ostrich-feather face-frames and lion-mane head-dresses, and with their courteous and dignified bearing, the Masai form a picturesque feature of African travel. Almost the entire line of the railway runs through a wonderful game country; some one has described it as a Zoo without cages. It is quite common to see from the railway hundreds of antelope and not infrequently the lordly giraffe and lion, while it is not a rare event for a herd of elephants to cross the track. One reason why big game is so common hereabouts is that west of the railway for a long distance is a splendid and carefully guarded game reserve, while further west beyond the line of British East Africa is another reserve in German territory. A recent writer declares that "like the shrewd stags of a Scotch deer forest, so well do the game seem to know the very boundaries that mark the sanctuary that they seldom leave it except in periods of local draught or when they become crowded. Timid antelope, wary giraffe, and even lion and rhinoceros often idle within a stone's throw of the track, shooting from trains being forbidden." Moreover, the Government carefully supervises hunting: no one may hunt big game without a license, the cost of which varies from about eighty-five dollars for a bull elephant to twenty-five dollars for a giraffe or a rhinoceros and fifteen dollars for an antelope. Lions and leopards may be killed, however, without a license, because they are classed as "vermin.” The number of animals of each kind which may be killed under a license is also closely limited-for instance, only two each may be killed of the elephant, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, and zebra; and, as already has been stated in The Outlook, Mr. Roosevelt refused to avail himself of special permission to kill game in excess of the stipulated number. Perhaps the finest hunting country in British East Africa is that between the Athi and Tana Rivers, not very far from Nairobi. It is in this country that Mr. Roosevelt will be entertained at Juja Farm, as the guest of Mr. William Northrop McMillan, an American who has established a home in the heart of the great Athi Plains. This district, and some of Mr. McMillan's hunting exploits, will be found described in an extremely interesting article in the current " 'Cen tury," written by Mr. Edgar B. Bronson. Mr. Bronson says that hundreds of game animals are nearly always in sight from the veranda of Mr. McMillan's house, but that it takes marksmanship to get game, because the plains are bare of cover. He thinks that the big game hunting in British East Africa cannot last more than four or five years in its present abundance, because over a million acres of land have been taken up by white settlers and farmers, who find the game a nuisance and injury and will drive it away or destroy it so far as the law permits-and perhaps a little farther. The extreme elevation of the Uganda Railway is about a mile and a half above sea level-then it drops rapidly to its terminus at Port Florence, where Mr. Roosevelt and his party will take steamer for the voyage around Victoria Nyanza. This beautiful lake, whose existence was hardly known as a certainty a generation ago, has now several harbors and docks, and near by are regions swarming with game of all kinds. A singular phenomenon often seen on the lake consists of strange clouds which look at a distance like circular dust storms, but prove to be dense masses of a species of gnats. These sometimes completely cover the decks of the boat, but are esteemed a great delicacy by the natives, who devour them greedily. The Victoria Nyanza was discovered by the great explorer Speke, who sent out news of its existence from Mwanza, now a fine European settlement with telegraph communication; from Mwanza also Stanley in the early seventies started for the first circumnavigation of the lake. Another port of importance is Entebbe, and thence the Roosevelt expedition will start on its caravan march to Gondoroko on the Nile, and from that place will move northward down the Nile by boat to Khartoum and thence by the military railway to Wadi Halfa and to civilization. It Government was to be transferred from Leopold II, the King of the Belgians, to Belgium, the natives would find their rights restored and oppression banished, were destined to be disillusioned. The fact is, Belgium is in a predicament. has accepted the responsibilities for a tropical colony, and it now realizes that either it must continue those practices which have been the source of the evils in the Congo, or else it must appropriate money from the Belgian Treasury in order to secure reform. Naturally, the Belgian people are not willing to be taxed in order to banish evils which their monarch has fostered to his own enormous profit. Moreover, the Socialists in the Belgian Parliament, who, one might think, because of their humanitarian professions would favor appropriations for humane purposes, are arguing that they will oppose any costly measures of reform because they opposed the transfer of the Congo Government to Belgium in the first place. On the other hand, if the Belgian Parliament, for the sake of saving money, prefers to continue the Governmental practices that have grown up under Leopold's rule, it will bring upon its own head the indignation of humane people throughout the civilized world. It must not be forgotten that the atrocities in the Congo have risen from two sources, and that no palliatives will be of any use until those sources of evil have been dried up. before it Those two sources are, first, the appropriation of the natives' land and, second, the levying of taxes by means of forced labor. All attempts to divert attention from these two evils ought to be treated as frauds upon public opinion. Secretary Root, last January, rightly included these among the conditions concerning the removal of which the United States must have assurance could recognize the transfer from Leopold II to Belgium. The British Government has officially recognized the value of what the United States has done as joint leader in this whole movement. It is highly important that the American people should make it plain to the civilized world that a change in the American Presidential administration has not affected the attitude of the United States toward Congo affairs. THE HOUSE AND SENATE TARIFF BILLS COMPARED Last week the Payne Tariff Bill, passed by the House of Representatives, reached the Senate and was referred to the Committee on Finance, which promptly reported not it but a substitute bill. The most remarkable feature of the Senate measure does not lie in what it includes but what it omits. Nothing is said about such important and much debated items as hides, oil, coal, and wood pulp. In reporting the bill Senator Aldrich of Rhode Island, Chairman of the Finance Committee, explained that these items were purposely left to be discussed on the Senate floor. Nothing is said about certain so-called administrative features contained in the Payne Tariff Bill, such, for instance, as the maximum and minimum system, by which retaliatory rates may be applied to countries which do not afford us the treatment accorded to the most favored nations. Of course, with these vital omissions, it is impossible to tell whether the Senate substitute for the House bill would raise sufficient revenue for the Government or would equalize duties for the consumer. Its protection to the consumer and the manufacturer is indicated by the following table of differences between the House and Senate bills and the present law: on Payne measure are removed. The most striking increases are on imported beers and wines both undoubted luxuries. Moreover, the Senate bill imposes a tax of thirty-five per cent ad valorem another luxury, namely, on all pleasure yachts hereafter built abroad for American account, the duty to be collected when the yacht first touches an American port. As to works of art, the Senate bill amends the House bill, which provided that paintings and sculptures at least twenty years old should be admitted free, by further providing that all works of art— including tapestries, porcelains, antiquities, etc., a hundred years old or more-shall be admitted free. This is certainly a more liberal provision than that made in the House. In the main, claims Senator Aldrich, evidently addressing the consumer, the rates are lower than in the bill passed by the House, "the actual number of reductions being about three times the number of increases," and "the great mass of the rates reported are below those of existing law." This is quantity versus quality. The number of rate reductions does not measure the bill's actual effect, for one rate revised upward, or even kept at the existing level, may be as powerful as a dozen rates revised downward. Take the rate on carpet wool, for instance, as compared with some items in the spice schedule. If it be true that the Senate bill makes more reductions in the existing tariff rates than does the House bill, it may also be claimed, we think, that, so far as reported, the Senate bill, even with its special and welcome reductions in the consumers' interest, is, as a whole, more in the manufacturer's interest than is the House bill. But both bills are defective in their regrettable omission to reduce rates on highly protected commodities, like woolens, silks, plate-glass. ment and consumer alike would be the gainers were such duties not practically prohibitive. POLITICAL CONDITIONS IN PORTO RICO Govern The New York Herald publishes an interview with Señor Luis Muñoz Rivera, the leader of the Unista party, which carried the last elec In this tion in Porto Rico unanimously. interview he states, with what may be regarded as authority, the political changes demanded by that party. The demand, which they have sought to enforce by practically cutting off all supplies necessary for carrying on the Government, is that the Executive Council, which is now appointed by the President of the United States, and which is at once the Porto Rican Cabinet and the Porto Rican Senate, shall be elected by the Porto Ricans, and that the heads of departments, who are now appointed by the President and are members of the Executive Council, shall cease to be members of the Council and shall be appointed by the Governor-General of Porto Rico with the advice and consent of its Senate. The effect of this change would be to put the entire financial and political control of the island into the hands of the dominant Porto Rican party; for the Senate, by refusing to confirm any appointments which it did not itself propose, would be able practically to determine who should be the heads of departments. Thus the entire power of the purse and the entire power of the political administration would be turned over to the dominant political party in the island, and the Governor-General would become a figurehead. The Outlook meets this demand by an alternative proposition. It is that all receipts from local taxation shall remain subject to expenditure, as now, by the municipalities or townships; but that all receipts from Federal taxes-that is, from customs and insular revenue-shall be subject to appropriation by the Executive Council; the House of Delegates having nothing to say on that subject. This would be in accordance with the spirit of the method pursued in the United States. The State's taxes are expended under the direction of the people of the State; the Federal taxes are all expended under the direction of the representatives of the Nation. In Porto Rico the local taxes would similarly be expended, as now, by the local authorities; the Federal taxes would be expended by the Executive Council, which would continue to be, as it is now, the representative of the American Nation in the responsible government of Porto Rico. THE PRESENT POLITICAL CRISIS sup The reasonableness of this change is confirmed by the interview with Señor Rivera published in the Herald. In this he states that the object of the House of Delegates was to "wrest from the Governor the unlimited appointive power [of municipal judges and mayors] which in case of a vacancy is bestowed upon him, and to fill the position with the candidate elected through the extension of the principle of popular election," and also to bring about the " pression of the peace judges, who are to-day appointed by the Governor, and their substitution by municipal judges elected by the people." In other words, in order to compel the Governor and the Executive Council to accept changes in the law which they did not approve, the House of Delegates has refused to appropriate the necessary money to carry on the government of the island. It is as if the House of Representatives in our own country should attempt to stop all the functions of government in order to coerce the Senate to agree with the House on some point of dispute between the two bodies. To such coercion as this the people of the United States ought not to submit, and we hope the refusal to submit will be expressed in such emphatic terms that the Porto Rican politicians will be left in no doubt as to the purposes of the American people. Whether the plan which we have here proposed can be carried out by administrative construction of the Foraker Law, under which the Porto Rican Government is organized, or whether it will require amendment to that law, we are not prepared to say. That law does not appear to declare in explicit terms that appropriations for the Government from the Federal taxes shall require the assent of the House of Delegates, nor does it in terms confer upon the Executive Council power to make such appropriations. This question, we understand, has been referred to the Attorney-General for his consideration. as the result of his decision, amendatory legislation should be required, The Outlook expresses the hope that such legislation may be had from the present Congress, and had with such unanimity in its approval of the principle that Federal moneys are to be expended under If, Federal authority that this principle will be regarded as settled for Porto Rico, and any other territories of the United States where it may arise, for all time. A WALL OF SAND 2 The New York Legislature presented during last week the diverting spectacle of treating itself seriously. It has rejected in both houses Governor Hughes's bill for direct nominations, and it has also taken steps to make it impossible for the Governor to call an extra session. The Legislature of the State of New York has as little knowledge of public feeling as Louis XVI. On being told about the uprising among the populace of Paris, he said, "It is a revolt," and the answer came quickly, "Sire, it is a revolution." There is a ground-swell of public opinion at present, the force of which the professional politicians seem entirely unable to measure; and for the obvious reason that the movement is a moral one, and there is nothing inside the machine politician which enables him to recognize such a movement. Mr. Timothy Woodruff occupied himself last summer by trying to make up his mind whether he would allow Mr. Hughes to be Governor of the State of New York; the members of the Legislature of New York, imitating the example of the Republican leader, may profitably spend the summer making up thminds whether they will allow the people of New York to govern the State or not. This will be an interesting intellectual exercise; though it will have no practical importance. Any combination of so-called vested political and business interests which attempts to stand in the way of the democratic movement now in progress throughout the United States is building a wall of sand on the beach with a vernal tide coming in. |