same year,
Professor Hilprecht reported: "The mounds of Nippur seem to
conceal an almost inexhaustible treasure of inscribed
cuneiform tablets, by means of which we are enabled to restore
the chronology, history, religion, and the high degree of
civilization, obtained at a very early date by the ancient
inhabitants between the lower Euphrates and Tigris. More than
33,000 of these precious documents were found during the
previous campaigns. Not less than 4,776 tablets have been
rescued from February 6 to June 10 this year, averaging,
therefore, nearly 1,200 'manuscripts in clay,' as we may style
them, per month. About the fourth part of these tablets is in
perfect condition, while a very large proportion of the
remaining ones are good-sized fragments or tablets so
fortunately broken that their general contents and many
important details can be ascertained by the patient
decipherer."
In November, 1899, Professor Hilprecht started for the field,
to superintend the explorations in person, and on the way he
wrote to the "S. S. Times" (published December 13): "The
deeper the trenches of the Babylonian Expedition of the
University of Pennsylvania descend into the lower strata of
Nippur, the probable site of the biblical Calneh, the more
important and interesting become the results obtained. The
work of clearing the northeastern wall of the high-towering
temple of Bel was continued with success during the summer
months. Particularly numerous were the inscribed vase
fragments brought to light, and almost exclusively belonging
to the pre-Sargonic period,—3800 B. C. and before. As I showed
in the second part of Volume I of our official University
publication, this fragmentary condition of the vases is due to
the wilful destruction of the temple property by the
victorious Elamitic hordes, who, towards the end of the third
pre-Christian millennium, ransacked the Babylonian cities,
extending their conquest and devastation even as far as the
shores of the Mediterranean Sea (comp. Gen. 14). From the
earliest historical period down to about 2200 B. C., when this
national calamity befell Babylonia, the large temple
storehouse, with its precious statues, votive slabs and vases,
memorial stones, bronze figures, and other gifts from powerful
monarchs and governors, had practically remained intact. What,
therefore, is left of the demolished and scattered contents of
this ancient chamber as a rule is found above the platform of
Ur-Ninib (about 2500 B. C.), in a layer several feet thick and
about twenty-five feet wide, surrounding the front and the two
side walls of the temple. The systematic clearing and
examination of this layer, and of the huge mass of ruins lying
above it, occupied the attention of the expedition
considerably in the past years, and was continued with new
energy during the past six months." At the end of January,
1900, Professor Hilprecht arrived in Babylonia, and wrote some
weeks later to the "Sunday School Times" (May 3): "As early as
eleven years ago, the present writer pointed out that the
extensive group of hills to the southwest of the temple of Bel
must be regarded as the probable site of the temple library of
ancient Nippur. About twenty-five hundred tablets were rescued
from the trenches in this hill during our first campaign.
Later excavations increased the number of tablets taken from
these mounds to about fifteen thousand. But it was only within
the last six weeks that my old theory could be established
beyond any reasonable doubt.
{16}
During this brief period a series of rooms was exposed which
furnished not less than over sixteen thousand cuneiform
documents, forming part of the temple library during the
latter half of the third millennium B. C. In long rows the
tablets were lying on ledges of unbaked clay, serving as
shelves for these imperishable Old Babylonian records. The
total number of tablets rescued from different parts of the
ruins during the present campaign amounts even now to more
than twenty-one thousand, and is rapidly increased by new
finds every day. The contents of this extraordinary library
are as varied as possible. Lists of Sumerian words and
cuneiform signs, arranged according to different principles,
and of fundamental value for our knowledge of the early
non-Semitic language of the country, figure prominently in the
new 'find.' As regards portable antiquities of every
description, and their archeological value, the American
expedition stands readily first among the three expeditions at
present engaged in the exploration of Ancient Babylonia and
the restoration of its past history."
Three weeks later he added: "The Temple Library, as indicated
in the writer's last report, has been definitely located at
the precise spot which, in 1889, the present writer pointed
out as its most probable site. Nearly eighteen thousand
cuneiform documents have been rescued this year from the
shelves of a series of rooms in its southeastern and
northwestern wings. The total number of tablets (mostly of a
didactic character) obtained from the library up to date is
from twenty-five thousand to twenty-six thousand tablets
(whole and broken). In view, however, of more important other
duties to be executed by this expedition before we can leave
Nippur this year, and in consideration of the enormous amount
of time and labor required for a methodical exploration of the
whole mound in which it is concealed, I have recently ordered
all the gangs of Arabic workmen to be withdrawn from this
section of ancient Nippur, and to be set at work at the
eastern fortification line of the city, close to the
temple-complex proper. According to a fair estimate based upon
actual finds, the unique history of the temple, and
topographical indications, there must be hidden at least from
a hundred thousand to a hundred and fifty thousand tablets
more in this ancient library, which was destroyed by the
invading Elamites about the time of Abraham's emigration from
Ur of the Chaldees. Only about the twentieth part of this
library (all of Dr. Haynes's previous work included) has so
far been examined and excavated."
In the same letter the Professor described the uncovering of
one façade of a large pre-Sargonic palace—"the chief
discovery," in his opinion, "of this whole campaign." "A
thorough excavation of this large palace," he wrote, "will
form one of the chief tasks of a future expedition, after its
character, age, and extent have been successfully determined
by the present one. Important art treasures of the Tello type,
and literary documents, may reasonably be expected to be
unearthed from the floor-level of its many chambers. It has
become evident, from the large number of pre-Sargonic
buildings, walls, and other antiquities discovered on both
sides of the Shatt-en-Nil, that the pre-Sargonic Nippur was of
by far greater extent than had been anticipated. This
discovery, however, is only in strict accord with what we know
from the cuneiform documents as to the important historical
rôle which the temple of Bel ('the father of the gods'), as
the central national sanctuary of ancient Babylonia, played at
the earliest period, long before Babylon, the capital of the
later empire, achieved any prominence."
The work at Nippur was suspended for the season about the
middle of May, 1900, and Professor Hilprecht, after his return
to Philadelphia, wrote of the general fruits of the campaign,
in the "Sunday School Times" of December 1: "As the task of
the fourth and most recent expedition, just completed, I had
mapped out, long before its organization, the following work.
It was to determine the probable extent of the earliest
pre-Sargonic settlement at ancient Nippur; to discover the
precise form and character of the famous temple of Bêl at this
earliest period; to define the exact boundaries of the city
proper; if possible, to find one or more of the great city
gates frequently mentioned in the inscriptions; to locate the
great temple library and educational quarters of Nippur; to
study the different modes of burial in use in ancient
Babylonia; and to study all types and forms of pottery, with a
view to finding laws for the classification and determination
of the ages of vases, always excavated in large numbers at
Nuffar. The work set before us has been accomplished. The task
was great,—almost too great for the limited time at our
disposal. … But the number of Arab workmen, busy with pickax,
scraper, and basket in the trenches for ten to fourteen hours
every day, gradually increased to the full force of four
hundred. … In the course of time, when the nearly twenty-five
thousand cuneiform texts which form one of the most
conspicuous prizes of the present expedition have been fully
deciphered and interpreted; when the still hidden larger mass
of tablets from that great educational institution, the temple
library of Calneh-Nippur, discovered at the very spot which I
had marked for its site twelve years ago, has been brought to
light,—a great civilization will loom up from past
millenniums before our astonished eyes. For four thousand
years the documents which contain this precious information
have disappeared from sight, forgotten in the destroyed rooms
of ancient Nippur. Abraham was about leaving his ancestral
home at Ur when the great building in which so much learning
had been stored up by previous generations collapsed under the
ruthless acts of the Elamite hordes. But the light which
begins to flash forth from the new trenches in this lonely
mound in the desert of Iraq will soon illuminate the world
again. And it will be no small satisfaction to know that it
was rekindled by the hands of American explorers."
{17}
ARCHÆOLOGICAL RESEARCH: Babylonia:
German exploration of the ruins of Babylon.
An expedition to explore the ruins of Babylon was sent out by
the German Orient Society, in 1899, under the direction of Dr.
Koldewey, an eminent architect and archæologist, who had been
connected with previous works of excavation done in Babylonia
and northern Syria. In announcing the project, in the "Sunday
School Times" of January 28, 1899, Professor Hilprecht
remarked: "These extended ruins will require at least fifty
years of labor if they are to be excavated as thoroughly and
systematically as the work is done by the American expedition
at Nippur, which has employed in its trenches never less than
sixty, but frequently from two hundred to four hundred, Arabic
workmen at the same time during the last ten years. Certain
parts of the ruins of Babylon have been previously explored
and excavated by Layard, Rawlinson, and the French expedition
under Fresnel and Oppert, to which we owe the first accurate
details of the topography of this ancient city." Writing
somewhat more than a year later from Nippur, after having
visited the German party at Babylon, Professor Hilprecht said
of its work: "The chief work of the expedition during the past
year was the exploration of the great ruin heap called
El-Kasr, under which are hidden the remains of the palace of
Nebuchadrezzar, where Alexander the Great died after his
famous campaign against India. Among the few important
antiquities so far obtained from this imposing mound of
Ancient Babylon is a new Hittite inscription and a
neo-Babylonian slab with an interesting cuneiform legend. Very
recently, Dr. Koldewey, whose excellent topographical surveys
form a conspicuous part of the results of the first year, has
found the temple of the goddess Nin-Makh, so often mentioned
in the building inscriptions of the neo-Babylonian rulers, and
a little terra-cotta statue of the goddess. The systematic
examination of the enormous mass of ruins covering Ancient
Babylon will require several decenniums of continued hard
labor. To facilitate this great task, a bill has been
submitted to the German Reichstag requesting a yearly
government appropriation of over fifteen thousand dollars,
while at the same time application has been made by the German
Orient Committee to the Ottoman Government for another firman
to carry on excavations at Warka, the biblical Erech, whose
temple archive was badly pillaged by the invading Elamites at
about 2280 B. C."
Some account of results from the uncovering of the palace of
Nebuchadrezzar are quoted from "Die Illustrirte Zeitung" in
the "Scientific American Supplement," December 16, 1899, as
follows: "According to early Babylonian records,
Nebuchadnezzar completed the fortifications of the city, begun
by his father Narbolpolassar, consisting of a double inclosure
of strong walls, the inner called Imgur-Bel ('Bel is
gracious'), the outer Nemitti-Bel ('foundation of Bel'). The
circumference of the latter according to Herodotus was 480
stades (55 miles), its height 340 feet, and its thickness 85
feet. At the inner and outer peripheries, one-story houses
were built, between which was room enough for a chariot drawn
by four horses harnessed abreast. When Koldewey cut through
the eastern front of Al Kasr, he came upon a wall which was
undoubtedly that described by Herodotus. The outer eastern
shell was composed of burnt brick and asphalt, 24 feet in
thickness; then came a filling of sand and broken stone 70½
feet in thickness, which was followed by an inner western
shell of 43 feet thickness. The total thickness was,
therefore, 137.5 feet. By dint of hard work this wall was cut
through and the entrance to Nebuchadnezzar's palace laid bare.
Koldewey and his men were enabled to verify the description
given by Diodorus of the polychromatic reliefs which graced
the walls of the royal towers and palaces. It still remains to
be seen how trustworthy are the statements of other ancient
historians. The city itself, as previous investigators have
found, was adorned with many temples, chief among them Esaglia
('the high towering house'), temple of the city, and the national
god Marduk (Merodach) and his spouse Zirpanit. Sloping toward
the river were the Hanging Gardens, one of the world's seven
wonders, located in the northern mound of the ruins of Babel.
The temple described by Herodotus is that of Nebo, in
Borsippa, not far from Babylon, which Herodotus included under
Babylon and which the cuneiform inscriptions term 'Babylon the
Second.' This temple, which in the mound of Birs Nimrûd is the
most imposing ruin of Babylon, is called the 'eternal house'
in the inscriptions; it was restored by Nebuchadnezzar with
great splendor. In form, it is a pyramid built in seven
stages, for which reason it is sometimes referred to as the
'Temple of the Seven Spheres of Heaven and Earth.' The Tower
of Babel, described in Genesis x., is perhaps the same
structure. It remains for the German expedition to continue
its excavations in Nebuchadnezzar's palace."
ARCHÆOLOGICAL RESEARCH: Babylonia:
Discovery of an inscription of Nabonidos,
the last of the Babylonian kings.
"A discovery of the greatest importance has just been made by
Father Scheil, who has for some time been exploring in
Babylonia. In the Mujelibeh mound, one of the principal heaps
of ruins in the 'enciente' of Babylon, he has discovered a
long inscription of Nabonidos, the last of the Babylonian
Kings (B. C. 555-538), which contains a mass of historical and
other data which will be of greatest value to students of this
important period of Babylonian history. The monument in
question is a small 'stela' of diorite, the upper part of
which is broken, inscribed with eleven columns of writing, and
which appears to have been erected early in the King's reign.
It resembles in some measure the celebrated India-House
inscription of Nebuchadnezzar, but is much more full of
historical matter. Its value may be estimated when it is
stated that it contains a record of the war of revenge
conducted by the Babylonians and their Mandian allies against
Assyria, for the destruction of the city by Sennacherib, in B.
C. 698; an account of the election and coronation of Nabonidos
in B. C. 555, and the wonderful dream in which Nebuchadnezzar
appeared to him; as well as an account of the restoration of
the temple of the Moon god at Kharran, accompanied by a
chronological record which enables us to fix the date of the
so-called Scythian invasion. There is also a valuable
reference to the murder of Sennacherib by his son in Tebet, B.
C. 681."
American Journal of Archœology,
January-March, 1896.
ARCHÆOLOGICAL RESEARCH: Persia:
French exploration of the ruins of Susa,
the capital of ancient Elam.
"In 1897 an arrangement was completed between the French
Government and the Shah of Persia by which the former obtained
the exclusive right of archeological explorations in the
latter's empire, coupled with certain privileges for the
exportation of different kinds of antiquities that might be
unearthed. Soon afterwards, M. J. de Morgan, late director of
excavations in Egypt, who had made archeological researches in
the regions east of the Tigris before, was placed at the head
of a French expedition to Susa, the ancient capital of Elam,
the upper strata of which had been successfully explored by M.
Dieulafoy.
{18}
In the Babylonian cuneiform inscriptions Elam appears as the
most terrible foe of the Babylonian empire from the earliest
time: and the name of its capital, Susa, or Shâsha, was
discovered by the present editor several years ago on a small
votive object in agate, originally manufactured and inscribed
in southern Babylonia, in the first half of the third
pre-christian millennium, several hundred years afterwards
carried away as part of their spoil by the invading Elamites,
and in the middle of the fourteenth century B. C. recaptured,
reinscribed, and presented to the temple of Nippur by King
Kurigalzu, after his conquest of Susa. It was therefore
evident that, if the same method of excavating was applied to
the ruins of Susa as had been applied so successfully by the
University of Pennsylvania's expedition in Nippur, remarkable
results would soon be obtained, and amply repay all labor and
money expended. M. de Morgan, accompanied by some engineers
and architects, set hopefully to work, cutting his trenches
more than fifty feet below the ruins of the Achæmenian
dynasty. The first campaign, 1897-98, was so successful, in
the discovery of buildings and inscribed antiquities, that in
October of last year the French government despatched the
Assyriologist Professor Scheil, in order to decipher the new
cuneiform documents, and to report on their historical
bearings.
"Among the more important finds so far made, but not yet
published, maybe mentioned over a thousand cuneiform tablets
of the earlier period, a beautifully preserved obelisk more
than five feet high, and covered with twelve hundred lines of
Old Babylonian cuneiform writing. It was inscribed and set up
by King Manishtusu, who left inscribed vases in Nippur and
other Babylonian cities. A stele of somewhat smaller size,
representing a battle in the mountains, testifies to the high
development of art at that remote period. On the one end it
bears a mutilated inscription of Narâm-Sin, son of Sargon the
Great (3800 B. C.); on the other, the name of Shimti-Shilkhak,
a well-known Elamitic king, and grandfather of the biblical
Ariokh (Genesis 14). These two monuments were either left in
Susa by the two Babylonian kings whose names they bear, after
successful operations against Elam, or they were carried off
as booty at the time of the great Elamitic invasion, which
proved so disastrous to the treasure-houses and archives of
Babylonian cities and temples [see above: BABYLONIA]. The
latter is more probable to the present writer, who in 1896
('Old Babylonian Inscriptions,' Part II, page 33) pointed out,
in connection with his discussion of the reasons of the
lamentable condition of Babylonian temple archives, that on
the whole we shall look in vain for well-preserved large
monuments in most Babylonian ruins, because about 2280 B. C.
'that which in the eyes of the national enemies of Babylonia
appeared most valuable was carried to Susa and other places:
what did not find favor with them was smashed and scattered on
Babylonian temple courts.'"
Prof. H. V. Hilprecht,
Oriental Research
(Sunday School Times, January 28, 1809).
ARCHÆOLOGICAL RESEARCH: Egypt:
Earlier explorations.
For some account of earlier archæological explorations in
Egypt,
See, in volume 1,
EGYPT.
ARCHÆOLOGICAL RESEARCH: Egypt:
Results of recent exploration.
The opening up of prehistoric Egypt.
The tomb of Mena.
The funeral temple of Merenptah.
Single mention of the people of Israel.
"During all this century in which Egyptian history has been
studied at first hand, it has been accepted as a sort of axiom
that the beginnings of things were quite unknown. In the
epitome of the history which was drawn up under the Greeks to
make Egypt intelligible to the rest of the world, there were
three dynasties of kings stated before the time of the great
pyramid builders; and yet of those it has been commonly said
that no trace remained. Hence it has been usual to pass them
by with just a mention as being half fabulous, and then to
begin real history with Senefern or Khufu (Cheops), the kings
who stand at the beginning of the fourth dynasty, at about
4000 B. C. The first discovery to break up this habit of
thought was when the prehistoric colossal statues of Min, the
god of the city of Koptos, were found in my excavations in his
temple. These had carvings in relief upon them wholly
different from anything known as yet in Egypt, and the
circumstances pointed to their being earlier than any carvings
yet found in that country. In the same temple we found also
statues of sacred animals and pottery which we now know to
belong to the very beginning of Egyptian history, many
centuries before the pyramids, and probably about 5000 B. C.
or earlier.
"The next step was the finding of a new cemetery and a town of
the prehistoric people, which we can now date to about 5000 B.
C., within two or three centuries either way. This place lay
on the opposite side of the Nile to Koptos—that is to say,
about 20 miles north of Thebes. At first we were completely
staggered by a class of objects entirely different from any
yet known in Egypt. We tried to fit them into every gap in
Egyptian history, but found that it was impossible to put them
before 3000 B. C. Later discoveries prove that they are really
as old as 5000 B. C. They show a very different civilization
from that of the Egyptians whom we already know—far less
artistic, but in some respects even more skillful in
mechanical taste and touch than the historical Egyptians. They
built brick houses to live in, and buried their dead in small
chambers sunk in the gravels of the water courses, lined with
mats, and roofed over with beams. They show several points of
contact with the early Mediterranean civilization, and appear
to have been mainly north African tribes of European type.
Their pottery, in its patterns and painting, shows designs
which have survived almost unchanged unto the present day
among the Kabyles of the Algerian Mountains. And one very
peculiar type of pottery is found spread from Spain to Egypt,
and indicates a widespread commercial intercourse at that
remote day. The frequent figures upon the vases of great
galley ships rowed with oars show that shipping was well
developed then, and make the evidences of trading between
different countries easy to be accepted.
{19}
"An of the above belongs to the age probably before 4700 B.
C., which is the age given for the first historical king of
Egypt by the Greek history of Manetho. A keystone of our
knowledge of the civilization is the identification of the
tomb of Mena, the first name in Egyptian history, the
venerated founder of all the long series of hundreds of
historic kings. This tomb, about 15 miles north of Thebes, was
found by some Arabs, and shown to Dr. De Morgan, the director
of the Department of Antiquities. It was a mass of about
thirty chambers, built of mud brick and earth. Each chamber
contained a different class of objects, one of stone vases,
one of stone dishes, one of copper tools, one of water jars,
etc. And among the things are carvings of lions and vases in
rock crystal and obsidian, large hard-stone vases, slate
palettes for grinding paint, pottery vases, and, above all, an
ivory tablet with relief carvings which show the names of the
king. Besides this, M. Amelineau has found sixteen tombs of
this same general character at Abydos, which we can hardly now
doubt belong to the early kings of the first three dynasties,
and some four or five have been actually identified with the
names of these kings in the Greek history. So now instead of
treating the first three dynasties as half fabulous and saying
that Egyptian art and civilization begin full blown at 4000 B.
C., we have the clear and tangible remains of much of these
early kings back to 4700 B. C., and a stretch of some
centuries of the prehistoric period with a varied and
distinctive civilization, well known and quite different from
anything later, lying before 4700 B. C. To put the earlier
part of this to 5500 B. C. is certainly no stretch of
probability. …
"We now pass entirely from these early times, with their
fascinating insight into the beginnings of things, long before
any other human history that we possess, until we reach down
to what seems quite modern times in the record of Egypt, where
it comes into contact with the Old Testament history. On
clearing out the funereal temple of King Merenptah I found in
that the upper half of a fine colossal statue of his, with all
the colors still fresh upon it. As this son of Rameses the
Great is generally believed to be the Pharaoh of the exodus,
such a fine portrait of him is full of interest. Better even
than that—I found an immense tablet of black granite over 10
feet high and 5 feet wide. It had been erected over two
centuries before and brilliantly carved by an earlier king,
whose temple was destroyed for materials by Merenptah. He took
this splendid block and turned its face inward against the
wall of his temple and carved the back of it with other scenes
and long inscriptions. Most of it is occupied with the history
of his vanquishing the Libyans, or North African tribes, who
were then invading Egypt. But at the end he recounts his
conquests in Syria, among which occurs the priceless passage:
'The people of Israel are spoiled; they have no seed.' This is
the only trace yet found in Egypt of the existence of the
Israelites, the only mention of the name, and it is several
centuries earlier than the references to the Israelite and
Jewish kings in the cuneiform inscriptions of Assyria. "What
relation this has to our biblical knowledge of the Israelites
is a wide question, that has several possible answers. Without
entering on all the openings, I may here state what seems to
me to be the most probable connection of all the events,
though I am quite aware that fresh discoveries might easily
alter our views. It seems that either all the Israelites did
not go into Egypt or else a part returned and lived in the
north of Palestine before the exodus that we know, because we
here find Merenptah defeating Israelites at about 1200 B. C.
Of his conquest and of those of Rameses III in Palestine there
are no traces in the biblical accounts, the absence of which
indicates that the entry into Canaan took place after 1160 B.
C., the last war of Rameses III. Then the period of the Judges
is given in a triple record—(l) of the north, (2) of the east
of the Jordan, (3) of Ephraim and the west; and these three
accounts are quite distinct and never overlap, though the
history passes in succession from one to another. Thus the
whole age of Judges is but little over a century. And to this
agree the priestly genealogies stretching between the
tabernacle and temple periods.
"Leaving now all the monumental age, we come lastly to the
evidences of the Christian period, preserved in the papyri or
miscellaneous waste papers left behind in the towns of the
Roman times. Last winter my friends, Mr. Grenfell and Mr.
Hunt, cleared out the remains of the town Behnesa, about 110
miles south of Cairo. There, amid thousands of stray papers,
documents, rolls, accounts, and all the waste sweepings out of
the city offices, they found two leaves which are priceless in
Christian literature—the leaf of Logia, or sayings of Jesus,
and the leaf of Matthew's Gospel. The leaf of the Logia is
already so widely known that it is needless for me to describe
it. … The leaf of Matthew's Gospel is of great interest in the
literary history of the Gospels. Hitherto we have had no
manuscripts older than the second great ecclesiastical
settlement under Theodosius. Now we have a piece two ages
earlier—before the first settlement of things under
Constantine at the council of Nicea. Here, in the middle of
the third century, we find that the beginning of the Gospel,
the most artificial, and probably the latest, part, the
introductory genealogy and account of the Nativity, was
exactly in its present form. This gives us the greatest
confidence that the Gospel as we have it dates from the time
of the great persecutions. Such are some of the astonishing
and far-reaching results that Egypt has given us within three
years past."
W. M. Flinders Petrie,
Recent Research in Egypt
(Sunday School Times, February 19, 1898.)
In a later article, contributed to the "Popular Science
Monthly," Professor Petrie has described more fully the
results of recent exploration in Egypt, especially with
reference to the discovery and study of prehistoric remains.
The following are passages from the article: "The great stride
that has been made in the last six years is the opening up of
prehistoric Egypt, leading us back some 2000 years before the
time of the pyramid builders. Till recently nothing was known
before the age of the finest art and the greatest buildings,
and it was a familiar puzzle how such a grand civilization
could have left no traces of its rise. This was only a case of
blindness on the part of explorers. Upper Egypt teems with
prehistoric remains, but, as most of what appears is dug up by
plunderers for the market, until there is a demand for a class
of objects, very little is seen of them. Now that the
prehistoric has become fashionable, it is everywhere to be
seen. The earlier diggers were dazzled by the polished
colossi, the massive buildings, the brilliant sculptures of
the well-known historic times, and they had no eyes for small
graves, containing only a few jars or, at best, a flint knife.
{20}
"The present position of the prehistory of Egypt is that we
can now distinguish two separate cultures before the beginning
of the Egyptian dynasties, and we can clearly trace a sequence
of manufactures and art throughout long ages before the pyramid
builders, or from say 6000 B. C., giving a continuous history
of 8000 years for man in Egypt. Continuous I say advisedly,
for some of the prehistoric ways are those kept up to the
present time. In the earliest stages of this prehistoric
culture metal was already used and pottery made. Why no ruder
stages are found is perhaps explained by the fact that the
alluvial deposits of the Nile do not seem to be much older
than 8000 years. The rate of deposit is well known—very
closely one metre in a thousand years—and borings show only
eight metres thick of Nile mud in the valley. Before that the
country had enough rain to keep up the volume of the river,
and it did not drop its mud. It must have run as a rapid
stream through a barren land of sand and stones, which could
not support any population except paleolithic hunters. With
the further drying of the climate, the river lost so much
velocity that its mud was deposited, and the fertile mud flats
made cultivation and a higher civilization possible. At this
point a people already using copper came into the country. …
"The second prehistoric civilization seems to have belonged to
a people kindred to that of the first age, as much of the
pottery continued unchanged, and only gradually faded away.
But a new style arose of a hard, buff pottery, painted with
patterns and subjects in red outline. Ships are represented
with cabins on them, and rowed by a long bank of oars. The use
of copper became more general, and gold and silver appear
also. … Though this civilization was in many respects higher
than that which preceded it, yet it was lower artistically,
the figures being ruder and always flat, instead of in the
round. …
"The separation of these two different ages has been entirely
reached by the classification of many hundreds of tombs, the
original order of which could be traced by the relation of
their contents. … The material for this study has come
entirely from excavations of my own party at Nagada (1895),
Abadiyeh, and Hu (1899); but great numbers of tombs of these
same ages have been opened without record by Dr. de Morgan
(1896-1897), and by French and Arab speculators in
antiquities. The connection between these prehistoric ages and
the early historic times of the dynastic kings of Egypt is yet
obscure. The cemeteries which would have cleared this have
unhappily been looted in the last few years without any
record, and it is only the chance of some new discoveries that
can be looked to for filling up the history.
"We can at least say that the pottery of the early kings is
clearly derived from the later prehistoric types, and that
much of the civilization was in common. But it is clear that
the second prehistoric civilization was degrading and losing
its artistic taste for fine work before the new wave of the
dynastic or historic Egyptians came in upon it. These early
historic people are mainly known by the remains of the tombs
of the early kings, found by M. Amelineau at Abydos
(1896-1899), and probably the first stage of the same race is
seen in the rude colossi of the god Min, which I found at
Koptos (1894). … In these great discoveries of the last few
years we can trace at least three successive peoples, and see
the gradual rise of the arts, from the man who was buried in
his goat skins, with one plain cup by him, up to the king who
built great monuments and was surrounded by most sumptuous
handiwork. We see the rise of the art of exquisite flint
flaking, and the decline of that as copper came more commonly
into use. We see at first the use of signs, later on disused
by a second race, and then superseded by the elaborate
hieroglyph system of the dynastic race. …
"Turning now to the purely classical Egyptian work, the
principal discoveries of the last few years have given us new
leading examples in every line. The great copper statue of
King Pepy, with his son, dates from before 3000 B. C. It is
over life size, and entirely wrought in hammered copper,
showing a complete mastery in metal work of the highest
artistic power. … Many of the royal temples of the 19th
dynasty at Thebes were explored by the English in 1896. The
Ramesseum was completely examined, through all the maze of
stone chambers around it. But the most important result was
the magnificent tablet of black granite, about 10 feet high
and 5 wide, covered on one side with an inscription of Amen
Hotep III, and on the other side with an inscription of
Merenptah. The latter account, of about 1200 B. C., mentions
the war with the 'People of Israel'; this is the only naming
of Israel on Egyptian records, and is several centuries
earlier than any Assyrian record of the Hebrews. …
"One of the most important results of historical Egyptian
times is the light thrown on prehistoric Greek ages. The
pottery known as 'Mykenæan' since the discoveries of
Schliemann in the Peloponnesus was first dated in Egypt at
Gurob in 1889; next were found hundreds of vase fragments at
Tell el Amarna in 1892; and since then several Egyptian kings'
names have been found on objects in Greece, along with such
pottery. The whole of this evidence shows that the grand age
of prehistoric Greece, which can well compare with the art of
classical Greece, began about 1600 B. C., was at its highest
point about 1400 B. C., and became decadent about 1200 B. C.,
before its overthrow by the Dorian invasion. Besides this
dating, Greece is indebted to Egypt for the preservation of
the oldest texts of its classics."
W. M. Flinders Petrie,
Recent Years of Egyptian Exploration
(Appleton's Popular Science Monthly, April, 1900).
Still later, in an address at the annual meeting of the Egypt
Exploration Fund, November 7, 1900, Professor Petrie summed up
with succinctness the gains to our knowledge of early man from
the later researches in Egypt. "How many controversies," he
said, "had waged over Manetho! And now from the Royal tombs of
Abydos we had seen and handled this summer the drinking bowls and
furniture of the Kings of the first dynasty, even the property
of Menes himself, the first King of United Egypt. The early
Kings, whom we had scarcely believed in, even Mena who had
been proclaimed a mythical version of the Cretan Minos and the
Indian Manu, came now before us as real and as familiarly as
the Kings of the 30th dynasty or of Saxon England; and never
before had so remote a period been brought so completely
before us as it had been in the work this year at Abydos.
{21}
And how did Manetho and the State history of Seti bear the
test? Five Kings we could already identify out of the eight
recorded for the first dynasty. Those five are proved to have
been recorded in their correct order, although the time of the
first dynasty was so remote from even that of Seti that all
the names had become slightly altered by transmission. It was
to be remembered that the first dynasty was older to Seti than
the Exodus was to us. Now that we were no longer afraid of our
own rashness in assigning anything to a date before the fourth
dynasty, and could deal with the earliest periods back to the
first entry of agricultural man into Egypt, we could see more
of the perspective of history. We saw palæolithic man
scattering his massive flint weapons until the age of Nile mud
(beginning about 7000 B. C.) made agriculture possible, and a
Caucasian race ousted the palæolithic folks, whose portraits
were left us in the figures found in the earliest graves. We
saw this oldest race of man to have been of the Hottentot
type, but even more hairy than the Hottentot, with the traces
of his original Northern habitation not yet wiped off by
tropical suns. Then we saw a rapidly rising civilization
already knowing metals linked with the modern Kabyle both by
bodily formation and by existing products. Next after some
dozen generations we could trace strong Eastern or Semitic
influence, which carried on this civilization to a higher
point in many respects; and then decay set in and the first
cycle that we could trace was completed. The next cycle began
with the entry of the dynastic race from the Red Sea,
possessing the elements of hieroglyphic writing and far more
artistic sense and power than the earlier people. In some
three or four centuries they had gradually conquered and
invaded all the races scattered through Egypt—long-haired,
short-haired, bearded and unbearded, clothed and unclothed;
and the first King of all Egypt, who founded his new capital
at the mouth of the valley, was Mena. The era of consolidation
which preceded him was stated by Manetho as the dynasty of ten
Kings of Abydos, who reigned for 300 years; it was a time of
rapidly increasing civilization, during which most of the main
features of Egyptian language, life, and art were stamped for
5,000 years to come. From the Royal tombs of Abydos we could
see now how this art rose to its finest age in the middle of
the first dynasty, and was decaying and becoming cheaper and
more common by the end of that time. Probably we should see
that this cycle was fading when some new impetus gave birth to
the colossal ages of the pyramid builders. That grand period
we now see to have been the third cycle of civilization and
art, which was renewed again and again until we might see in
the brilliance of the Fatimite dynasty the seventh of the
great eras of Egypt. Such was the wider aspect of human
history which the work solely of English exploration in Egypt
now put before us. It might be safely said that there had
never been a greater extension of knowledge of man's past in
any decade than the discoveries of the last five years had
unfolded. Details yet awaited us, but the main lines were all
marked out, and their work of the future was to complete the
picture of which we now had the full extent before us. What,
now, would occupy the coming winter was the exploration of the
remaining Royal tombs."
ARCHÆOLOGICAL RESEARCH: Egypt:
Discovery of a fragment of the Logia, or Sayings of Jesus.
During the winter of 1896-1897, Messrs. Bernard P. Grenfell
and Arthur S. Hunt conducted excavations for the Egypt
Exploration Fund on the site of Oxyrhynchus, which was a
flourishing city in the time of Roman rule in Egypt. Large
quantities of papyri were found in the rubbish heaps of the
town, and among them one fragment of special and remarkable
interest,—as thus described by the discoverers, in a brief
report, entitled "Sayings of Our Lord," published by the Egypt
Exploration Fund in 1897: "The document in question is a leaf
from a papyrus book containing a collection of Logia or
Sayings of our Lord, of which some, though presenting several
novel features, are familiar, others are wholly new. It was
found at the very beginning of our work upon the town, in a
mound which produced a great number of papyri belonging to the
first three centuries of our era, those in the immediate
vicinity of our fragment belonging to the second and third
centuries. This fact, together with the evidence of the
handwriting, which has a characteristically Roman aspect,
fixes with certainty 300 A. D. as the lowest limit for the
date at which the papyrus was written. The general
probabilities of the case, the presence of the usual
contractions found in biblical MSS., and the fact that the
papyrus was in book, not roll, form, put the first century out
of the question, and made the first half of the second
unlikely. The date therefore probably falls within the period
150-300 A. D. More than that cannot be said with any approach
to certainty. … The fragment measures 5¾X3¾ inches, but its
height was originally somewhat greater, as it is unfortunately
broken at the bottom."
The following is a translation of the fragmentary sayings
inscribed on the leaf:
"… and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote that
is in thy brother's eye."
"Jesus saith, Except ye fast to the world, ye shall in no wise
find the kingdom of God; and except ye keep the sabbath, ye
shall not see the Father."
"Jesus saith, I stood in the midst of the world, and in the
flesh was I seen of them, and I found all men drunken, and
none found I athirst among them, and my soul grieveth over the
sons of men, because they are blind in their heart. …"
"Jesus saith, Wherever there are … and there is one … alone, I
am with him. Raise the stone and there thou shalt find me,
cleave the wood and there am I."
"Jesus saith, A prophet is not acceptable in his own country,
neither doth a physician work cures upon them that know him."
"Jesus saith, A city built upon the top of a high hill, and
stablished, can neither fall nor be hid."
{22}
ARCHÆOLOGICAL RESEARCH:Egypt:
New discoveries in the tombs of the Valley of the Kings.
In the Valley of the Kings, which extends along the west bank
of the Nile, in the Libyan Mountains, opposite Luxor, M.
Loret, director of the Egyptian explorations, discovered in
1898 the tombs of Thutmosis III. and Amenophis II., and in the
following year made the more important discovery of the tomb of
Thutmosis I., "the real founder of the eighteenth dynasty, who
made Egypt one of the great empires of the ancient world."
Professor Steindorf of the University of Leipsic, writing of
this discovery to Professor Hilprecht of the University of
Pennsylvania, remarked that its special importance "lies in
the fact that Thutmosis I, the earliest king of the eighteenth
dynasty, was also the first ruler to depart from the ancient
custom of the Pharaohs, that of building in the desert lowland
pyramidal tombs. For himself he had a tomb hewn out of rock in
the mountains. His predecessor, Amenophis I, according to
custom, built his tomb in the plain, near the present site of
Drah-abul-negge, as we know from written records. Thutmosis I,
on the contrary, chose for his last dwelling-place the lonely
and majestic valley in the Libyan Mountains. For centuries the
Pharaohs followed his example, and during the eighteenth,
nineteenth, and twentieth dynasties were built those
magnificent sepulchers which in Roman times were still among
the greatest curiosities of ancient Thebes. …
"Chief among the articles that Mr. Loret found in the tomb is
a remarkably well-preserved papyrus containing texts from the
Book of the Dead, with colored pictures finely executed; also
a chest in which were kept a draught-board, with a full set of
draughtmen, and some garlands; likewise fruit, food, poultry,
and beef. The last-mentioned articles, being intended for the
sustenance of the dead, each one was wrapped in linen and
enclosed in a wooden case, exactly corresponding to its form.
Thirteen large earthen beer jars, most of which, with their
seals, stood there unmarred, and a large number of other
vessels, had contained the beverages necessary for the
refreshment of the dead. Weapons, among others two
artistically wrought leathern quivers containing arrows, and
two beautiful armchairs, completed this strange stock of
equipments. The most remarkable piece of all is a large and
beautifully preserved couch, the like of which has never been
found in any other tomb. It consists of a quadrangular wooden
frame, overspread with a thick rush mat, and over this were
stretched three layers of linen with a life-size figure of the
god of death, Osiris, drawn upon the outer layer. The figure
itself was smeared with some material intended to make the
under layer waterproof. Over this, mingled with some adhesive
substance, soil had been spread, in which barley was planted.
The grains had sprouted, and had grown to the height of from
two and a half to three inches. The whole, therefore,
represented a couch whereon the dead Osiris lay figured in
greensward. Verily, a striking poetical idea, the resurrection
of the dead symbolized by the picture of the barley springing
up. The whole tomb, with its numerous equipments, furnishes a
very important contribution to the history of the methods of
burial among the ancient Egyptians."
Sunday School Times,
July 8, 1899.
ARCHÆOLOGICAL RESEARCH: Egypt:
Fall of eleven columns of the great temple at Karnak.
"From Professor Georg Steindorff, of the University of
Leipsic, comes the following: 'In the covered colonnade of the
great temple at Karnak extensive restorations have lately been
undertaken, rendered necessary by a most deplorable accident,
which, about a year ago, befell this grandest of all Egyptian
edifices. It occurred on the morning of October 3, 1899, in
the colonnade which was built by Ramses I, Sethos I, and
Ramses II, and which is doubtless familiar to all in
engravings and photographs. In the northeastern part of this
structure as many as eleven immense columns fell, and were
totally wrecked, while several others are leaning over so that
they might fall at any time. By this event the magnificent
structure has been utterly ruined, and it now presents a
dreary aspect. The cause of this catastrophe has not been
definitely ascertained. The first thought was of an
earthquake, but nothing of the sort was experienced elsewhere
in Egypt on the morning of the day above mentioned. It is more
likely that during the thirty-two hundred years of the
building's existence, the material used in its construction
had greatly deteriorated, and that this fact increased the
possibility of a collapse. Then, also, in the main hall during
recent years, the work of excavation and restoration was carried
on with little regard for the dilapidated condition of the
temple, which was weakened rather than strengthened by this
work. But especially for the last four years, during the
inundation of the Nile, the hall, by artificial means, has
been flooded in order to extract and remove the salt which had
formed. By this periodical flooding and drying of the ground
the foundations have been very badly damaged. This, according
to Dr. Borchardt, is the prime cause of the ruin. First the
ground gave way under a column, which then toppled, and, in
falling, brought down the others with it.
"We must recognize the zeal with which the Egyptian
Government, especially the department of Egyptian Antiquities,
with its Director-General, Professor Maspero, came to the
rescue of the ill-fated edifice. To prevent further
catastrophe, they first proceeded to remove the architraves
from five of the endangered columns, and to reduce the height
of the columns to about twenty feet. This was accomplished by
filling with sand that portion of the hall in which the
columns stood, and then rolling the separate parts down the
inclined plane formed by the sand. The north portion of the
pylon terminating the colonnade toward the east—that is,
toward the Nile—had badly suffered by the disaster. There were
cracks in it so large as to cause the fear that it might some
day collapse. After prompt and thorough work this danger also
was obviated. Later on the ruins of the eleven fallen columns
are to be removed, and the foundations of the hall examined.
Then everything possible will be done to make the ground
solid, and the attempt will be made to erect again the ruined
columns. But whether the beautiful colonnade will ever resume
its former appearance, whether it will ever again make upon
the visitor such an overpowering impression as formerly, may
well be a matter of serious doubt. Ancient Thebes has lost one
of its most beautiful monuments.'"
Sunday School Times,
December 1, 1900.
ARCHÆOLOGICAL RESEARCH: Egypt:
Discovery of the Serapeion at Alexandria.
"The excavations by Dr. Botti, the Director of the Alexandrian
Museum, in the neighborhood of Pompey's Pillar, have resulted
in the discovery of the Serapeion, where the last of the great
libraries of Alexandria was preserved. An elaborate account of
his researches, with an admirable plan, has been given by the
discoverer in a memoir on 'L'Acropole d'Alexandrie et le
Sérapeum,' presented to the Archæological Society of
Alexandria. … Dr. Botti was first led to make his explorations
by a passage in the orator Aphthonios, who visited Alexandria
about A. D. 315."
American Journal of Archœology,
January-arch, 1896.
{23}
ARCHÆOLOGICAL RESEARCH: Crete:
Recent explorations.
Supposed discovery of the Palace of Minos
and the Cretan Labyrinth.
Fresh light on prehistoric Greece
and the origin of the alphabet.
Results of extraordinary importance have been already obtained
from explorations in Crete, carried on during 1899 and 1900 by
the British School at Athens, under the direction of Mr. D. G.
Hogarth, and by Mr. Arthur J. Evans, of the Ashmolean Museum,
working with the aid of a small Cretan Exploration Fund,
raised in England. The excavations of both parties were
carried on at Knossos, but the latter was the most fortunate,
having opened the site of a prehistoric palace which is
yielding remarkable revelations of the legendary age in Crete.
In a communication to the "London Times" of October 31, 1900,
Mr. Evans gave the following account of the results so far as
then obtained:
"The discoveries made at Knossos throw into the shade all the
other exploratory campaigns of last season in the Eastern
Mediterranean, by whatever nationality conducted. It is not
too much to say that the materials already gathered have
revolutionized our knowledge of prehistoric Greece, and that
to find even an approach to the results obtained we must go
back to Schliemann's great discovery of the Royal tombs at
Mycenae. The prehistoric site, of which some two acres have
now been uncovered at Knossos, proves to contain a palace
beside which those of Tiryns and Mycenae sink into
insignificance. By an unhoped-for piece of good fortune the
site, though in the immediate neighbourhood of the greatest
civic centres of the island in ancient, medieval, and modern
times, had remained practically untouched for over 3,000
years. At but a very slight depth below the surface of the
ground the spade has uncovered great courts and corridors,
propylaea, a long succession of magazines containing gigantic
store jars that might have hidden the Forty Thieves, and a
multiplicity of chambers, pre-eminent among which is the
actual throne-room and council-chamber of Homeric kings. The
throne itself, on which (if so much faith be permitted to us)
Minos may have declared the law, is carved out of alabaster,
once brilliant with coloured designs and relieved with curious
tracery and crocketed arcading which is wholly unique in
ancient art and exhibits a strange anticipation of 13th
century Gothic. In the throne-room, the western entrance
gallery, and elsewhere, partly still adhering to the walls,
partly in detached pieces on the floors, was a series of
fresco paintings, excelling any known examples of the art in
Mycenaean Greece. A beautiful life-size painting of a youth,
with a European and almost classically Greek profile, gives us
the first real knowledge of the race who produced this
mysterious early civilization. Other frescoes introduce us to
a lively and hitherto unknown miniature style, representing,
among other subjects, groups of women engaged in animated
conversation in the courts and on the balconies of the Palace.
The monuments of the sculptor's art are equally striking. It
may be sufficient to mention here a marble fountain in the
shape of a lioness's head with enamelled eyes, fragments of a
frieze with beautifully cut rosettes, superior in its kind to
anything known from Mycenae; an alabaster vase
naturalistically copied from a Triton shell; a porphyry lamp
with graceful foliation supported on an Egyptianising lotus
column. The head and parts of the body of a magnificent
painted relief of a bull in gesso duro are unsurpassed for
vitality and strength.
"It is impossible here to refer more than incidentally to the
new evidence of intercourse between Crete and Egypt at a very
remote period supplied by the Palace finds of Knossos. It may
be mentioned, however, as showing the extreme antiquity of the
earlier elements of the building that in the great Eastern
Court was found an Egyptian seated figure of diorite, broken
above, which can be approximately dated about 2000 B. C. Below
this again extends a vast Stone Age settlement which forms a
deposit in some places 24 ft. in thickness.
"Neither is it possible here to dwell on the new indications
supplied by some of the discoveries in the 'House of Minos' as
to the cult and religious beliefs of its occupants. It must be
sufficient to observe that one of the miniature frescoes found
represents the façade of a Mycenaean shrine and that the
Palace itself seems to have been a sanctuary of the Cretan God
of the Double Axe, as well as a dwelling place of prehistoric
kings. There can be little remaining doubt that this huge
building with its maze of corridors and tortuous passages, its
medley of small chambers, its long succession of magazines
with their blind endings, was in fact the Labyrinth of later
tradition which supplied a local habitation for the Minotaur
of grisly fame. The great figures of bulls in fresco and
relief that adorned the walls, the harem scenes of some of the
frescoes, the corner stones and pillars marked with the labrys
or double axe—the emblem of the Cretan Zeus, explaining the
derivation of the name 'Labyrinth' itself—are so many details
which all conspire to bear out this identification. In the
Palace-shrine of Knossos there stands at last revealed to us
the spacious structure which the skill of Daedalus is said to
have imitated from the great Egyptian building on the shore of
Lake Moeris, and with it some part at least of his fabled
masterpieces still clinging to the walls.
"But, brilliant as are the illustrations thus recovered of the
high early civilization of the City of Minos and of the
substantial truth of early tradition, they are almost thrown
into the shade by a discovery which carries back the existence
of written documents in the Hellenic lands some seven
centuries beyond the first known monuments of the historic
Greek writing. In the chambers and magazines of the Palace
there came to light a series of deposits of clay tablets, in
form somewhat analogous to the Babylonian, but inscribed with
characters in two distinct types of indigenous prehistoric
script—one hieroglyphic or quasi-pictorial, the other linear.
The existence of a hieroglyphic script in the island had been
already the theme of some earlier researches by the explorer
of the Palace, based on the more limited material supplied by
groups of signs on a class of Cretan seal-stones, and the
ample corroboration of the conclusions arrived at was,
therefore, the more satisfactory. These Cretan hieroglyphs
will be found to have a special importance in their bearing on
the origin of the Phoenician alphabet.
{24}
"But the great bulk of the tablets belonged to the linear
class, exhibiting an elegant and much more highly-developed
form of script, with letters of an upright and singularly
European aspect. The inscriptions, over 1,000 of which were
collected, were originally contained in coffers of clay, wood,
and gypsum, which had been in turn secured by clay seals
impressed with finely-engraved signets and counter-marked and
counter-signed by controlling officials in the same script
while the clay was still wet. The clay documents themselves
are, beyond doubt, the Palace archives. Many relate to
accounts concerning the Royal Arsenal, stores, and treasures.
Others, perhaps, like the contemporary cuneiform tablets,
refer to contracts or correspondence. The problems attaching
to the decipherment of these clay records are of enthralling
interest, and we have here locked up for us materials which
may some day enlarge the bounds of history."
In an earlier communication to "The Times" (September 15), Mr.
Evans had explained more distinctly the importance of the clay
tablets found at Knossos, as throwing light on the origin of
the alphabet: "In my excavation of the pre-historic Palace at
Knossos," he wrote, "I came upon a series of deposits of clay
tablets, representing the Royal archives, the inscriptions on
which belong to two distinct systems of writing—one
hieroglyphic and quasi-pictorial; the other for the most part
linear and much more highly developed. Of these the
hieroglyphic class especially presents a series of forms
answering to what, according to the names of the Phoenician
letters, we must suppose to have been the original pictorial
designs from which these, too, were derived. A series of
conjectural reconstructions of the originals of the Phoenician
letters on this line were in fact drawn out by my father, Sir
John Evans, for a lecture on the origin of the alphabet given
at the Royal Institution in 1872, and it may be said that
two-thirds of these resemble almost line for line actual forms
of Cretan hieroglyphics. The oxhead (Aleph), the house (Beth),
the window (He), the peg (Vau), the fence (Cheth), the hand
(Yod) seen sideways, and the open palm (Kaph), the fish (Nun),
the post or trunk (Samekh), the eye (Ain), the mouth, (Pe),
the teeth (Shin), the cross-sign (Tau), not to speak of
several other probable examples, are all literally reproduced.
"The analogy thus supplied is indeed overwhelming. It is
impossible to believe that, while on one side of the East
Mediterranean basin these alphabetic prototypes were naturally
evolving themselves, the people of the opposite shore were
arriving at the same result by a complicated process of
selection and transformation of a series of hieratic Egyptian
signs derived from quite different objects. The analogy with
the Cretan hieroglyphic forms certainly weighs strongly in
favour of the simple and natural explanation of the origin of
the Phoenician letters which was held from the time of
Gesenius onwards, and was only disturbed by the extremely
ingenious, though over-elaborate, theory of De Rougé."
At the annual meeting of the subscribers to the British School
at Athens, held in London, October 30, 1900, Mr. Hogarth, the
Director, spoke with great enthusiasm of the significance of
the Cretan discoveries already made, and of the promise of
enlarged knowledge which they gave. He said: "The discovery
made 25 years ago [by Schliemann] that no barbarians, but
possessors of a very high and individual culture, preceded the
Hellenic period in Greece—a culture which could not but have
affected the Hellenic—had been developed in various ways
since. It had been established that this culture had had a
very long existence and development; it covered completely a
large geographical area; it developed various local
characteristics in art production which seemed to be gathered
again into one by the typical art of Mycenae. But the most
important historical points remained obscure. Where was the
original home of this new civilization; what family did the
race or races belong to; of what speech were they and what
religions; what was the history of their societies and art
during their dominance, and what became of them after? Neither
mainland Greece nor the Aegean islands answered these. But
there were two unknown quantities, Crete and Asia Minor, with
Rhodes. One of these we have now attacked. Crete by its great
size and natural wealth, its position, and its mythologic fame
was bound to inform us of much. It is too early to say that
the questions will all be answered by Crete, but already we
have much light. The discovery of written documents and of
shrines has told us more than any other evidence of the origin
and family. The Knossos frescoes show us the racial type; the
Dictaean, Cave, and Knossos houses illuminate the religion.
New arts have been discovered, and the relation to Egypt and
Asia are already far better understood. It remains now to find
the early tombs, and clear the lower stratum of the Palace
ruins at Knossos, to know more of the earliest Cretan race, to
explore the cast or 'Eteocretan' end of the island, to obtain
light on the language and relations to Egypt and Asia, and to
investigate the 'Geometric' period, which is the transition to
the Hellenic."
Commenting in another place on the discoveries in Crete, Mr.
Hogarth has pointed out their effect in modifying the ideas
heretofore entertained of the importance of Phoenician
influence in the rise of European civilization. "For many
years now," he writes, "we have had before our eyes two
standing protests against the traditional claim of Phoenicia
to originate European civilization, and those protests come
from two regions which Phoenician influence, travelling west,
ought first to have affected, namely, Cyprus and Asia Minor.
In both these regions exist remains of early systems of
writing which are clearly not of Phoenician descent. Both the
Cypriote syllabic script and the 'Hittite' symbols must have
been firmly rooted in their homes before ever the convenient
alphabet of Sidon and Tyre was known there. And now, since Mr.
Evans has demonstrated the existence of two non-Phoenician
systems of writing in Crete also, the use of one of which has
been proved to extend to the Cyclades and the mainland of
Greece, it has become evident that we have to deal in
south-eastern Europe, as well as in Cyprus or Asia Minor, with
a non-Phoenician influence of civilization which, since it
could originate that greatest of achievements, a local script,
was quite powerful enough to account by itself also for the
local art.
{25}
"Those who continue to advocate the Phoenician claim do not
seem sufficiently to realize that nowadays they have to take
account neither only of the Homeric age nor only of even half
a millennium before Homer, but of an almost geologic
antiquity. Far into the third millennium B. C. at the very
least, and more probably much earlier still, there was a
civilization in the Aegean and on the Greek mainland which,
while it contracted many debts to the East and to Egypt, was
able to assimilate all that it borrowed, and to reissue it in
an individual form, expressed in products which are not of the
same character with those of any Eastern civilization that we
know."
D. G. Hogarth,
Authority and Archaeology Sacred and Profane,
part 2, pages 237-238
(New York: Charles Scribner's Sons).
"During the past season, Evans, discoverer of the now famous
early Cretan systems of writing, Halbherr and other Italians,
as well as the French, have been proving what was already
foreshadowed, that in Crete we find in its purest form and in
all its historic and racial phases that Mediterranean
civilization,—Pelasgic and Achæan,—that culminated in Tiryns
and Mykenae. We now see that Homer sings of the closing years
of a culture that dates back of the 'Trojan 'War' at least for
fifteen hundred years. Crete is found to be covered with
ruined Pelasgic cities, surrounded by gigantic polygonal
walls, crowned by acropoli, adorned with royal palaces,
defended by forts, connected by artificial highways, and with
necropoli of vaulted tombs like those discovered by Schliemann
at Mykenae. Already the royal palaces and libraries are being
unearthed at Cnossos and 'Goulâs' with sculptures and
decoration of the most novel description and early date. A
literature in an unknown tongue and in undeciphered scripts is
being found, to puzzle scholars as much perhaps as the Hittite
and Etruscan languages. Some day these 'Pelasgic' documents
will disclose the secrets of a neglected civilization and fill
up the gap between early Eastern and Hellenic cultures."
A. L. Frothingham, Jr.,
Archæological Progress
(International Monthly, December, 1900).
ARCHÆOLOGICAL RESEARCH: India:
Discovery of the birthplace, tomb and relics of Gautama Buddha,
See (in this volume)
BUDDHA.
ARCHÆOLOGICAL RESEARCH: Troy:
Later researches on the site.
"Dr. Doerpfeld finished in 1894 the exploration which he had
begun in 1893 on the site of the excavations of Schliemann at
Hissarlik (Troia). It appears to be established that
Schliemann, carried away by his zeal, had overlooked the very
end which he wished to attain, and that the burnt city, which
he thought to be the real Troia, is a more ancient foundation
going back beyond the year 2000 B. C. M. Doerpfeld discerned,
in one of the layers of ruins (discovered but disregarded by
Schliemann), a city which must be the Ilios of Priam
contemporaneous with the Mykenai of Agamemnon; he removed the
surrounding walls, the towers, and some of the houses that
filled it. It is to be understood that this little acropolis,
analogous to that of Tiryns, is not the whole of the city but
simply its citadel, which Homer called 'Pergamos.' It was
surrounded, lower down, by a city reserved for the habitation
of the common people, some traces of which also have been
found."
American Journal of Archœology, 1896.
ARCHÆOLOGICAL RESEARCH: Italy:
Excavations at Antemnæ disclose what early Rome
was probably like.
"We can show what the earliest Rome was, the Rome of Romulus
on the Palatine, and how it grew to be the City of the Seven
Hills. The City itself, crowded with the wrecks of twenty-five
centuries, preserves to-day few memorials of its earliest age;
but excavations made on two sites, one close to Rome, one a
little further north in Etruria, explain the process very
clearly. The traveller who approaches Rome by the Via Salaria
sees, just where Tiber and Anio join, a modern fort on an
isolated rock. Here was Antemnae, destroyed (according to
legend) by Roman jealousy very soon after Rome itself was
founded. The legend seems to be true, at least in substance.
On this hilltop excavations have shown a little village within
a wall of stone: it had its temple and senate-house, its
water-cistern, and square huts, thatched or timbered, for
dwelling-houses. The relics found there shew that the site was
abandoned, never to be again inhabited, about the time at
which the legend fixes the fall of Antemnae. Here we have
Rome's earliest rival. From the rival we may guess what the
earliest Rome was like on the Palatine rock, and what all the
little Italian towns were in their infancy."
F. Haverfield,
Authority and Archaeology Sacred and Profane,
part 2, pages 302-303
(New York: Charles Scribner's Sons).
ARCHÆOLOGICAL RESEARCH: Italy:
The Etruscans.
"During the decade which is now ending, archaeology has thrown
some light on this strange people. Researches in North Italy
prove that it never entered the Peninsula from the north.
Researches in Etruria itself prove that the earliest Etruscan
civilization resembled that which prevailed in the Eastern
Mediterranean in the last days of the Aegean period. After
all, the old legends were right. The ancients told how the
Etruscans came from the east: archaeological evidence is now
accumulating to confirm the legends. Precisely when they came
or why is still obscure, nor can we identify them yet with any
special tribe in pre-historic Greece, Pelasgian or other.
Probably they were driven from their old homes, like the
Phoenicians who built Carthage and the Phocaeans who built
Marseilles."
F. Haverfield,
Authority and Archaeology Sacred and Profane,
part 2, page 305
(New York: Charles Scribner's Sons).
ARCHÆOLOGICAL RESEARCH: Italy:
Sunken Roman vessels in Lake Nemi.
"A discovery during 1895 which made a great sensation
throughout Italy, was that of the famous Roman vessels which
had been sunk for so many centuries at the bottom of Lake
Nemi, the existence of which has been known or suspected ever
since the fifteenth century, notwithstanding many sceptics."
American Journal of Archœology
July-September, 1896.
ARCHÆOLOGICAL RESEARCH: Syria:
Ruined cities of the Roman Province.
An important exploration of ruined cities in the old Roman
provinces of Syria and Arabia was conducted by an American
archæological expedition organized in 1899. Mr. Howard Crosby
Butler, of Princeton, was in charge of the studies made in
architecture, sculpture and archæological matters generally;
Professor William K. Prentice devoted attention to classical
inscriptions, of which a great number were found, while
Semitic inscriptions were the subjects of the study of Dr.
Enno Littmann, of the University of Halle. The ruins of
thirty-three cities, nearly all of them evident places of
large population in their day, were visited in regions now too
bare of productive soil to support even the small nomadic
population of the present day. "The desert conditions have
preserved the cities intact as they stood at the time when
they appear to have been abandoned, in the beginning of the
seventh century." Some account of the expedition and its work
is given in the "New York Tribune" of February 3, 1901.
----------ARCHÆOLOGICAL RESEARCH: End--------
{26}
ARCTIC EXPLORATION, Recent.
See (in this volume)
POLAR EXPLORATION.
----------ARGENTINE REPUBLIC: Start--------
ARGENTINE REPUBLIC: A. D. 1895.
Census.
"According to the census, the number of persons in the
Argentine Republic on May 10, 1895, was 4,042,990; the
estimated number of Argentines outside the boundaries of the
Republic on that day is placed at 50,000, thus making the
total population 4,092,990." Of this population 663,854 is in
the city of Buenos Ayres. "The increase in the population
between September 15, 1869 (the last census), and May 10, 1895
(the date on which the present census was taken), has been
2,218,776, equivalent to an increase of 120 per cent, or an
annual increase of 4.6 per cent. The urban population of the
Republic has increased 1,045,944. … It is estimated that there
are 345,393 foreigners in the city of Buenos Ayres, and that
the total number of foreigners in the Republic is about
1,000,000. … Among the Argentine portion of the population,
the females exceed the males in number, while it is estimated
that two-thirds of the foreign population are males."
United States Consular Reports,
November, 1896, page 438.
ARGENTINE REPUBLIC: A. D. 1895.
Resignation of President Peña.
President Saenz Peña having refused to issue, at the request
of Congress, a decree of amnesty, extended to all persons
implicated in the last revolution, his Cabinet resigned
(January 16), and he found it impossible to form another.
Thereupon the President himself resigned his office, on the
22d of January, and his resignation was accepted by the
Congress. Señor Uriburu was elected President on the following
day, and promptly issued the desired decree.
ARGENTINE REPUBLIC: A. D. 1898.
Settlement of boundary dispute with Chile.
Election of President.
"A long unsettled dispute as to the extended boundary between
the Argentine Republic and Chile, stretching along the Andean
crests from the southern border of the Atacama Desert to
Magellan Straits, nearly a third of the length of the South
American continent, assumed an acute stage in the early part
of the year, and afforded to this Government occasion to
express the hope that the resort to arbitration, already
contemplated by existing conventions between the parties,
might prevail despite the grave difficulties arising in its
application. I am happy to say that arrangements to this end
have been perfected, the questions of fact upon which the
respective commissioners were unable to agree being in course
of reference to Her Britannic Majesty for determination. A
residual difference touching the northern boundary line across
the Atacama Desert, for which existing treaties provided no
adequate adjustment, bids fair to be settled in like manner by
a joint commission, upon which the United States Minister at
Buenos Aires has been invited to serve as umpire in the last
resort."
Message of the President of the United States of America,
December, 1898.
The arbitration of the United States Minister, Honorable
William I. Buchanan, proved successful in the matter last
referred to, and the Atacama boundary was quickly determined.
In June, 1898, General Julio Roca was elected President and
assumed the office in October. In July a treaty of arbitration
was concluded with the government of Italy, which provides
that there shall be no appeal from the decision of the
arbitrators.
----------ARGENTINE REPUBLIC: End--------
ARGON, The Discovery of.
See (in this volume)
SCIENCE, RECENT: CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS.
ARICA, The question concerning.
See (in this volume)
CHILE: A. D. 1894-1900.
ARMENIA: A. D. 1895-1899.
Revolt against Turkish oppression.
Massacres and atrocities of the conflict.
Final concessions.
See (in this volume)
TURKEY: A. D. 1895; 1896 (JANUARY-MARCH);
1896 (AUGUST); 1899 (OCTOBER).
ARMENIA: A. D. 1896.
Attack of Armenian revolutionists on the Ottoman Bank
and subsequent massacre of Armenians in Constantinople.
See (in this volume)
TURKEY; A. D. 1896 (AUGUST).
ARMIES, European and American:
Their numbers and cost compared.
See (in this volume)
WAR BUDGETS.
ARMY ADMINISTRATION, American:
Investigation of.
See (in this volume)
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1898-1899.
ARMY CANTEEN, Abolition of the American.
See (in this volume)
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1901 (FEBRUARY).
ARMY, United States:
Act to increase to 100,000 men.
See (in this volume)
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1901 (FEBRUARY).
ASHANTI:
British occupation of the country.
Rising of the tribes.
Siege and relief of Kumassi.
In 1895, King Prempeh, of Ashanti, provoked a second
expedition of British troops against his capital, Kumassi, or
Coomassie, by persistence in slave-catching raids and in human
sacrifices, and by other violations of his treaty engagements.
For some account of the former expedition
See, in volume 2,
ENGLAND: A. D. 1873-1880)
Late in the year a strong force was organized in Gold Coast
Colony, mostly made up of native troops. It marched without
resistance to Kumassi, which it entered on the 17th of
January, 1896. Prempeh made complete submission, placing his
crown at the feet of the Governor of the Gold Coast; but he
was taken prisoner to Sierra Leone. A fort was built, and
garrisoned in the center of the town, and the country was then
definitely placed under British protection, politically
attached to the Gold Coast Colony. It submitted quietly to the
practical conquest until the spring of 1900, when a fierce and
general rising of the tribes occurred. It was said at the time
that the outbreak was caused by efforts of the British to
secure possession of a "golden stool" which King Prempeh had
used for his throne, and which had been effectually concealed
when Kumassi was taken in 1896; but this has been denied by
Sir Frederic Hodgson, the Governor of the Gold Coast. "The
'golden stool,'" he declared, "was only an incident in the
affair and had nothing to do with the cause of the rising,
which had been brewing for a long time.
{27}
In his opinion the Ashantis had been preparing ever since the
British occupation in 1896 to reassert their independence."
The Governor was, himself, in Kumassi when the Ashantis first
attacked it, on the 25th of March, and he has given an account
of the desperate position in which the few British officials,
with their small native garrison and the refugees whom they
tried to protect, were placed. "Our force," said Sir Frederic
Hodgson, "consisted of only some 200 Hausas, while there is
reason to believe that we had not less than 15,000 Ashantis
surrounding us. In addition to our own force we had to protect
some 3,500 refugees, chiefly Mahomedan traders, Fantis, and loyal
Kumassis, none of whom we were able to take into the fort,
where every available bit of space was required for military
purposes. It was heartrending to see the efforts of these poor
people to scale the walls or break through the gate of the
fort, and we had to withdraw the Hausas from the cantonments
and draw a cordon round the refugees. It is impossible to
describe the horror of the situation with these 3,500 wretched
people huddled together without shelter under the walls of the
fort. That same night a tornado broke over Kumassi, and the scene
next morning with over 200 children was too terrible for
words. Afterwards they were able to arrange shelters for
themselves." Near the end of April, two small reinforcements
from other posts reached Kumassi; but while this strengthened
the numbers for defence, it weakened the food supply. Taking
stock of their food, the besieged decided that they could hold
out until June 23, and that if the main body then marched out,
to cut, if possible, their way through the enemy, leaving a
hundred men behind, the latter might keep the fort until July
15. This, accordingly, was done. On the 23d of June Governor
Hodgson, with all but 100 men, stole away from Kumassi, by a
road which the Ashantis had not guarded, and succeeded in
reaching the coast, undergoing great hardships and dangers in
the march. Meantime, an expedition from Cape Coast Castle was
being energetically prepared by Colonel Sir J. Willcocks, who
overcame immense difficulties and fought his way into Kumassi
on Ju]y 15, the very day on which the food-supply of the
little garrison was expected to give out. The following
account of his entry into Kumassi is from Colonel Willcocks'
official report: "Forming up in the main road, we marched
towards Kumassi, a mile distant, the troops cheering wildly
for the Queen and then followed silence. No sound came from
the direction of the fort, which you cannot see till quite
close. For a moment the hideous desolation and silence, the
headless bodies lying everywhere, the sickening smell, &c.,
almost made one shudder to think what no one dared to
utter—'Has Kumassi fallen? Are we too late?' Then a bugle
sound caught the ear—'the general salute'—the tops of the
towers appeared, and again every man in the column, white and
black, broke into cheers long sustained. The brave defenders
had at last seen us; they knew for hours' past from the firing
growing ever nearer that we were coming, yet they dared not
open their only gate; they perforce must wait, for even as we
appeared the enemy were making their last efforts to destroy
the outlying buildings, and were actually setting them on fire
until after dark, when a party of 100 men went out and treated
them to volleys and cleared them out. If I have gone too fully
into details of the final scene, the occasion was one that
every white man felt for him comes perhaps but once, and no
one would have missed it for a kingdom."
ASPHYXIATING SHELLS: Declaration against.
See (in this volume)
PEACE CONFERENCE.
ASSASSINATIONS:
Of President Barrios.
See (in this volume)
CENTRAL AMERICA (GUATEMALA): A. D. 1897-1898.
Of President Borda.
See (in this volume)
URUGUAY: A. D. 1896-1899.
Of Canovas del Castillo.
See (in this volume)
SPAIN: A. D. 1897 (AUGUST-OCTOBER).
Of Empress Elizabeth of Austria.
See (in this volume)
AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: A. D. 1898 (SEPTEMBER).
Of Governor Goebel.
See (in this volume)
KENTUCKY: A. D. 1895-1900.
Of President Heureaux.
See (in this volume)
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC: A. D. 1899.
Of King Humbert.
See (in this volume)
ITALY: A. D. 1899-1900;
and 1900 (JULY-SEPTEMBER).
Of Professor Mihaileano.
See (in this volume)
BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES.
Of Nâsr-ed-din, Shah of Persia.
See (in this volume)
PERSIA: A. D. 1896.
Of M. Stambouloff.
See (in this volume)
BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES (BULGARIA).
ASSIOUT, Nile barrage at.
See (in this volume)
EGYPT: A. D. 1898-1901.
ASSOCIATIONS BILL, The French.
See (in this volume)
FRANCE: A. D. 1901.
ASSOUAN. Nile barrage at.
See (in this volume)
EGYPT: A. D. 1898-1901.
ASSUMPTIONIST FATHERS, Dissolution of the Society of the.
See (in this volume)
FRANCE: A. D. 1899-1900 (AUGUST-JANUARY).
ATACAMA, The question concerning.
See (in this volume)
CHILE: A. D. 1894-1900.
ATBARA, Battle of the.
See (in this volume)
EGYPT: A. D. 1897-1898.
ATHENS: A. D. 1896.
The revival of Olympic games.
As the result of a movement instituted in France by the Baron
de Coubertin, an interesting attempt to give athletic sports
the spirit and semblance of the ancient Olympic games was made
at Athens in the spring of 1896. A number of wealthy Greeks in
different parts of the world joined generously in the
undertaking, one gentleman especially, M. Averoff, of
Alexandria, bearing the cost of a restoration in marble of the
stadium at Athens, for the occasion. The games were held in
April, from the 6th to the 15th, and were witnessed by a great
number of people. Besides Greek competitors, there were 42 from
Germany, 23 from England, 21 from America, 15 from France. The
great event of the occasion was the long foot-race from
Marathon to Athens, which was won by a young Greek.
The U. S. Consul at Athens, writing of the reconstruction of
the ancient stadium for the games, described the work as
follows:
{28}
"The stadium may be described as an immense open air
amphitheater constructed in a natural ravine, artificially
filled in at the end. It is in the shape of an elongated
horseshoe. The spectators, seated upon the sloping sides of
the ravine, look down into the arena below, which is a little
over 600 feet in length and about 100 feet wide at the widest
part. … The stadium, as rebuilt for the games, will consist of
(1) the arena, bounded by a marble curbing, surmounted by an
iron railing adorned with Athenian owls;
(2) a walk between this curbing and the first row of seats;
(3) a low retaining wall of marble on which rests the first
row of seats, the entire row being of marble;
(4) the seats;
(5) the underground tunnel.
In addition to these features there will be an imposing
entrance, a surrounding wall at the top of the hill, and two
supporting walls at the entrance. As far as possible, in the
reconstruction of the stadium, the old portions will be used,
where these are in a sufficient state of preservation, and an
effort will be made to reproduce, as nearly as practicable,
the ancient structure. The seats at present will not all be
made of pentelic marble, as there is neither time nor money
for such an undertaking. At the closed end of the arena,
seventeen rows will be made of pentelic marble, as well as the
first row all the way around. The remaining rows up to the
first aisle are being constructed of Pincus stone. These will
accommodate 25,000 seated spectators. From this aisle to the
top will be placed wooden benches for 30,000 seated
spectators. Add to these standing room for 5,000, and we have
the holding capacity of the stadium 60,000 without crowding."
United States Consular Reports,
March, 1896, pages 353-354.
ATLANTA: A. D. 1895.
The Cotton States and International Exposition.
An important exposition, named as above, was held with great
success at Atlanta, Georgia, from the 18th of September until
the end of the year 1895. The exhibits from Mexico and many of
the Central and South American States were extensive and
interesting; but the main interest and value of the exposition
were in its showing of the industrial resources of the
Southern States of the American Union, and of the recent
progress made in developing them.
AUSGLEICH, The.
See (in this volume)
AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: FINANCIAL RELATIONS;
and A. D. 1897 (OCTOBER-DECEMBER).
AUSTRAL ISLANDS:
Annexation to France.
The Austral or Tubuai Islands were formally annexed to France
by the Governor of Tahiti, on the 21st of August, 1900.
----------AUSTRALIA. Start--------
AUSTRALIA:
Recent extensions of Democracy in the Australian Colonies
and New Zealand.
Social experiments.
"The five colonies of the Australian continent, Tasmania, and
New Zealand constitute seven practically independent
commonwealths under the British crown. Australians and New
Zealanders have therefore been able to develop their countries
along their own lines, and have surpassed all other
Anglo-Saxon nations in the number and variety of functions
which the state is called upon to perform. … The railways
almost without exception, and all the telegraph and telephone
lines, are in the hands of the community. In the few cases in
which there is private ownership of railways, a particular
line was demanded at a certain time, and the government were
not then in a position to borrow the funds required for its
construction. Western Australia has recently purchased the
entire property of one of the two private undertakings in the
colony. A mass of sanitary and industrial legislation also has
been placed upon the statute book.
"Again, South Australia, Victoria, Western Australia, and New
Zealand lend money to settlers at low rates of interest; South
Australia sells its wines in London; Queensland facilitates
the erection of sugar mills; Victoria and South Australia have
given a bonus upon the exportation of dairy produce; South
Australia, New Zealand, and Victoria receive the produce,
grade and freeze it free of charge, or at a rate which barely
covers the expenses; Victoria contributes toward the erection
of butter factories; Victoria and New Zealand have subsidized
the mining industry; and Western Australia has adopted a
comprehensive scheme for the supply of water to the Coolgardie
gold fields. In all the colonies the national system of
primary education is compulsory and undenominational. In South
Australia, Victoria, Queensland, and New Zealand it is also free.
In the other colonies fees are charged, which may be remitted
wholly or partly if parents are unable to pay them. Assistance
is given in most cases for the promotion of secondary,
technical, and university education. New Zealand and South
Australia have appointed public trustees. New Zealand has long
possessed a department of life insurance.
"Finally, … New Zealand has adopted a system of old-age
pensions. A pension of seven shillings a week is to be given
to every person above the age of sixty-five years, provided he
or she has lived in the colony for twenty-five years, and is
able to pass a certain test in regard to sobriety and general
good conduct. … In South Australia direct taxation takes two
forms. There is an income tax at the rate of four and a half
pence in the pound up to £800, and of six-pence in the pound
above £800 of taxable amount resulting from personal
exertions, and at the rate of ninepence and one shilling in
the pound respectively on incomes from property. Incomes
between £125 and £425 enjoy exemption on £125 of the amount.
Again, there is a tax on the unimproved value of land of one
half-penny in the pound up to, and one penny above, the
capital value of £5000. …
"Similar taxation is to be found in New Zealand, and includes
both a progressive income tax and a tax on land values which
is more highly graduated than that of South Australia. … All
improvements are excluded from the assessment of the taxable
amount. … If the owner of the property is dissatisfied with
the assessment of the government, he can call upon them to buy
it of him at their own valuation. In only one case has such an
extreme step been taken; and it is pleasant to find that it
has resulted in an annual profit of nearly five per cent upon
the outlay, and that the land which formerly gave employment
to a few shepherds is now occupied by a large number of
thriving settlers.
{29}
I may add that when the government deem that an estate is not
being developed as it should be by its owners, they are
authorized by statute to purchase it—by negotiation if
possible, otherwise at a price paid by an impartial
tribunal—with a view to its subdivision into small holdings
suitable to the requirements of the community. This system of
taxation, it will be said with some truth, is based upon the
teachings of Henry George. He travelled in Australia and New
Zealand, and was listened to with attention; but, while he
looked to the ultimate absorption of the whole unearned
increment, his hearers in the antipodes dissociated themselves
from his conclusions, though they appreciated the value of his
premises. Consequently, while accepting his principles, they
did not hesitate to exempt small properties from the tax, and
to increase its rate progressively in relation to the amount
of the unimproved value. …
"One of the most hopeful signs of the day is that, with the
help of the representatives of labor in Parliament, Australian
governments have done much within recent years to mitigate the
excess of population in the large towns, and to replace the
unemployed upon the land. Of course mistakes have been made.
In some cases settlers have failed through lack of
agricultural knowledge; in others, on account of the
barrenness of the soil. In South Australia, the village
settlements, which were avowedly started as an alternative to
relief works, have been only a modified success. In New
Zealand, village settlements have produced very satisfactory
results. … In Victoria, a labor colony has been established,
with the entire support of the trades-unionists, to which the
unemployed may be sent, and at which they receive, at a very
low rate of wages, a course of instruction in agricultural
pursuits which enables them subsequently to obtain private
employment with farmers or others. In New Zealand, I found a
very strong feeling among trades-unionists that it would be to
the interest of the workingmen themselves if a penal colony
were established, on the lines of those which exist in
Germany, to which loafers might be sent, and at which they
would be compelled to work, with the alternative of
starvation."
H. De R. Walker,
Australasian Extensions of Democracy
(Atlantic Monthly, May, 1899).
See also (in this volume),
NEW ZEALAND: A. D. 1891-1900.
AUSTRALIA: Western Australia:
The Outlander problem in Australia.
"Here we have a problem in many respects similar to that which
has distracted South Africa. In several particulars the
resemblance is startlingly close. … Many of the elements of
disorder in the two continents are the same. In Western
Australia, as in the Transvaal, there is a large population of
mining residents, who complain that they are treated like
'helots'—to use Sir Alfred Milner's term—by the privileged
agricultural burghers. They urge that they are denied fair
representation, so that the burghers monopolise political
power; that the administration is in the hands of a knot of
politicians and place-hunters at Perth—I had almost written
Pretoria; that they have made the colony wealthy by their
enterprise and capital, only to see a large part of the fruits
of their industry drawn from them by excessive taxation, which
is expended mainly outside their own district; that they are
burdened by oppressive railway rates and denied access to the
port which is the natural outlet to the Goldfields, and so on.
The Kalgoorlie 'Uitlanders,' like the Johannesburgers, have
sent a petition to the Queen, signed by a larger number of
persons than those who forwarded the famous memorial which set
the ball rolling in South Africa and led to the Bloemfontein
Conference. The case is fully and temperately set forth in
this petition, and in the Manifesto of the Eastern Goldfields
Reform League of Western Australia, both of which documents
are in the last Bluebook relating to Australian Federation.
The same official compilation contains a statement to Mr.
Chamberlain from Dr. Paget Thurston, in which the parallel
between West Australia and the Transvaal is asserted with the
most uncompromising directness. 'We have here,' says the
writer, 'a Boer and Outlander question almost parallel to that
in the Transvaal. As an Outlander I appeal to you.' Dr.
Thurston adds: 'The old West Australians openly speak as if
the colony was theirs, and we were interlopers who have no
course open to us but to leave the colony if we are
dissatisfied.' This has a very familiar sound, and so has the
following: 'The great bulk of the taxation is levied through
duties on food and drink. As the Boer party includes all the
agricultural producers, and the Outlanders include the great
bulk of the consumers, this acts injuriously on us in two
ways. It puts a frightful load on the Outlander taxpayer, and
enables the Boer producer to command a very high price for his
food-stuffs. Owing to the limitation of the market by
excessive protection, many articles of common use reach famine
prices at times. In the three years I have been here, for
instance, potatoes have been £22 10s. a ton; apples, 2s. 6d. a
pound; oranges, 5s. a dozen; new-laid eggs, 4s. a dozen (at
the time of writing, 3s. 6d.). Fresh butter is practically
unobtainable for ten months in the year, and common country
wine (such as I used to buy for 3d. and 4d. a bottle in the
Canary Islands) is here 2s. a bottle. I ask you, Sir, whether
any other place in Her Majesty's Empire (not physically
inaccessible) can show prices one half as high during the past
three years?'
"Nor does the ominous kind of hint that preceded the Jameson
Raid fail to be uttered. Only three terminations, according to
Dr. Thurston, are possible if Sir John Forrest does not modify
his Krugerite policy towards the mining settlers:
'(1) Separation of the goldfields.—This would be only fair to
the goldfields; but thousands of Outlanders have settled in
the other parts of the colony, and this step would not redress
their wrongs. The practical result of this step would be
prosperity for the goldfields, but almost ruin for the rest of
the colony.
(2) Revolution.—I fear this is much more probable than is
generally thought. Unless a material change takes place
quickly there will be bloodshed in this colony.
(3) General depression, practically equivalent to bankruptcy.'
Separation, however, and the creation of a new colony, which
would include the Goldfields district and come down to the
sea, and would immediately join the Australian Federation, is
the remedy officially proposed by the representatives of the
Outlanders. …
{30}
"The Colonial Secretary has deferred his final answer to the
Goldfields Petition until the comments of the Perth Ministry
upon that document have been received and considered. But he
has sent a provisional reply to the representatives of the
petitioners in London. He sees the solution of the matter in
getting Western Australia somehow into the new Commonwealth.
In a communication to Mr. Walter Griffiths, one of the
Goldfields delegates, the Colonial Secretary says: 'The
decision of the Government of Western Australia to summon
Parliament immediately with the view to the passing of a
measure for the submission of the Commonwealth Bill to the
electors of the colony has removed the chief of the grievances
put forward in the petition and has opened up an early
prospect of obtaining the object which the petitioners had in
view. An answer will be returned to the petition after a
careful consideration of its terms and of the comments of the
Government of the colony thereon, but Mr. Chamberlain trusts
that before an answer can be returned the people of the colony
will have decided to join the Commonwealth, for the government of
which, in that event, it will be to deal with the grievances
alleged in the petition in so far as they are not exclusively
within the province of the Parliament and Government of
Western Australia.' In other words, let the Federation dispose
of the matter. But the delegates point out that this might not
remove their grievances. The Federal Parliament would have no
power to compel the dominant party in the Perth Assembly
either to redistribute seats fairly, or divide the colony, so
as to create 'Home Rule for the Rand.' True, we should have
washed our hands of the affair, and could tell the malcontent
Uitlanders that it was none of our business. But if Perth
still remained obstinate, and Coolgardie in consequence began
to carry out some of those ugly projects hinted at by Dr.
Thurston, it might become our business in an embarrassing
fashion. At any rate, it does not seem quite fair to the new
Commonwealth to start it in life with this grave question,
still unsettled, upon its hands."
S. Low,
Enigmas of Empire
(Nineteenth Century, June, 1900).
AUSTRALIA: New South Wales: A. D. 1894-1895.
Defeat of the Protectionist policy.
Adoption of a liberal tariff.
At the general elections of July, 1894, in New South Wales,
the tariff issue was sharply defined. "'Protection' was
inscribed on the banners of the ministerial party, led by the
then Premier, Sir George Dibbs, while the aggressive
opposition, led by Mr. Reid, … fought under the banner of
'free trade.' The Free Traders won the battle in that
election, as there were 63 Free Traders, 40 Protectionists,
and 22 labor members, mostly with free-trade leanings,
returned. On the reassembling of Parliament, Sir George Dibbs
was confronted with a large majority, and Mr. George H. Reid
was called to form a government on the lines suggested by the
issues of the campaign. The Council or 'upper house,'
consisting of Crown nominees for life, rejected the measures
suggested by Mr. Reid and passed by the Assembly by an
overwhelming majority, and Mr. Reid dissolved Parliament on
July 6, 1895, and appealed to the country. The election was
held on July 24, and again the issues, as set forth in the
measures, were fought out vigorously. The great leader of
protection, Sir George Dibbs, with several of his ablest
followers, was defeated, and the so-called Free Trade party
came back, much stronger than before. Thus, it was claimed
that the mandate of the people, declaring for free trade and
direct taxation, had been reaffirmed, and on the reassembling
of Parliament, on August 13, the same measure, as passed by
the Assembly and rejected by the Council, was again presented
and passed by the Assembly by a majority of 50 to 26, and
again went to the upper house. Again it was met with great
hostility, but the Government party in that chamber, having
been augmented by ten new appointments, the temper of the
house was softened and the bill was passed with some two
hundred and fifty amendments. As, the Assembly could only
accept some eighty of these without, yielding material points
… a conference was suggested, which, after several days of
discussion, agreed to a modified measure, embracing the
principle of free trade, as interpreted in this colony, and
direct taxation, and the new law goes into effect as above
stated, on January 1, 1896.
"It may be well here to remark that there are a few articles,
notably raw sugar, glucose, molasses, and treacle, upon which
the duty will be removed gradually, so as not to wantonly
disturb vested interests, but, with these exceptions, the
change is a very sweeping one."
United States Consular Reports,
June, 1896, page 299.
AUSTRALIA: New South Wales: A. D. 1896.
Change in the government of Norfolk Island.
Its re-annexation to New South Wales.
A change in the government of Norfolk Island was proclaimed in
November, 1896, by the Governor of New South Wales, who came
to the island, acting under directions from the British
Colonial Office, and announced that "Her Majesty's Government
has decided to appoint a resident magistrate. The object
sought is to secure the impartial administration of justice,
while leaving the local and municipal affairs of the island to
be conducted by a council representing the inhabitants. In
consideration of the fact that the Norfolk Island settlement
originally formed part of the administrative colony of New
South Wales, and that the legal business of the island and the
registration of all land titles and transfers have uniformly
been conducted by the Government departments at Sydney, Her
Majesty's Government has decided to transfer the
administration of the island to the Government of New South
Wales. The Government of New South Wales has accepted the
charge and as soon as the necessary arrangements have been
completed Norfolk Island will be administered by the governor
of New South Wales in council." "It will thus be seen that the
Pitcairn community, which, for more than one hundred years,
has governed itself by its own laws, is now abolished and that
a new era has begun. The governor's legal right to annul the
constitution given by the Queen when the community emigrated
from Pitcairn was questioned. A deputation was appointed to
wait on the governor, but he refused
to discuss the subject further."
United States Consular Reports,
May, 1897, page 37.
AUSTRALIA: A. D. 1897.
Conference of colonial premiers with
the British Colonial Secretary.
See (in this volume)
ENGLAND: A. D. 1897 (JUNE-JULY).

Map of Australia and Islands of the Pacific.

{31}
AUSTRALIA: A. D. 1900.
Federation of the Australian Colonies.
The steps by which the Union was accomplished.
Passage of the "Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act" by
the Imperial Parliament.
"The first indication of a plan for united action among the
colonies is to be found in a proposal of Earl Grey in 1850.
The main object of the proposal was to bring about uniformity
in colonial tariffs; but, though partially adopted, it came to
nothing. From 1850 to 1860 the project of federation was
discussed from time to time in several of the colonial
legislatures, and committees on the subject were appointed.
But there seems to have been little general interest in the
question, and up to 1860 all efforts in the direction of
federation met with complete failure. Shortly after, however,
a new form of united action, less ambitious but more likely of
success, was suggested and adopted. From 1863 to 1883
conferences of colonial ministers were held at various times
to discuss certain specified topics, with a view to
introducing identical proposals in the separate colonial
legislatures. Six of these conferences were held at Melbourne
and three at Sydney; and one also was held at Hobart in 1895,
though the period of the real activity of the conference
scheme practically closed in 1883. The scheme proved a
failure, because it was found impossible to carry out the
measures concerted in the conferences. But material events
were doing more than could any public agitation to draw
attention to the advantages of closer union. The colonies were
growing in population and wealth, railroads were building and
commerce was extending. The inconveniences of border customs
duties suggested attempts at something like commercial
reciprocity between two or more colonies. New political
problems also helped to arouse public interest. Heretofore
there had been little fear of foreign aggression and, hence,
no feeling of the need of united action for common defense;
nor had there been any thought of the extension of Australian
power and interests beyond the immediate boundaries of the
different colonies. But the period from 1880 to 1890 witnessed
a change in this respect. It was during this period that much
feeling was aroused against the influx of French criminals,
escaped from the penal settlements in New Caledonia. The
difficulties in regard to New Guinea belong also to this
decade. Suspicion of the designs of Germany upon that part of
the island of New Guinea nearest the Dutch boundary led to the
annexation of its eastern portion by the Queensland
government. This action was disavowed by the British
government under Gladstone, and the fears of the colonists
were ridiculed; but almost immediately after the northern half
of New Guinea was forcibly taken possession of by Germany. The
indignation of Australians was extreme, and the opinion was
freely expressed that the colonies would have to unite to
protect their own interests. Finally, this was the time of the
French designs on the New Hebrides Islands and of German
movements with reference to Samoa. These conditions, economic
and political, affected all the colonies more or less
intimately and resulted in the first real, though loose, form
of federal union. At the instigation of the Honorable James
Service, premier of Victoria, a convention met at Sydney,
November, 1883, composed of delegates from all the colonial
governments. This convention adopted a bill providing for the
establishment of a Federal Council, with power to deal with
certain specified subjects and with such other matters as
might be referred to it by two or more colonies. … New South
Wales and New Zealand refused to agree to the bill, but it was
adopted by the other colonies; and the Imperial Parliament, in
1885, passed an act permitting such a Council to be called
into existence at the request of any three colonies, to be
joined by other colonies as they saw fit. Meetings of the
Council took place in 1886, 1888, 1889 and 1891, but very
little was accomplished. That the Federal Council was a very
weak affair is obvious. … Meanwhile, interest in a more
adequate form of federation was growing. In 1890 Sir Henry
Parkes proposed a plan for federal union of a real and
vigorous sort. At his suggestion, a conference met at
Melbourne, February 6, 1890, to decide on the best method of
getting the question into definite shape for consideration. …
Provision was made … for the calling of a convention to draw
up a constitution. … In accordance with the decision of the
conference, delegates from the several colonies convened at
Sydney, March 2, 1891; and with the work of this convention
began the third and final stage in the federation movement.
The Sydney convention formulated a bill, embodying a draft of
a federal constitution, and then resolved that provision
should be made by the several parliaments to submit it to the
people in such manner as each colony should see fit. … But
there was no sufficient external pressure to bring about an
immediate discussion and an early settlement. … The result was
that nothing was done. … Meanwhile, federation leagues had
been organized in different colonies, and in 1893 delegates
from a number of these leagues met at Bendigo, Victoria. …
After adopting the bill of 1891 as a basis of discussion, the
Bendigo conference resolved to urge the colonial governments
to pass uniform enabling acts for a new convention—its members
to be elected by popular vote—to frame a constitution which
should be submitted to the people for approval. This proposal
met with general favor and resulted in the calling of a
meeting of the premiers of all the colonies at Hobart in
January, 1895. There an enabling bill was drafted which five
premiers agreed to lay before their respective parliaments. …
It took two years to get this machinery into working order. At
length, however, the requisite authority was granted by five
colonies: New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Western
Australia and Tasmania, Queensland and New Zealand declining
to participate. On March 22, 1897, the second constitutional
convention assembled at Adelaide. This convention drew up a
new federal constitution, based upon the draft of 1891.
Between May 5 and September 2 the constitution was discussed
in each of the parliaments. When the convention reassembled at
Sydney on March 2, as many as 75 amendments were reported as
suggested by the different colonies. Many were of an
insignificant character and many were practically identical.
The constitution and proposed amendments were discussed in two
sessions of the convention, which finally adjourned March 16,
1898, its work then being ready to submit to the people.
{32}
In June a popular vote resulted in the acceptance of the
constitution by Victoria, Tasmania, and South Australia; but
the failure of the parent colony, New South Wales, to adopt it
blocked all hope of federal union for the moment. Recently,
however, at a conference of colonial premiers certain
amendments demanded by New South Wales were agreed to in part,
and upon a second vote the constitution, as amended, was
accepted by that colony."
W. G. Beach,
The Australian Federal Constitution
(Political Science Quarterly, December, 1899).
In August, 1899, the draft of a Constitution thus agreed upon
was transmitted to England, with addresses from the provincial
legislatures, praying that it be passed into law by the
Imperial Parliament. Early in the following year delegates
from the several colonies were sent to England to discuss with
the Colonial Office certain questions that had arisen, and to
assist in procuring the passage by Parliament of the necessary
Act. Looked at from the Imperial standpoint, a number of
objections to the draft Constitution were found, but all of
them were finally waived excepting one. That one related to a
provision touching appeals from the High Court of the
Australian Commonwealth to the Queen in Council. As framed and
adopted in Australia, the provision in question was as
follows:
"74. No appeal shall be permitted to the Queen in Council in
any matter involving the interpretation of this Constitution
or of the Constitution of a State, unless the public interests
of some part of Her Majesty's Dominions, other than the
Commonwealth or a State, are involved. Except as provided in
this section, this Constitution shall not impair any right
which the Queen may be pleased to exercise, by virtue of Her
Royal Prerogative, to grant special leave of appeal from the
High Court to Her Majesty in Council. But The Parliament may
make laws limiting the matters in which such leave may be
asked."
This was objected to on several grounds, but mainly for the
reasons thus stated by Mr. Chamberlain: "Proposals are under
consideration for securing a permanent and effective
representation of the great Colonies on the Judicial
Committee, and for amalgamating the Judicial Committee with
the House of Lords, so as to constitute a Court of Appeal from
the whole British Empire. It would be very unfortunate if
Australia should choose this moment to take from the Imperial
Tribunal the cognizance of the class of cases of greatest
importance, and often of greatest difficulty. Article 74
proposes to withdraw from the Queen in Council matters
involving the interpretation of the Constitution. It is
precisely on questions of this kind that the Queen in Council
has been able to render most valuable service to the
administration of law in the Colonies, and questions of this
kind, which may sometimes involve a good deal of local
feeling, are the last that should be withdrawn from a Tribunal
of appeal with regard to which there could not be even a
suspicion of prepossession. Questions as to the constitution
of the Commonwealth or of a State may be such as to raise a
great deal of public excitement as to the definition of the
boundaries between the powers of the Commonwealth Parliament
and the powers of the State Parliaments. It can hardly be
satisfactory to the people of Australia that in such cases,
however important and far-reaching in their consequences, the
decision of the High Court should be absolutely final. Before
long the necessity for altering the Constitution in this
respect would be felt, and it is better that the Constitution
should be enacted in such a form as to render unnecessary the
somewhat elaborate proceedings which would be required to
amend it."
Great Britain, Parliamentary Publications
(Papers by Command, April and May, 1900,
Australia—Cd. 124 and 158).
In reply, the Australian delegates maintained that they had no
authority to amend, in any particular, the instrument which
the people of the several colonies had ratified by their
votes; but the Imperial authorities were inflexible, and the
article 74 was modified in the Act which passed Parliament, on
the 7th of July, 1900, "to constitute the Commonwealth of
Australia," as may be seen by reference to the text, published
elsewhere.
See (in this volume)
CONSTITUTION OF AUSTRALIA.
AUSTRALIA: A. D. 1900.
The question of the Federal Capital.
By the Constitution of the Commonwealth, it is required that
the seat of government "shall be determined by the Parliament,
and shall be within territory which shall have been granted to
or acquired by the Commonwealth, and shall be vested in and
belong to the Commonwealth, and shall be in the State of New
South Wales, and be distant not less than one hundred miles
from Sydney;" and "such territory shall contain an area of not
less than one hundred square miles." "New South Wales," says a
correspondent, writing from Sydney, "is naturally anxious to
get the question decided as quickly as possible; but Victoria
will equally be inclined to procrastinate, and the new
Parliament—which cannot be more comfortable than it will be
at Melbourne—will not be in a hurry to shift. The necessity
for a new and artificial capital arises entirely out of our
provincial jealousies, and it would have been a great saving
of initial expense and a great diminution of inconvenience if
we could have used one of the old capitals for a quarter of a
century." To remove preliminary difficulties and avoid delay,
the government of New South Wales appointed a commissioner to
visit and report on the most likely places. The report of this
commissioner, made early in October, "reduces the possible
positions to three—one near Bombala in the south-east corner
of the colony at the foot of the Australian Alps, one near
Yass on the line of the railway between Sydney and Melbourne,
and one near Orange on our western line. On the whole he gives
the preference to the first named."
AUSTRALIA: New South Wales: A. D. 1900.
Old-Age Pension Act.
A letter from Sydney, November 29, 1900, announced: "The
question of the establishment of an old age pension system,
similar to that now in successful operation in New Zealand
[see (in this volume) NEW ZEALAND: A. D. 1899], has been
agitating New South Wales for several months, and to-day the
bill for that purpose became a law. There has been a desire on
the part of some members of the Legislature to hold over the
bill until the convening of the Federal Parliament, in the
hope that the measure would become universal throughout the
continent, but the majority, including the Premier, wished the
bill to be pushed through without loss of time. There is no
opposition worth mentioning. … At a mass meeting in favor of
the bill representatives of every political party, of every
Church and of every profession and trade in the community were
present.
{33}
The sentiment of the colony has never been more unanimous. …
The estimated cost of the scheme is something like £250,000 or
£300,000 a year, but this does not take into consideration the
amount which will be saved by doing away with the charitable
institutions now draining the pockets alike of the state and
of the individual. Private contributions alone amount to
£600,000 a year; all this will be saved, together with a part
of the Government's annual expenditure—about £400,000—for
public institutions. Not all pauper institutions can be
abolished, for many of the aged and friendless poor are ailing
or slightly feeble minded, and will continue to need medical
attention."
AUSTRALIA: A. D. 1900 (March).
New Zealand looking toward federation with the Australian
Commonwealth.
See (in this volume)
NEW ZEALAND: A. D. 1900 (MARCH).
AUSTRALIA: West Australia: A. D. 1900 (August).
Vote to join the Commonwealth.
The question of union with the other colonies in the
Commonwealth, from which the West Australians had previously
held aloof, was submitted to them in August (women voting for
the first time), and decided affirmatively by 44,704 against
19,691. Adding the West Australian totals to the aggregate
vote at the decisive referendum in each of the other
federating colonies, the following is the reported result:
For federation. 422,647
Against federation. 161,024
Majority. 261,623
AUSTRALIA: A. D. 1900 (September-December).
The Queen's Proclamation of the Australian Commonwealth.
Contemplated visit of the Duke and Duchess of York
to open the first session of the Federal Parliament.
Appointment of Lord Hopetoun to be Governor-General.
The first Federal Cabinet.
On the 17th of September the following proclamation of the
Australian Commonwealth was issued by the Queen:
"Whereas by an Act of Parliament passed in the sixty-third and
sixty-fourth years of Our reign, intituled 'An Act to
constitute the Commonwealth of Australia,' it is enacted that
it shall be lawful for the Queen, with the advice of the Privy
Council, to declare by Proclamation that, on and after a day
therein appointed, not being later than one year after the
passing of this Act, the people of New South Wales, Victoria,
South Australia, Queensland, and Tasmania, and also, if Her
Majesty is satisfied that the people of Western Australia have
agreed thereto, of Western Australia, shall be united in a
Federal Commonwealth, under the name of the Commonwealth of
Australia. And whereas We are satisfied that the people of
Western Australia have agreed thereto accordingly. We
therefore, by and with the advice of Our Privy Council, have
thought fit to issue this Our Royal Proclamation, and We do
hereby declare that on and after the first day of January, one
thousand nine hundred and one, the people of New South Wales,
Victoria, South Australia, Queensland, Tasmania, and Western
Australia shall be united in a Federal Commonwealth under the
name of the Commonwealth of Australia. Given at Our Court at
Balmoral, this seventeenth day of September, in the year of
our Lord one thousand nine hundred, and in the sixty-fourth
year of Our reign. God save the Queen."
At the same time, the following announcement, which caused
extreme delight in Australia, was published officially from
the Colonial Office:
"Her Majesty the Queen has been graciously pleased to assent,
on the recommendation of the Marquis of Salisbury, to the
visit of their Royal Highnesses the Duke and Duchess of York
to the colonies of Australasia in the spring of next year. His
Royal Highness the Duke of York will be commissioned by her
Majesty to open the first Session of the Parliament of the
Australian Commonwealth in her name. Although the Queen
naturally shrinks from parting with her grandson for so long a
period, her Majesty fully recognizes the greatness of the
occasion which will bring her colonies of Australia into
federal union, and desires to give this special proof of her
interest in all that concerns the welfare of her Australian
subjects. Her Majesty at the same time wishes to signify her
sense of the loyalty and devotion which have prompted the
spontaneous aid so liberally offered by all the colonies in
the South African war, and of the splendid gallantry of her
colonial troops. Her Majesty's assent to this visit is, of
course, given on the assumption that at the time fixed for the
Duke of York's departure the circumstances are as generally
favourable as at present and that no national interests call
for his Royal Highness's presence in this country."
To manifest still further the interest taken by the British
government in the event, it was made known in October that
"when the Duke of York opens the new Commonwealth Parliament,
the guard of honour, it is directed, shall be so made up as to
be representative of every arm of the British Army, including
the Volunteers. To the Victoria and St. George's Rifles has
fallen the honour of being selected to represent the entire
Volunteer force of the country. A detachment of the regiment,
between 50 and 60 strong, will accordingly leave for Australia
in about a month and will be absent three or four months."
The honor of the appointment to be the first Governor-General
of the new Commonwealth fell to a Scottish nobleman, John
Adrian Louis Hope, seventh Earl of Hopetoun, who had been
Governor of Victoria from 1889 to 1895, and had held high
offices at home, including that of Lord Chamberlain in the
household of the Queen. Lord Hopetoun landed at Sydney on the
15th of December and received a great welcome. On the 30th,
his Cabinet was formed, and announced, as follows:
Mr. Barton, Prime Minister and Minister for External Affairs;
Mr. Deakin, Attorney-General;
Sir William Lyne, Minister for Home Affairs;
Sir George Turner, Treasurer;
Mr. Kingston, Minister of Trade and Commerce;
Mr. Dickson, Minister of Defence;
Sir John Forrest, Postmaster-General.
AUSTRALIA: A. D. 1901 (January).
Inauguration of the Federal Government.
The government of the Commonwealth was inaugurated with
splendid ceremonies on the first day of the New Year and the
New Century, when the Governor-General and the members of the
Federal Cabinet were sworn and assumed office. Two messages
from the British Secretary of State for the Colonies were
read, as follows:
{34}
"The Queen commands me to express through you to the people of
Australia her Majesty's heartfelt interest in the inauguration
of the Commonwealth, and her earnest wish that, under divine
Providence, it may ensure the increased prosperity and
well-being of her loyal and beloved subjects in Australia."
"Her Majesty's Government send cordial greetings to the
Commonwealth of Australia. They welcome her to her place among
the nations united under her Majesty's sovereignty, and
confidently anticipate for the new Federation a future of
ever-increasing prosperity and influence. They recognize in
the long-desired consummation of the hopes of patriotic
Australians a further step in the direction of the permanent
unity of the British Empire, and they are satisfied that the
wider powers and responsibilities henceforth secured to
Australia will give fresh opportunity for the display of that
generous loyalty and devotion to the Throne and Empire which
has always characterized the action in the past of its several
States."
AUSTRALIA: A. D. 1901 (May).
Opening of the first Parliament of the Commonwealth
by the heir to the British crown.
The programme of the Federal Government.
The Duke of Cornwall and York, heir to the British crown (but
not yet created Prince of Wales), sailed, with his wife, from
England in March, to be present at the opening of the first
Parliament of the federated Commonwealth of Australia, which
is arranged to take place early in May. He makes the voyage in
royal state, on a steamer specially fitted and converted for
the occasion into a royal yacht, with an escort of two
cruisers.
Preliminary to the election and meeting of Parliament, the new
federal government has much organizing work to do, and much
preparation of measures for Parliament to discuss. The
Premier, Mr. Barton, in a speech made on the 17th of January,
announced that the Customs were taken over from the several
States on January 1, and the defences and post-offices would
be transferred as soon as possible. " Probably the railways
would be acquired by the Commonwealth at an early date.
Whether the debts of the several States would be taken over
before the railways was a matter which had to be decided, and
was now engaging the attention of the Treasurer. The Ministry
would not consider the appointment of a Chief Justice of the
High Court until Parliament had established that tribunal." In
the same speech, the main features of the programme and policy
of the federal government were indicated. "The Commonwealth,"
said the Premier, "would have the exclusive power of imposing
Customs and excise duties, and it would, therefore, be
necessary to preserve the States' power of direct taxation.
There must be no direct taxation by the Commonwealth except
under very great pressure. Free trade under the Constitution
was practically impossible; there must be a very large Customs
revenue. … The policy of the Government would be protective, not
prohibitive, because it must be revenue-producing. No one
colony could lay claim to the adoption of its tariff, whether
high or low. The first tariff of Australia ought to be
considerate of existing industries. The policy of the
Government could be summed up in a dozen words. It would give
Australia a tariff that would be Australian. Regarding a
preferential duty on British goods, he would be glad to
reciprocate where possible, but the question would have to
receive very serious consideration before final action could
be taken. Among the legislation to be introduced at an early
date, Mr. Barton continued, were a Conciliation and
Arbitration Bill in labour disputes, and a Bill for a
transcontinental railway, which would be of great value from
the defence point of view. He was in favour of womanhood
suffrage. Legislation to exclude Asiatics would be taken in
hand as a matter of course."
----------AUSTRALIA: End--------
----------AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: Start--------
AUSTRIA-HUNGARY:
Financial relations of the two countries
forming the dual Empire.
"The financial relations of Austria and Hungary fall under
three main heads. Firstly, the Quota, or proportionate
contribution to joint expenditure. The Quota is an integral
portion of the compact of 1867 [see—in volume 1—AUSTRIA: A. D.
1866-1867], but is revised every ten years. Failing an
agreement on the proportion to be paid by each half of the
monarchy, the Quota is fixed from year to year by the Emperor
till an agreement is arrived at. Secondly, the so-called
commercial 'Ausgleich' treaty, which provides for a customs
union, postal and telegraphic union, commercial equality of
citizens of one state in the other, identical excise duties,
&c. Thirdly, the Bank Union, by which Austria and Hungary have
a common Austro-Hungarian bank, and common paper money. The
Ausgleich and Bank Union are not essential parts of the 1867
compact; they are really only treaties renewable every ten
years, and if no agreement is come to, they simply lapse, and
each state makes its own arrangements, which seems very likely
to be the fate of the Ausgleich unless the present crisis can
be got over. The proceeds of the joint customs are applied
directly to common expenses, and only the difference is made
up by Quota. But if the Ausgleich falls through, the whole of
the joint expenditure will have to be settled by quota
payments. The joint expenditure goes almost wholly to the
up-keep of the army, navy, and consular and diplomatic
services. It amounts on an average to about 150 million
florins or 12½ million £, falling as low as 124½ million
florins in 1885 and rising to nearly 167 million in 1888. Of
this total the customs revenues have, in the last few years,
accounted for nearly a third, usually about 31 per cent. The
Quota was fixed in 1867 at 70 per cent. for Austria and 30 per
cent. for Hungary, based on a very rough calculation from the
yield of common taxation in the years 1860-1865, the last few
years preceding the restoration of Hungarian independence. On
the incorporation of the so-called Military Frontier in
Hungary, the Hungarian proportion was increased to 31.4.
Hitherto the Hungarians have resisted any attempt to increase
their quota. This 'non possumus' attitude has provoked great
resentment in Austria, especially when it is compared with the
self-complacent tone with which the Magyars dwell on the enormous
progress made by Hungary since 1867. That progress is
indubitable. Hungary has not only developed as an agricultural
state, but is in a very fair way of becoming an industrial and
manufacturing state as well. …
{35}
"On all these grounds the Austrians declare that they can no
longer go on paying the old Quota of 68.6 per cent. The
Hungarians admit the great progress made by Hungary, but with
some qualifications. In spite of the growth of Budapest,
Fiume, and a few other towns, Hungary is still, on the whole,
very backward when compared with Austria. The total volume of
her manufactures is very small, in spite of the rapid increase
of recent years. Hungary is still, to all intents and
purposes, an agricultural country, and as such, has suffered
largely from the fall in prices."
L. S. Amery,
Austro-Hungarian Financial Relations
(Economic Journal, September, 1898).
AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: A. D. 1894-1895.
The Hungarian Ecclesiastical Laws.
Conflict with the Church.
Resignation of Count Kalnoky.
In the last month of 1894 royal assent was given to three
bills, known as the Ecclesiastical Laws, which marked an
extraordinary departure from the old subserviency of the State
to the Church. The first was a civil marriage law, which made
civil marriage compulsory, leaving religious ceremonies
optional with the parties, and which modified the law of
divorce; the second annulled a former law by which the sons of
mixed marriages were required to follow the father's religion,
and the daughters to follow that of the mother; the third
established an uniform State registration of births, deaths
and marriages, in place of a former registration of different
creeds, and legalized marriages between Christians and Jews
without change of faith. These very radical measures, after
passing the lower house of the Hungarian legislature, were
carried with great difficulty through the aristocratic and
clerical upper house, and only by a strong pressure of
influence from the emperor-king himself. They were exceedingly
obnoxious to the Church, and the Papal Nuncio became active in
a hostility which the Hungarian premier, Baron Banffy, deemed
offensive to the State. He called upon the Imperial Minister
of Foreign Affairs, Count Kalnoky, to address a complaint on
the subject to the Vatican. This led to disagreements between
the two ministers which the Emperor strove without success to
reconcile, and Count Kalnoky, in the end, was forced to retire
from office. The Pope was requested to recall the offending
Nuncio, and declined to do so.
AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: A. D. 1895-1896.
Race-jealousies and conflicts.
The position of Bohemia in the part of the dual Empire
called Austria.
Anti-Semitic agitation in Vienna.
Austrian Ministry of Count Badeni.
Enlarged parliamentary franchise.
In the constitutional reconstruction of the Empire after the
war of 1866, almost everything was conceded to the Magyars of
Hungary, who acquired independence in matters of internal
administration, and ascendancy over the other races subject to
the Hungarian crown. "On the other hand, absolute equality was
established between the different countries that are not
connected with Hungary. No greater privileges were granted to
an ancient historical kingdom such as Bohemia than were given,
for instance, to the small Alpine district situated between
the Tyrol and the Boden See (Lake of Constance) known as
Vorarlberg. … The representatives of these countries were to
meet at Vienna, and a ministry for 'Cisleithania' was
appointed. That these measures were injudicious is now the
opinion of almost all Austrians. Beust [the Saxon statesman
who was called in to conduct the political reconstruction of
1867—see, in volume 1, AUSTRIA: A. D. 1866-1867; and
1866-1887], created a new agglomeration of smaller and larger
countries, entirely different as regards race, history, and
culture. It is characteristic of the artificiality of Count
Beust's new creation that up to the present day no real and
generally accepted name for it has been found. The usual
designation of Cisleithania is an obvious absurdity. A glance
at the map will suffice to show how senseless such a name is
when applied, for instance, to Dalmatia, one of the countries
ruled from Vienna. The word 'Austria' also can correctly be
applied only either to all the countries ruled by the house of
Habsburg-Lorraine or to the archduchies of Upper and Lower
Austria, which are the cradle of the dynasty. The official
designation of the non-Hungarian parts of the empire is 'the
kingdoms and lands represented in the parliament' (of
Vienna)—'Die im Reichsrathe vertretenen Königreiche und
Länder.'
"Though the Germans willingly took part in the deliberations
of the Parliament of 'Cisleithania,' the Slavs of Bohemia and
Poland were at first violently opposed to the new institution.
They might perhaps have willingly consented to take part in a
Vienna parliament that would have consisted of representatives
of the whole empire. But when the ancient historical rights of
Hungary were fully recognized, countries such as Bohemia and
Poland … naturally felt offended. Count Beust dealt
differently with these two divisions of the empire. The partly
true, partly imaginary, grievances of the Poles were more
recent and better known thirty years ago than they are now.
Beust was impressed by them and considered it advisable to
make large concessions to the Poles of Galicia with regard to
autonomy, local government, and the use of the national
language. The Poles, who did not fail to contrast their fate
with that of their countrymen who were under Russian or
Prussian rule, gratefully accepted these concessions, and
attended the meetings of the representative assembly at
Vienna. Other motives also contributed to this decision of the
Galician Poles. Galicia is a very poor country, and the Germans
who then ruled at Vienna, naturally welcoming the
representatives of a large Slav country in their Parliament,
proved most generous in their votes in favour of the Galician
railways. Matters stood differently in Bohemia, and the
attitude of Count Beust and the new 'Cisleithanian' ministers
was also here quite different. They seem to have thought that
they could break the resistance of the Bohemians by military
force, and with the aid of the German minority of the
population. A long struggle ensued. … Bohemia is … the
'cockpit' of Austrian political warfare, and almost every
political crisis has been closely connected with events that
occurred in Bohemia. The Bohemian representatives in 1867
refused to take part in the deliberations of the Vienna
Parliament, the existence of which they considered contrary to
the ancient constitution of their country.
{36}
In 1879 they finally decided to take part in the deliberations
of the Vienna assembly. … The Bohemians, indeed, entered the
Vienna Parliament under protest, and declared that their
appearance there was by no means to be considered as a
resignation of the special rights that Bohemia had formerly
possessed. The Bohemian deputies, however, continued
henceforth to take part in the deliberations of the
Cisleithanian Parliament and loyally supported those of the
many Austrian ministers who were not entirely deaf to their
demands. Some of these demands, such as that of the foundation
of a national university at Prague, were indeed granted by the
Vienna ministers. Though a German university continued to exist
at Prague, this concession was vehemently opposed by the
Germans, as indeed every concession to appease the Bohemian
people was."
Francis Count Lutzow,
Austria at the End of the Century
(Nineteenth Century Review, December, 1899).
During recent years, government in the dual empire has been
made increasingly difficult, especially on the Austrian side,
by the jealousy, which grows constantly more bitter, between
the German and Slavic elements of the mixed population, and by
the rising heat of the Anti-Semitic agitation. The latter was
brought to a serious crisis in Vienna during 1895 by the
election of Dr. Lueger, a violent leader of Anti-Semitism, to
the office of First Vice-Burgomaster, which caused the
resignation of the Burgomaster, and led to such disorders in
the municipal council that the government was forced to
intervene. The council was dissolved and an imperial
commissioner appointed to conduct the city administration
provisionally; but similar disorders, still more serious,
recurred in October, when elections were held and the
Anti-Semites won a majority in the council. Dr. Lueger was
then elected Burgomaster. The government, supported by a
majority in the Austrian Reichsrath, refused to confirm the
election. A second time Dr. Lueger was elected; whereupon the
municipal council was again dissolved and the municipal
administration transferred to an imperial commissioner. This
measure was followed by scenes of scandalous turbulence in the
Reichsrath and riotous demonstrations in the streets, which
latter were vigorously suppressed by the police. Some
considerable part of the temper in these demonstrations was
directed against the Austrian premier, Count Badeni, and still
more against the Polish race, to which he belonged. Count
Badeni, who had been Governor of Galicia, had just been called
to the head of affairs, and gave promise of an administration
that would be strong; but several other members of his cabinet
were Poles, and that fact was a cause of offense. He gave an
early assurance that the demand for an enlargement of the
parliamentary franchise should be satisfactorily met, and that
other liberal measures should be promptly taken in hand. These
promises, with the show of firmness in the conduct of the
government, produced a wide feeling in its favor. The promise
of an enlargement of the parliamentary franchise in Austria
was redeemed the following February (1896), by the
introduction and speedy passage of a parliamentary reform
bill, which embodied an important revision of the Austrian
constitution. Seventy-two new members were added to the 353
which formerly constituted the lower or Abgeordneten House of
the Austrian Reichsrath. The original body of 353 remained as
it had been, made up in four sections, elected by four classes
in the community, namely: owners of large estates, electing 85
members; doctors of the universities and town taxpayers who
pay five florins of direct taxation yearly, these together
electing 115; chambers of commerce and industry, electing 22;
country taxpayers who pay five florins of direct taxation
yearly, electing 131. The number of voters in these four
privileged classes were said to number 1,732,000 when the
Reform Bill passed. The new voters added by the bill were
estimated to number about 3,600,000. But the latter would
elect only the 72 new members added to the House, while the
former continued to be exclusively represented by the 353
members of its former constitution. In other words, though the
suffrage was now extended to all male adults, it was not with
equality of value to all. For about one-third of the political
community, the franchise was given five times the weight and
force that it possessed for the remaining two-thirds.
Nevertheless, the bill seems to have been accepted and passed
with no great opposition. In Vienna, the Anti-Semitic
agitation was kept up with violence, Dr. Lueger being elected
four times to the chief-burgomastership of the city, in
defiance of the imperial refusal to sanction his election.
Finally the conflict was ended by a compromise. Lueger
resigned and was permitted to take the office of Vice
Burgomaster, while one of his followers was chosen to the
Chief Burgomaster's seat.
AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: A. D. 1896.
Celebration of the Millennium of the Kingdom of Hungary.
The millennial anniversary of the Kingdom of Hungary was
celebrated by the holding of a great national exposition and
festival at Buda-Pesth, from the 2d of May until the end of
October, 1896. Preparations were begun as early as 1893, and
were carried forward with great national enthusiasm and
liberality, the government contributing nearly two millions of
dollars to the expense of the undertaking. The spirit of the
movement was expressed at the beginning by the Minister of
Commerce, Bela Lukács, by whose department it was specially
promoted. "The government," he said, "will take care that the
national work be exhibited in a worthy frame, so as to further
the interests of the exhibitors. May everyone of you, its
subjects, therefore show what he is able to attain by his
diligence, his taste, and his inventive faculty. Let us all,
in fact, compete—we who are working, some with our brains,
others with our hands, and others with our machines—like one
man for the father-land. Thus the living generation will be
able to see what its fore-fathers have made in the midst of
hard circumstances, and to realize what tasks are awaiting us
and the new generations in the path which has been smoothed by
the sweat, labor, and pain of our ancestors. This will be a
rare family festival, the equal of which has not been granted
to many nations. Let the people gather, then, round our august
ruler, who has guided our country with fatherly care and
wisdom in the benevolent ways of peace to the heights which
mark the progress of to-day, and who—a faithful keeper of the
glorious past of a thousand years—has led the Hungarian people
to the threshold of a still more splendid thousand years to
come!"
{37}
Writing shortly before the opening, the United States Consul
at Buda-Pesth, Mr. Hammond, gave the following description of
the plans and preparations then nearly complete: "The series
of official festivities will be diversified by those of a
social and popular character. These will be the
interparliamentary conference for international courts of
arbitration; the congress of journalists, with the view to
constitute an international journalistic union; international
congresses of art and history, of actors, tourists, athletes,
etc.; numerous national congresses embracing every
intellectual and material interest of the country, in which
the leading personages of all groups and branches of national
production, the highest authorities in the field of commerce,
industry, communication, etc., as well as those who are in the
forefront of the literary, spiritual, and philanthropic
movements of the country will take part.
"There is activity in all classes of Hungarian society, with a
view to carrying out the ingenious project of the artist Paul
Vágó—the great historical pageant. Several municipal bodies
have already promised their cooperation, while scores of men
and women, bearers of historic names, have declared their
readiness to take part at their own expense. All the costumes
of all the races and social classes who have inhabited this
country during ten centuries will pass before our eyes in this
beautiful cortege. The genius of the artist will call into life
in their descendants the warriors who conquered Pannonia under
Arpad, and, during the reign of Louis the Great, annexed to
this realm all the neighboring countries; all the dignitaries,
both civil and ecclesiastical, who, under Stephen the Saint, King
Kálman, and Mathias Corvinus, spread Christianity,
enlightenment, liberty, and wealth to the extreme confines of
this part of Europe; all the crusaders of Joannes Hunyady, who
drove back the Crescent for a century and thus defended
western civilization against eastern fanaticism; all the
kings, princes, noblemen, and poets of modern times who have
led the nation in her struggle for modern ideas. These
historical figures will be followed by their retainers or
surrounded by the popular types of the respective epochs. To
judge by the sketches of the artist, this pageant promises to
surpass anything that has hitherto been offered on similar
occasions.
"All these festivals will move, as it were, within the fixed
frame of the Millennial National Exhibition, which will cover
an area of 500,000 square meters (5,382,100 square feet) and
consist of 169 buildings and pavilions, erected at a total
cost (including private expenses) of 10,000,000 florins
($4,020,000). This exhibition is divided into two sections,
viz:
(1) The historical section, containing art treasures, relics,
and antiquities of the past, which will illustrate the
political, religious, military, and private life of each
principal period in the history of the nation. …
(2) The section of modern times will embrace everything offered
by similar exhibitions.
Nevertheless, the visitor's mind will here, too, be impressed
with the solemnity of the millennium and the enthusiasm
inspiring the nation at this momentous period of its history.
The programme embraces the national life in all its
manifestations. Not only will the present condition of Hungary
be laid open to general view, but the world will also be
impressed with the great progress Hungary has made since the
reestablishment of her constitution in 1867."
United States Consular Reports,
April, 1896.
By every possible arrangement of facilitation and cheapening,
a visit to the Exposition was placed within the means of all
the inhabitants of the kingdom; and especial provision was
made for bringing schools and teachers to receive the
object-lessons which it taught.
Among the ceremonies which attended the ending of the great
national festival, was the formal opening, at Orsova, of a
ship channel through the rocky obstructions that have been
known since the days when they troubled the Romans as the
"Iron Gates of the Danube."
AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: A. D. 1897.
Industrial combinations.
See (in this volume)
TRUSTS: IN EUROPEAN COUNTRIES.
AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: A. D. 1897.
The forces of feudalism and clericalism in Austria.
Austrian parties in the Reichsrath.
Their aims, character and relative strength.
Count Badeni's language decrees for Bohemia.
"In no European country have the forces of feudalism and
clericalism such an enormous influence as they have in
Austria. The Austrian nobility is supreme at Court and in the
upper branches of the Administration. In Hungary the small
nobility and landed gentry exercise a preponderating
influence, but they are a wide class and filled with the
national spirit. The Austrian nobility forms a narrow,
intensely exclusive and bigoted caste, whose only political
interest is the maintenance of its own class supremacy. The
large Protestant element in Hungary has in no small degree
contributed to the success of the Magyars, both in its effect
on the national character and by the secondary position to
which the mixture of creeds has relegated the Church. In
Austria the Church of Rome is all-powerful. The House of
Habsburg has always been bigotedly Catholic: Francis Joseph
himself was a pupil of the Jesuits. The triumph of the
reaction after 1848 was the establishment in 1855 of that
'written Canossa' the Concordat, which made the Church
absolute in all matters relating to education and marriage.
And even though the Concordat was got rid of in 1870, the
energies of the clerical party have been but little weakened.
The real explanation of the whole course of Austrian politics
lies in the interaction of the two conflicts—of reaction,
clerical or aristocratic, against liberalism, and of Slav
against German. …
"In March 1897 came the general elections, to which a special
interest was lent by the first appearance of the fifth class
of voters. The most striking feature of the elections was the
complete and final break up of the German Liberal party. … The
history of the German Liberal party has been one of a
continuous decline both in numbers and importance. It counted
200 members in 1873, 170 in 1879, 114 in 1885-1891, and only
77 out of a total of 425 in 1897. … Their political theories
are those of moderate constitutional liberalism as understood
on the Continent in the middle of the century—i. e. belief in
the efficacy of parliamentary government, in commercial and
industrial freedom, hostility to military bureaucracy and
clericalism. … The most radical group among them, the
Progressists, an offshoot of the last election, is about as
radical as the ordinary English Conservative of to-day. The
views of the Verfassungstreue Grossgrundbesitz are those of
the English Tory of fifty years ago.
{38}
"Of the fractions into which the Liberal party is now divided
the most important is the Deutsch Fortschrittliche, or
Progressive, which split off from the main body in November
1896. Its chief object was to direct a stronger opposition on
national and liberal lines to Count Badeni. Its 35 members are
almost exclusively recruited from Bohemia and Moravia. They
differ from the German 'Volkspartei' mainly in their refusal
to accept anti-Semitism, which would be both against their
liberal professions and their economic convictions as
representatives of the commercial and manufacturing classes.
The constitutional landowners (Verfassungstreue
Grossgrundbesitz, 30 seats) represent the most conservative
element of the old Liberal party. … The 12 members of the Free
German Union (Freie Deutsche Vereinigung) may perhaps consider
themselves the most authentic remnant of the great Liberal
party—it is their chief claim to distinction. The German
National or People's party (Deutsche Volkspartei, 43 seats)
first made its appearance at the elections of 1885. It
rejected the old idea of the Liberals that the Germans were
meant, as defenders of the State, to look to State interests
alone without regard to the fate of their own nationality, and
took up a more strictly national as well as a more democratic
attitude. It has also of late years included anti-Semitism in
its programme. Its main strength lies in the Alpine provinces,
where it heads the German national and Liberal opposition to
the Slovenes on the one side, and the German clericals on the
other. It is at present the largest of the German parties. …
"Least but not last of the German parties comes the little
group of five led by Schönerer and Wolf. Noisy, turbulent, and
reckless, this little body of extremists headed the
obstruction in the Reichsrath, the disorganised larger German
parties simply following in its wake. The object these men aim
at is the incorporation of German Austria in the German
Empire, the non-German parts being left to take care of
themselves. Both the German National party and Schönerer's
followers are anti-Semitic, but anti-Semitism only plays a
secondary part in their programme. The party that more
specially claims the title of anti-Semite is the Christian
Social (Christlich-Soziale, 27 seats). The growth of this
party in the last few years has been extraordinarily rapid. In
Dr. Lueger and Prince Alois Liechtenstein it has found leaders
who thoroughly understand the arts of exciting or humouring
the Viennese populace. … The characteristic feature of
Austrian anti-Semitism, besides the reaction against the
predominance of the ubiquitous Jew in commerce, journalism,
and the liberal professions, is that it represents the
opposition of the small tradesman or handicraftsman to the
increasing pressure of competition from the large Jewish shops
and the sweating system so frequently connected with them. The
economic theories of the party are of the crudest and most
mediæval kind; compulsory apprenticeship, restricted trade
guilds, penalties on stock exchange speculation, &c., form the
chief items of its programme. …
"The German Clericals and the Clerical Conservatives
(Katholische Volkspartei and Centrum) number some 37 votes
together; but their importance has always been increased by
the skilful and unscrupulous parliamentary tactics of the
party. The strength of the Clerical party lies in the ignorant
and devotedly pious peasantry of Upper Austria and the Alpine
provinces. The defence of agrarian interests is included in
its programme; but its only real object is the maintenance of
the moral and material power of the Church. Its policy looks
solely to the interests of the Vatican. …
"The best organised of the national parties is the Polish Club
(59 seats). It represents the national and social interests of
the Polish nobility and landed gentry. … Standing outside of
Austrian interests, they exercise a controlling voice in
Austrian affairs. The three-score well-drilled Polish votes
have helped the Government again and again to ride roughshod
over constitutional opposition. The partition of Poland has
thus avenged itself on one at least of its spoilers. The
Germans have long resented this outside interference which
permanently keeps them in a minority. … The Czechs are a party
of 60, and together with the 19 representatives of the Czech
landed aristocracy, form the largest group in the Reichsrath.
The Young Czech party began in the seventies as a reaction
against the Old Czech policy of passive resistance. In
contra-distinction to the Old Czechs, they also professed
radical and anti-clerical views in politics generally. … In
1897 the Old Czechs finally withdrew from the contest or were
merged in the victorious party. … Of the other nationalist
parties the most important is the Slav National Christian
Union (35 seats), comprising the Slovenes, Croatians, and some
of the more moderate Ruthenians from Galicia. Their programme
is mainly national, though tinged with clericalism; equality
of the Slav languages with German and Italian in mixed
districts; and ultimately a union of the southern Slavs in an
autonomous national province. The Italians are divided into 5
Clerical Italians from the Tirol and 14 Liberals from Trieste,
Istria, &c. The Tirolese Italians desire a division of the
Tirol into a German and an Italian part. …
"The most interesting, and in some ways the most respectable,
of all Austrian parties is the Socialist or Social Democratic
party (15 seats). It is the only one that fights for a living
political theory—German liberalism being to all intents and
purposes defunct—and not for mere national aggression. The
Social Democrats hold the whole national agitation to be an
hysterical dispute got up by professors, advocates, and other
ne'er-do-weels of the unemployed upper classes. … Their
support is derived from the working classes in the industrial
districts, and not least from the poorer Jews, who supply
socialism with many of its keenest apostles. …
"Altogether a most hopeless jumble of incoherent atoms is this
Austrian Reichsrath. The chariots driving four-ways on the
roof of the Houses of Parliament are a true symbol of the
nature of Austrian politics. To add to the confusion, all the
parties are headless. Able men and men of culture, there are a
good many in the House; but political leaders there are none.
The general tone of the House is undignified, and has been so
for some time. …
{39}
"On April 5, 1897, Count Badeni published the notorious
language decrees for Bohemia. This ordinance placed the Czech
language on an absolute equality with the German in all
governmental departments and in the law courts all over
Bohemia. … After 1901 all officials in every part of Bohemia
were to be obliged to know both languages. The refusal of the
Germans to admit the language spoken by 62 per cent. of the
population of Bohemia to an equality with their own is not
quite so preposterous as would at first sight appear. Without
subscribing to Professor Mommsen's somewhat insolent dicta
about 'inferior races,' one must admit that the Czech and
German languages do not stand on altogether the same footing.
German is a language spoken by some 60,000,000 of people, the
language of a great literature and a great commerce. Czech is
difficult, unpronounceable, and spoken by some 5,000,000 in
all. It must be remembered, too, that the two nations do not

really live together in Bohemia, but that the Germans live in
a broad belt all round the country, while the Czechs inhabit
the central plain. There is no more reason for a German
Bohemian to acquire Czech than there is for a citizen of
Edinburgh to make himself master of Gaelic. On the other hand,
every educated Czech naturally learns German, even in a purely
Czech-speaking district. … It must also be remembered that the
decrees, as such, were of doubtful constitutionality; the
language question was really a matter for the Legislature to
settle. The decrees at once produced a violent agitation among
the Germans, which rapidly spread from Bohemia over the whole
Empire."
The Internal Crisis in Austria-Hungary
(Edinburgh Review, July, 1898).
AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: A. D. 1897 (October-December).
Scenes in the Austrian Reichsrath described by Mark Twain.
"Here in Vienna in these closing days of 1897 one's blood gets
no chance to stagnate. The atmosphere is brimful of political
electricity. All conversation is political; every man is a
battery, with brushes overworn, and gives out blue sparks when
you set him going on the common topic. … Things have happened
here recently which would set any country but Austria on fire
from end to end, and upset the government to a certainty; but
no one feels confident that such results will follow here.
Here, apparently, one must wait and see what will happen, then
he will know, and not before; guessing is idle; guessing
cannot help the matter. This is what the wise tell you; they
all say it; they say it every day, and it is the sole detail
upon which they all agree. There is some approach to agreement
upon another point: that there will be no revolution. … Nearly
every day some one explains to me that a revolution would not
succeed here. 'It couldn't, you know. Broadly speaking, all
the nations in the empire hate the government—but they all
hate each other too, and with devoted and enthusiastic
bitterness; no two of them can combine; the nation that rises
must rise alone; then the others would joyfully join the
government against her, and she would have just a fly's chance
against a combination of spiders. This government is entirely
independent. It can go its own road, and do as it pleases; it
has nothing to fear. In countries like England and America,
where there is one tongue and the public interests are common,
the government must take account of public opinion; but in
Austria-Hungary there are nineteen public opinions—one for
each state. No—two or three for each state, since there are
two or three nationalities in each. A government cannot
satisfy all these public opinions; it can only go through the
motions of trying. This government does that. It goes through
the motions, and they do not succeed; but that does not worry
the government much.' …
"The recent troubles have grown out of Count Badeni's
necessities. He could not carry on his government without a
majority vote in the House at his back, and in order to secure
it he had to make a trade of some sort. He made it with the
Czechs—the Bohemians. The terms were not easy for him: he must
pass a bill making the Czech tongue the official language in
Bohemia in place of the German. This created a storm. All the
Germans in Austria' were incensed. In numbers they form but a
fourth part of the empire's population, but they urge that the
country's public business should be conducted in one common
tongue, and that tongue a world language—which German is.
However, Badeni secured his majority. The German element was
apparently become helpless. The Czech deputies were exultant.
Then the music began. Badeni's voyage, instead of being
smooth, was disappointingly rough from the start. The
government must get the 'Ausgleich' through. It must not fail.
Badeni's majority was ready to carry it through; but the
minority was determined to obstruct it and delay it until the
obnoxious Czech-language measure should be shelved.
"The 'Ausgleich' is an Adjustment, Arrangement, Settlement,
which holds Austria and Hungary together [see above; also, in
volume 1, AUSTRIA: A. D. 1866-1867]. It dates from 1867, and
has to be renewed every ten years. It establishes the share
which Hungary must pay toward the expenses of the imperial
government. Hungary is a kingdom (the Emperor of Austria is
its King), and has its own parliament and governmental
machinery. But it has no foreign office, and it has no army—at
least its army is a part of the imperial army, is paid out of
the imperial treasury, and is under the control of the
imperial war office. The ten-year rearrangement was due a year
ago, but failed to connect. At least completely. A year's
compromise was arranged. A new arrangement must be effected
before the last day of this year. Otherwise the two countries
become separate entities. The Emperor would still be King of
Hungary—that is, King of an independent foreign country. There
would be Hungarian custom-houses on the Austrian frontier, and
there would be a Hungarian army and a Hungarian foreign
office. Both countries would be weakened by this, both would
suffer damage. The Opposition in the House, although in the
minority, had a good weapon to fight with in the pending
'Ausgleich.' If it could delay the 'Ausgleich' a few weeks,
the government would doubtless have to withdraw the hated
language bill or lose Hungary.
"The Opposition began its fight. Its arms were the Rules of
the House. It was soon manifest that by applying these Rules
ingeniously, it could make the majority helpless, and keep it
so as long as it pleased. It could shut off business every now
and then with a motion to adjourn. It could require the ayes
and noes on the motion, and use up thirty minutes on that
detail. It could call for the reading and verification of the
minutes of the preceding meeting, and use up half a day in
that way.
{40}
It could require that several of its members be entered upon
the list of permitted speakers previously to the opening of a
sitting; and as there is no time limit, further delays could
thus be accomplished. These were all lawful weapons, and the
men of the Opposition (technically called the Left) were
within their rights in using them. They used them to such dire
purpose that all parliamentary business was paralyzed. The
Right (the government side) could accomplish nothing. Then it
had a saving idea. This idea was a curious one. It was to have
the President and the Vice-Presidents of the parliament
trample the Rules under foot upon occasion! …
"And now took place that memorable sitting of the House which
broke two records. It lasted the best part of two days and a
night, surpassing by half an hour the longest sitting known to
the world's previous parliamentary history, and breaking the
long-speech record with Dr. Lecher's twelve-hour effort, the
longest flow of unbroken talk that ever came out of one mouth
since the world began. At 8.45, on the evening of the 28th of
October, when the House had been sitting a few minutes short
of ten hours, Dr. Lecher was granted the floor. … Then burst
out such another wild and frantic and deafening clamor as has
not been heard on this planet since the last time the
Comanches surprised a white settlement at midnight. Yells from
the Left, counter-yells from the Right, explosions of yells
from all sides at once, and all the air sawed and pawed and
clawed and cloven by a writhing confusion of gesturing arms
and hands. Out of the midst of this thunder and turmoil and
tempest rose Dr. Lecher, serene and collected, and the
providential length of him enabled his head to show out above
it. He began his twelve-hour speech. At any rate, his lips
could be seen to move, and that was evidence. On high sat the
President imploring order, with his long hands put together as
in prayer, and his lips visibly but not hearably speaking. At
intervals he grasped his bell and swung it up and down with
vigor, adding its keen clamor to the storm weltering there
below. Dr. Lecher went on with his pantomime speech,
contented, untroubled. … One of the interrupters who made
himself heard was a young fellow of slight build and neat
dress, who stood a little apart from the solid crowd and
leaned negligently, with folded arms and feet crossed, against
a desk. Trim and handsome; strong face and thin features;
black hair roughed up; parsimonious mustache; resonant great
voice, of good tone and pitch. It is Wolf, capable and
hospitable with sword and pistol. … Out of him came early this
thundering peal, audible above the storm:
"'I demand the floor. I wish to offer a motion.'
"In the sudden lull which followed, the President answered,
'Dr. Lecher has the floor.'
"Wolf. 'I move the close of the sitting!'
"President. 'Representative Lecher has the floor.'
[Stormy outburst from the Left—that is, the Opposition.]
"Wolf. 'I demand the floor for the introduction of a
formal motion. [Pause.] Mr. President, are you going to grant
it, or not? [Crash of approval from the Left.] I will keep on
demanding the floor till I get it.'
"President. 'I call Representative Wolf to order. Dr.
Lecher has the floor.' …
"'Which was true; and he was speaking, too, calmly, earnestly,
and argumentatively; and the official stenographers had left
their places and were at his elbows taking down his words, he
leaning and orating into their ears—a most curious and
interesting scene. … At this point a new and most effective
noisemaker was pressed into service. Each desk has an
extension, consisting of a removable board eighteen inches
long, six wide, and a half-inch thick. A member pulled one of
these out and began to belabor the top of his desk with it.
Instantly other members followed suit, and perhaps you can
imagine the result. Of all conceivable rackets it is the most
ear-splitting, intolerable, and altogether fiendish. … Wolf
went on with his noise and with his demands that he be granted
the floor, resting his board at intervals to discharge
criticisms and epithets at the Chair. … By-and-by he struck
the idea of beating out a tune with his board. Later he
decided to stop asking for the floor, and to confer it upon
himself. And so he and Dr. Lecher now spoke at the same time,
and mingled their speeches with the other noises, and nobody
heard either of them. Wolf rested himself now and then from
speech-making by reading, in his clarion voice, from a
pamphlet.
"I will explain that Dr. Lecher was not making a twelve-hour
speech for pastime, but for an important purpose. It was the
government's intention to push the 'Ausgleich' through its
preliminary stages in this one sitting (for which it was the
Order of the Day), and then by vote refer it to a select
committee. It was the Majority's scheme—as charged by the
Opposition—to drown debate upon the bill by pure noise—drown
it out and stop it. The debate being thus ended, the vote upon
the reference would follow—with victory for the government.
But into the government's calculations had not entered the
possibility of a single-barrelled speech which should occupy
the entire time-limit of the sitting, and also get itself
delivered in spite of all the noise. … In the English House an
obstructionist has held the floor with Bible-readings and
other outside matters; but Dr. Lecher could not have that
restful and recuperative privilege—he must confine himself
strictly to the subject before the House. More than once, when
the President could not hear him because of the general
tumult, he sent persons to listen and report as to whether the
orator was speaking to the subject or not.
"The subject was a peculiarly difficult one, and it would have
troubled any other deputy to stick to it three hours without
exhausting his ammunition, because it required a vast and
intimate knowledge—detailed and particularized knowledge—of
the commercial, railroading, financial, and international
banking relations existing between two great sovereignties,
Hungary and the Empire. But Dr. Lecher is President of the
Board of Trade of his city of Brünn, and was master of the
situation. … He went steadily on with his speech; and always
it was strong, virile, felicitous, and to the point. He was
earning applause, and this enabled his party to turn that fact
to account. Now and then they applauded him a couple of
minutes on a stretch, and during that time he could stop
speaking and rest his voice without having the floor taken
from him. …
{41}
"The Minority staid loyally by their champion. Some
distinguished deputies of the Majority staid by him too,
compelled thereto by admiration of his great performance. When
a man has been speaking eight hours, is it conceivable that he
can still be interesting, still fascinating? When Dr. Lecher had
been speaking eight hours he was still compactly surrounded by
friends who would not leave him and by foes (of all parties)
who could not; and all hung enchanted and wondering upon his
words, and all testified their admiration with constant and
cordial outbursts of applause. Surely this was a triumph
without precedent in history. …
"In consequence of Dr. Lecher's twelve-hour speech and the
other obstructions furnished by the Minority, the famous
thirty-three-hour sitting of the House accomplished nothing. …
Parliament was adjourned for a week—to let the members cool
off, perhaps—a sacrifice of precious time, for but two months
remained in which to carry the all-important 'Ausgleich' to a
consummation. …
"During the whole of November things went from bad to worse.
The all-important 'Ausgleich' remained hard aground, and could
not be sparred off. Badeni's government could not withdraw the
Language Ordinance and keep its majority, and the Opposition
could not be placated on easier terms. One night, while the
customary pandemonium was crashing and thundering along at its
best, a fight broke out. … On Thanksgiving day the sitting was
a history-making one. On that day the harried, bedeviled and
despairing government went insane. In order to free itself
from the thraldom of the Opposition it committed this
curiously juvenile crime: it moved an important change of the
Rules of the House, forbade debate upon the motion, put it to
a stand-up vote instead of ayes and noes, and then gravely
claimed that it had been adopted. … The House was already
standing up; had been standing for an hour; and before a third
of it had found out what the President had been saying, he had
proclaimed the adoption of the motion! And only a few heard
that. In fact, when that House is legislating you can't tell
it from artillery-practice. You will realize what a happy idea
it was to sidetrack the lawful ayes and noes and substitute a
stand-up vote by this fact: that a little later, when a
deputation of deputies waited upon the President and asked him
if he was actually willing to claim that that measure had been
passed, he answered, 'Yes—and unanimously.' …
"The 'Lex Falkenhayn,' thus strangely born, gave the President
power to suspend for three days any deputy who should continue
to be disorderly after being called to order twice, and it
also placed at his disposal such force as might be necessary
to make the suspension effective. So the House had a
sergeant-at-arms at last, and a more formidable one, as to
power, than any other legislature in Christendom had ever
possessed. The Lex Falkenhayn also gave the House itself
authority to suspend members for thirty days. On these terms
the 'Ausgleich' could be put through in an hour—apparently.
The Opposition would have to sit meek and quiet, and stop
obstructing, or be turned into the street, deputy after
deputy, leaving the Majority an unvexed field for its work.
"Certainly the thing looked well. … [But next day, when the
President attempted to open the session, a band of the
Socialist members made a sudden charge upon him, drove him and
the Vice President from the House, took possession of the
tribune, and brought even the semblance of legislative
proceedings to an end. Then a body of sixty policemen was
brought in to clear the House.] Some of the results of this
wild freak followed instantly. The Badeni government came down
with a crash; there was a popular outbreak or two in Vienna;
there were three or four days of furious rioting in Prague,
followed by the establishing there of martial law; the Jews
and Germans were harried and plundered, and their houses
destroyed; in other Bohemian towns there was rioting—in some
cases the Germans being the rioters, in others the Czechs—and
in all cases the Jew had to roast, no matter which side he was
on. We are well along in December now; the new
Minister-President has not been able to patch up a peace among
the warring factions of the parliament, therefore there is no
use in calling it together again for the present; public
opinion believes that parliamentary government and the
Constitution are actually threatened with extinction, and that
the permanency of the monarchy itself is a not absolutely
certain thing!
"Yes, the Lex Falkenhayn was a great invention, and did what
was claimed for it—it got the government out of the
frying-pan."
S. L. Clemens (Mark Twain),
Stirring Times in Austria
(Harper's Magazine, March, 1898).
AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: A. D. 1897 (December).
Imperial action.
On the last day of the year the Emperor closed the sittings of
the Austrian Reichsrath by proclamation and issued a rescript
continuing the "Ausgleich" provisionally for six months.
AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: A. D. 1898.
Prolongation of factious disorders.
Paralysis of constitutional government.
Though scenes in the Austrian Chamber were not quite so
violent, perhaps, as they had become near the close of 1897,
the state of factious disorder continued much the same
throughout the year, and legislation was completely stopped.
The work of government could be carried on only by imperial
decrees. The ministry of Baron von Gautsch, which had
succeeded that of Count Badeni, attempted a compromise on the
language question in Bohemia by dividing the country into
three districts, according to the distribution of the several
races, in one of which German was to be the official tongue,
in another Czech, while both languages were to be used in the
third. But the Germans of the empire would accept no such
compromise. In March, Baron von Gautsch retired, and Count
Thun Hohenstein formed a Ministry made up to represent the
principal factions in the Reichsrath; but, the scheme brought
no peace. Nor did appeals by Count Thun, "in the name of
Austria," to the patriotism and the reason of all parties, to
suspend their warfare long enough for a little of the
necessary work of the state to be done, have any effect. The
turbulence in the legislature infected the whole community,
and especially, it would seem, the students in the schools,
whose disorder caused many lectures to be stopped. In Hungary,
too, there was an increase of violence in political agitation.
A party, led by the son of Louis Kossuth, struggled to improve
what seemed to be an opportunity for breaking the political
union of Hungary with Austria, and realizing the old ambition
for an independent Hungarian state.
{42}
The ministry of Baron Banffy had this party against him, as
well as that of the clericals, who resented the civil marriage
laws, and legislation came to a deadlock nearly as complete in
the Hungarian as in the Austrian Parliament. There, as well as
in Austria, the extension of the Ausgleich, provisionally for
another year, had to be imposed by imperial decree.
AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: A. D. 1898 (April).
Withdrawal from the blockade of Crete and
the "Concert of Europe."
See (in this volume)
TURKEY: A. D. 1897-1899.
AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: A. D. 1898 (June).
The Sugar Conference at Brussels.
See (in this volume)
SUGAR BOUNTIES.
AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: A. D. 1898 (September).
Assassination of the Empress.
Jubilee of the Emperor's reign.
On the 10th of September, Elizabeth, Empress of Austria and
Queen of Hungary, was assassinated at Geneva by an Italian
anarchist, named Luigi Luccheni, who stabbed her with a small
stiletto, exceedingly thin and narrow in the blade. The
murderer rushed upon her and struck her, as she was walking,
with a single attendant, on the quay, towards a lake steamer
on which she intended to travel to Montreux. She fell, but
arose, with some assistance, and walked forward to the
steamer, evidently unaware that she had suffered worse than a
blow. On the steamer, however, she lost consciousness, and
then, for the first time, the wound was discovered. It had
been made by so fine a weapon that it showed little external
sign, and it is probable that the Empress felt little pain.
She lived nearly half an hour after the blow was struck. The
assassin attempted to escape, but was caught. As Swiss law
forbids capital punishment, he could be only condemned to
solitary confinement for life. This terrible tragedy came soon
after the festivities in Austria which had celebrated the
jubilee year of the Emperor Francis Joseph's reign. The
Emperor's marriage had been one of love: he had suffered many
afflictions in his later life; the state of his realm was such
as could hardly be contemplated without despair; men wondered
if he could bear this crowning sorrow and live. But he had the
undoubted affection of his subjects, much as they troubled him
with their miserably factious quarrels, and that consciousness
seems to have been his one support.
AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: A. D. 1899 (May-July).
Representation in the Peace Conference at The Hague.
See (in this volume)
PEACE CONFERENCE.
AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: A. D. 1899-1900.
Continued obstruction by the German parties in Austria.
Extensive secession of German Catholics from their
Church, and its significance.
Withdrawal of the Bohemian language decrees.
Obstruction taken up by the Czechs.
During most of the year the German parties in the Austrian
Reichsrath continued to make legislation impossible by
disorderly obstruction, with the avowed purpose of compelling
the government to withdraw the language decrees in Bohemia. A
still more significant demonstration of German feeling and
policy appeared, in a wide-spread and organized movement to
detach German Roman Catholics from their church, partly, it
would seem, as a proceeding of hostility to the Clerical
party, and partly as a means of recommending the Germans of
the Austrian states to the sympathy of the German Empire, and
smoothing the approach to an ultimate union of some of those
states with the Germanic federation. The agitation against the
Catholic Church is called "Los von Rom," and is said to have
had remarkable results. "Those acquainted with the situation
in Austria," says a writer in the "Quarterly Review," "do not
wonder that in various parts of the Empire there is a marked
tendency among the German Catholics to join Christian
communions separated from Rome. Many thousand Roman Catholics
have recently renounced their allegiance to the Holy See.
Further secessions are announced as about to take place. The
movement is especially strong in great centres like Eger,
Asch, and Saatz, but has made itself felt also in Carinthia,
and even in coast districts. This is a grave political fact,
for it is a marked indication of serious discontent, and a
sure sign that some arrangement under which certain districts
of Austria might be joined to Germany would not be unwelcome
to a section of the people."
Quarterly Review,
January, 1899.
In September the Austrian Ministry of Count Thun resigned, and
was succeeded by one formed under Count Clary-Aldingen. The
new premier withdrew the language decrees, which quieted the
German obstructionists, but provoked the Czechs to take up the
same rôle. Count Clary-Aldingen resigned in December, and a
provisional Ministry was formed under Dr. Wettek, which lasted
only until the 10th of January, 1900, when a new Cabinet was
formed by Dr. von Körber. In Hungary, Baron Banffy was driven
from power in February, 1899, by a state of things in the
Hungarian Parliament much like that in the Austrian. M.
Koloman Szell, who succeeded him, effected a compromise with
the opposition which enabled him to carry a measure extending
the Ausgleich to 1907. This brought one serious difficulty of
the situation to an end.
AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: A. D. 1899-1901.
Attitude towards impending revolt in Macedonia.
See (in this volume)
TURKEY: A. D. 1899-1901;
and BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES.
AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: A. D. 1900.
Military and naval expenditure.
See (in this volume)
WAR BUDGETS.
AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: A. D. 1900 (February).
Attempted pacification of German and Czech parties by a
Conciliation Board.
"On Monday last [February 5] the German and Czech Conciliation
Board met for the first time in Vienna, under the presidency of
the Austrian Premier, Dr. von Körber, and conferred for two
hours. … Dr. von Körber is at the head of what may be called a
'business' Ministry, composed largely of those who had filled
subordinate offices in previous Ministries. It was hoped,
perhaps, that, since the leading politicians with a political
'past' could apparently do nothing to bring about a
settlement, men with no past, but with a capacity for
business, and in no way committed on the racial question,
might do better in effecting a working arrangement. The
appointment of this Conciliation Board seemed a promising way
of attempting such a settlement. Dr. von Körber opened
Monday's proceedings with a strong appeal to both sides,
saying: 'Gentlemen, the Empire looks to you to restore its
happiness and tranquillity.' It cannot be said that the Empire
is likely to find its wishes fulfilled, for when the Board came
down to hard business, the old troubles instantly revealed
themselves.
{43}
The Premier recommended a committee for Bohemia of twenty-two
members, and one for Moravia of fifteen members, the two
sitting in joint session in certain cases. Dr. Engel then set
forth the historical claims of the Czechs, which immediately
called forth a demand from Dr. Funke, of the German party,
that German should be declared the official language
throughout Austria. Each speaker seems to have been supported
by his own party, and so no progress was made, and matters
remain in 'statu quo ante.' The singularly deficient
constitution of this Board makes against success, for it seems
that the German Nationalists and Anti-Semites have only one
delegate apiece, the Social Democrats were not invited at all,
while the extreme Germans and extreme Czechs, apparently
regarding the Board as a farce, declined to nominate delegates
to its sittings. … There is unhappily little reason for
believing that the Board of Conciliation will effect what the
Emperor himself has failed to accomplish."
Spectator (London),
February 10, 1900.
AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: A. D. 1900 (June-December).
Co-operation with the Powers in China.
See (in this volume)
CHINA.
AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: A. D. 1900 (September-December).
Warnings by the Emperor.
Clerical interference in politics.
The attitude of Hungary.
Economic decline of Austria.
Pessimistic views in Vienna.
The pending elections.
The Vienna correspondence of the "London Times" seems to be
the best source of information concerning the critical
conditions that are prevailing in the composite Empire, as the
Nineteenth Century closes, and the events by which those
conditions are from time to time revealed. The writer, whose
reports we shall quote, is evidently well placed for
observation, and well prepared for understanding what he sees.
In a dispatch of September 14, he notes the significance of a
reprimand which the Emperor had caused to be administered to
the Archbishop of Sarajevo, for interference in political
affairs:
"The chief of the Emperor's Cabinet called the Archbishop's
attention to newspaper reports of a speech made by him at the
close of the Catholic Congress recently held at Agram, in
which he was represented to have expressed the hope that
Bosnia would be incorporated with Croatia at the earliest
possible date. As that question was a purely political one and
foreign to the sacred vocation of the Archbishop, and as its
solution fell exclusively within the jurisdiction of certain
lay factors, and more especially within the Sovereign
prerogatives of his Majesty, the chief of the Cabinet was
instructed, in case the reports were correct, to communicate
to his Grace the serious warning and firm expectation of the
Emperor that his Grace would abstain in future, both in word
and deed, from interference in political questions. As was to
be expected, this sharp reprimand to an ecclesiastic of such
high position and repute has made a great sensation. It meets
with warm approval from the entire Hungarian Press. … There
is, on the other hand, bitter mortification in Clerical
circles. It is evidently felt that the warning to abstain from
politics may be of more than mere local and individual
significance."
In another dispatch on the same day the correspondent reported
a still more significant imperial utterance, this time from
the Emperor's own lips: "Yesterday the Emperor, who is
attending the manœuvres in Galicia, received the Polish
Parliamentary Deputation and, addressing their president,
informed him that the dissolution of the Reichsrath and the
coming elections were the last constitutional means which
would be employed by his Government. That implies that, if the
new Parliament will not work, the Constitution will be
suspended. … The dissolution of the Reichsrath takes place in
opposition to the wish of the moderate element of all parties,
who did their utmost to dissuade the Prime Minister from
taking such a drastic measure. The opinion of those who did
not approve of dissolution is that in the absence of a new
suffrage the next Parliament will prove more unruly than the
last. … Yesterday's Imperial warning requires no comment.
It means no more than it says—namely, an eventual suspension
of the Constitution. It does not point to any alternative
regime in case the Parliamentary system should break down.
Indeed, there is nothing to show that any such alternative has
been under the consideration of the Emperor and his Ministers. No
less an authority than Dr. Lueger, the Anti-Semitic
burgomaster of Vienna, has just expressed his opinion on the
subject to a local journalist in the following words:
'I am firmly convinced that nobody, not a single man in
Austria, including all statesmen and Parliamentary
politicians, has the faintest idea of how the situation will
develop.'"
A few days later (September 25) the "Times" correspondence
summarized an important speech by the Hungarian statesman,
Count Apponyi, to his constituents, in which the same forecast
of a political catastrophe in Austria was intimated. Count
Apponyi,—"after dwelling upon the importance of maintaining
the Ausgleich, remarked that affairs in Austria might take a
turn which would render its revision indispensable owing
either to a complete suspension of the constitutional system
in Austria, the maintenance of which was one of the conditions
of the arrangement of 1867, or such modifications thereof as
would make the existing form of union between the two
countries technically untenable or politically questionable.
In either case the revision could only confirm the
independence of Hungary. But even then Count Apponyi believed
that by fallowing the traditions of Francis Deák it would be
possible to harmonize the necessary revision with the
fundamental principles of the Dual Monarchy. It would,
however, be a great mistake to raise that question unless
forced to do so by circumstances. Count Apponyi went on to say
that the importance of Hungary, not only in the Monarchy but
throughout the civilized world, was enormously increased by
the fact that it secured the maintenance of Austria-Hungary,
threatened by the destructive influence of the Austrian chaos,
and thus constituted one of the principal guarantees of
European tranquillity. The peace-abiding nations recognized
that this service to the dynasty, the Monarchy, and the
European State system was only possible while the
constitutional independence and national unity of Hungary was
maintained. It was clear to every unprejudiced mind that
Hungarian national independence and unity was the backbone of
the Dual Monarchy and one of the most important guarantees of
European peace. But the imposing position attained by Hungary
through the European sanction of her national ideal would be
imperilled if they were of their own initiative to raise the
question of the union of the two countries and thus convert
the Austrian crisis into one affecting the whole Monarchy."
{44}
An article in the "Neue Freie Presse," of Vienna, on the
hostility of the Vatican to Austria and Hungary was partially
communicated in a despatch of October 11. The Vienna journal
ascribes this hostility in part to resentment engendered by
the alliance of Catholic Austria with Italy, and in part to
the Hungarian ecclesiastical laws.
See above: A. D. 1894-1895.
It remarked: "Never has clericalism been so influential in the
legislation and administration of this Empire. The most
powerful party is the one that takes its 'mot d'ordre' from
the Papal Nunciature. It guides the feudal nobility, it is the
thorn in the flesh of the German population, it has provoked a
20 years' reaction in Austria, and, unhindered and protected,
it scatters in Hungary that seed which has thriven so well in
this half of the Monarchy that nothing is done in Austria
without first considering what will be said about it in Rome."
A day or two later some evidence of a growing resentment in
Austria at the interference of the clergy in politics was
adduced: "Thus the Czech organ, inspired by the well-known
leader of the party, Dr. Stransky, states that a deputation of
tradespeople called on the editor and expressed great
indignation at the unprecedented manner in which the priests
were joining in electoral agitation. They added that they
'could no longer remain members of a Church whose clergy took
advantage of religious sentiment for political purposes.' The
Peasants' Electoral Association for Upper Austria has just
issued a manifesto in which the following occurs:—'We have for
more than 20 years invariably elected the candidates proposed by
the Clerical party. What has been done during that long period
for us peasants and small tradespeople? What have the Clerical
party and the Clerical members of Parliament done for us? How
have they rewarded our long fidelity? By treason. … We have
been imposed upon long enough. It is due to our self-respect
and honour to emancipate ourselves thoroughly from the
mamelukes put forward by the Clerical wirepullers. We must
show that we can get on without Clerical leadingstrings.'"
On the 26th of October the writer summarized a report that day
published by the Vienna Stock Exchange Committee, as
furnishing "fresh evidence of the disastrous effects of the
prolonged internal political crisis." "The report begins by
stating that the Vienna Stock Exchange, formerly the leading
and most important one in Europe, and which, in consequence of
the geographical situation of the town, was called upon to be
the centre of financial operations with the Near East, has for
years past been steadily declining. Every year the number of
those frequenting the Bourse diminishes, and there has been an
annual decrease in the amount of capital that has changed
hands. Of late years, and particularly within the last few
months, this has assumed such dimensions that it has become an
imperative duty for the competent authorities to investigate the
causes of the evil and to seek a remedy. It is recognized that
the deplorable domestic situation has largely contributed to
the decline of the Bourse. The deadlock in the Legislative
Assembly has occasioned stagnation in industry and commerce,
whereas outside the Monarchy there has been an unprecedented
development of trade. Further prejudice has been caused by
what is called in the report the anti-capitalist tendencies,
which represent all gains and profits to be ill-gotten. The
profession of merchant has been held up by unprincipled
demagogues as disreputable. The authorities are reproached
with having encouraged those tendencies by undue tolerance."
Early in November, the Vienna letters began accounts of the
electioneering campaign then opening, though elections for the
new House were not to take place until the following January:
"Every day," wrote the correspondent, "brings its contingent
of electoral manifestos, and all parties have already had
their say. Unfortunately, nothing could be less edifying. It
may be said of them all that they have profited little by
experience, and it is vain to search for any indication of a
conciliatory disposition among Czechs or Germans, Liberals or
Clericals. One and all are as uncompromising as ever, and
neither the leaders nor the rank and file are prepared to
reckon with the real exigencies of the situation, even to save
their own Parliamentary existence. The feudal nobility, who
stand aloof from Parliamentary strife, have alone lost nothing
of their position and influence. They disdainfully refuse to
take either the requirements of the State or the legitimate
wishes of the Crown into account. They are preparing in
alliance with Ultramontanism to hold their own against the
coming storm. Their action in the pending electrical campaign
is of an occult nature; their proceedings are seldom reported
by the newspapers, and when they meet it is by groups and
privately.
"The political speeches which have hitherto been delivered in
various parts of the country are bewildering. The Germans are
split up into several fractions, and even on the other side
there have been separate manifestos from the Young Czechs and
also from the Old Czechs, who have long ceased to play a part
in the Reichsrath. It is confusion worse confounded, in fact
complete chaos. The prospect of a rallying of the
heterogeneous and mutually antagonistic groups on the basis of
resistance to Hungarian exigencies, though possible, is not
yet at hand, whatever the future may reserve. … The words of
warning that came from the Crown as to this being the last
attempt that would be made to rule by constitutional methods
has clearly failed to produce that impression among
Parliamentary politicians which might justly have been
anticipated. Not even the most experienced and best informed
among the former members of the Reichsrath are disposed to
make any prophecy as to what will follow the dissolution of
the next Chamber."
{45}
In the following month, a significant speech in the Reichsrath
at Buda-Pesth, by the very able Hungarian Prime Minister, M.
Szell, WIIS reported. "He foreshadowed the possibility of a
situation in which Austria would not be able to fulfil the
conditions prescribed in the Ausgleich Act of 1867 with regard
to the manner of dealing with the affairs common to both halves
of the Monarchy. He himself had, however, made up his mind on
the subject, and was convinced that even in those
circumstances the Hungarians would by means of provisional
measures regulate the common affairs and interests of the two
States, 'while specially asserting the rights of Hungary and
its independence.' Another version of this somewhat oracular
statement runs as follows:—'Hungary, without infringing the
Ausgleich law, will find ways and means of regulating those
affairs which, in virtue of the Pragmatic sanction, are common
to both States, while at the same time protecting her own
interests and giving greater emphasis to her independence.'
Dr. Szell added:—'When the right time comes I shall explain my
views, and eventually submit proposals to the House.
Meanwhile, let us husband our strength and keep our powder
dry.' The self-confident and almost defiant tone of this
forecast, coming from a responsible statesman accustomed to
display such prudence and moderation of language as M. Szell,
has made a profound impression in Austria. It assumes the
breakdown of the Austrian Parliamentary system to be a
certainty, and anticipates the adoption by Hungary of
one-sided measures which, according to M. Szell, will afford
more effective protection to its interests and confirm its
independence. This seems to be interpreted in Vienna as an
indication that the Hungarian Premier has a cut and dry scheme
ready for the revision of the Ausgleich in a direction which
bodes ill for Austria. The gravity of the Ministerial
statement is recognized by journals of such divergent views as
the semi-official 'Fremdenblatt,' the pan-Germanic and
Anti-Semitic 'Deutsche Zeitung,' and the 'Neues Wiener
Tagblatt,' which is the organ of the moderate German element.
The 'Neues Wiener Tagblatt' frankly acknowledges that, in
addition to all her other cares, Austria has now to consider
the crucial question of the form which her relations with
Hungary will assume at no distant date. Commercial severance
and declarations of independence are, it says, being discussed
by the initiated sections of the community in both countries,
as if it were a matter of merely economic concern, instead of
the greatest and most perilous political problem that the
Monarchy has been called upon to solve since the establishment
of the Dual system, which, in spite of its complexity, has
worked well for such a long period. The 'Neues Wiener
Tagblatt,' nevertheless, admits that things have now reached a
stage at which economic severance is no longer impossible." In
a subsequent speech on New Year's Day, M. Szell declared that
it "would be a fatal mistake to sever the ties which had so
long connected the two countries, as the objects for which
they were called into existence still remained and their
fundamental basis was not shaken."
The Vienna journals, on that New Year's Day of 1901, reviewed
the past and surveyed the prospects of the future in gloomy
and pessimistic tones. Heading its article "Progress
Backward," the "Wiener Allgemeine Zeitung" said: "It is true
that Austria has at her disposal a larger and more efficiently
trained army than ever. The natural resources of the country
have been better developed than in the past. The progress of
the century has not been without influence upon ourselves.
But, whereas other nations are more vigorous, greater, and
mightier, we have become weaker, smaller, and less important.
The history of the world during the second half of the past
century has been made at our expense. … In the new partition
of the world no room has been reserved for Austria. The most
important events which will perhaps give the world a new
physiognomy are taking place without Austria's being able to
exercise the slightest influence thereon. We are living upon
our old reputation, but in the long run that capital will
prove insufficient."
AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: A. D. 1900 (December).
Census of Vienna.
See (in this volume)
VIENNA: A. D. 1900.
AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: A. D. 1901.
Parliamentary elections.
Weakening of the Clerical and Anti-Semitic parties.
Gains for the ultra-radical German parties.
Disorderly opening of the Reichsrath.
Speech of the Emperor from the throne.
From the parliamentary elections held in January the Clerical
and Anti-Semitic parties came back to the Reichsrath shorn of
about one-third of their strength, while the various radical
factions, especially those among the Germans, appear to have
made considerable gains. Even in the Tyrol, one of the
strongest of the Clerical leaders, Baron Di Pauli, was
defeated, and in Vienna the Anti-Semitic majority was cut to
less than one-fourth of what it had been three years before.
"The Pan-Germanic group," writes "The Times" correspondent
from Vienna, "which only numbered five in the last Parliament,
now musters 21. It will be remembered that it openly advocates
incorporation with the German Empire, and as a preparatory
measure the wholesale conversion of the German population of
Austria to Protestantism. It has hitherto been to a certain
extent boycotted by the other German parties, being excluded
from their so-called union for mutual defence and joint
action." "But the programme which had thus been boycotted by
the bulk of the German members has been the most successful of
all in the recent general election. The position of its
leading representative, Herr Schönerer, has been so
strengthened that he has been able to impose upon the whole
group the title of Pan-Germanic Union, and to enforce the
acceptance of the principle of 'emancipation from Rome.' The
latter demand caused a certain hesitation on the part of some
of his new followers, who, however, ultimately decided to
adopt it, although not to the full extent of renouncing the
Roman Catholic faith, as Herr Schönerer and his principal
lieutenant, Herr Wolf, themselves had done. At a conference of
the party its programme was declared to be the promotion of
such a federal connexion of the German provinces of Austria
with the German Empire as would furnish a permanent guarantee
for the maintenance of the German nationality in this country.
The party would oppose every Government that resisted the
realization of that object, and it could not participate in
any manifestations of loyalty while such a Government policy
was maintained. At the same time, the party regarded it as
their obvious duty to emancipate themselves from Rome in a
political but not religious sense—that is to say, to free
themselves from the influence of the Roman Curia in affairs of
State.
{46}
"This boycotted party and programme now threatens to win the
voluntary or enforced adherence of the advanced section of the
other German groups which had hitherto declined to commit
themselves to such an extreme policy. The most moderate of all
the German parties, that of the constitutional landed
proprietors, has felt called upon to enter an energetic and
indignant protest against the foregoing Pan-Germanic
programme. While they are convinced supporters of the
Austro-German alliance, they unconditionally reject
aspirations which they hold to be totally inconsistent with
the tried and reliable basis of that agreement, and which
would constitute an undignified sacrifice of the independence
of the Monarchy. They further decline to make their
manifestations of loyalty to the Sovereign dependent upon any
condition; and they strongly condemn the emancipation from
Rome movement as a culpable confusion of the spheres of
religion and politics, and an infringement of the liberty of
conscience which is calculated to sow dissension among the
German nationality in Austria.
"It now remains to be seen to which side the bulk of the
German representatives will rally; to that of the Moderates,
who have re-affirmed their devotion to the Dynasty and the
existing Constitution, or to that of the Pan-Germanic
revolutionaries, who have decided to make their manifestations
of loyalty dependent upon the adoption by the Crown of their
programme.
"The outlook has thus undergone, if anything, a change for the
worse since the last Reichsrath was dissolved. The only
reassuring feature of the situation is that the fall of the
Ministry is not a primary end with any of the parties in the
Reichsrath. Dr. von Körber, who is a politician of great tact
and experience, has avoided friction on all sides."
The opening session of the newly elected Reichsrath was held
on the 31st of January, and the disorderly temper in it was
manifested upon a reference by the President to the death of
Queen Victoria, which called out cries of hostility to England
from both Germans and Czechs.
"In the course of the proceedings some of the members of the
Extreme Czech fraction warned the Prime Minister in
threatening terms against introducing a single word hostile to
the Czech nation in the coming Speech from the Throne. They
also announced their intention of squaring accounts with him
so soon as the Speech from the Throne should be delivered. The
whole sitting did not last an hour, but … what happened
suffices to show that not only the Pan-Germanic Union, but
also the Extreme section of the German People's party and a
couple of Radical Czechs, are ready at a moment's notice to
transform the Reichsrath into a bear garden."
On the 4th of February the two Houses of the Reichsrath were
assembled at the Palace and addressed by the Emperor, in a
speech from the throne of which the following is a partial
report: "His Majesty referred to various features of
legislation, including the Budget, the revision of the Customs
tariff, the promotion of trade, industry, and navigation, the
protection of the working classes and the regulation of the
hours of labour, the Government railway projects and the
Bosnian lines, and Bills for the regulation of emigration, the
construction of dwellings for the lower classes, the
repression of drunkenness, the development of the University
system and other educational reforms, and a revision of the
Press laws—in fact a whole inventory of the important
legislative arrears consequent upon the breakdown of
Parliament.
"The following passage occurs in the further course of the
speech: 'The Constitution which I bestowed upon my dominions
in the exercise of my free will ought to be an adequate
guarantee for the development of my people. The finances of
the State have been put in order in exemplary fashion and its
credit has been raised to a high level. The freedom of the
subject reposes upon a firm foundation, and thanks to the
scholastic organization and the extraordinary increase of
educational establishments general culture has reached a
gratifying standard, which has more especially contributed to
the efficiency and intelligence of my army. The Provincial
Diets have been able to do much within the limits of their
jurisdiction. The beneficial influence of the constitutional
system has penetrated as far as the communal administrations.
I am thus justified in saying that the fundamental laws of the
State are a precious possession of my loyal people.
Notwithstanding the autonomy enjoyed by certain kingdoms and
provinces, they constitute for foreigners the symbol of the
strength and unity of the State. I was, therefore, all the
more grieved that the last sessions of the Legislature should
have had no result, even if I am prepared to acknowledge that
such business as affected the position of the Monarchy was
satisfactorily transacted by all parties.'
"The Emperor then expressed his regret that other matters of
equal importance affecting the interests of Austria had not
been disposed of. His Majesty made an appeal to the
representatives of the Reichsrath to devote their efforts to
the necessary and urgent work awaiting them, and assured them
that they might count upon the Government. All attempts at the
moral and material development of the Empire were, he said,
stultified by the nationality strife. Experience had shown
that the efforts of the Government to bring about a settlement
of the principal questions involved therein had led to no
result and that it was preferable to deal with the matter in
the Legislature. The Government regarded a generally
satisfactory solution of the pending language question as
being both an act of justice and a necessity of State.
Trusting in the good will manifested by all parties, the
Ministry would do its utmost to promote a settlement which
would relieve the country of its greatest evil. At the same
time, the Cabinet was under the obligation of maintaining
intact the unity of language in certain departments of the
Administration, in which it constituted an old and well-tested
institution. Success must never again be sought through
paralysing the popular representation. The hindrance of
Parliamentary work could only postpone or render quite
impossible the realization of such aspirations as most deeply
affected the public mind. The Sovereign then referred to the
damage done to the interests of the Empire by the obstacles
placed in the way of the regular working of the Constitution,
and pointed to the indispensable necessity of the vigorous
co-operation of Parliament in the approaching settlement of
the commercial relations between the two halves of the
Monarchy. The speech concluded with a warmly-worded appeal to
the representatives to establish a peace which would
correspond to the requirements of the time and to defend as
their fathers had defended 'this venerable State which accords
equal protection to all its peoples.'"
{47}
AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: A. D. 1901 (March).
Continued turbulence of the factions
in the Austrian Reichsrath.
Outspoken aim of the Pan-Germans.
At this writing (late in March), the disgraceful and
destructive conflict of reckless factions is still raging in
the Austrian Reichsrath, and the parties have come to blows
several times. The hope of the German extremists for a
dissolution of the Empire seems to be more and more openly
avowed. On one occasion, "a Czech member, Dr. Sieleny, having
accused the Pan-Germans of wistfully glancing across the
frontier, Herr Stein, a member of the Pan-Germanic group,
replied, 'We do not glance, we gaze.' Being reproached with
looking towards Germany with an ulterior motive, the same
gentleman answered, 'You Czechs want to go to Russia, and we
Germans want to go to Germany.' Again, on being told that he
would like to become a Prussian, he exclaimed, 'I declare
openly that we want to go to the German Empire.' Finally, in
reply to another remark, Herr Stein observed that everybody in
the country who was an Austrian patriot was stupid."
----------AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: End--------

AUTONOMY, Constitutional:
Granted by Spain to Cuba and Porto Rico.
See (in this volume)
CUBA: A. D. 1897 (NOVEMBER);
and 1897-1898 (NOVEMBER-FEBRUARY).
AYUNTAMIENTOS.
Town councillors in Spain and in the Spanish American states.
See (in this volume)
CUBA: A. D. 1901 (JANUARY).
B.
BABYLON: Exploration of the ruins of the city.
See (in this volume)
ARCHÆOLOGICAL RESEARCH:
BABYLONIA: GERMAN EXPLORATION.
BABYLON: Railway to the ruins.
See (in this volume)
TURKEY: A. D. 1899 (NOVEMBER).
BABYLONIA: Archæological Exploration in.
See (in this volume)
ARCHÆOLOGICAL RESEARCH: BABYLONIA: AMERICAN EXPLORATION.
BACHI,
BASHEE ISLANDS, The American acquisition of.
See (in this volume)
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1898 (JULY-DECEMBER).
BACTERIAL SCIENCE, Recent.
See (in this volume)
SCIENCE, RECENT: MEDICAL AND SURGICAL.
BADENI, Count: Austrian ministry.
See (in this volume)
AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: A. D. 1895-1896.
BADEN-POWELL, General R. S. S.: Defense of Mafeking.
See (in this volume)
SOUTH AFRICA (THE FIELD OF WAR):
A. D. 1899 (OCTOBER-NOVEMBER); and 1900 (MARCH-MAY).
BAGDAD, Railways to.
See (in this volume)
TURKEY: A. D. 1899 (NOVEMBER); and JEWS: A. D. 1899.
BAJAUR.
See (in this volume)
INDIA: A.D. 1895 (MARCH-SEPTEMBER).
BALFOUR, Arthur J.:
First Lord of the Treasury in the British Cabinet.
See (in this volume)
ENGLAND: A. D. 1894-1895; and 1900 (NOVEMBER-DECEMBER).
BALFOUR, Arthur J.:
Tribute to Queen Victoria.
See (in this volume)
ENGLAND: A. D. 1901 (JANUARY).
BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES, The.
"The States of the Balkan Peninsula, ever since the practical
disruption of European Turkey after the war of 1877-78, have
been in a condition of chronic restlessness. Those who desire
the repose of Europe have hoped against hope that the new
communities which were founded or extended on the ruins of the
Ottoman dominion in Europe would be able and willing to keep
the peace among themselves and to combine in resisting the
intrusion of foreign influences. These expectations have been
too frequently disappointed. The lawlessness of Bulgaria and
the unsettled state of Servia, more especially, continue to
constitute a periodical cause of anxiety to the diplomacy of
Europe. The recent murder at Bukharest of Professor
Mihaileano, a Macedonian by birth and a Rumanian by
extraction, appears to be a shocking example of the teaching
of a school of political conspirators who have their centre of
operations at Sofia. These persons had already combined to
blackmail and terrorise the leading Rumanian residents in the
capital of Bulgaria, where the most abominable outrages are
stated to have been committed with impunity. Apparently, they
have now carried the war, with surprising audacity, into the
Rumanian capital itself. Two persons marked out for vengeance
by the terrorists of Sofia had previously been murdered in
Bukharest, according to our Vienna Correspondent, but these
were Bulgarians by birth. It is a further step in this
mischievous propaganda that a Rumanian subject, the occupant
of an official position at the seat of the Rumanian
government, should be done to death by emissaries from the
secret society at Sofia. His crime was that, born of Rumanian
parents in Macedonia, he had the boldness to controvert in the
Press the claims of the Bulgarians to obtain the upper hand in
a Turkish province, where Greeks, Turks, Bulgarians,
Albanians, and Serbs are inextricably mixed up. Professor
Mihaileano had probably very good reasons for coming to the
conclusion that, whatever may be the evils of Ottoman rule,
they are less than those which would follow a free fight in
the Balkans, ending, it may be, in the ascendency of Bulgarian
ruffianism.
"It is for this offence that M. Mihaileano suffered the
penalty of death by the decree of a secret tribunal, and at
the hands of assassins sent out to do their deadly work by
political intriguers who sit in safety at Sofia. The most
serious aspect of the matter, however, is the careless and
almost contemptuous attitude of the Bulgarian Government. The
reign of terror at Sofia and the too successful attempts to
extend it to Rumania have provoked remonstrances not only from
the government at Bukharest, but from some of the Great
Powers, including Austria-Hungary, Germany, and Italy. … There
is only too much reason to fear, even now, that both the
Bulgarian Government and the ruler of the Principality are
afraid to break with the terrorists of Sofia.
{48}
Political assassination is unfortunately among the traditions
of the Bulgarian State, but it has never been practised with
such frequency and impunity as under the rule of Prince
Ferdinand. … His own conduct as a ruler, coupled with the
lamentable decline of the spirit of Bulgarian independence,
which seemed to be vigorous and unflinching before the
kidnapping of Prince Alexander, has steadily lowered his
position. The Bulgarian agitation—to a large extent a sham
one—for the 'redemption,' as it is called, of Macedonia is a
safety-valve that relieves Prince Ferdinand and those who
surround him from much unpleasant criticism. …
"The situation in the Balkans is in many respects disquieting.
The Bulgarian agitation for the absorption of Macedonia is not
discouraged in high quarters. The hostility of the Sofia
conspirators to the Koutzo-Wallachs, the Rumanians of
Macedonia, is due to the fact that the latter, being a small
minority of the population, are ready to take their chance of
equal treatment under Turkish rule, subject to the supervision
of Europe, rather than to be swallowed up in an enlarged
Bulgaria, dominated by the passions that now prevail in the
Principality and that have been cultivated for obvious
reasons. Russia, it is believed, has no wish to see Bulgarian
aspirations realized, and would much rather keep the
Principality in a state of expectant dependence. Servia and
Greece would be as much embarrassed as Rumania by the success
of the Bulgarian propaganda, and Austria-Hungary would regard
it as a grave menace. Of course the Turkish government could
not be expected to acquiesce in what would, in fact, be its
knell of doom. … In Greece, the insubordination in certain
sections of the army is a symptom not very alarming in itself,
but unpleasantly significant of latent discontent. In Turkey,
of course, the recrudescence of the fanaticism which
periodically breaks out in the massacres of the Armenians
cannot be overlooked. A more unfortunate time could not be
chosen for endeavouring to reopen the Eastern question by
pressing forward the Bulgarian claim to Macedonia. Nor could a
more unfortunate method be adopted of presenting that claim than
that of the terrorists who appear to be sheltered or screened
at Sofia."
London Times, August 23, 1900.
See, also (in this volume),
TURKEY: A. D. 1899-1901.
BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES:
Bulgaria.
On the 15th of July, 1895, M. Stambouloff, lately the powerful
chief minister in the Bulgarian government, but now overthrown
and out of favor, was attacked by four assassins, in the
streets of Sofia, and received wounds from which he died three
days afterwards.
The increasing influence of Russia in Bulgaria was manifested
unmistakably on the 14th of February, 1896, when Prince Boris,
the infant son and heir of the reigning Prince Ferdinand, was
solemnly baptised into the Orthodox Greek Church, the Tzar of
Russia, represented by proxy at the ceremony, acting as
sponsor. This is understood to have been done in opposition to
the most earnest remonstrances of the mother of the child, who is
an ardent Roman Catholic, the father being nominally the same.
BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES: Montenegro:
Recent changes.
"The accession of territory obtained under the Berlin Treaty
has already begun to alter the character of the country. The
area of the Principality has been almost doubled, and fertile
valleys, tracts of rich woodland and a strip of sea-coast have
been added to the realm of Prince Nikolas. Montenegro is now
something more than the rocky eyrie of a warlike clan, and the
problem of its commercial development constantly occupies the
mind of its ruler. The state of transition is reflected in the
aspect of the capital. A tiny hamlet in 1878, Tzetinye now
bears witness to the growth of civilisation and to the
beneficent influence of a paternal despotism. … Nikolas I.,
'Prince and Gospodar of free Tzrnagora and the Berda,' is the
most picturesque and remarkable figure in the South Slavonic
world. Descended from a long line of heroes, the heir of the
Vladikas, he has, like them, distinguished himself in many a
hard-fought conflict with the hereditary foe. In the field of
poetry he has also won his triumphs; like his father Mirko,
'the Sword of Montenegro,' he has written lyric odes and
ballads; like his ancestor, the Vladika Petar II., he has
composed historical dramas, and his poems and plays hold a
recognised place in contemporary Slavonic literature. The
inheritor of a splendid tradition, a warrior and a bard,
gifted by nature with a fine physique and a commanding
presence, he forms the impersonation and embodiment of all
that appeals most to the imagination of a romantic and
impressionable race, to its martial instinct, its poetic
temperament, and its strange—and to us
incomprehensible—yearning after long-vanished glories. … Any
attempt to describe Prince Nikolas' work as an administrator
and a reformer would lead me too far. The codification of the
law, which was begun by his ancestors, Danilo I. and Petar I.,
has been almost completed under his supervision. … The
suppression of the vendetta is one of the greatest of the
Prince's achievements. … Crime is now rare in the
Principality, except in the frontier districts, where acts of
homicide are regarded as justifiable, and indeed laudable, if
perpetrated in payment of old scores, or if the victim is an
Albanian from over the border. Primary education has been made
universal, schools have arisen in every village, and lecturers
have been appointed to explain to the peasants the advantages
of learning. Communications are being opened up, and the
Principality, which a few years since possessed nothing but
mule-tracks, can now boast of 138 miles of excellent
carriage-road, better engineered and maintained than any I
have seen in the Peninsula. The construction of roads is
viewed with some apprehension by the more conservative
Montenegrins, who fear that their mountain stronghold may lose
its inaccessible character. But the Prince is determined to
keep abreast of the march of civilisation. Nine post-offices
and thirteen telegraph stations have been established. The
latter, which are much used by the people, will play an
important part in the next mobilization of the Montenegrin
army. Hitherto the forces of the Principality have been called
together by stentorian couriers who shouted from the tops of
the mountains. A great reform, however, still remains to be
attempted—the conversion of a clan of warriors into an
industrial nation. The change has been rendered inevitable by
the enlargement of the bounds of the Principality, and its
necessity is fully recognised by the Prince.
{49}
Once the future of the country is assured, his order will be
'à bas les armes.' He is aware that such an edict would be
intensely unpopular, but he will not flinch when the time for
issuing it arrives. Every Montenegrin has been taught from his
cradle to regard warfare as his sole vocation in life, and to
despise industrial pursuits. The tradition of five hundred
years has remained unbroken, but the Prince will not hesitate
to destroy it. So enormous is his influence over the people,
that he feels confident in his ability to carry out this
sweeping reform."
J. D. Bourchier,
Montenegro and her Prince
(Fortnightly Review, December, 1898).
BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES: Montenegro:
New title of the Prince.
On the 19th of December, 1900, at Tzetinye, or Cettigne, "the
President of the Council of State, in the presence of the
other Ministers and dignitaries and of the members of the
Diplomatic Corps, presented an address to the Prince of
Montenegro praying him, in token of the gratitude of the
Montenegrin people for the benefits which he had conferred on
them during his 40 years' reign, to take the title of Royal
Highness. The Prince acceded to the request, and, replying to
the President, thanked all the European rulers who on this
occasion had given him a fresh proof of their friendship by
their recognition of his new title. After the ceremony a Te
Deum was celebrated in the Cathedral, and the Prince
subsequently reviewed the troops, receiving a great welcome
from the people."
Telegram,
Reuter's Agency.
BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES:
Servia.
In January, 1894, the young king, Alexander, called his
father, the ex-king, Milan (abdicated in 1889—see, in volume
1. BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES: A. D. 1879-1889), to Belgrade
to give him help against his Radical ministers, who had been
taking, the latter thought, too much into their own hands. The
first result was a change of ministry, soon followed by a
decision from the synod of Servian bishops annulling the
divorce of ex-King Milan and Queen Natalie; by a public
announcement of their reconciliation, and by an ukase from
King Alexander, cancelling all laws and resolutions which
touched his parents and restoring to them their rights and
privileges as members of the royal house. This, again, was
followed, on the 21st of May, by a royal proclamation which
abolished the constitution of December, 1888, and restored the
old constitution of 1869. This was a tremendous step backward, to
a state of things in which almost no protection against
arbitrary kingship could be found.
For some years the ex-king exercised considerable influence
over his son, and was again an uncertain and much distrusted
factor in the troubled politics of southeastern Europe. In
1898 the son appointed him commander-in-chief of the Servian
army, and he is said to have ably and energetically improved
its efficiency during the brief period of his command. A
breach between father and son was brought about before long,
however, by the determination of the latter to marry a lady,
Madame Draga Maschin, considerably older than himself, who had
been lady-in-waiting to his mother; while the father was
arranging a political marriage for him with a German princess.
The young king married his chosen bride in August, 1900, and
guarded his frontier with troops to bar the return of his
father, then sojourning at a German watering place, to the
kingdom. It was a final exile for the ex-king. He visited
Paris for a time; then went to Vienna, and there, on the 11th
of February, 1901, he died, at the age of 47.
BALLOONS, Declaration against explosives from.
See (in this volume)
PEACE CONFERENCE.
BALTIC and NORTH SEA CANALS.
See (in this volume)
GERMANY: A. D. 1895 (JUNE); and 1900 (JUNE).
BANK OF FRANCE: Renewal of privileges.
See (in this volume)
MONETARY QUESTIONS: A. D. 1897.
BANKING: Its effect on the Nineteenth Century.
See (in this volume)
NINETEENTH CENTURY: THE TREND.
BANKRUPTCY LAW, National.
See (in this volume)
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1898 (JULY 1).
BARBADOS: Condition and relief measures.
See (in this volume)
WEST INDIES, THE BRITISH: A. D. 1897.
BARCELONA: A. D. 1895.
Student riots.
See (in this volume)
SPAIN: A. D. 1895-1896.
BAROTSILAND:
British Protectorate proclaimed.
See (in this volume)
SOUTH AFRICA (RHODESIA): A. D. 1900 (SEPTEMBER).
BARRAGE WORKS, Nile.
See (in this volume)
EGYPT: A. D. 1898-1901.
BARRIOS, President: Assassination.
See (in this volume)
CENTRAL AMERICA (GUATEMALA): A. D. 1897-1898.
BARTON, Miss Clara, and the Red Cross Society.
Relief work in Armenia and Cuba.
See (in this volume)
ARMENIA: A. D. 1896 (JANUARY-MARCH);
and CUBA: A. D. 1896-1897.
BASHEE,
BACHI ISLANDS, The American acquisition of.
See (in this volume)
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1898 (JULY-DECEMBER).
BECHUANALAND, British:
Annexation to Cape Colony.
See (in this volume)
AFRICA: A. D. 1895 (CAPE COLONY).
BECHUANALAND, British:
Partial conveyance to the British South Africa Company.
See (in this volume)
AFRICA: A. D. 1895 (BECHUANALAND).
BEEF INVESTIGATION, The American Army.
See (in this volume)
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1898-1899.
BEET SUGAR.
See (in this volume)
GERMANY: A. D. 1896 (MAY);
and SUGAR BOUNTIES.
BEHRING SEA.
See (in this volume)
BERING SEA.
BÊL, Temple of:
Exploration of its ruins at Nippur.
See (in this volume)
ARCHÆOLOGICAL RESEARCH: BABYLONIA: AMERICAN EXPLORATION.
BELGIAN ANTARCTIC EXPEDITION.
See (in this volume)
POLAR EXPLORATION, 1897-1899.
{50}
BELGIUM: A. D. 1894-1895.
The first election under the new constitution.
Victory of the Catholics and surprising Socialist gains.
Elsewhere in this work the full text of the Belgian
constitution as it was revised in 1893;
See in volume 1
CONSTITUTION OF BELGIUM).
The peculiar features of the new constitution, especially in
its provision of a system of cumulative or plural voting, are
described.
See in volume 3
NETHERLANDS (BELGIUM): A. D. 1892-1893)
The singularity of the experiment thus introduced caused the
elections that were held in Belgium in 1894 and 1895 to be
watched with an interest widely felt. Elections for the
Chamber of Representatives and the Senate occurred on the same
day, October 14, 1894. Previously the Belgian suffrage had
been limited to about 130,000 electors. Under the new
constitution the electors numbered no less than 1,370,000, and
the working of the plural system gave them 2, 111,000 votes.
The result was a more crushing victory for the Catholics than
they had ever won before. Of 152 Representatives they elected
no less than 104. The Liberal party was almost annihilated,
securing but 20 seats in the Chamber; while the Socialists
rose to political importance, winning 28 seats. This
representation is said to be not at all proportioned to the
votes cast by the several parties, and it lent force to the
demand for a system of proportional representation, as the
needed accompaniment of plural voting, which had been urged
when the constitution was revised. In the Senate the
Conservatives obtained 52 seats and the Liberals 24. In the
next year an electoral law relating to communal councils was
passed. In this law, the principle of proportional
representation was introduced, along with that of cumulative
or plural voting. Compulsory voting, enforced by penalties
more or less severe, was also a feature of the law. In
November, the first election under it was held, and again the
Socialists made surprising gains, at the expense of the
Radical party, the Catholics and Liberals generally holding
their ground.
BELGIUM: A. D. 1895.
New School Law.
Compulsory religious teaching restored.
See (in this volume)
EDUCATION: A. D. 1895 (BELGIUM).
BELGIUM: A. D. 1897.
Industrial combinations.
See (in this volume)
TRUSTS: IN EUROPEAN COUNTRIES.
BELGIUM: A. D. 1897 (July).
British notice to terminate existing commercial treaties.
See (in this volume)
ENGLAND: A. D. 1897 (JUNE-JULY).
BELGIUM: A. D. 1898 (June).
The Sugar Conference at Brussels.
See (in this volume)
SUGAR BOUNTIES.
BELGIUM: A. D. 1898 (July-December).
In the Chinese "battle of concessions."
See (in this volume)
CHINA: A. D. 1898 (FEBRUARY-DECEMBER).
BELGIUM: A. D. 1899 (May-July).
Representation in the Peace Conference at The Hague.
See (in this volume)
PEACE CONFERENCE.
BELGIUM: A. D. 1899-1900.
Threatened revolution.
An explosion of discontent with the working of the electoral
provisions of the new constitution (see above) occurred in
June, and created for a time an exceedingly dangerous
situation. It was precipitated by an attempt on the part of
the government to pass a bill providing for proportional
representation in certain districts, which was expected to
increase the advantage already possessed by the Clerical or
Catholic party. Excitement in the Chamber of Deputies reached
such a height on the 28th of June that fighting among the
members occurred, and soldiers were called in. That night and
the next day there was serious rioting in Brussels; barricades
were built; sharp battles between citizens and soldiers were
fought, and a general strike of working men was proposed. On
the 30th, the government arranged a compromise with the
Socialist and Liberal leaders which referred the question of
proportional representation to a committee in which all
parties were represented. This quieted the disorder. In due
time the committee reported against the measure which the
government had proposed; whereupon a change of ministry was
made, the new ministry being expected to bring forward a more
satisfactory plan of proportional representation. It produced
a bill for that purpose, the provisions of which failed to
give satisfaction, but which was passed, nevertheless, near
the end of the year.
Commenting, in July, on the disturbances then just quieted in
Belgium, the "Spectator," of London, remarked: "The recent
explosion of political feeling in Belgium was a much more
serious event than was quite understood in this country. It
might have involved all Europe, as, indeed, it may even yet.
There was revolution in the air, and a revolution in Belgium
would gravely affect the military position both of France and
Germany, would rouse keen suspicions and apprehensions in this
country, and would perturb all the dynasties with fears of
coming change. The new electoral bill drove the Liberals and
Socialists of the little kingdom into one another's arms—both
believing that it would give the Clericals a permanent hold on
power—and whenever these two parties are united they control
the majority of the Belgian people. That majority is a most
dangerous one. It controls all the cities, and it includes
hundreds of thousands of men who resent their economic
condition with justifiable bitterness, and who are penetrated
with a tradition of victories achieved by insurrection. At the
same time they have no pacific vent for their discontents, for
the suffrage gives double votes to the well-to-do, and secures
to both Liberals and laborers on all economic or religious
questions a certainty of defeat. With the inhabitants of the
cities all rioting and killing the officials, the government
would have been compelled to resort to force, and it is by no
means clear that force was decidedly on their side. The
Belgian army is not a caste widely separated in feeling from
the people; it has no instinctive devotion to the Clerical
party, and it has no great soldier whom it admires or to whom
it is attached. The king is distrusted and disliked both
personally and politically; and the dynasty, which has no
historic connection with Belgium, has never taken root in the
soil as the Bernadottes, for example, have done in Sweden. If
the revolutionists had been beaten, they would have appealed
to France, where Belgium is regarded as a reversionary estate;
while if they had been victorious, they might—in our judgment,
they certainly would—have proclaimed a republic. … The danger
has, we suppose, for the moment been smoothed away; but it has
not been removed, probably can not be removed, while the
conditions which produce it continue to exist. The Belgians,
who are commonly supposed to be so prosperous and pacific, are
divided by differences of race, creed, and social condition
more violent than exists in Ireland, where at all events, all
alike, with insignificant exceptions, speak one tongue.
{51}
The French-speaking Belgians despise the Flemish-speaking
Belgians, and the Flemish speaking Belgians detest the
French-speaking Belgians, with a rancor only concealed by the
long habit of living and acting together,—a habit which,
remember, has not prevented the same contempts and aversions
from continuing to exist in Ireland. The Clericals and the
Secularists hate each other as only religious parties can
hate; far more than Catholics and Protestants in any of the
countries where the two creeds stand side by side. The
Secularist seems to the Clerical a blasphemer, against whom
almost all devices are justifiable, while the Clerical is held
by the Secularist to be a kind of evil fool, from whom nothing is
to be expected except cunningly concealed malignity. The
possessors of property expect that the 'ugly rush' which used
to be talked of in England will occur tomorrow, while the wage
receivers declare that they are worked to death for the
benefit of others, who will not leave them so much as a living
wage. All display when excited to a noteworthy fierceness of
temper, a readiness to shed blood, and a disposition to push
every quarrel into a sort of war,—tendencies visible
throughout the history of the country."
At the parliamentary election in June, 1900, under the new law
providing for proportional representation, the Socialists
gained seventeen seats from the Clerical party.
BELGIUM: A. D. 1900.
Relations with the Congo State.
See (in this volume)
CONGO FREE STATE: A. D. 1900.
BELL TELEPHONE SYSTEM, Recent development of.
See (in this volume)
SCIENCE, RECENT: ELECTRICAL.
BELMONT, Battle of.
See (in this volume)
SOUTH AFRICA (THE FIELD OF WAR):
A. D. 1899 (OCTOBER-DECEMBER).
BENIN:
Massacre of British officials.
Capture of the town.
See (in this volume)
NIGERIA: A. D. 1897.
BERGENDAL FARM, Battle of.
See (in this volume)
SOUTH AFRICA (THE FIELD OF WAR): A. D. 1900 (JUNE-DECEMBER).
BERING SEA QUESTIONS.
"Several vexatious questions were left undetermined by the
decision of the Bering Sea Arbitration Tribunal.
See, in volume 5,
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1886-1893.
The application of the principles laid down by that august
body has not been followed by the results they were intended
to accomplish, either because the principles themselves lacked
in breadth and definiteness or because their execution has
been more or less imperfect. Much correspondence has been
exchanged between the two Governments [of Great Britain and
the United States] on the subject of preventing the
exterminating slaughter of seals. The insufficiency of the
British patrol of Bering Sea under the regulations agreed on
by the two Governments has been pointed out, and yet only two
British ships have been on police duty during this season in
those waters. The need of a more effective enforcement of
existing regulations as well as the adoption of such
additional regulations as experience has shown to be
absolutely necessary to carry out the intent of the award have
been earnestly urged upon the British Government, but thus far
without effective results. In the meantime the depletion of
the seal herds by means of pelagic hunting [that is, in the
open sea] has so alarmingly progressed that unless their
slaughter is at once effectively checked their extinction
within a few years seems to be a matter of absolute certainty.
The understanding by which the United States was to pay and Great
Britain to receive a lump sum of $425,000 in full settlement
of all British claims for damages arising from our seizure of
British sealing vessels unauthorized under the award of the
Paris Tribunal of Arbitration was not confirmed by the last
Congress, which declined to make the necessary appropriation.
I am still of the opinion that this arrangement was a
judicious and advantageous one for the Government, and I
earnestly recommend that it be again considered and
sanctioned. If, however, this does not meet with the favor of
Congress, it certainly will hardly dissent from the
proposition that the Government is bound by every
consideration of honor and good faith to provide for the
speedy adjustment of these claims by arbitration as the only
other alternative. A treaty of arbitration has therefore been
agreed upon, and will be immediately laid before the Senate,
so that in one of the modes suggested a final settlement may
be reached."
Message of the President of the United States to Congress,
December, 1895.
The treaty thus referred to by the President was signed at
Washington, February 8, 1896, and ratifications were exchanged
at London on the 3d of June following. Its preamble set forth
that, whereas the two governments had submitted certain
questions to a tribunal of arbitration, and "whereas the High
Contracting Parties having found themselves unable to agree
upon a reference which should include the question of the
liability of each for the injuries alleged to have been
sustained by the other, or by its citizens, in connection with
the claims presented and urged by it, did, by Article VIII of
the said Treaty, agree that either party might submit to the
Arbitrators any questions of fact involved in said claims, and
ask for a finding thereon, the question of the liability of
either Government on the facts found to be the subject of
further negotiation: And whereas the Agent of Great Britain
did, in accordance with the provisions of said Article VIII,
submit to the Tribunal of Arbitration certain findings of fact
which were agreed to as proved by the Agent of the United
States, and the Arbitrators did unanimously find the facts so
set forth to be true, as appears by the Award of the Tribunal
rendered on the 15th day of August, 1893: And whereas, in view
of the said findings of fact and of the decision of the
Tribunal of Arbitration concerning the jurisdictional rights
of the United States in Behring Sea, and the right of
protection of property of the United States in the fur-seals
frequenting the islands of the United States in Behring Sea,
the Government of the United States is desirous that, in so
far as its liability is not already fixed and determined by
the findings of fact and the decision of said Tribunal of
Arbitration, the question of such liability should be
definitely and fully settled and determined, and compensation
made, for any injuries for which, in the contemplation of the
Treaty aforesaid, and the Award and findings of the Tribunal
of Arbitration, compensation may be due to Great Britain from
the United States: And whereas it is claimed by Great Britain,
though not admitted by the United States, that prior to the
said Award certain other claims against the United States
accrued in favour of Great Britain on account of seizures of
or interference with the following named British
sealing-vessels, to wit: the 'Wanderer,' the 'Winifred,' the
'Henrietta,' and the 'Oscar and Hattie,' and it is for the
mutual interest and convenience of both the High Contracting
Parties that the liability of the United States, if any, and
the amount of compensation to be paid, if any, in respect to
such claims, and each of them should also be determined under
the provisions of this Convention—all claims by Great Britain
under Article V of the modus vivendi of the 18th April, 1892,
for the abstention from fishing of British sealers during the
pendency of said arbitration having been definitely waived
before the Tribunal of Arbitration"—therefore the two nations
have concluded the Convention referred to, which provides that
"all claims on account of injuries sustained by persons in
whose behalf Great Britain is entitled to claim compensation
from the United States, and arising by virtue of the Treaty
aforesaid, the Award and the findings of the said Tribunal of
Arbitration, as also the additional claims specified in the
5th paragraph of the preamble hereto, shall be referred to two
Commissioners, one of whom shall be appointed by Her Britannic
Majesty, and the other by the President of the United States,
and each of whom shall be learned in the law."
Great Britain, Parliamentary Publications
(Papers by Command: Treaty Series, Number 10, 1896).
{52}
Judges William L. Putnam, of the United States, and George E.
King, of Canada, were subsequently appointed to be the two
commissioners provided for in the treaty. Meantime each
government had appointed a number of men of science to
investigate the condition of the herds of fur-seals on
Pribilof Islands, President David S. Jordan, of Leland
Stanford Junior University being director of the American
investigation and Professor D'Arcy W. Thompson having charge
of the British. The two bodies of investigators reached quite
different conclusions. Professor Jordan, in a preliminary
statement, announced; "There is still a vast body of fur seals
on the islands, more than the commissioners were at first led
to expect, but the number is steadily declining. The only
cause of this decline is the killing of females through
pelagic sealing. The females are never molested on the
islands, but three-fourths of those killed in Bering sea are
nursing females. The death of the mother causes the death of
the young on shore, so that for every four fur seals killed at
sea three pups starve to death on shore. As each of those
females is also pregnant, a like number of unborn pups is
likewise destroyed." His formal report, made in January, 1897,
was to the same effect, and led to the following conclusion:
"The ultimate end in view should be an international
arrangement whereby all skins of female fur seals should be
seized and destroyed by the customs authorities of civilized
nations, whether taken on land or sea, from the Pribilof herd,
the Asiatic herds, or in the lawless raiding of the Antarctic
rookeries. In the destruction of the fur seal rookeries of the
Antarctic, as well as those of the Japanese islands and of
Bering sea, American enterprise has taken a leading part. It
would be well for America to lead the way in stopping pelagic
sealing by restraining her own citizens without waiting for
the other nations. We can ask for protection with better grace
when we have accorded, unasked, protection to others." The
report of Professor Thompson, made three months later, agreed
but partially with that of the American experts. He admitted
the extensive starving of the young seals, caused by the
killing of the mothers, but contended that the herd was
diminishing slightly, if at all, and he did not favor drastic
measures for the suppression of pelagic sealing.
The government of the United States adopted measures in
accordance with the views of Professor Jordan, looking to an
international regulation of the killing of seals. Hon. John W.
Foster was appointed a special ambassador to negotiate
arrangements to that effect. Through the efforts of Mr.
Foster, an international conference on the subject was agreed
to on the part of Russia and Japan, but Great Britain declined
to take part. While these arrangements were pending, the
American Secretary of State, Mr. Sherman, addressed a letter
to the American Ambassador at London, Mr. Hay, criticising the
conduct of the British government and its agents in terms that
are not usual among diplomats, and which excited much feeling
when the letter was published in July. This called out a reply
from the British Colonial Secretary, Mr. Chamberlain, in which
he wrote: "When Her Majesty's government sent their agents to
inquire into the actual facts in 1896, it was found that, in
spite of the large catch of 1895, the herd actually numbered
more than twice as many cows as it had been officially
asserted to contain in 1895. The result of these
investigations, as pointed out in Lord Salisbury's dispatch of
May 7, has further been to show that pelagic sealing is much
less injurious than the practice pursued by the United States'
lessees of killing on land every male whose skin was worth
taking. If the seal herd to-day is, as Professor Jordan
estimates, but one-fifth of what it was in 1872-74, that
result must be, in great measure, due to the fact that, while
the islands were under the control of Russia, that power was
satisfied with an average catch of 33,000 seals; subsequently
under the United States' control more than three times that
number have been taken every year, until the catch was,
perforce, reduced because that number of males could no longer
be found.
"Last year, while the United States government were pressing
Her Majesty's government to place further restrictions on
pelagic sealing, they found it possible to kill 30,000 seals
on the islands, of which Professor Jordan says (in one place
in his report) 22,000 were, to the best of his information,
three-year-olds, though (in another place) he estimated the
total number of three-year-old males on the islands as 15,000
to 20,000. If such exhaustive slaughter is continued, it will,
in the light of the past history of the herd, very quickly bring
about that commercial extermination which has been declared in
the United States to be imminent every year for the last
twelve years. Enough has perhaps been said to justify the
refusal of Her Majesty's government to enter on a precipitate
revision of the regulations."
{53}
The two countries were thus being carried into serious
opposition, on a matter that looks contemptible when compared
with the great common interests which ought to bind them in
firm friendship together. But, while the government of Great
Britain declined to enter into conference with those of
Russia, Japan and the United States, on general questions
relating to the seals, it assented at length to a new
conference with the United States and Canada, relative to the
carrying out of the regulations prescribed by the Paris
tribunal of 1893. Both conferences were held at Washington in
October and November of 1897. The first resulted in a treaty
(November 6) between Russia, Japan, and the United States,
providing for a suspension of pelagic sealing during such time
as might be determined by experts. The other conference led,
after some interval, to the creation of a Joint High
Commission for the settlement of all questions in dispute
between the United States and Canada, the sealing question
included.
See (in this volume)
CANADA: A. D. 1898-1899.
So far as concerned its own citizens, the American government
adopted vigorous measures for the suppression of pelagic
sealing. An Act of Congress, approved by the President on the
29th December, 1897, forbade the killing of seals, by any
citizen of the United States, in any part of the Pacific Ocean
north of 35 degrees north latitude. The same act prohibited
the importation into the United States of sealskins taken
elsewhere than in the Pribilof Islands, and very strict
regulations for its enforcement were issued by the Treasury
Department. No sealskins, either in the raw or the
manufactured state, might be admitted to the country, even
among the personal effects of a traveller, unless accompanied
by an invoice, signed by an United States Consul, certifying
that they were not from seals killed at sea. Skins not thus
certified were seized and destroyed.
In his annual report for 1898, the United States Secretary of
the Treasury stated that no pelagic sealing whatever had been
carried on by citizens of the United States during the season
past; but that 30 British vessels had been engaged in the
work, against 32 in the previous year, and that their total
catch had been 10,581, against 6,100 taken by the same fleet
in 1897. The number of seals found on the Islands was reported
to be greatly reduced.
BERLIN: A. D. 1895.
Census.
See (in this volume)
GERMANY: A. D. 1895 (JUNE-DECEMBER).
BERLIN: A. D. 1896.
Industrial exposition.
An exposition of German industries and products was opened at
Berlin on the 1st of May, 1896. which excited wide interest
and had an important stimulating effect in Germany.
BERLIN: A. D. 1900.
Growth shown by the latest census.
See (in this volume)
GERMANY: A. D. 1900 (DECEMBER).
BERLIN: A. D. 1901.
The Berlin and Stettin Ship Canal.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1901 (JANUARY).
BETHLEHEM, Capture of.
See (in this volume)
SOUTH AFRICA (THE FIELD OF WAR): A. D. 1900 (JUNE-DECEMBER).
BIAC-NA-BATO, Treaty of.
See (in this volume)
PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: A. D. 1896-1898.
BIBLE LANDS, Archæological exploration in.
See (in this volume)
ARCHÆOLOGICAL RESEARCH: BABYLONIA: AMERICAN EXPLORATION.
BICOLS, The.
See (in this volume)
PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: THE NATIVE INHABITANTS.
BIDA, British subjugation of.
See (in this volume)
AFRICA: A. D. 1897 (NIGERIA).
BIG SWORD,
BIG KNIFE SOCIETY.
See (in this volume)
CHINA: A. D. 1900 (JANUARY-MARCH).
BISMARCK, Prince Otto von: Death.
See (in this volume)
GERMANY: A. D. 1898 (JULY).
BLACK FLAG REBELLION.
See (in this volume)
CHINA: A. D. 1898 (APRIL-JULY).
BLANCO, General Ramon, Captain-General of Cuba.
See (in this volume)
CUBA: A. D. 1896-1897.
BLANCOS.
See (in this volume)
URUGUAY: A. D. 1896-1899.
BLOEMFONTEIN:
Taken by the British.
See (in this volume)
SOUTH AFRICA (THE FIELD OF WAR): A. D. 1900 (MARCH—MAY).
BLOEMFONTEIN CONFERENCE, The.
See (in this volume)
SOUTH AFRICA (THE TRANSVAAL): A. D. 1899 (MAY-JUNE).
BLUEFIELDS INCIDENT, The.
See (in this volume)
CENTRAL AMERICA (NICARAGUA): A. D. 1894-1895.
BOARD SCHOOLS, English.
See (in this volume)
ENGLAND: A. D. 1896-1897.
BOERS.
See (in this volume)
SOUTH AFRICA (THE TRANSVAAL).
BOHEMIA:
Recent situation in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
See (in this volume)
AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: A. D. 1895-1896, and after.
BOHEMIA: A. D. 1897.
The language decrees.
See (in this volume)
AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: A. D. 1897; and 1898.
BOLIVIA: A. D. 1894-1900.
The dispute with Chile concerning Atacama.
See (in this volume) CHILE: A. D. 1894-1900.
BOLIVIA: A. D. 1899.
Revolution.
The government of President Alonzo (elected in 1896) was
overthrown in April, 1899, by a revolutionary movement
conducted by General José Manuel Pando, who was elected
President by the legislative chambers in the following
October.
BOMBAY: A. D. 1896-1901.
The Bubonic Plague.
See (in this volume)
PLAGUE.
BOMBAY: A. D. 1901.
Census returns.
Decrease of population.
A telegram from Bombay, March 6, 1901, reports that "the
census returns show the city of Bombay has 770,000
inhabitants, a decrease of over fifty thousand in ten years,
mainly due to the exodus of the last two months on account of
the plague. Partial returns from the rural districts show
terrible decreases in population through famine."
BORDA, President: Assassination.
See (in this volume)
URUGUAY: A. D. 1896-1899.
BORIS, Prince: Conversion.
See (in this volume)
BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES (BULGARIA).
{54}
BOSTON: A. D. 1895-1899.
The municipal experiments of Mayor Quincy.
First elected Mayor of Boston in 1895, and reelected in 1897,
the two terms of the administration of Mayor Josiah Quincy
were made remarkable by the number, the originality and the
boldness of the experiments which he introduced in extension
of the functions of municipal government. They consisted on
the one hand in the substitution, in certain branches of
public work, of direct labor for the contract system, and on
the other in the provision of new facilities for promoting
popular health, recreation, and instruction. He established a
municipal printing office, a municipal department of
electrical construction, and another municipal department
which conducts every kind of repairing work that the city
requires; all of these to supersede the old system of
contracts and jobs. He instituted a great number and variety
of public baths,—floating baths, beach baths, river baths and
swimming pools. He opened playgrounds and gymnasiums, both
outdoor and indoor. He carried the city into the work of the
fresh air missions for poor children. He reorganized the
administration of public charities. He placed the artistic
undertakings of the city under the supervision of a competent
board. He instituted cheap concerts of a high order, as well
as popular lectures. Boston at length took alarm at the extent
of the ventures of Mayor Quincy, complained of the cost, and
refused him reelection for a third term. But the Boston
correspondent of a New York journal opposed in politics to
Mayor Quincy, writing on the 15th of December, 1900, testifies
that "most of the experiments are working well, and a study of
them cannot fail to be beneficial to those who have the
government of other cities in their hands. … The madness of
Mayor Quincy had evidently a method. It seems to have made
permanent a good many excellent institutions. Some good
citizens say that things were done too quickly, that they cost
too much money, that the Mayor was always robbing Peter to pay
Paul, as it were. But, after all, it seems cause for
thankfulness that they were done at all."
BOSTON: A. D. 1899.
Completion of the Subway.
In this year the city of Boston completed a very important
public improvement, undertaken in 1895, and carried out under
the direction of a commission appointed that year. This was
the construction of a Subway under Boylston and Tremont
streets, and under various streets in the northern district,
for the transit of electric cars through the crowded central
parts of the city. The section of Subway from Park Square to
Park Street was finished in the fall of 1897; the remainder in
1899. The entire length of underground road is one and
two-thirds miles. The cost of work done was $4,686,000: cost
of real estate taken, $1,100,000. The legislative Act
authorizing the work provided further for the construction of
a tunnel to East Boston, and for the purchase of rights of way
for an elevated road to Franklin Park, with new bridges to
Charlestown and West Boston.
BOWER, Sir Graham:
Testimony before British Parliamentary Committee on
the Jameson Raid.
See (in this volume))
SOUTH AFRICA (THE TRANSVAAL): A. D. 1897 (FEBRUARY-JULY).
BOXERS, The Chinese:
The secret society and the meaning of its name.
See (in this volume)
CHINA: A. D. 1900 (JANUARY-MARCH), and after.
BRADFORD'S HISTORY:
Return of the manuscript to Massachusetts.
See (in this volume)
MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1897.
BRAZIL: A. D. 1897.
Conflict with the "Fanatics."
A religious enthusiast, called Conselheiro (Counsellor), who
had made his appearance in the State of Bahia and gathered a
great number of followers, began in 1897 to become dangerous
to the government, which he denounced as atheistic; his
following grew disorderly, and political malcontents were
taking advantage of the disturbance which he caused. Attempts
on the part of the government to stop the disorder were
fiercely resisted, and its conflict with "the Fanatics," as
Conselheiro and his followers were known, soon became a very
serious war, demanding many thousands of troops, and spreading
over wide regions of the country. Amazonian bands of women
fought with "the Fanatics," and were among the most dreaded
forces on their side. The headquarters and stronghold of the
movement were finally taken in July, after an obstinate
defense, and in October Conselheiro was killed; after which
the rebellion came to an end.
BRAZIL: A. D. 1898.
Election of Dr. Campos Salles to the Presidency.
The nomination and election of Dr. M. F. de Campos Salles, who
was inaugurated President of the United States of Brazil on
the 15th of November, 1898, "marks the decided distinction of
parties in Brazil. Previously, there had been various
divergencies among the Republicans, but no distinct party
differences. But at that time there arose a party advocating
the selection of a candidate who would favor the national
against the foreign (naturalized) element; one who would have
influence with the few remaining advocates of the monarchical
government; who would give preference to a military over a
civil government; finally, one who would introduce into the
government the system called 'Jacobinism,' a designation which
the new party did not refuse to accept. Dr. Campos Salles was
the candidate of the moderate Republicans or Conservatives,
who were organized under the name of the Republican party,
with a platform demanding respect for the constitution and

declaring for the institution of such reforms as only reason
and time should dictate. The sympathies of the conservative
element and of foreigners who had interests in the country
were with the candidate of this party and gave him their
support. The election of Dr. Campos Salles inspired renewed
confidence in the stability of Brazil, a confidence which was
at once manifested by the higher quotation of the national
bonds, by an advance in the rate of exchange, and by greater
activity in business throughout the country. Brazil, in spite
of all hindrances, has prospered since 1889."
Bulletin of the Bureau of American Republics,
December, 1898.
{55}
BRAZIL: A. D. 1900.
Arbitration of the French Guiana boundary dispute.
Award of the Swiss Government.
A dispute with France concerning the boundary of the French
possessions in Guiana, which Brazil inherited from Portugal,
and which dates back to the 17th century, was submitted at
last to the Swiss Federal Council, as a tribunal of
arbitration, and settled by the award of the Council on
December 1, 1900. The decision fixes the River Oyapok and the
watershed of the Tumuc Humac Mountains as the boundary. It is
practically in favor of Brazil, for France had claimed, a year
before, a territory of not less than 400,000 square
kilomètres, ten times the area of Switzerland itself. Even
after a large abatement had been made, the claim was still for
260,000 square kilometres, or 100,000 square miles, much more
than the area of Great Britain. The actual territory allotted
to France by the Federal Government of Switzerland is about
3,000 square miles. The arbitrators had no excuse for saying
that the case was not brought before them in all its length
and breadth. The documents presented by France formed four
large volumes, supplemented by an atlas of 35 maps, while
Brazil, not to be outdone, put in 13 volumes of documents and
three atlases, with about 200 maps.
BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA PROTECTORATE:
Administrative separation from British
South Africa Company's territory.
Conflicts with natives.
Resources and prospects of the country.
Until 1894, the territory north of the Zambezi over which the
British South Africa Company claimed a "sphere of influence,"
and the region covered by the British Protectorate that was
declared in 1889-1890 over Nyassaland and the Shiré Highlands,
were administered together by Sir Harry Johnston. But in that
year the South Africa Company undertook the administration of
its own portion of British Central Africa, and Commissioner
Johnston became the Administrator of the remaining "British
Central Africa Protectorate." In his report for 1895-1896
(April to April) the Commissioner estimated the native
population of the Protectorate at 844,420; British subjects,
259; other Europeans, 30; Indians, 263; half-castes, 23. Of
hostilities with the natives, Commissioner Johnston gave the
following report:
"In the autumn of 1895, … a campaign lasting four months was
commenced and carried to a successful conclusion against all
the independent Yao Chiefs who dwelt on the south-eastern
border of the Protectorate, and who continued to raid our
territories for slaves. This campaign culminated in the
complete defeat and death or expulsion of those Arabs who had
created an independent power in the North Nyasa district.
Action was also taken against the Angoni Chief, Mwasi Kazungu,
in the interior of the Marimba district, who had made common
cause with the Arabs, and was attempting to form against us a
league of the Angoni-Zulus. … The only people likely now to
give trouble in any way are the Angoni-Zulus, who are to the
west of the Protectorate what the Yaos and Arabs have been to
the north. For the past 40 years the western portions of the
Protectorate have been the happy hunting-ground of the
descendants of the Zulu bands who quitted Matabeleland at
various periods during the last 70 years, and who penetrated
into Central Africa as far as the eastern part of Tanganyika
and the south shores of the Victoria Nyanza. They established
themselves strongly as a ruling caste on the high plateaux to
the west and to the north-east of Lake Nyasa. From these
plateaux they raided perseveringly for slaves, chiefly in the
regions of the Great Luangwa valley, but also to some extent
the coast lands of Lake Nyasa.
"Not a few of the Angoni Chiefs are friendly and well disposed
towards the British, and seem likely to settle down quietly as
they appreciate the futility of continued defiance of our
power; but we may have yet a little trouble from the Western
Angoni, and also from an ill-conditioned young Chief
ordinarily known by his father's name, Chikusi, but whose
private appellation is Gomanikwenda. Chikusi lives on the
wedge of Portuguese territory which penetrates the
southwestern part of the Protectorate. Secure in the knowledge
that our forces cannot infringe the Portuguese border, he
occasionally makes raids for slaves into the Upper Shire and
Central Angoniland districts."
Sir Harry Johnston,
Report
(Great Britain, Parliamentary Publications:
Papers by Command, Africa, Number 5, 1896),
pages 12-13.
In the autumn of 1896, Chikusi raided one of the mission
stations at Ntonda, killing many native Christians. An
expedition was then sent against him, which pursued him to his
chief kraal, and took him prisoner. He was tried for murder,
condemned and shot.
"Nyasaland, or British Central Africa as it is officially
called, is now [1898] in a fair way of becoming one of the
richest coffee and tobacco growing districts of the world. It
enjoys the immense advantage of direct water communication
with the coast and, with the exception of a stretch of one
hundred miles, the River Shiré, which runs out of Lake Nyasa,
is navigable along its whole course. Before long the Upper and
Lower Shiré will be connected by a railway line, and goods
will then be landed at the northern extremity of Lake Nyasa—a
distance of 700 miles from the mouth of the Zambezi—at a
trifling cost. At present the journey can already be
accomplished in a week. Ten steamers navigate Lake Nyasa, and
double that number run on the Zambezi and the Shiré Rivers.
This mighty task—accomplished, we must not forget it, without
the cost of a single penny to the British tax-payer—did not
benefit Great Britain alone. The Portuguese, who, for the last
three centuries were slumbering in their East African
possessions, were aroused by the extraordinary activity which
was displayed at their door. At first they raised objections,
but they soon understood what advantages they would derive
from the situation, and gave their hearty co-operation to
Great Britain. It brought more wealth than they had ever
dreamt of to their Zambezi provinces, now a busy centre of
trade, in telegraphic communication with the Cape in the South
and Lake Nyasa in the North. The Portuguese port of Beira, a
sandbank some years ago, has become the most important harbour
between Zanzibar and Delagoa Bay, and owes its present
position to the railway line which runs to Mashonaland."
L. Decle,
The Fashoda Question
(Fortnightly Review, November, 1898).
BRITISH COLUMBIA.
See (in this volume)
CANADA.
BRITISH EAST AFRICA PROTECTORATE, The: A. D. 1895.
Territory transferred to the British Government.
See (in this volume)
AFRICA: A. D. 1895 (BRITISH EAST AFRICA).
{56}
BRITISH EAST AFRICA PROTECTORATE, The: A. D. 1895-1897.
Its creation and extent.
Existence of slavery.
War in the Province of Seyyidieh.
Report of the commissioner.
"The British East Africa Protectorate is bounded on the east
by the Indian Ocean, on the west by the Uganda Protectorate,
and on the south-west by the Anglo-German frontier, which,
starting from the mouth of the River Umba, runs in a generally
north-west direction till it strikes the eastern shore of Lake
Victoria Nyanza at the point at which it is intersected by the
1st parallel of south latitude. To the north and north-east it
is bounded by the Italian sphere of influence from which it is
divided by the River Juba up to parallel 6° of north latitude,
and thence by a line running along that parallel until it
reaches the Blue Nile. The frontier between the East Africa
and Uganda Protectorates is only partially defined: starting
from the German frontier, it follows the Guaso Masai River as
far as Sosian, thence strikes north-cast to the Kedong River,
which it follows to its source, and thence runs in a northerly
direction along the Likipia escarpment or eastern lip of the
great 'meridional rift.' It is, however, still undecided
whether or not it should be deflected, for greater convenience
in dealing with the Uganda Masai, so as to leave to Uganda the
region between the southern portion of the Likipia escarpment
and the so-called Aberdare range. In view of the uncertainty
existing as to the inland boundaries, it is impossible to give
the exact area of the territory, though it may be estimated
roughly at 280,000 square miles. It will be sufficient here to
state that its coast-line, including in the term the Islands
of Lamu, Manda, and Patta, which are separated from the
mainland by narrow channels, is 405 miles long, whilst its
greatest breadth, measured from the centre of the district of
Gosha on the Juba, to the Likipia escarpment, is 460 miles.
"The Protectorate in its present form was constituted on the
1st July, 1895. Previous to that date a Protectorate had been
declared on the 4th November, 1890, over those portions of the
territory which formed part of the Zanzibar Sultanate, and on
the 19th November of the same year over Witu and the whole of
the coast between the Tana and Juba Rivers. The administration
of this second Protectorate was confided in 1893, with the
exception of those portions of the coast between the Tana and
Juba which belonged to the Zanzibar Sultanate and were rented
by the Imperial British East Africa Company from him, to the
Sultan of Zanzibar, but without being fused in or united to
the Sultanate. In September, 1894, a Protectorate was
established under an independent Commissioner over Uganda, and
was subsequently defined as extending over the whole of the
intervening territory from which the Imperial British East
Africa Company had withdrawn its effective control, that is,
as far as the western limits of its district of Kikuyu, which
still constitutes the frontier between the East Africa and
Uganda Protectorates. The remainder of the British sphere
between the Zanzibar and Uganda boundaries and the Tana River
and German frontier was placed under Her Majesty's protection
on the 1st July, 1895, and the whole of the above-described
territories to the east of the Uganda Protectorate were at the
same time fused into one administrative whole under the title
of the' East Africa Protectorate.'
"British East Africa includes three district sovereignties, i.
e.: 1. The mainland territories of the Sultan of Zanzibar. 2.
The Sultanate of Witu. 3. The remainder of the Protectorate
consisting of the old 'chartered territory' of the Imperial
British East Africa Company and of the region between the Tana
and the Juba not included either in Zanzibar or Witu. This
division, which I propose for the sake of convenience to style
British East Africa proper, is not, of course, technically
under Her Majesty's sovereignty, and is divided among a number
of tribes and races under our Protectorate, but it differs from
Zanzibar and Witu in that the status of the Chiefs exercising
authority there is not recognized by international law or at
least by any international engagement.
"The mainland dominions of the Sultan of Zanzibar included in
the Protectorate (for he possesses certain coast ports to the
north of it now leased to Italy) consist—(1.) Of a strip of
coast 10 miles deep from high-water mark, extending from the
mouth of the River Umba on the south to Kipini on the Ozi on
the north; and (2.) Of a series of islands off the coast
between the Ozi and the Juba and of the mainland town of
Kismayu with a radius of 10 miles around it. … The State of
Witu extends along the coast from Kipini to Kwyhoo, its
northern boundary being a straight line drawn in 1887 by
Commissioners representing the German and Zanzibar Governments
due west from Kwyhoo to a point a few miles east of the Ozi
River. It was founded, or rather gradually grew up, in the
years from 1860 to 1885, round a colony of outlaws. … When the
German Government first interested itself, about a decade ago,
in East African affairs, it recognized the little colony of
outlaws and refugees from the coast towns which had grown up
in Witu, as an independent State. … Accordingly, on
transferring this Protectorate by the Treaty of 1890 to Great
Britain, it stipulated by Article II of that Agreement, that
the sovereignty of the Sultan of Witu over the territory
formally defined as his in 1887 should be recognized by the
new Protecting Power. …
"Beyond the Zanzibar and Witu limits, the territories
comprised in the Protectorate are ruled directly under Her
Majesty by the British officers in charge of them. All the
various tribes, Mahommedan and heathen, retain, however, their
respective native Rulers and institutions. … For a period of ten
months from the transfer from the Imperial British East Africa
Company to Her Majesty's Government, the country now forming
the Province of Seyyidieh, was the theatre of disturbances,
which for a time retarded the development of the territory,
and diverted the attention of the Administration from useful
schemes of improvement that might otherwise have been
immediately set on foot. These disturbances began under the
Administration of the Imperial British East Africa Company,
their immediate cause being a dispute over the succession to
the Chieftainship of Takaungu between Rashid-bin-Salim, the
son, and Mubarak-bin-Rashid, the nephew of the former Chief. …
The Company supported Rashid, who, though younger in years
than Mubarak, was friendly to the English. … Though the
rebellion of the Mazrui Chiefs retarded to some extent the
development of the province, and entailed in its suppression
considerable expense, its occurrence, under the special
circumstances which attended it, has not been an unmixed evil.
We have broken once for all the power of several influential
Arab potentates, who were never thoroughly subjugated either
by the Sultans or the Company, and whose ambitions and
semi-independent position would sooner or later have involved
us in trouble with them had we attempted to make the authority
of our Administration effective, and to interfere with the
slavery, and even Slave Trade, which flourished under their
protection."
Sir A. Hardinge,
Report
(Great Britain, Parliamentary Publications:
Papers by Command, Africa, Number 7, 1897),
page 1-3, and 65.
{57}
BRITISH EAST AFRICA PROTECTORATE, The: A. D. 1900-1901.
Rising of Ogaden Somalis.
In the later part of November, 1900, news reached Zanzibar of
a rising of the Somali tribe called Ogadens in the Jubaland
province of the British East Africa Protectorate, and that the
British Sub-Commissioner, Mr. Jenner, had probably been killed.
The Somalis are a very war-like race, supposed to be Gallas by
descent, with an admixture of Arab blood. In the following
February it was announced that Aff-Madu, the headquarters of
the Ogaden Somalis, had been occupied without opposition by
the British punitive expedition sent to exact reparation for
the murder of Mr. Jenner, and that the Ogaden Sultan was a
prisoner.
BRITISH EMPIRE, Penny postage in.
See (in this volume)
ENGLAND: A. D. 1898 (DECEMBER).
BRITISH SOUTH AFRICA COMPANY: A. D. 1889.
The founding of the Company.
See (in volume 4)
SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1885-1893.
BRITISH EAST AFRICA PROTECTORATE, The: A. D. 1894-1895.
Extended charter and enlarged powers.
Its master spirit, Mr. Rhodes.
See (in this volume)
SOUTH AFRICA (BRITISH SOUTH AFRICA COMPANY):
A. D. 1894-1895.
BRITISH EAST AFRICA PROTECTORATE, The: A. D. 1895.
Arrangements in Bechuanaland.
See (in this volume)
AFRICA: A. D. 1895 (BECHUANALAND).
BRITISH EAST AFRICA PROTECTORATE, The: A. D. 1896.
Revocation of the Company's charter called for
by President Kruger.
See (in this volume)
SOUTH AFRICA (THE TRANSVAAL):
A. D. 1896 (JANUARY-APRIL).
BRITISH EAST AFRICA PROTECTORATE, The: A. D. 1896.
Resignation of Mr. Rhodes.
See (in this volume)
SOUTH AFRICA (BRITISH SOUTH AFRICA COMPANY):
A. D. 1896 (JUNE).
BRITISH EAST AFRICA PROTECTORATE, The: A. D. 1896.
Parliamentary investigation of its administration.
See (in this volume)
SOUTH AFRICA (BRITISH SOUTH AFRICA COMPANY):
A. D. 1896 (JULY).
BRITISH EAST AFRICA PROTECTORATE, The: A. D. 1896.
Complicity of officials in the Jameson Raid.
See (in this volume)
SOUTH AFRICA (CAPE COLONY): A. D. 1896 (JULY).
BRITISH EAST AFRICA PROTECTORATE, The: A. D. 1896-1897.
Demands from President Kruger for proceedings
against the Directors.
See (in this volume)
SOUTH AFRICA (THE TRANSVAAL): A. D. 1896-1897 (MAY-APRIL).
BRITISH EAST AFRICA PROTECTORATE, The: A. D. 1897.
Convicted of subjecting natives to forced labor.
See (in this volume)
SOUTH AFRICA (BRITISH SOUTH AFRICA COMPANY):
A. D. 1897 (JANUARY).
BRITISH EAST AFRICA PROTECTORATE, The: A. D. 1898.
Reorganization.
See (in this volume)
SOUTH AFRICA
(RHODESIA AND THE BRITISH SOUTH AFRICA COMPANY):
A. D. 1898 (FEBRUARY).
BRITISH EAST AFRICA PROTECTORATE, The: A. D. 1900.
Administration extended over Barotsiland.
See (in this volume)
SOUTH AFRICA (RHODESIA): A. D. 1900 (SEPTEMBER).
BRONX, The Borough of the.
See (in this volume)
NEW YORK CITY: A. D. 1896-1897.
BROOKE, General John R.: Military Governor of Cuba.
Report.
See (in this volume)
CUBA: A. D. 1898-1899 (DECEMBER-OCTOBER).
Commanding in Porto Rico.
See (in this volume)
PORTO RICO: A. D. 1898-1899 (OCTOBER-OCTOBER).
BROOKLYN:
Absorption in Greater New York.
See (in this volume) NEW YORK CITY: A. D. 1896-1897.
Tunnel from New York.
See (in this volume)
NEW YORK CITY: A. D. 1900 (JANUARY-SEPTEMBER).
BRUGES: A. D. 1900.
The new canal from the city to the sea.
"On the 25th day of February, the inauguration of the new
canal was celebrated at Bruges. … The canal runs from
Zeebrugge, a port on the North Sea 14.29 miles north of
Ostend, to the city of Bruges, a total distance of 7.46 miles.
The work is now so far completed that vessels of a draft of 25
feet can enter and pass to the port of Bruges. The locks are
fully completed, as well as three-fifths of the wharf wall at
Bruges; when finished, the wharf wall will have a total length
of 1,575 feet. The canal has a width of 72 feet 6 inches at
the bottom and 229 feet 4 inches at the water level and will
have, when completed, a depth of 26 feet 3 inches; this will
also be the depth of the interior port and of the great basin
of Bruges. Bruges is an old, inland deep-water port, having
connection with the sea by canal from Ostend, but this only
for vessels of very light draft."
United States Consular Reports,
July, 1900, page 346.
BRUSSELS: A. D. 1898.
Sugar Conference.
See (in this volume)
SUGAR BOUNTIES.
BRUSSELS:
The General Act of.
See (in this volume)
AFRICA: A. D. 1899 (JUNE).
BRYAN, William J.:
Candidacy for the American Presidency.
His speech of acceptance, 1900.
See (in this volume)
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1896 (JUNE-NOVEMBER);
and 1900 (MAY-NOVEMBER).
BUBONIC PLAGUE, The.
See (in this volume)
PLAGUE.
BUDA-PESTH: A. D. 1896.
Celebration of the Hungarian Millennium.
See (in this volume)
AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: A. D. 1896.
BUDDHA, Gautama:
Discovery of his birthplace and his tomb, with personal relics.
"Mr. Vincent Smith, of the Bengal Civil Service, a learned
antiquary, has published in the Allahabad 'Pioneer' a
statement as to the nature and significance of recent
discoveries of Buddhist antiquities in India. The first of
these is the home of Gautama Buddha, who lived about 500 B.
C., and who is known to have been the son of the Raja of
Kapilavastu, a small state in the Nepal Terai, bordering on
the modern Oudh. The site of Kapilavastu has long been eagerly
sought for, and it is only within the past three years that
the accidental discovery of an inscribed pillar erected by the
Emperor Asoka, in the third century B. C., fixed with
certainty the site of the city. The ruins, which were lately
visited by Mr. Smith, are, so far as is yet known, all of
brick; they are for the most part buried in jungle, and are so
extensive that many years would be required for their
exploration. The city was destroyed during the lifetime of
Gautama, and when the first of the famous Chinese pilgrims
visited the place, in 410 A. D., it was a mass of desolate
ruins, and there is no indication that it has since been
occupied. This fact gives exceptional interest to the
excavations now in progress, for they are bringing to light
buildings more ancient than any previously known in India.
{58}
More interesting even than Kapilavastu is the discovery of the
Lumbini Garden, the traditional birthplace of Gautama. The
sacred spot has been found marked by another of Asoka's
pillars, on which the inscription is perfect. This is also in
Nepalese territory, five miles from the British frontier. The
pillar stands on the western edge of a mound of ruins, about a
hundred yards in diameter, and on the south side of the mound
is the tank in which the child's mother bathed after his
birth. Another discovery which was made in a stupa, or brick
tumulus, close to the British frontier, is that of relics of
Buddha himself. These consist only of fragments of bone, which
were deposited in a wooden vessel that stood on the bottom of
a massive coffer, more than four feet long and two feet deep,
cut out of a solid block of fine sandstone. This coffer was
buried under eighteen feet of masonry, composed of huge
bricks, each sixteen inches long. The wooden vessel was
decayed, and with it was an exquisitely finished bowl of rock
crystal, the largest yet discovered in India, and also five
small vases of soapstone. All these vessels were partially
filled, in honor of the relics, with a marvellous collection
of gold stars, pearls, topazes, beryls, and other jewels, and
of various objects delicately wrought in crystal, agate, and
other substances. An inscription on the lid of one of the
soapstone vases declares the relics to be those of Buddha
himself, and the characters in which the inscription is
written are substantially the same as those of the Asoka
inscriptions, and indicate that the tumulus was constructed
between 300 and 250 B. C."
London Times,
May, 1898.
The relies discovered, as described above, were presented by
the Indian government to the King of Siam, he being the only
existing Buddhist monarch, with the proviso that he offer a
portion of them to Buddhists of Ceylon and Burmah.
BUENOS AYRES: A. D. 1895.
Population.
See (in this volume)
ARGENTINE REPUBLIC: A. D. 1895.
BUFFALO: A. D. 1896.
First reception of electric power from Niagara Falls.
See (in this volume)
SCIENCE, RECENT: ELECTRICAL.
BUFFALO: A. D. 1901.
The Pan-American Exposition.
As this volume goes to press, the preparations are about
completed for holding a great Exposition at Buffalo, which
promises to be second in importance only to the Columbian
Exposition at Chicago, in 1893, so far as concerns
undertakings of like character in America. The Columbian
Exposition was a "World's Fair"; this at Buffalo is
"Pan-American,"—an exhibition, that is, of the arts, the
industries, and all the achievements in civilization of the
peoples of the Western hemisphere, from Bering Strait to Cape
Horn. Very nearly every country in North, South and Central
America has taken a warmly interested part in the preparations
for the Exposition, and many have erected special buildings
for their exhibits. The States of the Union have likewise been
active, and few of them will be unrepresented in the numerous
buildings on the grounds. Cuba, Porto Rico, and the West
Indies generally, as well as Hawaii and the Philippine
Islands, in their new character as dependencies of the United
States, are brought importantly into the scheme.
The enterprise received official endorsement from the Federal
Government when Congress in July, 1898, by resolution declared
that "A Pan-American Exposition will undoubtedly be of vast
benefit to the commercial interests of the countries of North,
South and Central America, and it merits the approval of
Congress, and of the people of the United States." In March,
1899, Congress appropriated $500,000, and declared that "it is
desirable to encourage the holding of a Pan-American Exposition
on the Niagara Frontier in the City of Buffalo, in the year
1901, fittingly to illustrate the marvelous development of the
Western Hemisphere during the Nineteenth Century, by a display
of the arts, industries, manufactures and the products of the
soil, mine and sea," and also declared that "the proposed
Pan-American Exposition being confined to the Western
Hemisphere, and being held in the near vicinity of the great
Niagara Cataract, within a day's journey of which reside forty
million people, would unquestionably be of vast benefit to the
commercial interests, not only of this country, but of the
entire hemisphere, and should therefore have the sanction of
the Congress of the United States."
The grounds of the Exposition are in the northern part of the
city of Buffalo, taking in a portion of its most beautiful
public park. They extend about one mile in length, from north
to south, and about half a mile in width, containing 350
acres. A general plan of landscape and building architecture,
with which every detail of form and color should be made to
harmonize, was worked out at the beginning by a board of the
leading architects of the United States, and has been adhered
to with beautifully harmonious effects.
In one of the circular announcements of the Exposition it is
said: "In planning the Exposition the management early decided
upon giving to electricity special homage. The progress of the
electrical science has been so marked in recent years as to
excite the wonderment of the scientific world. Buffalo is,
perhaps, more than any other city on the globe, interested in
this science, owing to the nearness of Niagara Falls, where
the greatest electric power plants known to this class of
engineering have been installed. In fact the electrical
displays here contemplated would be impossible except where a
large volume of power is available, such as Buffalo receives
from the great Falls of Niagara. … The Pan-American Exposition
will far surpass former enterprises of this kind in six
important features:
First, the electrical effects:
second, the hydraulic and fountain effects;
third, the horticultural, floral and garden effects;
fourth, the original sculptural ornamentation;
fifth, the color decorations;
sixth, the court settings.
Particular attention has been given by the designers in the
arrangement of its court settings, to provide unusually large
vistas, both for the purpose of providing a memorable picture
and for the utility reason of accommodating large crowds of
people."
The Pan-American Exposition is under the management of a
strong company of professional and business men in Buffalo,
with Mr. John G. Milburn for its President. The
Director-General is Honorable William I. Buchanan, former
United States Minister to the Argentine Republic.
{59}
BULGARIA: A. D. 1895-1900.
Condition.
See (in this volume)
BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES;
and TURKEY: A. D. 1899-1901.
BULGARIA: A. D. 1899(May-July).
Representation in the Peace Conference at The Hague.
See (in this volume)
PEACE CONFERENCE.
BULLER, General Sir Redvers:
In the South African War.
See (in this volume)
SOUTH AFRICA (THE FIELD OF WAR):
A. D. 1899 (OCTOBER-DECEMBER), and after.
BULLETS, Declaration against certain.
See (in this volume)
PEACE CONFERENCE.
BULLETS, Dum-dum.
See (in this volume)
DUM-DUM BULLET.
BUREAU OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLICS.
See (in this volume)
AMERICAN REPUBLICS, BUREAU OF THE.
BURMAH: A. D. 1897.
Raised in status as a British dependency.
Burmah was raised in status as a British dependency, under the
government of India, by royal proclamation in 1897. The chief
commissioner became lieutenant-governor, and a local
legislative council was to be created.
C.
CAGAYAN,
KAGAYAN: The American acquisition.
See (in this volume)
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1898 (JULY-DECEMBER).
CAGAYANS, The.
See (in this volume)
PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: THE NATIVE INHABITANTS.
CALCIUM CARBIDE, The production of.
See (in this volume)
SCIENCE, RECENT: CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS.
CALNEH, The ancient city of:
Its identity with Nippur.
Exploration of its ruins.
See (in this volume)
ARCHÆOLOGICAL, RESEARCH:
BABYLONIA: AMERICAN EXPLORATION.
CAMBON, M. Jules:
Action for Spain in making overtures for peace
with the United States.
See (in this volume)
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1898 (JULY-DECEMBER).
CAMEROONS,
KAMERUNS, The:
Cost of maintenance.
See (in this volume)
GERMANY: A. D. 1899 (JUNE).
----------CANADA: Start--------
CANADA: A. D. 1890-1896.
The Manitoba School Question.
"When Manitoba in 1870 passed from the position of a Crown
territory, managed by the Hudson's Bay Company, into that of a
province of Canada, its area, which is considerably greater than
that of England and Wales, was peopled by about 12,000
persons, whites and half-breeds. In religion this population
was about equally divided into Catholics and Protestants.
Previous to the Union there was no State system of education.
A number of elementary schools existed, but they owed their
foundation entirely to voluntary effort, and were supported
exclusively by private contributions, either in the form of
fees paid by some of the parents or of funds supplied by the
Churches. In every case these schools were conducted and
managed on strictly denominational lines. When the Act of
Union was passed it was sought to secure the continuance of
this state of things, and to safeguard the rights of whichever
Church should in the hereafter be in the minority by the
following sub-sections in the 22nd section, which gave to the
legislature of the province the power to make laws in relation
to education: '(1) Nothing in any such law shall prejudicially
affect any right or privilege with respect to denominational
schools which any class of persons have by law or practice in
the province at the Union. (2) An appeal shall lie to the
Governor-General in Council from any act or decision of the
legislature of the province, or of any provincial authority,
affecting any right or privilege of the Protestant or Roman
Catholic minority of the Queen's subjects in relation to
education.' Those two clauses of the Manitoba Act, 1870,
govern the whole situation.
"The attention of the new provincial legislature was at once
directed to the condition of the elementary schools. The
Government decided to supersede the old voluntary system by
one of State-aided schools, which, however, were still to be
scrupulously denominational in character. The legislature
simply took the educational system as it found it and improved
it by assistance from public funds. Thus it was arranged that
the annual public grant for common school education was to be
appropriated equally between the Protestant and the Catholic
schools. … The only important amendment to this Act was passed
in 1875, and provided that the legislative grant, instead of
being divided between the Protestant and Catholic schools as
heretofore, should in future be distributed in proportion to
the number of children of school age in the Catholic and
Protestant districts. Already immigration had begun to upset
the balance of numbers and power, and as the years went on it
became evident that the Catholics were destined to be in a
permanent minority in Manitoba. This trend of immigration,
which in 1875 made legislation necessary, has continued ever
since; and to-day the Catholics of the province number only
20,000 out of a total population of 204,000. No further change
was made in the educational system of Manitoba until the
memorable year of 1890. In that year the provincial
legislature boldly broke all moorings with the past, and,
abolishing the separate denominational schools, introduced a
system of free compulsory and unsectarian schools, for the
support of which the whole community was to be taxed. … To
test the legality of the change, what is known as Barrett's
case was begun in Winnipeg. It was carried to the Supreme
Court of Canada, and the Canadian judges by a unanimous
decision declared that the Act of 1890 was ultra vires and
void.
{60}
The city of Winnipeg appealed to the Privy Council, and that
tribunal in July 1892 reversed the decision of the Canadian
Court and affirmed that the Act was valid and binding. … The
second subsection of the 22nd section of the Manitoba Act
already quoted says: 'An appeal shall lie to the
Governor-General in Council from any Act or decision of the
legislature of the province, or of any provincial authority,
affecting any right or privilege of the Protestant or Roman
Catholic minority of the Queen's subjects in relation to
education.' But if the legislation of 1890 was intra vires,
and expressly declared to be so on the ground that it had not
prejudicially affected the position which the minority held at
the time of the Union, how could there be an appeal from it? …
The Governor-General, however, consented to refer the question
as to his jurisdiction to the courts of justice. What is known
as Brophy's case was begun, and in due course was carried to
the Supreme Court of Canada. The decision of that tribunal,
though not unanimous, was in accord with public expectation.
The majority of the judges felt that the previous judgment of
the Privy Council had settled the matter beforehand. The Act
of 1890 had been declared intra vires on the ground that it
had not interfered with the rights which the minority
possessed before the Union, and therefore there could be no
appeal from it. …
"Still the undaunted Archbishop of St. Boniface went on, and
for a last time appealed to that Judicial Committee of the
Privy Council which two years and a half before had so spoiled
and disappointed the Catholic hopes. In January 1894 the final
decision in Brophy's case was read by the Lord Chancellor. For
a second time the Lords of the Council upset the ruling of the
Supreme Court of Canada, and treated their reasoning as
irrelevant. It will be remembered that both the appellant
prelates and the Canadian judges had assumed that the clause
in the Manitoba Act, which conferred the right of appeal to
the Governor-General, was limited to one contingency, and
could be invoked only if the minority were robbed at any time
of the poor and elementary rights which they had enjoyed
before the Act of Union. But was the clause necessarily so
limited? Could it not be used to justify an appeal from
legislation which affected rights acquired after the Union? …
In the words of the judgment: 'The question arose: Did the
sub-section extend to the rights and privileges acquired by
legislation subsequent to the Union? It extended in terms to
"any" right or privilege of the minority affected by any Act
passed by the legislature, and would therefore seem to embrace
all the rights and privileges existing at the time when such
Act was passed. Their lordships saw no justification for
putting a limitation on language thus unlimited. There was
nothing in the surrounding circumstances or in the apparent
intention of the legislature to warrant any such limitation.'
… In other words, the dispute was referred to a new tribunal,
and one which was free to consider and give effect to the true
equities of the case. The Governor-General and his responsible
advisers, after considering all the facts, found in favour of
the Catholic minority, and at once issued a remedial Order to
the Government of Manitoba, which went far beyond anything
suggested in the judgment in Brophy's case. The province was
called upon to repeal the legislation of 1890, so far as it
interfered with the right of the Catholic minority to build
and maintain their own schools, to share proportionately in
any public grant for the purposes of education, and with the
right of such Catholics as contributed to Catholic schools to
be held exempt from all payments towards the support of any
other schools. In a word, the Governor-General and Sir
Mackenzie Bowell's Administration, exercising, as it were,
appellate jurisdiction, decided that the minority were
entitled to all they claimed. The Government of Manitoba,
however, had hardened their hearts against the minority in the
province, and refused to obey the remedial Order. …
"The refusal of the provincial Government 'to accept the
responsibility of carrying into effect the terms of the
remedial Order' for the first time brought the Parliament of
Canada into the field, and empowered them to pass coercive
legislation. A remedial Bill was accordingly, after an
inexplicable delay, brought into the Federal Parliament to
enforce the remedial Order. … The Cabinet recognised that the
Federal Parliament had no power to spend the money of the
province, and so all they could do was to exempt the minority
from the obligation to contribute to the support of schools
other than their own. The Bill bristled with legal and
constitutional difficulties; it concerned the coercion of a
province; it contained no less than 116 clauses; it was
introduced on the 2nd of March 1896, when all Canada knew that
the life of the Federal Parliament must necessarily expire on
the 24th of April. Some fifteen clauses had been considered
when the Government admitted, what all men saw, the
impossibility of the task, and abandoned the Bill. … While the
fate of the remedial Bill was still undecided, Sir Donald
Smith and two others were commissioned by the Federal
Government to go to Winnipeg and see if by direct negotiations
some sort of tolerable terms could be arranged. … Sir Donald
Smith proposed that the principle of the separate school
should be admitted wherever there were a reasonable number of
Catholic children—thus, wherever in towns and villages there
are twenty-five Catholic children of school age, and in
cities where there are fifty such children, they should have
'a school-house or school-room for their own use,' with a
Catholic teacher. … In the event the negotiations failed; the
baffled Commissioners returned to Ottawa, and on the 24th of
April 1896 Parliament was dissolved. The Government went to
the country upon the policy of the abandoned Bill. On the
other hand, many of the followers of Mr. Laurier in the
province of Quebec pledged themselves to see justice done to
the Catholics of Manitoba, and let it be understood that they
objected to the remedial Bill only because it was not likely
to prove effective in the face of the combined hostility of
the legislature and the municipalities of the province. …
Catholic Quebec gave Mr. Laurier his majority at Ottawa. …
{61}
"When the Liberal party for the first time for eighteen years
found itself in power at Ottawa, Mr. Laurier at once opened
negotiations with Manitoba. The result was a settlement which,
although it might work well in particular districts, could not be
accepted as satisfactory by the Catholic authorities. It arranged
that where in towns and cities the average attendance of
Catholic children was forty or upwards, and in villages and
rural districts the average attendance of such children was
twenty-five or upwards, one Catholic teacher should be
employed. There were various other provisions, but that was
the central concession. … Leo the Thirteenth, recognising the
difficulties which beset Mr. Laurier's path, mindful, perhaps,
also that it is not always easy immediately to resume friendly
conference with those who have just done their best to defeat
you, has sent to Canada an Apostolic Commissioner."
J. G. Snead Cox,
Mr. Laurier and Manitoba
(Nineteenth Century, April, 1897).
CANADA: A. D. 1895.
Northern territories formed into provisional districts.
"The unorganized and unnamed portion of the Dominion this year
was set apart into provisional districts. The territory east of
Hudson's Bay, having the province of Quebec on the south and
the Atlantic on the east, was to be hereafter known as Ungava.
The territory embraced in the islands of the Arctic Sea was to
be known as Franklin, the Mackenzie River region as Mackenzie,
and the Pacific coast territory lying north of British
Columbia and west of Mackenzie as Yukon. The extent of Ungava
and Franklin was undefined. Mackenzie would cover 538,600
square miles, and Yukon 225,000 square miles, in addition to
143,500 square miles added to Athabasca and 470,000 to
Keewatin. The total area of the Dominion was estimated at
3,456,383 square miles."
The Annual Register, 1895,
page 391.
CANADA: A. D. 1895.
Negotiations with Newfoundland.
Negotiations for the entrance of Newfoundland into the
federation of the Dominion of Canada proved ineffectual and
were abandoned in May. The island province refused the terms
proposed.
CANADA: A. D. 1896 (June-July).
Liberal triumph in Parliamentary elections.
Formation of Ministry by Sir Wilfred Laurier.
General elections held in Canada on the 23d of June, 1896,
gave the Liberal Party 113 seats out of 213 in the Dominion
House of Commons; the Conservatives securing 88, and the
Patrons of Industry and other Independents 12. Much to the
general surprise, the scale was turned in favor of the
Liberals by the vote of the province of Quebec,
notwithstanding the Manitoba school question, on which
clerical influence in the Roman church was ranged against that
party. The effect of the election was to call the Liberal
leader, Sir Wilfred Laurier, of Quebec, to the head of the
government, the Conservative Ministry, under Sir Charles
Tupper, retiring on the 8th of July.
CANADA: A. D. 1896-1897.
Policy of the Liberal Government.
Revision of the tariff, with discriminating duties
in favor of Great Britain, and provisions for reciprocity.
"The position of the Canadian Liberals, when they came into
power after the General Election of 1896, was not unlike that
of the English Liberals after the General Election of 1892.
Both Liberal parties had lists of reforms to which they were
committed. The English measures were in the Newcastle
Programme. Those of the Canadian Liberals were embodied in the
Ottawa Programme, which was formulated at a convention held at
the Dominion Capital in 1893. … A large part of the Ottawa
Programme was set out in the speech which the Governor-General
read in the Senate when the session of 1897 commenced. There was
then promised a measure for the revision of the tariff; a bill
providing for the extension of the Intercolonial railway from
Levis to Montreal; a bill repealing the Dominion Franchise Act
and abolishing the costly system of registration which goes
with it; and a measure providing for the plebiscite on the
Prohibition question. Neither of these last two measures was
carried through Parliament. Both had to be postponed to
another session; and the session of 1897 was devoted, so far
as legislation went, chiefly to the tariff, and to bills, none
of which were promised in the Speech from the Throne, in
retaliation for the United States Contract Labor Laws, and the
new United States tariff. …
"The new tariff was a departure from the tariffs of the
Conservative regime in only one important direction.
Protective duties heretofore had been levied on imports from
England, in the same way as on imports from the United States
or any other country. The 'National Policy' had allowed of no
preferences for England; and during the long period of
Conservative rule, when the Conservatives were supported by
the Canadian manufacturers in much the same way as the
Republican party in the United States is supported by the
manufacturing interests, the Canadian manufacturers had been
as insistent for adequate protection against English-made
goods, as against manufactured articles from the United States
or Germany. The Conservative party had continuously claimed a
monopoly of loyalty to England; but in its tariffs had never
dared to make any concession in favour of English goods. In
the new tariff, preferences for England were established; and
with these openings in favour of imports from Great Britain,
there came a specific warning from the Minister of Finance
that Canadian manufacturers must not regard themselves as
possessing a vested interest in the continuance of the
protective system. …
"When the Minister of Finance laid the tariff before the House
of Commons, he declared that the 'National Policy,' as it had
been tried for eighteen years, was a failure; and … claimed
that lowering the tariff wall against England was a step in
the direction of a tariff 'based not upon the protective
system but upon the requirements of the public service.'
During the first fifteen months of the new tariff, the
concession to England consists of a reduction by one-eighth of
the duties chargeable under the general list. At the end of
that time, that is on the last of July, 1898, the reduction
will be one-fourth. The reductions do not apply to wines, malt
liquors, spirits and tobacco, the taxes on which are
essentially for revenue. While England was admitted at once to
the advantages of the reduced tariff, this tariff is not to be
applicable to England alone. In July, it was extended to the
products of New South Wales, the free-trade colony of the
British Australasian group; and any country can come within
its provisions whose government can satisfy the Comptroller of
Customs at Ottawa, that it is offering favourable treatment to
Canadian exports, and is affording them as easy an entrance
through its customs houses as the Canadians give by means of
the reciprocal tariff. It is also possible, under a later
amendment to the Tariff Act, for the Governor in Council to
extend the benefits of the reciprocal tariff to any country
entitled thereto by virtue of a treaty with Great Britain.
{62}
Numerous alterations were made in the general list of import
duties. Some of these involved higher rates; others lowered
the duties. But if the changes in the fiscal system had been
confined to these variations, the new tariff would not have
been noteworthy, and it would have fulfilled few of the
pledges made by the Liberals when they were in Opposition. It
owes its chief importance to the establishment of an inner
tariff in the interests of countries which deal favourably
with Canada."
E. Porritt,
The New Administration in Canada
(Yale Review, August, 1897).
CANADA: A. D. 1897 (June-July).
Conference of colonial premiers with
the British Colonial Secretary.
See (in this volume)
ENGLAND: A. D. 1897 (JUNE-JULY).
CANADA: A. D. 1897 (October).
Self-government for the Northwestern Territories.
By an Act passed in October, a system of self-government,
going far towards the full powers of a provincial government,
but having some limitations, was provided for the Northwest
Territories.
CANADA: A. D. 1898 (January).
Encyclical Letter of the Pope on the Manitoba School Question.
On the report made by his delegate, Monsignor Merry del Val,
Pope Leo XIII. addressed an encyclical letter to the Roman
Church in Canada, concerning the duty of Catholics in the
matter of the Manitoba schools (see above: A. D. 1890-1896),
which was made public at Quebec on the 9th of January, 1898.
The letter has great general importance, as defining with
precision the attitude of the Church towards all secular
school systems. With a few unessential passages it is given in
what follows:
"It was with extreme solicitude," wrote the Pope, "that we
turned our mind to the unhappy events which in these later
years have marked the history of Catholic education in
Manitoba. … And since many expected that we should make a
pronouncement on the question, and asked that we should trace
a line of conduct and a way to be followed, we did not wish to
decide anything on this subject before our Apostolic delegate
had been on the spot, charged to proceed to a serious
examination of the situation, and to give an account to us of
the state of affairs. He has faithfully and diligently
fulfilled the command which we had given him. The question
agitated is one of great and exceptional importance. We speak
of the decision taken seven years ago by the parliament of
Manitoba on the subject of education. The act of Confederation
had secured to Catholic children the right of education in public
schools in keeping with their conscientious convictions. The
parliament of Manitoba abolished this right by contrary law.
By this latter law a grave injury was inflicted, for it was
not lawful for our children to seek the benefits of education
in schools in which the Catholic religion is ignored or
actively combated, in schools where its doctrine is despised
and its fundamental principles repudiated. If the Church has
anywhere permitted this, it was only with great reluctance and
in self-defense, and after having taken many precautions,
which, however, have too often been found unequal to parrying
the danger. In like manner one must at all cost avoid, as most
pernicious, those schools wherein every form of belief is
indifferently admitted and placed on an equal footing—as if in
what regards God and Divine things, it was of no importance
whether one believed rightly or wrongly, whether one followed
truth or falsehood. You well know, venerable brothers, that
all schools of this kind have been condemned by the Church,
because there can be nothing more pernicious nor more fitted
to injure the integrity of faith and to turn away the tender
minds of youth from the truth. … For the Catholic there is but
one true religion, the Catholic religion; hence in all that
concerns doctrine, or morality, or religion, he cannot accept
or recognize anything which is not drawn from the very sources
of Catholic teaching. Justice and reason demand, then, that
our children have in their schools not only scientific
instruction but also moral teachings in harmony, as we have
already said, with the principles of their religion, teachings
without which all education will be not only fruitless but

absolutely pernicious. Hence the necessity of having Catholic
teachers, reading books, and textbooks approved of by the
bishops, and liberty to organize the schools, that the
teaching therein shall be in full accord with Catholic faith
as well as with all the duties that flow therefrom. For the
rest, to decide in what institutions their children shall be
instructed, who shall be their teachers of morality, is a
right inherent to parental authority. When, then, Catholics
demand, and it is their duty to demand, and to strive to
obtain, that the teaching of the masters shall be in
conformity with the religion of their children, they are only
making use of their right; and there can be nothing more
unjust than to force on them the alternative of allowing their
children to grow up in ignorance, or to expose them to
manifest danger in what concerns the supreme interests of
their souls. It is not right to call in doubt or to abandon in
any way these principles of judging and acting which are
founded on truth and justice, and which are the safe-guards
both of public and private interests. Therefore, when the new
law in Manitoba struck a blow at Catholic education, it was
your duty, venerable brothers, to freely protest against the
injury and disaster inflicted; and the way in which you all
fulfilled that duty is a proof of your common vigilance, and
of a spirit truly worthy of bishops; and, although each one of
you will find on this point a sufficient approbation in the
testimony of his own conscience, learn, nevertheless, that you
have also our conscience and our approbation, for the things
which you sought and still seek to protect and defend are most
sacred. The difficulties created by the law of which we speak by
their very nature showed that an alleviation was to be sought
for in a united effort. For so worthy was the Catholic cause
that all good and upright citizens, without distinction of
party, should have banded themselves together in a close union
to uphold it. Unfortunately for the success of this cause, the
contrary took place. What is more deplorable still, is that
Catholic Canadians themselves failed to unite as they should
in defending those interests which are of such importance to
all—the importance and gravity of which should have stilled
the voice of party politics, which are of much less
importance. We are not unaware that something has been done to
amend that law. The men who are at the head of the federal
government and of the Province of Manitoba have already taken
certain measures with a view to decreasing the difficulties of
which the Catholics of Manitoba complain, and against which
they rightly continue to protest.
{63}
We have no reason to doubt that these measures were taken from
love of justice and from a laudable motive. We cannot, however,
dissimulate the truth; the law which they have passed to
repair the injury is defective, unsuitable, insufficient. The
Catholics ask—and no one can deny that they justly ask—for
much more. Moreover, in the remedial measures that have been
proposed there is this defect, that in changes of local
circumstances they may easily become valueless. In a word, the
rights of Catholics and the education of their children have
not been sufficiently provided for in Manitoba. Everything in
this question demands, and is conformable to justice, that
they should be thoroughly provided for, that is, by placing in
security and surrounding with due safe-guards those
unchangeable and sacred principles of which we have spoken
above. This should be the aim, this the end to be zealously
and prudently sought for. Nothing can be more injurious to the
attainment of this end than discord; unity of spirit and
harmony of action are most necessary. Nevertheless since, as
frequently happens in things of this nature, there is not only
one fixed and determined but various ways of arriving at the
end which is proposed and which should be obtained, it follows
that there may be various opinions equally good and
advantageous. Wherefore let each and all be mindful of the
rules of moderation, and gentleness, and mutual charity; let
no one fail in the respect that is due to another; but let all
resolve in fraternal unanimity, and not without your advice,
to do that which the circumstances require and which appears
best to be done. As regards especially the Catholics of
Manitoba, we have every confidence that with God's help they
will succeed in obtaining full satisfaction. This hope is
founded, in the first place, in the righteousness of the
cause, next in the sense of justice and prudence of the men at
the head of the government, and finally in the good-will of all
upright men in Canada. In the meantime, until they are able to
obtain their full rights, let them not refuse partial
satisfaction. If, therefore, anything is granted by law to
custom, or the good-will of men, which will render the evil
more tolerable and the dangers more remote, it is expedient
and useful to make use of such concessions, and to derive
therefrom as much benefit and advantage as possible. Where,
however, no remedy can be found for the evil, we must exhort
and beseech that it be provided against by the liberality and
munificence of their contributions, for no one can do anything
more salutary for himself or more conducive to the prosperity
of his country, than to contribute, according to his means, to
the maintenance of these schools. There is another point which
appeals to your common solicitude, namely, that by your
authority, and with the assistance of those who direct
educational institutions, an accurate and suitable curriculum
of studies be established, and that it be especially provided
that no one shall be permitted to teach who is not amply
endowed with all the necessary qualities, natural and
acquired, for it is only right that Catholic schools should be
able to compete in bearing, culture, and scholarship with the
best in the country. As concerns intellectual culture and the
progress of civilization, one can only recognize as
praiseworthy and noble the desire of the provinces of Canada
to develop public instruction, and to raise its standard more
and more, in order that it may daily become higher and more
perfect. Now there is no kind of knowledge, no perfection of
learning, which cannot be fully harmonized with Catholic
doctrine."
CANADA: A. D. 1898 (September).
Popular vote on the question of Prohibition.
Pursuant to a law passed by the Dominion Parliament the
previous June, a vote of the people in all the Provinces of
the Dominion was taken, on the 29th of September, 1898, upon
the following question: "Are you in favor of the passing of an
act prohibiting the importation, manufacture or sale of
spirits, wine, ale, beer, cider, and all other alcoholic
liquors for use as beverages?" The submitting of this question
to a direct vote of the people was a proceeding not quite
analogous to the Swiss Referendum, since it decided the fate
of no pending law; nor did it imitate the popular Initiative
of Swiss legislation, since the result carried no mandate to
the government. It was more in the nature of a French
Plébiscite, and many called it by that name; but no Plebiscite
in France ever drew so real an expression of popular opinion
on a question so fully discussed. The result of the voting was
a majority for prohibition in every Province except Quebec,
Ontario pronouncing for it by more than 39,000, Nova Scotia by
more than 29,000, New Brunswick by more than 17,000, Manitoba
by more than 9,000, Prince Edward's Island by more than 8,000,
and the Northwest Territories by more than 3,000, while
British Columbia gave a small majority of less than 600 on the
same side. Quebec, on the other hand, shouted a loud "No" to
the question, by 93,000 majority. The net majority in favor of
Prohibition was 107,000. The total of votes polled on the
question was 540,000. This was less than 44 per cent of the
total registration of voters; hence the vote for Prohibition
represented only about 23 per cent of the electorate, which
the government considered to offer too small a support for the
measure asked for.
CANADA: A. D. 1898-1899.
The Joint High Commission for settlement of all unsettled
questions between Canada and the United States.
As the outcome of negotiations opened at Washington in the
previous autumn by the Canadian Premier, relative to the
seal-killing controversy, an agreement between Great Britain,
Canada and the United States was concluded on the 30th of May,
1898, for the creation of a Joint High Commission to negotiate
a treaty, if possible, by which all existing subjects of
controversy between the United States and Canada should be
settled with finality. Appointments to the Commission by the
three governments were made soon afterwards, Great Britain
being represented by the Lord High Chancellor, Baron
Herschell; Canada by Sir Wilfred Laurier, Premier, Sir Richard
Cartwright, Minister of Trade and Commerce, and Sir Louis
Henry Davies, Minister of Marine and Fisheries; the United
States by Honorable John W. Foster, ex-Secretary of State,
Senator Charles W. Fairbanks, Senator George Gray,
Representative Nelson Dingley, and the Honorable John A.
Kasson, Reciprocity Commissioner. Senator Gray having been
subsequently appointed on the Commission to negotiate peace
with Spain, his place on the Anglo-American Commission was
taken by Senator Faulkner.
{64}
The Joint Commission sat first in Quebec and later in
Washington. Among the questions referred to it were those
relating to the establishment of the boundary between Alaska
and British Columbia; the issues over Bering Sea and the catch
of fur seals; the unmarked boundary between Canada and the
United States near Passamaqnoddy Bay in Maine and at points
between Wisconsin and Minnesota and Canada; the northeast
fisheries question, involving the rights of fishing in the
North Atlantic off Newfoundland and other points; the
regulation of the fishing rights on the Great Lakes;
alien-labor immigration across the Canadian-American border;
commercial reciprocity between the two countries; the
regulation of the bonding system by which goods are carried in
bond across the frontier and also the regulation of traffic by
international railways and canals of the two countries;
reciprocal mining privileges in the Klondyke, British North
America and other points; wrecking and salvage on the ocean
and Great Lakes coasting waters; the modification of the
treaty arrangement under which only one war vessel can be
maintained on the Great Lakes, with a view to allowing
warships to be built on the lakes and then floated out to the
ocean. The sessions of the Joint Commission were continued at
intervals until February, 1899, when it adjourned to meet at
Quebec in the following August, unless further adjournment
should be agreed upon by the several chairmen. Such further
adjournment was made, and the labors of the Joint Commission
were indefinitely suspended, for reasons which the President
of the United States explained in his Message to Congress,
December, 1899, as follows: "Much progress had been made by
the Commission toward the adjustment of many of these
questions, when it became apparent that an irreconcilable
difference of views was entertained respecting the
delimitation of the Alaskan boundary. In the failure of an
agreement as to the meaning of articles 3 and 4 of the treaty
of 1825 between Russia and Great Britain, which defined the
boundary between Alaska and Canada, the American Commissioners
proposed that the subject of the boundary be laid aside and
that the remaining questions of difference be proceeded with,
some of which were so far advanced as to assure the
probability of a settlement. This being declined by the
British Commissioners, an adjournment was taken until the
boundary should be adjusted by the two Governments. The
subject has been receiving the careful attention which its
importance demands, with the result that a modus vivendi for
provisional demarcations in the region about the head of Lynn
Canal has been agreed upon [see (in this volume) ALASKA
BOUNDARY QUESTION] and it is hoped that the negotiations now
in progress between the two Governments will end in an
agreement for the establishment and delimitation of a
permanent boundary."
CANADA: A. D. 1899 (October).
Modus Vivendi, fixing provisional boundary line of Alaska.
See (in this volume)
ALASKA BOUNDARY QUESTION.
CANADA: A. D. 1899-1900.
Troops to reinforce the British army in South Africa.
A proposal from the Canadian government to assist that of the
Empire in its South African War was gratefully accepted in the
early stages of the war, and a regiment of infantry called the
Royal Canadian, numbering a little more than 1,000 men, sailed
from Quebec, October 30. In the following January a second
contingent of more than 1,000 men was sent to the field. This
latter comprised squadrons of mounted rilles and rough-riders,
and three batteries of field artillery. In the same month the
Canadian government accepted an offer from Lord Strathcona to
raise, equip and transport at his own expense a body of 500
mounted men from the Northwest.
CANADA: A. D. 1900 (November).
General election.
The general election of members of the Dominion House of
Commons was held November 7, resulting as follows:
Provinces. Liberal. Conservative. Independent. Total.
Nova Scotia. 15 5 0 20
New-Brunswick. 9 5 0 14
Prince Edward Island. 3 2 0 5
Quebec. 57 8 0 65
Ontario. 33 54 5 92
Manitoba. 2 3 2 7
Northwest Territories. 2 0 2 4
British Columbia. 3 2 1 6
Totals. 124 79 10 213

As in the election of 1896, the Liberal Ministry of Sir
Wilfred Laurier found its strong support in the province of
Quebec. Its party suffered unexpected losses in Ontario. The
slight meaning of the election was summed up by Professor
Goldwin Smith as follows: "The net result of the elections
seems to be a Government resting on French Quebec and an
Opposition resting on British Ontario. The minor provinces
have been carried, as usual, by local interests rather than on
general questions. Apart from the distinction of race between
the two great provinces and the antagonism, before dormant but
somewhat awakened by the war, there was no question of importance
at issue between the parties. Both concurred in sending
contingents to South Africa. The Liberals, though they went in
at first on the platform of free trade—at least, of a tariff
for revenue only—have practically embraced protection under
the name of stability of the tariff, and are believed to have
received from the protected manufacturers contributions to
their large election fund. The other special principles, such
as the reduction of expenditure and discontinuance of the
bonus to railways, proclaimed by Liberals before the last
election, have been dropped. So has reform of the Senate. It
is not likely that the Liberal victory will be followed by any
change either in legislation or government, or by any special
reform. Mr. Bourassa and Monet, of the French-Canadian members
who protested against the contingent, have been re-elected.
Great as may be the extent and warmth of British feeling, the
statement that Canadians were unanimously in favour of
participation in the war must not be taken without
qualification. For myself, I felt that so little principle was
at stake that I voted for two Conservatives on their personal
merits."
{65}
CANAL, The new Bruges.
See (in this volume)
BRUGES: A. D. 1900.
CANAL, The Chicago Drainage.
See (in this volume)
CHICAGO: A. D. 1900.
CANAL, City of Mexico Drainage.
See (in this volume)
MEXICO: A. D. 1898.
CANAL, The Elbe and Trave.
See (in this volume)
GERMANY: A. D. 1900 (JUNE).
CANAL, Interoceanic, The Project of the: A. D. 1581-1892.
The early inception of the project.
Movements towards its realization.
"The thought of uniting the two great oceans by means of a
canal across the American isthmus sprang up, as is known, from
the moment the conviction was reached that the passage which,
from the days of Columbus, was thought to exist towards the
Southern Sea, was not a reality. … Nevertheless the first
survey of the land was not carried out until the year 1581,
when, in obedience to superior instructions, Captain Antonio
Pereira, Governor of Costa Rica, organized an expedition and
explored the route by way of the San Juan river, the lake, and
the rivers emptying into Gulf Nicoya, Costa Rica. Thirty-nine
years later Diego de Mercado submitted to King Philip III his
famous report of January 23, 1620, suggesting the route by the
river and lake, and thence through Costa Rican territory along
the Quebrada or Barranca Honda to Salinas Bay, then called
Puerto del Papagayo. Either because the magnitude of the
undertaking was at that time superior to the necessities of
trade, or, as was said, because Spain considered the canal
antagonistic to her interests, the era of independence arrived
without the execution of the project ever having been entered
upon. After independence the Congress of Central America, in
which Costa Rica and Nicaragua were represented as States of
the Federation which succeeded the Colonial Government,
enacted on June 16, 1825, a decree providing for the
construction of the canal, and in that same year Don Antonio
José Cañas, Diplomatic Representative of Central America in
Washington, addressed the Secretary of State, Mr. Henry Clay,
informing him of this resolution and stating that: 'A company
formed of American citizens of respectability was ready to
undertake the work as soon as a treaty with the United States
insuring the coöperation of the latter was signed; that he was
ready to enter into negotiations for the treaty, and that
nothing would be more pleasant for Central America than to see
the generous people of the United States joining her in the
opening of the canal, sharing the glory of the enterprise, and
enjoying the great advantages to be derived from it.' The
Government of Central America could not carry the undertaking
into effect, notwithstanding that among the means employed to
reach the desired result there figures the arrangement
concluded with the King of Holland in October, 1830. But,
though the hopes centered in the undertaking were frustrated,
to the honor of Central America the declarations of that
Congress, which constitute, like the concession for the canal
itself, one of the loftiest public documents ever issued by
any nation of the earth, have become a matter of record. The
Central American Federation dissolved, this important matter
attached to Nicaragua and Costa Rica directly, and the
boundary line between the two republics having been determined
by the treaty of April 15, 1858, as were also the points
relative to the canal, the two governments jointly granted a
concession on May 1 of that same year to Mr. Felix Belly, a
distinguished French writer, to whom the Emperor Napoleon gave
his support to carry forward the undertaking. This failing of
accomplishment, the two governments, in perfect accord,
concluded the contract known as the Ayon-Chevalier, signed by
Nicaragua on October 16, 1868, and by Costa Rica on June 18,
1869, which, it is unnecessary to say, also failed to produce
any results whatever. Some years after the expiration of this
last contract Nicaragua promoted a discussion as to the
validity of the treaty and the meaning of some of its
stipulations, which Costa Rica upheld in its original form,
and the question was submitted to the decision of the
President of the United States, Mr. Cleveland, who in his
award of March 22, 1888, accepted by both parties, declared
the treaty valid and binding upon each Republic and
interpreted the points which in the opinion of Nicaragua were
doubtful. According to the provisions of both of these
documents, the treaty and award, even in the remote event that
the natural rights of Costa Rica should not be injured, Nicaragua
is bound not to make any grants for canal purposes across her
territory without first asking the opinion of the Republic of
Costa Rica. Three years prior, and while this question was
still pending, Nicaragua concluded the treaty known as the
Zavala-Frelinghuysen, signed in Washington on December 1,
1884, whereby the title to the canal was conveyed to the
United States, and Costa Rica adhered to this treaty under
date of February 23, 1885; but the negotiations remained
without effect, because, ratification having been denied in
the Senate, although a reconsideration of the subject had been
agreed to, President Cleveland, on inaugurating his first
administration, withdrew the document from the Senate. Things
then returned to the status they formerly maintained, and
Nicaragua in April, 1887, and Costa Rica in July, 1888,
respectively granted the concessions pursuant to which the
construction of the American waterway has been pending of late
years. The Congress of the United States has been giving
special attention to this important matter since the year
1892, and commissions have been created charged with the
survey and location of the route, as well as the study of the
influence of the canal in its different aspects. Recently the
investigation is not limited to the route by Nicaragua and
Costa Rica alone, but extends to Panama."
Speech of Señor Calvo, Costa Rican Minister,
at the International Commercial Congress,
Philadelphia, October 24, 1899.
{66}
CANAL, Interoceanic, The Project of the: A. D. 1889-1899.
The Maritime Canal Company.
Investigation of Nicaragua routes.
"The failure of the Frelinghuysen-Zavala treaty [see above]
was a severe disappointment to the friends of the canal
project, but it did not discourage them. A company of private
citizens, capitalists and promoters, was organized, which at
length took the name of the Maritime Canal Company. Fair and
full concessions were secured from the government of
Nicaragua, while similar articles were also signed with the
Republic of Costa Rica on account of imagined ownership of a
portion of the territory through which the canal was to pass,
though it has been shown subsequently, in the settlement of
the boundary dispute between those two governments, that Costa
Rica's rights in the matter were solely riparian. In due time
Congress was called upon to grant a charter to the Maritime
Company, which asked nothing more than this." The chartering
act was passed by Congress in 1889, with an important
amendment proposed by Judge Holman of Indiana, providing that
"nothing in this act contained shall be so construed as to
commit the United States to any pecuniary liability whatever
for any account of said company, nor shall the United States
be held in any wise liable or responsible in any form or by
any implication for any debt or, liability in any form which
said company may incur, nor as guaranteeing any engagement or
contract of said company." But two years afterwards, the
company having failed to enlist the necessary capital for its
undertaking, an attempt was made to set aside the above
provision and to persuade Congress to guarantee $100,000,000
of bonds, taking $70,000,000 of stock and making the
government a partner in the enterprise. The proposal was
rejected. Congress "did not guarantee the company's bonds. The
company, without such guarantee, was unable to raise the
necessary capital, either in the United States or abroad, and
the financial crisis of 1893 so overwhelmed it that all active
operations on the isthmus were suspended, and they have never
been resumed. The same issue, the guaranteeing of bonds, has
come up from time to time in succeeding Congresses, but not
until the second session of the Fifty-fourth [1897] did it
appear to have much chance of being decided in favor of the
company. The opposition in the Senate, where it was first
considered, was strong, and the arguments advanced against the
bill were clear, sound and forceful. The advocates of the
measure were pressing for a vote, but almost at the supreme
moment a note was received from the State Department,
accompanied by a communication from Minister Rodriguez, the
representative of the Greater Republic of Central America,
setting forth several unassailable objections of his
government to the methods of procedure. This final thrust
determined the fate of the bill, and a vote on it was not
taken. … The material points of Minister Rodriguez's
criticism, which caused the Senate bill in 1897 to be
withdrawn, were that some of the vital provisions of the
cessions under which the Maritime Canal Company had the right
to construct the canal were violated."
C. M. Stadden,
Latest Aspects of the Nicaragua Canal Project
(North American Review, December, 1898).
Congress now (June 4, 1897) passed an Act which created a
commission to examine all practicable routes for a canal
through Nicaragua, and report its judgment as to the best,
with an estimate of the cost of the work on such route. The
commissioners appointed were Admiral Walker, Professor Haupt,
and Colonel Hains. Their report, submitted to the President in
May, 1899, unanimously recommended the route described as
follows: "This line, leaving Brito, follows the left bank of
the Rio Grande to near Bueno Retiro, and crosses the western
divide to the valley of the Lajas, which it follows to Lake
Nicaragua. Crossing the lake to the head of the San Juan
river, it follows the upper river to near Boca San Carlos;
thence, in excavation, by the left bank of the river to the
San Juanillo and across the low country to Greytown, passing
to the northward of Lake Silico." But while the commissioners
agreed in finding this route preferable to any others in the
Nicaragua region, they disagreed seriously in their estimates
of cost, Colonel Hains, putting it at nearly $135,000,000,
while Admiral Walker and Professor Haupt placed the cost at
little more than $118,000,000. Before the report of this
Nicaragua Canal Commission was made, however, Congress (March
3, 1899) had directed the appointment of another commission to
examine and report upon all possible routes for an
interoceanic canal, in the Panama region and elsewhere, as
well as through Nicaragua and to determine the cost of
constructing such a canal and "placing it under the control,
management and ownership of the United States." This later
commission, known as the Isthmian Canal Commission, was made
up as follows:
Rear-Admiral John G. Walker, U. S. N.;
Samuel Pasco, of Florida;
Alfred Noble, C. E. of Illinois;
George S. Morrison, C. E., of New York;
Colonel Peter C. Hains, U. S. A.;
Professor William H. Burr, of Connecticut;
Lieutenant-Colonel Oswald H. Ernst, U. S. A.;
Professor Lewis M. Haupt, C. E., of Pennsylvania;
Professor Emory R. Johnston, of Pennsylvania.
In his Message to Congress the next December, President
McKinley stated: "The contract of the Maritime Canal Company
of Nicaragua was declared forfeited by the Nicaraguan
Government on the 10th of October, on the ground of
nonfulfillment within the ten years' term stipulated in the
contract. The Maritime Canal Company has lodged a protest
against this action, alleging rights in the premises which
appear worthy of consideration. This Government expects that
Nicaragua will afford the protestants a full and fair hearing
upon the merits of the case." But another company had been put
into the place of the Maritime Canal Company, by action of
President Zelaya, of Nicaragua, who, in 1898, granted to
Edward Eyre and E. F. Cragin, who represented an American
Syndicate, the right to construct the canal when the contract
with the Maritime should have lapsed. This transaction,
however, lacked confirmation by Costa Rica and the United
States.
CANAL, Interoceanic, A. D. 1893-1900.
The Panama Canal Concession twice extended.
Formation of new company.
See (in this volume)
COLOMBIA: A. D. 1893-1900.
CANAL, Interoceanic, A. D. 1899 (December).
Transfer of the Panama Canal to an American company.
The transfer of the Panama Canal from the later French company
to an American company, chartered in New Jersey, was
accomplished in December, 1899. The new company received all
the property, rights, and powers of its French predecessor,
the consideration to be paid to the latter being mainly in the
form of shares in the American company.