trade in the interior of Africa, the capture of slaves destined for sale, and their transport by sea," which can only be stopped by "the organized display of force greater than that at the disposal of those taking part in the traffic."

The states represented by plenipotentiaries or delegates at the conference, which met on Nov. 18, 1889, were Austria-Hungary, Belgium, Congo Free State, Denmark, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Netherlands, Persia, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sweden and Norway, Turkey, United States, Zanzibar. The Prince de Chimay requested that Baron Lambermont, whose knowledge and labors in connection with African matters specially fitted him for the office, should be chosen in his stead to preside over the meetings. The circular of invitation left it for the powers to decide on the programme of the conference and on the scope and nature of the measures to be considered, and the British plenipotentiaries, as representing the Government that was jointly responsible with the Belgian Government for convening the conference, offered their views of the subjects requiring consideration, placing first in order, as being the most susceptible of effective treatment, the maritime slave trade, to deal with which they proposed an international understanding, not conflicting with the rights of powers not bound by treaties, affecting only the circumscribed zone within which the traffic is confined, and especially the shores of the Red Sea; next, joint action against slave raiders; then, the suppression of the markets of destination; and finally, restriction of the traffic in liquor and in arms and ammunition, as affecting the social and moral condition of the natives, and thus indirectly the slave trade also. Committees were appointed to deal simultaneously with the slave trade in its three manifestations as defined in the scheme presented by Baron Lambermont: (1) Its inception and the inland traffic; (2) the maritime traffic; (3) the destination or ultimate market of the slave.

The English Government took the lead in presenting propositions, and in bringing forward at the outset the subject of the maritime traffic the British plenipotentiaries designed to place France in the position of obstructing the whole treaty unless she conceded a limited right of search. In 1841 she joined the United States in opposing the proposed mutual right-of-search convention for the suppression of the slave trade, and refused to subscribe to the convention that was contracted between Austria, Great Britain, Prussia, and Russia. The United States in 1862 entered into a right-of-search treaty with Great Britain; yet France has firmly adhered to the ground then taken against the searching of vessels bearing her flag in time of peace by the men-of-war of any other country. The British naval officers who have been charged with the duty of patrolling the Zanzibar coast have sometimes accused the French of protecting the slave trade by granting registration to slave dhows, and the French have complained of the violation of vessels carrying their flag. The article proposed for the consideration of the conference by the British plenipotentiaries provided that within the zone infected with the slave trade the signatory powers should jointly and severally have the right of supervision over all sailing vessels

under any flag, either on the high seas or in territorial waters, and that they should have power to detain vessels suspected, directly or indirectly, of being engaged in the slave trade, and to bring or send them to port for judgment before an international tribunal. The phrase "visit and search" of the old treaties was changed into the words "supervision" and "detention." in order to appease French public opinion as far as possible. The French Government took a month to reflect on its course, and then gave notice of a counter-project based in part on the British proposition and in part on a confidential instruction drawn up by the British and French governments in 1867. The French scheme accepted the British limitation of the contaminated zone, more precisely defined. and approved the creation of an international tribunal. The crucial point of detention and supervision was reduced to the right of stopping sailing vessels and ascertaining that their papers were in order. Stringent new regulations were proposed for preventing improper persons from obtaining leave to use the flag of any of the signatory powers and for officially inspecting the crew and passengers and checking the lists at every port, which, in the opinion of the French Government, would render further supervision unnecessary. The British Government, for the sake of promoting an agreement, proposed to limit the class of vessels subject to supervision to craft not exceeding 500 tons, and to restrict the application of existing right-of-search treaties to the infected zone. The proposal for instituting an international tribunal was dropped, and provision was made for liberating slaves and dealing with slavers on the spot, without conveying them to the country whose flag the captured vessel displayed, as required in the old treaties. The propositions from both sides were framed into a single project by Prof. F. de Martens, one of the Russian plenipotentiaries, which was made the basis of the deliberations of the maritime committee.

The premature disclosure of the proposed prohibition of the traffic in firearms stirred up the manufacturers of Birmingham and the speculators who supply African slave hunters with discarded army rifles, who influenced the British Government to recede from its first_intention. The Dutch, German, Italian, and Portuguese plenipotentiaries, as well as the British, favored the mere regulation of the traffic, though the French contended strongly for its entire suppression. The English proposition in regard to the liquor traffic was to impose the prohibitive duty of 200 francs per hectolitre in the coast and Lower Congo regions where the trade now exists, and to forbid imports elsewhere. Though warmly seconded by the French plenipotentiaries, this and the subsequent proposal of a duty of 50 francs were rejected through the influence of the German distillers and Dutch traders, who obtained a tariff that they declared would not disturb trade or reduce consumption, as it raises the price of spirits in Africa, which was five cents a quart, to eight cents only. The German Government was non-committal; but the representatives of the Netherlands strenuously opposed any duty on the ground that it violated the Congo general act, which guaranteed freedom of trade for twenty years. Mr. Sanford, one of the rep

resentatives of the United States, suggested the exclusion of spirits unfit for use by condemning and confiscating those that are found imperfectly rectified or adulterated.

Baron Lambermont offered a proposition to enable the Free State of the Congo to levy duties on imports not to exceed 10 per cent. ad valorem. The representatives of the Congo State pointed to the development of trade and civilizing activities in the Congo region, surpassing the expectations of the framers of the general act of 1885, and urged the necessity of a larger revenue to enable their Government to protect that trade and to carry out the duties imposed on it by the treaty under consideration. Mr. Terrell, representing the United States, questioned the competence of the conference to revise the general act of the former African Conference, and the Government of the Netherlands, encouraged by this unexpected support, stubbornly adhered to the stand it had taken, refusing to give its sanction to either a duty on liquor or a general tariff in the conventional basin of the Congo. Turkey and Persia reserved their rights of sovereignty over the ports where it was proposed to watch against the landing of slaves, while accepting the duty of co-operating in the suppression of the African slave trade without disturbance of the existing status of domestic slaves. Caratheodori Effendi did not sign the general act, as his Government, with its habitual slowness, wanted more time to examine its provisions. Turkey and Holland were given six months to sign. The plenipotentiaries of all other powers put their names to the general act on July 2. On July 18 it was signed by the Turkish minister at Brussels.

fenses.

The first chapter, dealing with the suppression of the slave trade by land, declares the most effective means to be the organization of civil administration, justice, and religion; the introduction of roads, railroads, and steamboats; the establishment of military posts and scouting expeditions; and the restriction of the importation of improved firearms. The powers exercising a Sovereignty or protectorate in Africa engage to make laws punishing as felonies slave hunting, mutilation of male infants, transportation of slaves, and mercantile dealings in them, and to extradite persons charged with any of these of A fugitive slave shall receive asylum in the camps and stations or on board the cruisers of any of the signatory powers, but private stations or boats without the authorization of the state are not permitted to extend the right of asylum. Slaves liberated on the stopping of a caravan must be sent to their homes, if possible. The prohibition of the importation of firearms is laid down, as a principle, with exceptions for the case in which the sovereign or protecting power thinks it desirable to permit it on its territory. In this case the arms are to be deposited in a public warehouse, and can only be withdrawn by permission of the authorities, though flint-locks and common powder may be stored in private warehouses. No arms must be sold in districts infected with the slave trade, and no breech-loaders, repeating rifles, or cartridges can be taken ont of bond except by persons having a license The zone to which the regulations relating to firearms apply extends from 20° of north latitude to 22° of south latitude and

to bear arms.

from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean, including islands within one hundred marine miles of the shores. A power occupying a coast district giving the only access to the inland territory of another power can not forbid the transit of munitions destined and declared to be for the use of the public authorities, except provisionally in the case of disturbances.

The second chapter deals with the caravan routes and binds the powers having possessions in Africa to establish posts for intercepting convoys and to examine caravans at their places of destination. Any person previously condemned for taking part in the slave trade will not be permitted to engage in a commercial expedition without giving security.

The third chapter contains the provisions for the suppression of the slave trade by sea. The maritime zone is bounded by the coasts of the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea, and the Persian Gulf from Quilimane to Beloochistan, by a line extending obliquely to Cape Ambre, then by a line passing round the island of Madagascar and westward along the 26th parallel of south latitude, till it meets the meridian of Cape Tangalane, and then by that meridian running northward to Quilimane. The limitation of the right of search to vessels under 500 tons shall be revised if larger vessels engage in the slave trade. An international office for the exchange of information regarding the slave trade and persons engaged in it will be established at Zanzibar.

The fourth chapter relates to countries of destination. The contracting powers having possessions in or out of Africa in which the institution of domestic slavery is recognized bind themselves to prohibit the importation, transit, and exit of African slaves and all trade in them, and to exercise stringent supervision at all points of entry and exit. Fugitive slaves entering their dominions shall be free. Penal laws will be enacted against importers and traders in African slaves and perpetrators of mutilations. The Sultan of Turkey promises to watch the western shores of Arabia; the Shah of Persia engages to exercise a close supervision in the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman and the inland routes; and the Sultan of Zanzibar binds himself to assist in repressing slave-trade offenses and to establish a liberation bureau. The next chapter contains provisions relating to the International Maritime Bureau at Zanzibar, the exchange of documents and data between governments, and the protec tion of liberated slaves.

The powers possessing territories in the zone between 20° of north latitude and 22° of south latitude agree to prohibit the importation or manufacture of distilled liquors in districts where, on account of religious belief or for other reasons, their use has not been introduced, and in other districts where they are freely admitted or are subjected to a duty of less than 15 francs per hectolitre they engage to levy a duty of that amount for three years. The duty may be increased to 25 francs for a fresh period of three years, and at the end of that time the powers have a right to maintain higher duties where they have them already and to increase them. At the end of six years the article shall be subjected to revision for the purpose of fixing a minimum duty throughout the whole extent of

the zone. Distilled drinks manufactured in the country must be subjected to a duty equal to the duty on imports.

ARGENTINE REPUBLIC, a federal republic in South America. The Constitution in its main features resembles that of the United States. The central executive power is vested in a President elected for six years by representatives of the fourteen provinces equal to double the number of Senators and Deputies combined. The National Congress consists of a Senate numbering two members from each province, elected by the Legislatures, and two from the capital, elected by a special body, and of a House of Deputies containing 86 members, who are voted for directly by the people. The President, who was installed on Oct. 12, 1886, is Dr. Miguel Juarez Celman. The Vice-President is Dr. Carlos Pellegrini. The ministry consists of five Secretaries of State, who are appointed by the President and are responsible to him. It was composed in the beginning of 1890 of the following ministers: Interior. Dr. N. Q. Costa; Foreign Affairs, Dr. Estanislao S. Zeballos; Finance, Dr. W. Pacheco; Justice, Dr. F. Posse; War and Marine, Gen. E. Racedo.

Area and Population.-The area of the country is 1,125,086 square miles. The 14 provinces, having an area of 515,700 square miles, had in 1887, according to an official estimate, 3,876, 654 inhabitants. The population of the territories, covering 609,386 square miles, is estimated at only 170,000 persons. Buenos Ayres, the capital, had a population of 521,322 in November, 1889. Including the suburbs, it contained 538,385 people, of whom 150,000 were foreigners. Cordoba in 1887 had 66,600 inhabitants; Rosario, 55,000; Tucuman, 40,000; La Plata, 40,000. The population of the Republic has more than doubled in twenty years, the increase being chiefly due to immigration. Between 1870 and 1886 the excess of immigration over emigration was 634,266. In 1887 the number of immigrants was 136,842; in 1888, 180,993: in 1889, 289,014. The emigration since 1880 has varied between 9,000 and 14,000 annually. Of the total arrivals during the period 1880-'87, about 70 per cent. were Italians, 10 per cent. Spaniards, 74 per cent. French, and 12 per cent. from other countries. The number of foreigners in the Republic in 1887 was 600,000, comprising 280,000 Italians, 150,000 French, 100,000 Spaniards, 40,000 English, 20,000 Germans, and 10,000 of other nationalities.

Production and Commerce.-Not more than 1 per cent. of the area of the 14 provinces and 5 territories is under cultivation. The area sowed to wheat in 1889 was 1,035,000 hectares; to Indian corn, 850.000 hectares; to flax, 140,000 hectares. The alfalfa crop covered 379,816 hectares in 1888; oats, 36,659 hectares; the vine. 26,931 hectares; sugar-cane, 21,053 hectares. The total value of the harvest of 1889 was estimated at $100,255,000. The live stock in 1888 numbered 22,869,385 cattle, 4,398,283 horses, and 70,453,665 sheep, valued altogether at $369,561,607.

The total value of the merchandise imports in currency was $164,245,428 in 1889, against $128, 378,512 in 1888; of the exports, $122,596,563, against $99,974,832. The imports of coin and bullion in 1889 were $11,749,759, against $44,

The imports of textiles and apparel in 1888 amounted to $29,008,445; of iron and manufactures thereof, $17,643,134; of railroad, telegraph, and other material, $15,472,332; of food substances, $14,561,347; of drinks, $12,351,829. The exports of animals and animal products were of the value of $71,075,955; of agricultural produce, $16,298,360; of manufactured products, $8,105,847; of mineral products, $1,526, 057. The wool exports were valued at $44,858, 606; hides and skins, $22,392,105; wheat, $8.248, 614; Indian corn, $5,444,464. The export of frozen mutton increased from 434,699 carcasses in 1886 to 873,460 in 1888, or in value from $360, 508 to $1,459,672, reckoned in currency, and that of other frozen meat showed an increase in value from $1,876 to $3,415,327, while preserved or salted meat, consisting mainly of dried beef, fell away from $3,738,820 to $12,185.

Revenue and Expenditure.-The estimates of receipts for 1889 and 1890 were as follow:

The total revenue in 1888 was $57,651,711, and the expenditure $50,801,763. The exterior national debt amounts to $127,262,000, on which the annual interest and sinking fund amount to $11,500,000 in gold. In addition to this, $29,140, 900 of the interior debt has been placed abroad, requiring $1,748,454 to pay the interest and amortization charges. The national interior debt held in the country amounts to $162,920,153, of which $68,778,298 bear no interest. The floating debt is about $5.000.000, the interest on which is $250,000. The Government pays $2. 950,000 of guaranteed interest to railroads, and has undertaken to pay $2,975,000 more. These payments are merely advances that will be returned from the future receipts of the railroads.

Navigation. The number of vessels entered at Argentine ports in 1887-'88 was 13,493, of

4,885,777 tons; the number cleared 10,810, of 4,319,439 tons. Of the total tonnage 30 per cent. was national, 30 per cent. British, 16 per cent. French, and 7 per cent. Italian.

Railroads. There were 6,940 miles of railroad completed in 1889, and 2,990 miles under construction. The receipts were $21,000,000 and the expenses $12,250,000 in 1888.

Post-Office and Telegraphs.--Of 14,700 miles of telegraph lines in operation in 1888 the state owned 7,300 miles, The total length of wires was 25,550 miles. The number of dispatches in 1889 was 3,511,420. In November, 1889, a concession was granted for a direct cable between Buenos Ayres and Europe, to be ready for operation within two years and a half. The postal traffic in 1889 was 42,965,555 letters, 965,269 postal cards, and 32,793,607 newspapers, etc. The Army and Navy.-The regular army consists of 1,000 artillery, 2,500 cavalry, and 3.500 infantry, exclusive of officers, who number 1,129 of all grades. The militia comprises 236,000 men between the ages of seventeen and fortyfive years.

The navy in 1889 comprised 1 sea-going armorclad, the "Almirante Brown," of 4,200 tons displacement, with 9-inch steel-faced armor; 2 ironclad monitors; 1 deck-protected cruiser; 6 gunboats; and 9 torpedo boats, besides dispatch boats, transports, and sailing vessels. Two torpedo gunboats, each armed with 6 Nordenfeldt quick-firing guns, 2 gatling guns, and 5 torpedo tubes, were launched in England in 1890.

Financial History.—The material development of the Argentine Republic was begun by the reforms of Gen. Roca, who became President in 1880. In the former era, when cattlebreeding was the only large industry of the country and hides were almost the only article of export, the city and province of Buenos Ayres dominated the confederation, and political power was attained by adventurers who lavished their money in attaching to their fortunes a sufficient following of guacho desperadoes, the semi-civilized half-breed cattle-men of the plains, who constituted the only fighting class in the community. Roca neutralized this turbulent element by creating a disciplined army armed with repeating rifles. The federal republic became more of a reality when the city of Buenos Ayres was separated from the province and made the national capital, and the provincial debt was assumed by the Federal Government, and when public improvements were introduced with the aid of the Central Government in the other provinces. With the promise of orderly political conditions and the encouragement given by the Government to agriculture and sheep growing, capital and labor poured into the country from Europe. The building of railroads, mainly with money borrowed in England, was attended with jobbery and political corruption of the most flagrant character. A period of excessive speculation followed, and this was stimulated by European bankers, who, on the strength of the remarkable growth of production and commerce, could find a ready market for any kind of Argentine securities. Even cedulas, a species of mortgage bonds secured on private lands payable to bearer, that were issued on the guarantee of the Provincial Hypothecary Bank, a branch of the ProVOL. XXX.—2 A

vincial Bank of Buenos Ayres, were put on the market, first by the Deutsch Bank of Berlin, and found purchasers all over Europe. The Provincial and Hypothecary banks, which, through the privileges granted by the Government of Buenos Ayres, possessed almost a monopoly of the credit business of the country, were owned and controlled by Buenos Ayrean politicians, who exerted their financial influence to secure the succession to the presidency for the governor of the province. To counterbalance their power, President Roca, who had selected his brother-inlaw, Juarez Celman, to succeed him, founded, in 1884, the National Bank, which was made the fiscal agent of the National Government and of all the provinces except Buenos Ayres, and to this the Congress annexed in the following session a National Hypothecary Bank, with power to issue cedulas on real estate in the capital and national territories. These transferrable mortgage deeds, passing from hand to hand, served as a kind of money, and thus inflated the circulating medium. By means of these financial institutions and by military and official violence and intimidation, Celman was elected and the ascendency secured for the Cordoba gang," who have the reputation among the Argentines not of their province of being the most corrupt band of public plunderers that ever infested and ruined a prosperous country. These charges they met at the beginning of Celman's administration by an investigation of the affairs of the Provincial Bank, which proved fraud and peculation to be rife also among their rivals, the politicians of Buenos Ayres.

Paper money stood at par with gold from 1883 till 1885, the amount in circulation when it began to depreciate being $58,000,000. In those two years foreign commerce increased by $33,810,699. The revenue of the Government increased rapidly, and expenditures at a still greater rate. With the influx of Italian and Spanish immigrants began an era of wild speculation and the creation of fictitious values. In response to a call for an increased circulating medium, the Congress authorized the National Bank to issue $41,000,000 additional of paper currency. Under the pretense of reforming the financial system and creating a secured currency, but in reality to satisfy the demand for inflation, a law was passed on Nov. 3, 1887, establishing a system of national banks on the model of those of the United States. Under this law there sprang into existence forty banks, with a capital of $350,000,000, and by October, 1889, they had issued $158,000,000 of currency, secured by national bonds deposited with the Government. This emission and the continued influx of British, French, Belgian, and German capital, led to a still greater inflation of values. From $750,000,000 to $1,000,000,000 of English capital is said to be invested in the Argentine Republic and its securities. The gold agio, instead of being lowered by the national banking law, was aggravated. Then came the free banking law, and in a little while the issue of paper currency amounted to $190,000,000, which was increased subsequently to $225,000,000 by clandestine issues that were legalized by the Government. The cedulas, which were practically an addition to the paper currency, continued to be issued

the league. The Iron Chancellor, who intended to make use of the league as a prop for the principle of absolutism and for his reactionary and repressive methods of government, had no desire to work with a statesman who not only was his equal in the field of high politics and diplomacy, but was a conspicuous representative of parliamentarism and modern liberalism. In Austria Andrassy's position was impaired by his unpopular Oriental policy. He had been always disliked in the Conservative court circles as a rebel, an advocate of subversive ideas, and he incurred the active hostility of a large number of influential people during the period of his ascendency over the mind of the Emperor by working out a great plan for the reorganization and invigoration of the civil departments and military administration that would drive a host of sleepy placemen from their sinecures. That he had lost his complete ascendency, was revealed to him when Franz Josef refused to make public the German alliance, and still more clearly when the Emperor expressed displeasure and annoyance at Andrassy's having signed a convention reaffirming the Sultan's suzerainty over the occupied provinces and permitting Turkish troops to share the duty of garrisoning the frontier towns. The minister, wishing to retire to private life for a while, in order to restore his fortune, which he had seriously impaired by his magnificent hospitalities, resigned in the confident expectation of being recalled. All Europe wondered at the unaccountable withdrawal of one of the directing minds in international politics, and in the Hapsburg dominions no one could understand how the affairs of the monarchy could be carried on while the towering personality who had acted as chancellor and adviser of the ruler on all important matters stood idly by. Every one looked for his recall; every one knew that if he raised his voice in Parliament or in the delegations, he might have returned to the palace on the Ballplatz with the whole Hungarian nation at his back. The foreign policy of the empire followed the course that he had marked out for it. When Italy entered the league of peace, Prince Bismarck found himself compelled, after all, to act with the ministers of a modern constitutional state. Count Kalnoky did not combat the designs of Russia as vigorously as he would have done, yet he refrained from every word or act that could cause embarrassment, and awaited with dignity and patience the moment when the Emperor should call him back to his old place. When difficult questions came up, the Emperor always called him into consultation. In 1885 he rendered Tisza an important service by inducing the Hungarian aristocracy to accept the reform of the House of Magnates, and in 1890, while tortured with the fatal malady of cancer of the bladder, he sent his son to urge in his name the passage of the new Honved bill.

ANGLICAN CHURCHES. Statistics of Benevolent Contributions and Confirmations.-The Year-Book of the Church of England gives from year to year tables and reviews showing the condition and advance of the numerous institutions and enterprises connected with the Church of England, and usually contains new matter concerning interests not before,

or only briefly noticed. The eighth volume, for 1890, includes enlarged reports of convalescent homes; a new table of Sunday-School associations, containing a list of two hundred such bodies arranged by dioceses; and a digest of the discussions and acts of the various Church bodies

convocations, the House of Laymen, and diocesan conferences-during the past four years. Its tables show that the Church spends a million sterling or more every year on fresh enterprises of church extension, while also increasing nearly every year the sums raised for home and foreign missions, elementary education, hospitals, and other educational and benevolent objects. Since 1811 nearly £33,000,000 have been devoted to the building and maintenance of training schools and colleges, £17,500,000 having been spent in this manner since 1870, when the first education act was passed. In 1888 the sum voluntarily given to these purposes exceeded £888,000. The increase in the number of persons confirmed, as recorded in former YearBooks, is maintained and enlarged. From 1874 to 1876 the number averaged 144,000 a year; in the past three years the average was 220,000, showing an increase of more than 50 per cent. This growth appears to have been concurrent with the establishment of six new dioceses, and with an increase in the number of centers in which confirmations were held from less than 1,700 to more than 2,300. Of the £38,240 contributed in 1889 to the Metropolitan Hospital Sunday fund, the Church furnished £30,611. Of the whole amount of the collections for this fund for seventeen years, since it was instituted, £512,476, the Church has given £389,542, or fully 75 per cent. The record of a movement for promoting higher religious education among all classes, and more particularly among those who have some leisure on week days, is noticed in the Year-Book for the first time. It began in the diocese of Oxford, and has extended to the dioceses of Winchester, Salisbury, Exeter, Bath and Wells, and Hereford. Its method of operations consists in providing popular lectures on a Scriptural or other ecclesiastical subject for a term of weeks or months, giving individual help in classes, inviting candidates to examination, and generally inducing people to seek precise and definite knowledge on religious subjects.

Society for the Propagation of the Gospel.-The annual meeting of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts was held May 1. The Archbishop of Canterbury presided. The gross income of the society for the year had been £125,038. There were now on the list of the society's agents, including 10 bishops, 646 ordained missionaries, of whom 205 were laboring in Asia, 147 in Africa, 14 in Australia and the Pacific, 210 in North America, 35 in the West Indies, and 35 in Europe. Of the whole number 121 were natives laboring in Asia, and 26 in Africa. There were also in the various missions about 2,300 lay teachers, 2,650 students in the colleges, and 38,000 children in the mission schools in Asia and Africa. A mission to North Borneo had been added to the society's enterprises in the previous year; the new features of the present year had been the departure of the first Episcopal Missionary to New Guinea and the consecration of the first Bishop of Corea.