itself into violent hysterics. The London market for American securities concluded that if Wall Street could afford to be frightened to the point of raving insanity, there must be something seriously the matter with America. Consequently, prudent English investors began to unload their holdings.

Senate. Although the Republicans, as the plurality party in the Senate, have now been permitted to reorganize the committees and assume the principal chairmanships, they are not in position to give effect to the Republican measures which are readily passed through the House under Speaker Reed's auspices. A non-partisan, or rather tri-partisan, combination of senators who favor the free coinage of silver are in control of the upper house; and they promptly made it known that no bond bill could pass the Senate unless it carried with it a provision for the free coinage of silver.

The Loan, the Syndicate and the

World."

As soon as it became absolutely certain that no legislation could be ob tained, the Treasury department began to prepare for another loan on the same general plan as was pursued last year. Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan, of the banking firm of J. P. Morgan & Co., New York, organized a powerful syndicate to bid for the entire loan. It was believed throughout the country that a private understanding existed between the government and Mr. Morgan's syndicate; and very severe criticisms of this particular method of floating government bonds began to be heard in many quarters. The opposition to the syndicate was led by the New York World, which demanded that the treasury should make a public call for bids, and that everybody should be given a

HON. NELSON DINGLEY, JR., Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee.

The strong disposition in Europe to sell American stocks and bonds, resulted for a few days in a great slump in the market. The return of securities from abroad of course necessitated a larger export of gold to pay off the sellers; and gold export meant fresh raids upon the government's slender stock of redemption gold. Thereupon President Cleveland followed the Venezuela message with an exceedingly urgent request to Congress to do something for the protection of the public credit.

No Assistance from Congress.

The House, under the leadership of Mr. Dingley, of Maine, the new chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, promptly passed a measure for temporary increase of the revenue, the principal feature of which is a twenty per cent. horizontal increase in customs duties, wool also being taken from the free list and subjected to a duty. A second emergency measure pushed through the House without delay was a bill giving the Secretary of the Treasury full discretion to issue short-time interest-bearing obligations, whenever necessary to keep up the gold reserve and protect the national credit. Both of these measures, however, were destined to meet with obstruction and delay when they reached the

MR. JOSEPH PULITZER, OF THE "WORLD."

chance to subscribe. The World declared that the country would readily subscribe $100,000,000, or $200,000,000, if it were understood that the protection of the government credit was the thing at stake; and the World announced its willingness to lead with a subscription of $1,000,000. It telegraphed to hundreds, perhaps thousands, of banks in every State of the Union asking what they would do. At length, somewhat to the surprise of the country, the Treasury department on January 6 made a public call for subscriptions toward a loan of $100,000,000 of thirty year four per cent. bonds. It was generally thought that the popular subscription would be a failure and that the Morgan syndicate, which, by the terms of its organization, was to bid for the whole loan or none, -would obtain the business. But the rapidity with which subscriptions came in soon made it evident that there was no necessity for any private arrangement, and on January 15 Mr Morgan announced that the syndicate was dissolved. Mr. James Creelman, representing the World at Washington, had thrown himself with immense vigor into the work which Mr. Pulitzer had cut out for his paper; and it seems to be an undoubted fact that this single newspaper, through its aggressive energy, made it possible for the government to succeed in floating the great loan by public subscription on open call, rather than by private contract with Mr. Morgan's syndicate. In

dissolving the syndicate Mr. Morgan expressly stated that his firm was ready to assist any person who desired to obtain gold in order to subscribe for bonds, and that it would also be ready to come promptly to the front to help in caring for any portion of the amount that might remain unsubscribed for. Nothing could have been more frank or straightforward than Mr. Morgan's position seemed to be in the whole matter, while the World certainly performed a useful service in showing that the people will readily enough subscribe to a government loan on a three per cent. basis, if they are given a fair chance. It is, however, a most disgraceful thing that these enormous successive additions to the permanent bonded debt of the United States should have to be made, for the sole purpose of piling up a gold reserve that the speculative money market at once pulls down for its own benefit, at the country's expense. Our financial system is sadly out of joint. Unhappily, the chances of agreement upon any reform policy while House, Senate, and Administration are all pulling in different directions, seem very remote.

Invasion of

the

If the week before Christmas was made somewhat unpleasant for our English Transvaal. cousins by what seemed to them the inexplicable rudeness of President Cleveland's message, something worse was in store for them. The shock and disturbance of the Venezuela affair were as nothing compared with the tremendous wave of excitement that thrilled the whole British public in the opening days of January as a consequence of the news from South Africa. Jameson, acting as administrator of the great new protectorate commonly known as Rhodesia, had crossed the border into the Transvaal, or South African Republic, with a mounted force of eight hundred men; had been met by the sturdy Dutch yeomanry of the Transvaal; and after heavy fighting and the loss of a large number of his men, had surrendered unconditionally to the Boers.

Dr.

The situation in South Africa is so Dutch and English complicated that it makes the fixing in South Africa. of responsibility somewhat difficult. The British Government has permitted its large new acquisitions to be ruled politically and exploited industrially by a commercial body known as the South African Chartered Company. The originator, manager, and inspiring genius of the Chartered Company is Mr. Cecil Rhodes. As prime minister of Cape Colony, Mr. Rhodes was governing the established British dependency at the Cape, while in his capacity as head of the Chartered Company he was also managing the affairs of the great outlying country to the north, with Dr. Jameson as his agent and active administrator. As for the Transvaal, or the South African Republic, it is the land of the Dutch farmers whose forefathers had settled at the Cape and had subsequently withdrawn a long way northward because they did

not like to remain under the rule of the English conquerers who had possessed themselves of the Cape Colony. Two or three times the Boers, or Dutch farmers. have gone further afield to get away from English dominion, but only to find the energetic Briton sooner or later catching up with them and involving them in his expanding empire. In the period from 1880 to 1884 there was serious trouble between the English and the Boers of the Transvaal. The English had undertaken to annex the Dutch country; whereupon the Dutchmen met them in open battle and proved themselves better fighters than the British soldiery. Thus the Boers gained the absolute domestic independence of their republic. But it was a part of the agreement, made in 1884, that as regards its relations with foreign countries the Dutch republic should act in conformity with the will of Great Britain.

Johannesburg.

men.

town of Johannesburg, which is said to be fast approaching a hundred thousand population. The Uitlanders have for some time had many complaints against the administration of the Boer government. The taxes fall chiefly upon gold mining, or else upon the materials which the gold mining population find it necessary to import. The Boer government has refused to admit the English language into the public schools. The Uitlanders have demanded the right to vote and to participate in the government, but have been refused.

Demands of the "Uitlanders."

It seems to be the unanimous opinion in England that the Uitlanders are justified in demanding the suffrage. One little fact, however, seems to have been overlooked. As yet the Transvaal Republic is a sovereign country with its own allegiance and its own citizenship. Its Dutch citizens have no other country. But the new mining population of Uitlanders is made up of a great host of transients owning allegiance to foreign governments. We do not believe there is a single American in South Africa who would be willing to sacrifice his American citizenship in order to swear allegiance to the government of "Oom Paul” (Uncle Paul) Krüger, the valiant

No disturbance would have been likely The Rise of to arise for a long while in the Transvaal if it had not been for the discovery of gold some years ago. The rapid development of the gold fields of "the Rand" is a matter of common fame. This magazine has more than once published accounts of the extraordinary development of gold production within the limits of the sovereignity of the South African Republic. But the Boers of the Transvaal are a lot of scattered farmers, and they are said to number only 15,000 Their capital is the little town of Pretoria. The development of gold production has brought in a large new population of outsiders, or "Uitlanders as the Boers call them, and it is said that these men now outnumber the Boer men four to one. They come from all countries, but they are prevailingly men of English speech. They are gold hunters and adventurous spirits from Australia, from the Cape Colony, from England direct, to some extent from California and other parts of the United States, and in fact, like the California Argonauts. they have flocked to the gold fields from every portion of the world. The heart of the mining district is the new

old head of the South African Republic. Nor do the Englishmen at Johannesburg, who think they ought to have a right to participate in the government of the Transvaal, propose for one moment to do anything that would cost them their English citizenship. Inasmuch as the laws of the Transvaal require only two years' residence for naturalization, and then admit the naturalized citizen to a large share in the government of the country, it may be questioned whether the Uitlanders have been altogether moderate and considerate in the claims they have been making. They have asked the control of the government of the little farming republic which has permitted them to enter its borders and carry off its rich deposits of gold, without transferring their allegiance to it.

From Jameson's Point of View.

The difficulty between the Uitlanders and the Boer government had been growing more and more critical for a year or two, and the outbreak of an organized revolution seemed inevitable sooner or later. It had therefore appeared to Mr. Cecil Rhodes a discreet thing to permit Dr. Jameson to approach the boundaries of the Transvaal with an armed force, not in order to promote a revolution or to upset the Boer government, but to help restore order and protect life and property in case of the actual outbreak of the threatened revolution at Johannesburg. In this Mr. Rhodes does not seem to us to have acted otherwise than sensibly and prudently. It now appears that extremely urgent representations were at length sent to Dr. Jameson from the leaders of the Uitlanders at Johannesburg, assuring him that they were in the utmost danger for their lives, and beging him in the name of humanity to come at once to their relief. Dr. Jameson saw that this mission could only be accomplished with good effect by his acting promptly upon his own responsibility. Whereupon in order that his movements might not be countermanded by Mr. Cecil Rhodes or Sir Hercules Robinson (the English governor at Cape Town) or by Mr. Chamberlain at the British Colonial Office in London,--and also in order that the Cape Town and London officials might be relieved from all suspicion of responsibility for the possibly disastrous outcome of his march,-Dr. Jameson cut the telegraph wires behind him and dashed boldly into the Transvaal toward Johannesburg. Jameson's action seems to us to have been honorable in the highest sense, although it was extremely unfortunate. The Uitlanders, who had been importing arms for a long while and were in overwhelming numbers, did not so much as lift a finger to aid the gallant fellow who had come to their relief at their own urgent

supplications; and they allowed the Boers to cut his tired and half-starved force almost to pieces.

Mr. Chamberlain, at the Colonial Office Chamberlain, Rhodes and in London, acted with a cool head and Kruger. great promptness. The invasion of the Transvaal was promptly disavowed, the Chartered Company was called to account, Dr. Jameson was superseded in his position as administrator, Mr. Cecil Rhodes resigned his prime ministership of Cape Colony, and suitable assurances were given to President Krüger. Subsequently Krüger gave up Dr. Jameson and his companions, who had for some days been held as prisoners at Pretoria, and they were all turned over unconditionally to the British authorities, to be dealt with as offenders against the laws of England, which forbid invasion of the domain of a friendly power. Sir Gordon Sprigg, a long-time friend and supporter of Mr. Cecil Rhodes, became prime minister at Cape Town, and it was reported that Mr. Rhodes had embarked for London, where the comparative dimensions of two large personages, Chamberlain and Rhodes, will soon be noted by the public. Nothing whatever in the incident bids fair to destroy Mr. Rhodes' great influence as