Page:The Annual Register 1899.djvu/61

 1899.]

The Civil Service Estimates.

[53

Service.

1898-0.

1890-1000.

Customs

Inland Re venae -

Post Office

Post Office Packet Service - Post Office Telegraph -

Total

£

855,600 1,980,828 8,002,860

824,350 8,364,835

£

846,600 1,966,232 8,552,885

780,915 8,409,675

15,027,958

15,785,022

Immediately after the presentation of these estimates, the Secretary to the Treasury, Mr. Hanbury (Preston), communicated to the House (Feb. 26) the intentions of the Government with regard to the telephone service — hitherto a monopoly in the hands of a company. The Post Office intended to exercise their right to set up local exchanges in London and in towns of over 50,000 inhabitants. With this object he proposed to ask Parliament for a vote of 2,000,000Z. for capital expenditure.

Meanwhile both Houses had done little more than mark time. One or two academic discussions or perfunctory debates had been gone through ; but, whilst awaiting the second reading of the Government of London Bill, neither party showed a keen interest in the proceedings of Parliament.

China and the Church in fact seemed to divide pretty equally public iand parliamentary attention. In the former the demand of the Germans for fresh privileges in Shantung, and the claim of the Italians for a port at Sanmun — south of Ningpo — aroused the activity, and consequently the jealousy, of the Russians and English. M. Pavloff, the Russian Minister, protested against the terms of the Niu-Chwang extension railway loan as an en- croachment upon Russia's claims in Manchuria. The English Minister supported the contract ; but, on the Russians speaking more peremptorily, the Chinese Government showed a disposi- tion to recede from its agreement. Sir Claude Macdonald there- upon informed the Tsung-li-Yam&n, that he must insist upon his countrymen's rights, and Mr. Brodrick in the House of Commons (March 7), explained the situation more fully. It seemed, he said, that the Russian Minister at Pekin had objected to the employment of an English engineer and of a European railway accountant, and to the charge given on the freights and earnings of lines outside the great wall of China as being contrary to the agreement between Russia and China. Sir Claude Macdonald had been instructed that none of these points constituted foreign control of the railways, or involved possession or control of the lines in the event of default on the loan. The Government regarded the contract as binding on the Chinese Government. Two days later (March 9) Mr. Brodrick said that, as far as the Foreign Office had knowledge, the protest of the Russian Minister had not been renewed. It had been explained that the Russian representations had been