Page:The Annual Register 1899.djvu/11

 1899.] Foreign Policy and Home Affadrs. [3

Club was only offering support to the policy which Lord Salisbury had been urging in China, Siam, West Africa and elsewhere where our trade interests were threatened by European Powers. This view, however, was not endorsed by Sir Edward Clarke, one of the acutest-minded members of the Conservative party. Speaking to the Plymouth Chamber of Commerce (Jan. 5), he showed the fallacy of the fear that when uncivilised countries pass into the hands of European Powers they ceased to become profitable to the British merchant. He took, for instance, the case of China, where the door was open and in the keeping of natives, but where our trade during the past fifteen years had decreased steadily. Sir Edward Clarke, however, in his argument seemed to put aside the fact that the period he had selected coincided with the adoption of an aggressive and bounty-fed colonial policy by France, and with the enormous commercial expansion of Germany.

The practical confidence felt in Lord Salisbury's management of public affairs was seen in the results of the bye-elections held during the earlier portion of the year. For Mid-Bucks Mr. Bothschild, a Unionist, was elected without opposition to the seat held by his uncle ; in the Newton division of Lancashire, Colonel Pifirington, and in Mid-Surrey Mr. Keswick, both Con- servatives, were elected without a contest. Sir Charles Dilke, speaking at Newent (Jan. 5), seemed to recognise the prevailing political apathy, which, he said, was due to a variety of causes originating in the Liberal party itself. The advanced Liberals, he maintained, formed the bulk of the Liberal electorate, but they were in a minority on the Liberal side of the House of Commons. There were, moreover, many Liberal members who wished virtually to justify the disruption of 1886, and the action of the Liberal Unionists, by shelving Home Rule altogether. Under these circumstances the new leader of the party would probably be its most Conservative representative on the front bench.

In the absence of more exciting topics, the proceedings of the the annual conference of the Miners' Federation held at Edin- burgh (Jan. 11) offered certain points of interest to students of politics. The admission for the first time of the delegates of the South Wales and Monmouthshire coal-fields, representing 60,000 men, showed the tendency of workmen, as of employers, to close their ranks. The Compensation Act, which had passed in the previous session, was received with more favour by the bulk of the delegates than it had been by their representatives in Parlia- ment, who had political as well as class interests to consider. Their conduct in this respect did not pass without hostile criticism. One of the delegates, however, pointed out how very far short the act fell of its intentions or of its promises. In the course of the previous year (eleven months) 3,228 lives had been lost in all trades by fatal accidents, and 63,562 persons had been injured. More than half these accidents were due to causes

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