until sufficient reënforcements arrived from other provinces. And yet nearly every sanguinary encounter with striking thousands of workmen has been followed by concessions, such as a shorter work-day, compulsory sanitary improvements in factories and workshops, etc., which were promul gated with such haste as to call forth caustic comment on the part of the workmen, as well as indignation at the crude paternalistic interference in their business on the part of their employers.

WEAKENING OF RUSSIAN ABSOLUTISM.

The manifesto of the Czar, which came, the other day, as a surprise to the outside world, is but another concession to the Liberal opposition foreshadowed in the Czar's speech at Kursk last November. It is the first practical concession made by M. von Plehwe to the Liberals, whom he recently assured of his willingness to make substantial concessions, provided they would agree to keep out their main demand for a constitutional change. The effect of this vacillating policy is, however, the very opposite of what the government would have it be. The people for whom they are intended are no more placated by the

concessions than they are frightened by the persecutions. On the contrary, they see in both proof of confusion and fright in government circles. The demand for representative government grows ever louder, as it is held to be the only guarantee against the arbitrary power of irresponsible ministers, who are the virtual rulers of the country.

Matters have reached a stage where no amount of government repression can put a stop to the new movement for constitutional government. The country has outgrown the archaic forms of government which it had inherited from the time of the Tartar invasion, centuries ago. Whether political freedom will come peacefully as a wise and timely concession from the government, insuring thereby its own existence, or as the result of a bloody revolution of which we have had a foretaste in the late peasant uprisings, and which may sweep the reigning dynasty from its throne, will depend largely on the policy of the government in the next few years. In either event, the days of absolutism in Russia are numbered, and constitutional government is admitted to be imminent even by such men as von Plehwe and de Witte.

THE

A NEW RÉGIME

HE retirement of Maurice Grau from the direction of the Metropolitan Opera House has put another in control of the greatest operatic machinery in the world. Heinrich Conried, who has been for nearly a quarter of a century a manager, is next year to become an impresario. His experienced control of the drama is to be transferred to music, and he begins his new work on the throne of the man who had really been for years the king of opera. Some European theaters have longer seasons than the Metropolitan Opera House. They have state recognition, and their performances are much more frequent. But none of them is such a vast artistic enterprise. Only the aristocracy of the operatic world is brought to New York. The singers must first prove themselves the greatest in their field. The weekly income, as well as the expenses of the theater, are reckoned in tens of thousands. Some Continental opera houses in which hundreds express the magnitude of the business would prosper for a week on the receipts of one performance at the Metropolitan. Few operas are sung, and great singers were never

developed through the encouraging influences of the establishment. But the best works in the operatic repertoire of Germany, France, and Italy are performed here in the language of the operas better than they are given in any of the countries that created them, and by singers gathered with an extravagance that would nowhere else be possible. So Mr. Conried is beginning his career as an operatic manager in the most conspicuous institution of its kind in the world.

The forces on the stage include more than three hundred persons. There is an orchestra of seventy players, as many singers in the chorus, a ballet of forty, scene-painters, stage hands, electricians, and seamstresses. Then there are the principal artists, and the singers of the smaller rôles. On the other side of the curtain there is the public, which annually pays approximately one million dollars to hear the operas. public is so certain of what it is to receive that it always pays out one-third of this sum in advance. For four years, the annual subscription has amounted to about three hundred thousand

This

dollars, and this money is in bank four months before the performances.

Mr. Conried finds all this machinery working smoothly. Public support is assured. Opera is as well settled an institution in New York as it is in Paris or Berlin, where the governments protect it. Popular singers in popular operas is a policy that means certain prosperity. This was Mr. Grau's formula, and it was the secret of his achievement. Other managers discovered composers or developed singers. Mr. Grau showed that opera could be put on the solid financial basis of any other enterprise. Singers received their salaries, and stockholders their dividends. Only a half-century ago, managers conducted the affairs of Covent Garden from the Fleet prison, and prima donnas in our own time at the Academy of Music refused to put on their satin slippers until their fees were forthcoming. Now, all is managed in a business-like way. The new stock company formed to support the new manager in his control of the opera house is composed in the main of millionaires. So the business phases of Mr. Conried's task are more than ever certain. Mr. Grau's scheme was to engage the best singers known. Some of them pleased Americans, and some did not. Usually,

'hoto by Aime Dupont.

MR. MAURICE GRAU.

(Who has retired from the management of the Metropolitan Opera House.)

Photo by Pach Bros.

MR. HEINRICH CONRIED.

Mr.

(The new manager of the Metropolitan Opera House.) the celebrities liked abroad became popular here and have returned year after year. Grau had only to decide which of this group of stars he would annually select. He knew that it was necessary not to let the public see them too frequently. They must not become too familiar. There is one difficulty with this method, there is no generation of singers in sight to supplant the stars of the present day. There are no tenors and no sopranos to take the places of the great ones now before the public. It has been difficult for Mr. Grau to find competent artists for the less important positions. His summers have been spent hearing singers most of whom would not satisfy American audiences. The search for a competent Wagnerian tenor has kept him for a month or two of every year in Germany. One night to Cologne to hear a Tristan so far below New York standards that he was not to be thought of; the next night to Dresden or Hamburg, where there was an equally unsatisfactory Siegmund. In the end, there came the engagement of a tenor who would be only moderately acceptable. The famous stars he could always engage. But the generation from which future stars are to come is not promising.

Mr. Conried, luckily, finds it possible to continue for several years in the old way. There are great singers enough to carry him through until the interest of audiences can be turned from the interpreters of works to the operas themselves. In general scheme, his first seasons will probably differ little from the last few years. There will always be one point of dif ference. Mr. Grau hired a

stage manager. He was

rather indifferent to the effect of this functionary, and considered him rather unimportant. But he engaged the best stage manager he could find, without much confidence in its being particularly worth while. With the

same idea, he engaged the most competent electrician he knew of. Mr. Conried, on the other hand, is master of every detail of the stage technique. He keenly appreciates the value of every artistic effect in color, light,

and pose. The spectacular features at the Mettropolitan will be emphasized. Operatic stage management differs, of course, from the same preparation in the theater. Prima donnas and great tenors will not be told what they should or should not do. But in the grouping of the masses, in the effects of illumination, and in the details of stage management, Mr. Conried's influence at the Metropolitan Opera House will undoubtedly be felt from the first perform

ance.

His real task will come with the necessity of interesting his public in the work rather than in the stars that perform it. In the end, Mr. Conried must say to the audiences at the Metropolitan: "I am not offering you Jean de Reszke as Lohengrin or Mme. Sembrich as Rosina. I invite you to hear Wagner's Lohengrin,' completely presented in every detail, and Rossini's comic opera, perfect in every particular." There is room for greater beauty of spectacle and vast improvement in the chorus work in the operas. The scenery and the general equipment of the stage have always been inefficient. All this will be changed under Mr. Conried.

The wealthy stockholders in the Conried Metropolitan Opera Company are with him in

his determination to give greater attention to the artistic side of the enterprise.

The new manager of the greatest opera house in the world has always accomplished much with little. The Irving Place Theater, which he has directed for ten years, is not a flourishing institution. But its performances have attracted attention quite out of proportion to the importance of a downtown playhouse presenting dramas in a foreign tongue. The high artistic purpose of the manager, his accomplishments with limited. facilities, and his struggles to have his theater educational and representative made him the most conspicuous of New York theatrical managers. From that night in 1872 when he spoke. the prologue at the opening of the Residenz Theatre in Vienna and began his theatrical career, he has advanced steadily. He acted successfully in Leipsic and Bremen; he had the management of the Stadt Theatre in Bremen, where he had his only operatic experience, and in 1877 he came to the United States as stage director of the Germania Theatre. Since that time, he has brought to New York all the most noted German actors. He has obtained consistently artistic results with material means that would have discour aged most experienced and ambitious managers.

PLUNKETT.

DUBLIN, January 20, 1903.

To the Editor of the REVIEW OF REVIEWS :

UDGE: Gentlemen, Mr. Plunkett, as you know, has come over here to talk about Ireland

MR. PLUNKETT: Pardon me, Judge, in order not to talk about Ireland, but for a rest and to attend to some private business.

JUDGE: Well, we won't ask for a speech, but several of us here are Irishmen, and as we know you are actively engaged in promoting the agricultural and industrial development in the "distressful country," some of us are beginning to think that is what she wants,-perhaps you would tell us exactly what you are doing.

MR. PLUNKETT: I won't undertake to do that, but I will tell you something much more interesting-namely, what the people are beginning to do for themselves along the line of agricul ture and industry. I suppose you think the Irish the most hopelessly backward and unprogressive people in the world. It is true that they have fallen behind through historical causes, which fully accounts for their present economic disadvantages and industrial defects. doubt whether any country at the moment is so methodically and so energetically applying itself to the rebuilding of its fortunes.

But I

PROFESSOR That, at any rate, is news to us here. We all know about the shipbuilding and the linen industries of Belfast, and the industrial success of part of the Ulster Province. We know of the distilling and brewing industries which flourish in other parts of the island, but I always understood that the great majority of the people in the rest of Ireland depended almost exclusively upon agriculture for their subsistence. This is not a healthy condition. All over the world, there is a present tendency for the

rural populations to flock into the towns, and as the Irish have but few towns,-in fact, only one really important industrial town,-they come to our cities. Is it not true that in the last halfcentury your population has been reduced by one-half?

MR. PLUNKETT: Yes, from a little over eight to a little under four and a half millions, and the drain goes on, though at a diminishing rate. And, what is worse, it is the best that go, leaving behind a population with an abnormal proportion of the very old, the very young, and the physically infirm. I should accept generally the facts as you have put them.

THE WORKINGS OF "FAIR-RENT AND LAND-
PURCHASE ACTS.

LAWYER: But I understood you to say that Ireland was progressing. It doesn't look much like it from the facts upon which you and the Professor seem to be agreed. The population is disappearing. The great majority of the remnant of the race who have not yet come to this country are living upon farming. That industry we all know is in a deplorable condition, mainly owing to the fact that the landlords are in a position to raise the rent and so confiscate the improvements of the tenants.

JUDGE: Oh, no. All that is now changed.

MR. PLUNKETT: Yes, indeed; for the last twenty years the Irish tenant has enjoyed perpetuity of tenure so long as he pays his rent; and that is fixed, not by the landlords, but by the state, every fifteen years, through a specially appointed state tribunal. Moreover, the "fair rent," as it is called, secures to the tenant the value of his improvements.

RANCHMAN: Then what is he kicking about? I see in the papers that there is another land agitation going on. The tenant has practically

got a good slice of the land, and now wants to get the balance by a law compelling the landlord to skip out. Since you were in the ranch business, I have been renting a farm in Nebraska, and I wish I could get settled there for life subject to a rent fixed by some body of politicians. It might cost a bit to square them, but I guess I wouldn't have to pay what I pay now. But if such a law were proposed, they would turn it down, because people would begin to fear that the tribunal would next be given power to fix the price of anything else that some influential body of voters might like to get cheaper.

MR. PLUNKETT: Oh, well; you need not fear. I understand that the legislation I have described would not be constitutional in this country.

LAWYER: That's so.

MR. PLUNKETT: It was justified in Ireland by considerations which don't apply to the United States, but only to a country where the popula tion live so exclusively upon farming that they , are not in a position to contract freely for the right to use the land. And in Ireland the case is the more exceptional in that the disappearance of their industries was due to legislative enactments.

LAWYER But what's the trouble now?

MR. PLUNKETT: Unhappily, the system of rentfixing has proved a failure. The periodical re

vision of rent means a lawsuit between the landlord and the tenant every fifteen years, and it also has the effect of discouraging good farming, for the tenant thinks it pays best to deteriorate the farm when the time for revision approaches, so as to get a large reduction. It is enough to say that the system does not work satisfactorily for either party or for the country at large.

PROFESSOR: I wonder how anybody ever could have expected that it would.

The

MR. PLUNKETT: Several land - purchase acts have been passed, and about 12 per cent. of the tenants have been enabled to buy out their holdings with the assistance of state credit. experiment has proved entirely satisfactory, and the great majority of the tenants naturally want to become owners by the same means. The landlord is willing to sell if he gets enough to give him approximately his present income in some other investment. The trouble is that he is generally a life owner only, and so has to invest the proceeds of the sale in trust securities which would not yield him more than some 3 per cent. interest. There has been a great agitation to make the landlords sell, but compulsory purchase

and sale won't be enacted by this government. The latter, however, will undoubtedly facilitate voluntary purchase by their forthcoming land bill. The process of making tenants into owners in fee, subject to a terminable annuity, will go on. PROFESSOR: I think we are keeping Mr. Plunkett away from the point we want to hear him upon. He said that the Irish people are progressing. I presume he means that they are making improvements in their chief industry of agriculture. I understand that the outstanding feature in the trend of Irish agriculture during the last half-century has been the conversion of tillage land into pasturage. Goldwin Smith and other authorities tell us that Ireland is chiefly fitted for grazing, and that the people are pastoral and not agricultural in their instincts. Certainly, when they come to this country, agriculture is the last occupation to which they apply their energies.

RANCHMAN: I recollect when you used to tell us the weight of your father's beef cattle and what he got for them without giving them any corn, and I asked you what in thunder ever induced you to come out West. You said you were not sure about your lungs, and that maybe some day you would be in Irish politics and must take care of them. (Great laughter, which seemed to be mostly at the Senator's expense.)

THE IRISH PROBLEM OF TO-DAY.

MR. PLUNKETT: Yes, and I remember the contempt with which you replied that you were not out there for your health. But if I may go back to the point to which the Professor wanted to bring me, I admit all the difficulties in the situation. In spite of them, the Irish people are determined to rebuild their national life on all its sides. They are not only setting about improv ing the agricultural conditions and getting themselves trained to conduct their main industry more economically and more scientifically, but they mean to fit themselves gradually for the revival of the lost industries and the creation of new ones subsidiary to agriculture, in order that they may be able to live and thrive at home, and hold on to the country to which they are devoted with a passionate devotion. If you would like to hear the story of their recent efforts to accomplish this task, I will gladly tell it to you.

JUDGE: We shall be very glad to hear of what the Irish people are doing to help themselves under existing conditions, which we all recognize are not now as unfavorable as they were. We have been accustomed to hear only of what they would do if certain political remedies were applied. I may tell you, Mr. Plunkett, we most of us here believe in these political