Εικόνες σελίδας
PDF
Ηλεκτρ. έκδοση

plices they suffer the same penalties as the principals. Anarchist associations are declared illegal and are to be dissolved by the police, the members being liable to criminal prosecution. Commercial Relations.-The session of the Cortes was closed on July 11 without the budget having been voted or the German treaty of commerce ratified. The Protectionists of the Senate, supported by both Republicans and Conservatives in the lower house, continually blocked the German treaty and the arrangements made with France, Great Britain, Austria, Italy, and Denmark for the renewal of the commercial treaties, although the Premier had declared the German treaty a Cabinet question and the Senate had given him a vote of confidence on that declaration. An agreement was reached with Belgium by which Spanish wines and cork are admitted free, and dried and fresh fruits with reduced duties. Treaties were concluded also with Sweden and Norway, Switzerland, and the Netherlands. A provisional agreement with Germany, which had been renewed ten times, expired on May 15. Spain began a tariff war by applying the maximum tariff to German products, and Germany retorted by raising her duties 50 per cent. for Spanish products. On June 30 the modus vivendi with Great Britain expired, but the most-favorednation treatment was continued. On July 10 a royal decree was signed, extending provisionally the advantages of the Swiss treaty to Germany as well as to Great Britain, France. AustriaHungary, Italy, and Denmark, on condition that the lowest tariffs apply to Spanish goods.

Cabinet Changes. Before the reassembling of the Cortes another reconstruction of the Cabinet was effected. Señor Groizard became Minister of Foreign Affairs: Señor Maura, Minister of Justice; Señor Capdebon, Minister of the Interior; Señor Abarzuza, Minister of the Colonies; and Señor Puigcerver, Minister of Public Works. The other ministers retained their posts. The list was announced on Nov. 4. Señor Abarzuza was a Republican Senator, a lieutenant of Señor Castelar, the leader of the Moderate Republicans or Possibilists, who, after having nominally withdrawn some time before from public life, in the spring of 1894 formally declared his acceptance of the present monarchy. The admission again to the Cabinet of Señor Maura, whose home-rule bill had been assailed by Conservatives, Republicans, and Carlists alike, brought the Cuban question to the front when the Cortes met. Governor-General Callejas was accused of favoring the Autonomists in Cuba and of oppressing the Spanish or Unionist party. The new Colonial Minister announced that the proposal to create a Chamber of 24 delegates for the local government of Cuba would be abandoned, but that the Cubans should be allowed to collect and disburse taxes for public works, charitable institutions, police, and the civil guard, and be required to contribute no more to imperial taxation than the interest and sinking fund of the debt, amounting to $12,000,000, the military and naval charges, amounting to $5,000,000, and the cost of the postal and telegraph service, which is $3,000,000. In the middle of December Señor Salvador resigned from the Ministry of Finance, and Señor Canalejas entered the Cabinet to take his place.

Colonies. The Spanish possessions in the Pacific consist of the Philippine Islands, which, with the Sulu, the Caroline, and the Marianne groups, have a total area of 116,256 square miles. In the Philippines there are 5,985,124 inhabitants, besides about 1,000,000 or 2,000,000 of unconquered natives. The budget for 1894– '95 makes the receipts £2,715,980 sterling, of which £1,331,890 are raised by direct taxation. The expenses are estimated at £2,656,026, of which £1,299,047 are for war and marine. The imports in 1893 were $24,000,000, and the exports $30,500,000 in value. The export of sugar was valued at $18,000,000; of Manilla hemp, $10,000,000. There is building a railroad from Manilla to Dagupan, 120 miles. There are 7 regiments of native infantry, 1 regiment of artillery, and 1 battalion of engineers in the Philippines, the total force being 573 officers and 9,300 inen; also a naval force of 2 first-class, 15 secondclass, and 5 sloop gunboats.

The Anarchists.-Salvador Franch, who was arrested on Jan. 1, confessed that he was the anarchist who threw the bombs in the Liceo Theater of Barcelona, killing 23 persons and injuring 40. When arrested he wounded himself with a pistol in an attempt to commit suicide, and made a second attempt with poison. On Jan. 25, Ramon Morull, a workman, wounded R. Larroca, the civil governor of Barcelona, with a pistol, saying that he meant to avenge Pallas, who was executed for attempting to assassinate Marshal Campos. On April 30 a military court sentenced to death, for complicity in the attempt on Martinez Campos's life, Mariano Cerezuela, Bernat Siveval, Jaime Sogas, José Codina, Villarubbia, and Manuel Archs, and to hard labor for life Federico Carbonell, Domingo Mir, and Miralles. Several of these were also implicated in the theater outrage. The men condemned to death, of whom Sogas alone professed penitence, were shot on May 21. Franch was executed in November. The newspaper sensation made of the event led the Government to decree that executions shall in the future take place inside of the prisons, with no spectators except officials.

The claims of the American missionaries who were driven from the Caroline Islands the Government at Madrid agreed to settle by indemnifying them for their buildings that were destroyed during the military operations for the subjugation of the natives. The missionaries claimed also the right to return to Ponape and re-establish their missions and schools, but this the Spanish Government refused to concede.

The inhabitants of the Philippine Islands are of several distinct races. There are the Negritoes, called in Mindanao the Mamanuas, who are a poor race, inoffensive, and for the most part converted to the Roman Catholic religion. The Igolotes are industrious and law-abiding agriculturists, supposed to be descended from Chinese. The Tagales are independent Mussulman Malay immigrants, who possess the entire interior of Mindanao. They are a martial and athletic people, who are ruled by their own sultans, who acknowledge the suzerainty of Spain. The people will not pay taxes to Spain or receive Spanish resident officers. Their villages on the sides of the mountain of Apo are strongly stock

aded, and lately they have been supplied with firearms by European and Japanese traders.

Early in 1894 a large force of Malays from Mindanao made an attack upon the Spanish garrison on the island of Pantar. They were repelled with a loss of 200 killed. Later the Sultan of Ate attacked the military post of Lepanto and captured it, carrying off 14 persons, 2 of whom, Spanish officers, were killed. In a short time the natives of Mindanao and Jolo were in open rebellion, and Gen. Blanco organized at Manilla an expedition of 3,000 men to suppress the uprising. The fortifications erected by the Spanish troops were attacked on May 8, and the assailants were driven off, leaving 8 killed. A few weeks later the Malays surprised a detachment of the colonial troops and killed 14 of them, including an officer, before they were put to flight with a loss of 27 killed. On July 24 the Spanish troops advanced on one of the Malay positions and routed the Mussulmans, killing 250.

The troubles originated in a decision of the Spanish authorities to impose a head tax through out their possessions. Haroun-al-Raschid, the former Sultan of the Sulus, refusing to pay the tax, was deposed, and Amir-al-Kirim was made sultan on undertaking to collect the tax. He assembled his people and stated that they must either pay the tax or make war upon the Spaniards. They declared unanimously for war, and Amir-al-Kirim led them down to the coast, whence they crossed over to Jolo, were admitted to the fortress on the pretense of paying their tax, and massacred the garrison and the adherents of the Spaniards to the number of 1,000, losing 150 of their own men.

In Africa, Spain has, besides stations on the coast of Morocco, the island of Fernando Po, with its dependencies of Annobon, San Juan, Corisco, and Elobey, the area being 850 square miles, and the population 30,000. The coast regions south of Morocco, from Cape Juby to Cape Blanco, with Adrar, are acknowledged to be a Spanish sphere of influence. In America, the greatest of the Antilles is a Spanish colony (see CUBA and PUERTO RICO).

STATE TREES AND FLOWERS. By a law passed in 1888 the State of New York set apart the Friday following the first day of May in each year to be known as Arbor Day. Several other States have also designated certain days for the planting of trees in connection with the work of their common schools. In several of the States the observance of Arbor Day has suggested the selection of a certain tree or flower, or both, to be known as the State tree or the State flower, The selection is usually made of a tree or flower that is peculiar to, or a favorite in the State; and the choice, which is usually left to the pupils of the common schools, is often preceded by a long and not always harmonious contest. In the State of New York, for instance, the election of 1890 showed a majority for the golden-rod; but there was so much dissatisfaction that the vote was taken again in 1891, and the rose won by a majority of 88.414 in a total vote of 500,000. While the selection of a State tree or flower is not yet general throughout the United States, the custom seems to be growing, and is likely to extend to all the

[blocks in formation]

STEVENSON, ROBERT LOUIS (BALFOUR), a Scotch novelist, essayist, and poet, born in Edinburgh, Nov. 13, 1850; died at Vailima, near Apia, Samoa, Dec. 3, 1894. He was the son of Thomas, and grandson of Robert Stevenson, the celebrated engineers, especially well known for their lighthouse building on the rugged Scottish coast, nearly all the great lights of whose circuit were their work-many of them, like that on Bell Rock, remarkable engineering achievements. In this ancestry Stevenson felt a pride often expressed in his writings-notably in his poem to his father and in that called "Skerryvore":

And bright on the lone isle, the foundered reef, The long, resounding foreland, Pharos stands. These are thy works, O father, these thy crown. This thou hast done, and I-can I be base?...

Say not of me that weakly I declined The labors of my sires, and fled the sea, The towers we founded and the lamps we lit, To play at home with paper like a child. But rather say: In the afternoon of time A strenuous family dusted from its hands The sand of granite, and beholding for Along the sounding coast its pyramids And tall memorials catch the dying sun, Smiled well content, and to this childish task Around the fire addressed its evening hours. The Balfour in Stevenson's full name is the name of his mother's family, also one of honorable achievement.

Robert Louis was educated in Edinburgh at private schools and at the university, and was at first intended for his father's profession. "I was educated for a civil engineer on my father's design," he wrote some years ago in a letter to an inquirer, "and was at the building of harbors and lighthouses, and worked in a carpenter's shop and a brass foundry, and hung about woodyards and the like. Then it came out that I was earning nothing, and on being tightly crossquestioned during a dreadful evening walk, I owned I cared for nothing but literature. My father said that was no profession, but I might be called to the bar if I chose; so, at the age of twenty-one, I began to study law."

He actually qualified as an advocate of the Scots bar, but seems never really to have varied from what he calls in one of his essays "my private determination to be an author." Passages from this and earlier periods of his life may be traced in plenty by his readers in his "Edinburgh," in the volume of collected papers called "Memories and Portraits," and elsewhere in his works; through them all runs the purpose of authorship, and few men have told more fully the methods by which they prepared themselves for a vocation. He had contributed to a college

[graphic][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors]
[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors]
[graphic][subsumed][ocr errors]
« ΠροηγούμενηΣυνέχεια »