:>96 



GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 



20s.; that drunkenness cither of a husband or a 

 wife is ground for separation. Another bill was 

 intended to prevent evasions of the law prohibit- 

 ing the sale of drink during certain hours on 

 Sunday except to travelers. The bill proposed 

 that only certain selected houses should have the 

 privilege to sell to travelers, paying an extra li- 

 cense iee therefor, and that no traveler should be 

 served within miles from his home, instead of 

 3 miles as before, and if traveling by rail, not 

 within 25 miles. The bill forbidding the sale of 

 liquors to children was not sacrificed with other 

 incomplete legislation, and was finally passed 

 after it had been greatly altered by the standing 

 committee. Any license-holder who serves intoxi- 

 cating liquor to* a child apparently under the age 

 of sixteen years for consumption either on or on 

 the premises is liable to penalties. The act is 

 designed to save children from the contamination 

 to which they are exposed when sent to fetch 

 beer or other liquor from public-houses. The law 

 relating to youthful offenders was amended in 

 such a manner as to prevent the imprisonment 

 of very young children. 



Parliament was prorogued on Aug. 17. In the 

 King's speech the conquest of the South African 

 republics was said to have progressed steadily 

 and continuously, although the difficulty and ex- 

 tent of the country had caused military operations 

 to be protracted." The barrenness of the session 

 in legislative results was excused on the plea that 

 the attention of Parliament had been taken up by 

 the provisions made necessary by the special cir- 

 cumstances of the year the demise of the Crown, 

 the continuance of an arduous war, and the neces- 

 sity of raising fresh revenue by a wider range of 

 taxation. While providing for the heavy expendi- 

 ture of the war, Parliament had further made pro- 

 vision for the increase in many important respects 

 of the efficiency of the naval and military forces 

 of the empire* The emergency education bill, 

 vesting in local authorities the superintendence of 

 important departments of education, was de- 

 scribed as a measure intended to prepare the way 

 for further reforms, as was understood by the 

 Liberals when they wished the authority con- 

 ferred by the bill to be vested in the Education 

 Department, and defended the school boards 

 against the depreciatory strictures of Sir John 

 Gorst. Of about 300 bills submitted to Parlia- 

 ment only 40 became law, a third fewer than the 

 average for ten years, fewer than in any session of 

 recent times. Except the sale of liquor to children 

 act and the Scotch education act the only act of 

 a private member that went through was Lord 

 Windsor's libraries act. 



Dependencies. British colonies are of three 

 principal classes, the Crown colonies, in which the 

 Government is exercised by imperial officers in- 

 structed from the Colonial Office in London; 

 colonies possessing representative institutions, in 

 which the home Government retains the control 

 of the executive; and colonies having responsible 

 government in which the right of veto over legis- 

 lation remains vested in the Crown, but is exer- 

 cised only for urgent imperial reasons. The im- 

 perial Government expends about 2,000,000 a 

 year on the colonies, mainly for the maintenance 

 of naval defenses and military garrisons. The 

 military forces maintained in the colonies in 1900 

 comprised 60,079 men, of whom 5,450 were sta- 

 tioned at Gibraltar, 10,817 in Malta, 135 in Cy- 

 prus, 15,514 in Cape Colony and Natal, 3,576 in 

 Mauritius, 723 in St. Helena, 1,871 in Sierra 

 Leone, 1,782 at Halifax, 320 at Esquimault, 3,067 

 in Bermuda, 1,778 in Jamaica, 1,538 in Barbados 

 and St. Lucia, 1.719 in Ceylon, 1,794 in the Straits 



Settlements, 3,404 at Hong-Kong, 1,279 at Wei- 

 Hai-Wei, and 1,130 elsewhere, not including 4,411 

 in Egypt and the British army in India, number- 

 inw 73 484 officers and men. Ceylon, in the year 

 ending March 31, 1901, contributed 123,800, 

 Mauritius 22,200, Hong-Kong 51,600, the 

 Straits Settlements 87,200, Malta 5,000, and 

 Natal 4,000 in aid of imperial military expendi- 

 ture, while the West African colonies gave 10,- 

 000 for military expeditions, and Canada 10,000 

 for military expeditions and 21,000 for the Es- 

 quimault fortress. 



Gibraltar is a Crown colony and a military and 

 naval fortress at the entrance of the Mediter- 

 ranean, over which a military officer is invariably 

 appointed Governor, Sir George Stewart White in 

 1901. The revenue in 1899 was 59,954; expendi- 

 ture, 59,520. The tonnage of vessels entered in 

 1898 was 4,328,859, of which 3,241,492 tons were 

 British. A naval dockyard is being constructed, 

 enclosed by three moles, with two or three new 

 graving docks, 850 feet, 550 feet, and 450 feet in 

 length, and a deep harbor 260 acres in extent. 

 The works were begun in 1893, and in 1896, when 

 Mr. Goschen had succeeded Earl Spencer as First 

 Lord of the Admiralty, the plan was extended so 

 as to include large workshops and a set of store- 

 houses, the whole to cost 4,500,000. The moles 

 have been completed, one of the docks also, one 

 of the other docks was far advanced, and the 

 workshops w^ere nearly done when the work, ex- 

 cept the parts already contracted for, was stopped 

 early in 1901. Thomas Gibson Bowles had pointed 

 out in Parliament that modern siege-guns posted 

 on the neighboring heights could destroy every- 

 thing. The Earl of Selbourne, First Lord of the 

 Admiralty, appointed a committee in which Mr. 

 Bowles was associated w r ith the naval and mili- 

 tary commanders and an eminent engineer. This 

 committee reported in favor of a harbor on the 

 eastern side of the rock, enclosed within two 

 moles nearly half a mile long, sheltered from the 

 Mediterranean storms by a heavy sea mole of 

 three times their length, connected by a tunnel 

 through the Rock with the western harbor, which 

 would not be abandoned, but used in peace time 

 as far as it was completed or so near completion 

 that it would be better to carry it out, stores 

 and munitions for war to be kept in chambers ex- 

 cavated from the tunnel, and the coal supply in 

 the eastern harbor, which should have a graving 

 dock of capacity adapted to the heaviest battle- 

 ship at the maximum draught at which she could 

 float after severe damage in action, with work- 

 shops and storehouses equal to any demands. 

 This harbor is estimated to cost 5,200,000, and 

 it can not be built in less than ten years, because 

 the sea is so rough that work can go on only half 

 the time. It is less exposed to land fire, though 

 more open to attack from the sea. It is doubtful 

 whether the sea mole can be built so as to last, 

 or even built at all. If it takes too long, the 

 second dock on the western side will be carried' 

 to completion, as it is better to have a dock with 

 risks than no dock at all. The discussion alarmed 

 the Spanish Government, which feared that Eng- 

 land might covet the neighboring heights com- 

 manding the costly unfinished harbor. The Span- 

 ish military authorities took measures to guard 

 against a surprise. Even if the docks on either 

 side of the Rock are not available in war time, 

 they will contribute to the successful termina- 

 tion of a war by the aid they give during peace 

 to the efficiency of the Mediterranean and Channel 

 squadrons. 



Cyprus is Turkish territory administered by 

 Great Britain under a convention. The High 



