Cuban Relations

Another important achievement is the establishment on a proper basis Established. of relations between Cuba and the United States. The steady pressure of the President and the administration has at last secured the ratification of a Cuban reciprocity treaty. This measure was due to Cuba as a part of the consideration which led to the acceptance of the "Platt amendment" to the Cuban constitution that gives us naval bases and in other ways gives us a preferred position. When the reciprocity negotiations began, a 50 per cent. rebate on Cuban sugar seemed necessary to restore the agricultural prosperity of the island. But within the past few months the world price of sugar has improved so much that the 20 per cent. rebate provided in the new reciprocity treaty will avail to give the Cuban planters sufficient incentive to cultivate the land, and to restore the farm improvements that suffered so much during the war period. The reciprocity treaty is not to be regarded as an act of favor to the Cubans, for it secures return concessions of great value to American agriculture and commerce. The capitalists of this country are taking an interest in Cuban railway development, and the island is doubtless about to enter upon a period of prosperity. Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan, in February and March, aroused expectations by visits to Havana and inspection of the new trunk railway lines built by Americans and Canadians.

It is to be regretted that the ratificaEffect of the Treaty De- tion of the reciprocity treaty, like ferred. that of the Panama Canal treaty, was left to be accomplished in an extra session of the Senate called by President Roosevelt immediately after the expiration of Congress, on March 4. Since a commercial reciprocity treaty involves revenue changes, it is the established opinion that it must be confirmed by action of the House of Representatives. Thus, although the treaty was ratified on March 19, it cannot be put into practical effect for a good many months. In the usual course of things, the new Congress will assemble next December. possible, however, that the President may decide to convoke the houses in October or November. The Cuban Congress at Havana, meanwhile, had adjourned on March 17. The Cuban Senate had adopted the reciprocity treaty by a vote of 16 to 5. The Cuban treasury is to negotiate a loan of $35,000,000, from the proceeds of which the soldiers of the army of liberation will receive their back pay and other pressing needs will be met. The Cuban outlook is now so good that there is no reason why this money should not be borrowed upon favorable terms.

It is

Stations.

A party of prominent officials, headed. Our New Naval by the Secretary of the Navy, Mr. Moody, and including members of Congress prominent on the naval committees, was in Cuba, last month, inspecting the two sites agreed upon for United States naval stations. One of these is Guantanamo, on the south coast, and the other is Bahia Honda, which is not far from Havana, on the north coast. The more important of the two is the one first named. The harbor of Guantanamo is spacious, and the conditions are favorable for the creation there of a very important naval base. Trustworthy reports pronounce President Palma's administration a capable and successful one. Good order prevails throughout the island; the sanitary system established under American administration has been maintained; there is widespread interest in education, and the relations of the Cubans with the Spanish element of the population, which were formerly so strained, are said to be improving constantly.

be ordered, by providing for five battleships, three of them to be of 16,000 and two of 13,000 tons displacement. The total naval appropriation bill for the coming year amounts to nearly $84,000,000, as against about $80,000,000 for the current year. The naval experts all believe strongly in the relative value of the very large type of battleship. The famous Oregon will be a small affair by the side of the Connecticut and the Louisiana, now building, and the other big vessels just ordered. The Oregon is a ship of about 10,000 tons. We have now definitely provided for several battleships of at least 16,000 tons. Our navy is decidedly short of officers and men, and the large ship is relatively economical in that respect, since it needs no more officers, and scarcely a larger crew, than the smaller type. Moreover, our principal naval competitors are building ships of the large type, and England has even begun to build some of 18,000 tons displacement.

It has become the habit of our naval Comparisons officers constantly to compare our With Germany. naval strength with that of Germany. According to present indications, we shall not be far behind that country at the end of another five years. It is a very significant fact that some of the foremost German naval authorities have deeply regretted Germany's recent joint expedition against Venezuela because of its effect in stimulating the American Congress to

make liberal shipbuilding appropriations, and to take more seriously the American naval programme. There is very little attempt at concealment in Germany, even in governmental circles, of the German ambition to annex Holland. Such a consummation may be prevented for many years, and, indeed, it may never come about at all. But that Germany would seize the first opportunity to take Holland is not to be doubted, in view of the history of Germany in the past forty years, beginning with the seizure of a part of Denmark. The future of Holland is a matter of concern to the United States because of the Dutch possessions in the Western Hemisphere. Germany would like very well to acquire Dutch Guiana, on the north coast of South America, and the Dutch Islands in the West Indies; but America does not want Germany's militant system brought across the At lantic, and would not willingly allow German naval bases to be established in the vicinity of the Panama Canal.

SOMETHING IN THE SMOKE.

From the News-Tribune (Detroit).

month, of a Panama Canal treaty which many of the Senators would have been glad to amend in various ways, was the knowledge that a strong German movement had been organized to buy the French Panama company's assets and secure a Colombian franchise, in case the United States should lose its French option by delay beyond the time limit. Moreover, not many well-informed people suppose that the trifling debts which formed the pretext for Germany's expedition against Venezuela supplied the real motive for that enterprise. Such expeditions often lead, by a chain of occurrences, to the gaining of some sort of foothold. Thus, England's obligation to keep out of Egypt was almost, if not quite, as clear as Germany's to keep out of Venezuela. Yet Egypt's debt led to a foreign regulation of finances, which, in turn, gave excuse for interference to suppress a revolution, followed, in further turn, by a temporary occupation that has now grown into a permanent control, together with the open annexation of a large part of the Egyptian Sudan. It would have seemed impossible at one time that anything of this sort could have come about without plunging England into a great war with France. The German colonial party has been hoping that by an analogous streak of luck Germany might somehow gain a foothold in the West Indies and in South America without having to fight the United States. Germany is not seeking war any more than we are; and Germany's desire for friendly relations with the United States is perfectly sincere. But it is doubtless the opinion

of President Roosevelt, and of the leaders in Congress as well, that the way to make our present good relations with Germany secure for the long future is to keep our navy fully equal to hers, and to insist without hesitation upon our full present interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine. Meanwhile, our government will welcome every indication of growing strength and stability in the other republics of the Western Hemisphere.

What Has Been Done

The President will have both About Trusts. the right and the disposition to set forth to his Western audiences what has been done in the direction of bringing trusts under federal regulation, in the confident tone of one who has a good report to make. In some quarters, there is a studied effort to belittle what has been done at Washington with this great question. The real surprise is not that so little has been done, but that such remarkable progress has been made without disturbance of business conditions. To begin with, the work of the Industrial Commission had done much to enlighten the country as to the facts of recent consolidations of capital and of prevailing trust methods. The vigorous attempts of AttorneyGeneral Knox to enforce such laws as were found on the statute books had also helped to

clear the atmosphere and to elucidate the relations between the Government and interstate commerce. The appropriation by Congress of a large sum of money to facilitate the prosecution of offenses under the Sherman anti-trust law, and the act to give such cases the right of way in the courts, are measures of no little practical importance. A portion of the press constantly insists upon tariff reform as the one feasible method by which to abolish the evils of the trusts; but it must be plain to every careful student of the subject that it is not the tariff system, but the transportation system, that is most fundamentally accountable for those evils that have accompanied the rapid growth of great industrial aggregations.

Publicity.

The Elkins bill, therefore, is to be reFair Play and garded as a measure of the greatest possible significance. It undertakes to abolish that system of rebates and discriminations by means of which the great shippers have been enabled to destroy their small competitors or place them at a serious disadvantage. It seems to be the practical opinion of railroad men that the Elkins bill will actually succeed in breaking up the widely prevalent system of favoritism in transportation rates. Finally, legislation establishing the new Department of Commerce and Labor places in the hands of the President as much power as could well be utilized at the present time. It gives/to the new Bureau of Corporations full authority to investigate all trusts and to make such use of the information obtained as is deemed beneficial. Under this power, the muchadvocated remedy of publicity can be applied to the methods of trusts and great corporations to as complete a degree as experience may show to be necessary. It is quite true that further legislation relating to trusts may be imperative in the future; but we shall only know what that legislation ought to be by virtue of the knowledge and experience that will result from the faithful and impartial application of the laws that have been enacted in this recent session of Congress.

been deeply hostile to President Roosevelt and have resented all measures for the increase of federal control over interstate commerce, it would seem clearly to their interest to relax their political efforts. President Roosevelt has a reasonable mind; he is courageous, he is honest, and he has a well-balanced sense of justice. If the great corporate interests of the country should endeavor to elect to the Presidency a man more pliable and more susceptible to their suggestions, they would not only be quite likely to fail in their attempt, but they would certainly be exposed ;-with the result of provoking a public hostility that might lead to fanatical anti-trust measures and to the widespread injury of legitimate business.

Efficiency.

Secretary Root was obliged to give Mr. Root's up his plan of accompanying the President on the long Western tour by reason of the urgency of the business of his department. No other member of the cabinet has had even a fraction of the important affairs on his hands that have taxed the energies of the Secretary of War. With Mr. Root absent, the President will have the more freedom to express his appreciation of the remarkable efficiency of this leading member of his cabinet,-an efficiency probably unequaled by that of any other cabinet minister now in the service of any government in the world, not excepting Mr. Chamberlain or M. de Witte. M. Waldeck-Rousseau, the most successful of all French ministers, has exhibited a combination of qualities in many ways suggestive of those that distinguish Mr. Root in his public work. The great French ex-premier is a distinguished lawyer, a persuasive orator, a man. of marked executive talent, and a statesman of constructive mind who quickly grasps the salient elements in any problem or situation. Mr. Root's work at the War Department has been one long series of brilliant achievements. The new militia law and the general staff measure, both secured under his leadership, will in the end quite transform our military conditions,— the one as respects our potential strength in the rank and file for purposes of defense, the other as respects the efficiency of the army at the top. Mr. Root's success in mastering and dealing with army problems is in marked contrast with the failure of the English war secretary, Mr. Brodrick. The laying of the corner-stone of the new War College at Washington, late in February, on which occasion President Roosevelt and Secretary Root both made able speeches, was merely one incident in the development of a well-coördinated scheme for the advanced training of our army officers in the various branches of military

science. The aim of the President and the War Secretary is not to have a large army, but, in the President's language, to have our comparatively small army represent "the very highest point of efficiency of any army in the civilized world."

In the

Philippines.

that a measure might be passed to give elasticity to our money system by making it easy for small banks to issue notes in times of stringency. But the Fowler bill failed. There also seemed a good chance that Senator Aldrich might secure the passage of his measure making it possible to deposit with national banks-and thus restore to channels of circulation-the large accumulations of money that often lie in the government vaults as surplus revenue. It is to be hoped that there may be some currency legislation next winter. The Statehood fight is worth to the country all that it cost, however, because it has at last aroused the public to an appreciation of the danger of log-rolling schemes for the admission of ill-qualified Territories to the rank of sovereign States. As a result of the work done by Mr. Beveridge, with the support of the majority of his committee and of Mr. Hanna, Mr. Aldrich, Mr. Allison, Mr. Spooner, and other Senate leaders, all Statehood bills will henceforth have to make their way on their own sheer merits. The principle will be laid down that Statehood is not to be achieved by "massed plays "-to quote a football term; "one at a time" must be the order of procedure. Oklahoma, with proper arrangement for including what remains of the Indian Territory, may be admitted at any time in the future, provided the measure is brought forward in proper shape on its own merits. Al

Mr. Root's work, however, has been vastly greater than that ordinarily belonging to a Secretary of War, for he is also a colonial secretary. He had to deal with all the problems of the administration and reconstruction of Cuba, until we set up the new republic there. He has had to give constant attention to the affairs of Porto Rico, Hawaii, and, above all, to those of the Philippines. The bill appropriating $3,000,000 for the relief of distress in the Philippines,-growing out of crop failures, the death by disease of domestic animals, the cholera epidemic, and other adverse conditions, was duly passed by Congress, although the pending measure for the reduction of tariff charges on commerce between the Philippines and the United States failed of action and will have to go over to the next Congress. For present purposes, however, the Philippine coinage act that was passed will be even more useful than a measure of tariff concessions. The Philippines have been on a fluctuating silver basis, to the great embarrassment and detriment of commerce. The new standard of value is to be a gold peso of the weight of 12 9-10 grains. The Mexican silver dollar has been the coin of common circulation. In place of this there will be a Philippine silver dollar, or peso, of 416 grains' weight, and this will be coined by the Government from bullion bought for the purpose. It will be redeemable at the ratio of two of these silver coins for one standard gold peso.

THEY FAILED TO MAKE A HIT.

From the Inquirer (Philadelphia).