The London Welshman

Notes of the Week. The Queen and the Unemployed.—We do not know if Her Majesty Queen Alexandra's munificent gift of two thousand pounds to start a fund to provide for the unemployed in London and the suburbs is in response to the Prime Minister's appeal at the Lord Mayor's banquet, or whether it is meant as a censure upon the inefficiency of the statesmanship which is unable to cope with one of the most pressing necessities of the day. It shows, however, that Her Majesty is alive to the conditions under which a large portion of British subjects are compelled to exist, and her tender desire to alleviate their sufferings. This act of hers will make her dearer to the people than she was before, if that be possible, and we feel confident that her stirring appeal will have a very general and liberal response. But the serious aspect of the whole subject is this, that in civilised Britain it is left to private charity to do what ought to be accomplished by the State. Charity is a Christian and humane virtue, and will always have plenty of opportunities to express itself. "The poor we have always with us," and misfortunes will at all times reduce a large number of the commu- nity to a helpless state, misfortunes which no statesmanship could neither foresee nor prevent. But in the present case we have thousands of people reduced to the brink of starvation because they cannot find work. Whilst quite ready to admit that there may be a proportion among them who do not want work, and who would not take it if offered, still the large majority are men who are respectable members of society. These do not want charity, they want to be placed in such conditions as would give them a fair chance of earning their own bread. And it is the duty of the State to enable them to do so. The Prime Minister hinted in his reply to the women's deputation that visited him that there was a danger in State Socialism of pauperising the people. There may be, but not nearly so much as there is in private charity upon a large scale, or even in State charity as provided for by his own Unemployed Act. To make it possible for a man to earn his bread is not pauperising him, even when, in order to attain that object, public works are opened, hours of labour curtailed, some sinecures abo- lished, and the possibility of making immense fortunes somewhat lessened. Lull in Russia.—Just at present things are more quiet in Russia than they have been for some weeks. Count Witte has managed to form some kind of a Cabinet, though not a Liberal one as he had hoped General Trepoff, Governor of Saint Petersburg, responsible for that awful bloody Sunday a few months ago; Prince Obolenski, Governor of Finland, and Admiral Niconoff, Governor of Kronstadt, have all resigned; the massacre of the Jews has slackened, if not ceased the mutiny among the soldiers and sailors at Kronstadt has been for the time being put down. On the other hand martial law has been proclaimed in all the six Governments of Poland. In Warsaw the strike still goes on, and the authorities are taking strong measures to try to bring it to an end. The troops have been ordered to take possession of all stores of coal in the town in order to deprive the people of fuel. This last order is supposed to be the answer of the Czar and Count Witte to the demand of Poland for the same kind of Home Rule as has been granted to Finland. Evidently the end is not yet. It is a mere lull, and we may expect further out- breaks any day. Mr. W. T. Stead, who has just returned home from Russia takes a very gloomy view of the prospects. He blames the Liberals of the country for not joining hands with Count Witte to bolster up the authority of the Czar, and declares that things will be much worse there than they are now if the Czar goes under. He may be right, but very few people in this country will agree with him. And the events of the past twenty years do not assist us to pin our faith on Mr. Stead as a prophet. Whatever the people of Russia may be to-day, and however they may act in the future, they have been made so by the misgovernment of the Romanoff dynasty, and in our opinion, the sooner the country shakes Off that dynasty the better it will be for all concerned. Things cannot grow worse in Russia than they have been there since January last. Still we wish Mr. Stead had returned in a less pessimistic mood. ———- A "Thankless Office."—The most important event of the week in home political circles has been the resignation by Captain Wells of what the Prime Minister has designated "the thank- less office of agent to the Conservative I'arty. It is a well known fact that many Conservatives laid the blame for the reverses of the party in the bye-elections at the door of the central organisation, and a notice of motion had been given that attention would be called to the matter at the forthcoming conference of Con- servative Associations. Some maintain that Captain Wells has been driven to resign by the Tariff Reformers, because he favoured the Balfourian rather that the Chamberlainite policy. In any case he has found it more difficult to quench the fire of strife in the party ranks than he did the quenching of London conflagrations. And he has resigned the thankless office." Mr. Balfour's letter to him is a gem of its kind. If the Prime Minister has inherited nothing else from the great Liberal who preceded him in the leadership of the House of Commons, he has, at all events, inherited some of his gift of hiding his meaning in a multitude of words. Mr. Gladstone never wrote a more delightful bewildering epistle than this last one of Mr. Balfour. We cannot withstand the temptation to quote the following extract It was through no fault of yours that at the very moment of entering upon your duties you found yourself con- fronted with a position of unparalleled difficulty. This difficulty was of a kind which no skill, knowledge, or experience could surmount, and it was certainly a most unkind stroke of fortune which required you to deal with it at once." We feel inclined to ask what was this unparalleled difficulty ? Was it the tactics of the Opposition ? Was it the country's change of opinion ? Was it Mr. Chamberlain's announcement of his tariff policy ?-or are we to take it that Mr. Balfour admits that the whole party, himself included, is in such a hopeless state that no skill, know- ledge, or experience can redeem it ? We give up the attempt to solve the riddle. And the Prime Minister concludes by deploring "the circumstances which have induced you to resign your charge." What are these circumstances ? Who is responsible for them ? Or is this also a most unkind stroke of fortune?" There is one thing certain-any section of the great Unionist Party Retaliationists, Protectionists, and Free Fooders, will be able to assert that the Prime Minister blames somebody else, and that, in the present condition of things, is a precious consolation.