342 



GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 



public office to which they aspire. It was under- 

 stood that the labor vote would not be given to 

 candidates of either party in the next general 

 election unless they pledged themselves to sup- 

 port a measure giving pay to members of Parlia- 

 ment and local legislative bodies. The custom 

 of subletting Government contracts was con- 

 demned, and it was held that public bodies 

 ought not to give contracts to firms refusing to 

 conform to the regulations, the hours of work, 

 and the wages decreed by the trade unions. 



Congress on Hygiene and Demography. 

 The Seventh International Congress on Hygiene 

 and Demography met in London on Aug. 10, 

 1891, under the presidency of the Prince of 

 Wales. In the division of hygiene Sir Joseph 

 Fayrer presided over the section of preventive 

 medicine, Sir Joseph Lister over that of bacteri- 

 ology, Sir Nigel Kingscote over the one dealing 

 with the connection between animal and human 

 diseases, J. R. Diggle over the section that con- 

 sidered infant and school life, Sir II. E. Roscoe, 

 Sir Arthur W. Bloomfield, and Sir John Goode 

 over those that discussed chemistry and physics, 

 architecture and engineering, in their relations 

 to hygiene, and Lord Wantage and Lord Bas- 

 ing over the sections of naval and military and 

 of state hygiene. The division of demography, 

 embracing industrial hygiene and statistics, as- 

 sembled under the presidency of Francis Galton. 

 In most of the papers state "interference, rather 

 than individual effort, was relied on as the means 

 to effect hygienic reform. Dr. Newsholme pro- 

 posed that hygiene should be made a depart 

 ment of instruction in normal colleges and ele- 

 mentary schools. In regard to the housing of 

 the working classes, John Hamer condemned the 

 block system as a failure, and suggested cottage 

 communities on the outskirts of cities, to which 

 the railroad companies should be compelled by 

 law to run cheap trains, a proposition that Par- 

 liament had recently refused to sanction. Mr. 

 Burroughs went further in demanding that the 

 railroads should be owned by the state and 

 workmen conveyed to their homes gratis. J. R. 

 Diggle, who is President of the London School 

 Board, thought that the development of the 

 physical, intellectual, and spiritual capacities of 

 children is a matter of such transcendent im- 

 portance that thoughts of possessive wealth 

 should be left behind as the outlived conditions 

 of barbarous society rather than that they 

 should hinder the highest education of the 

 whole community. The section over which he 

 presided applauded his view, and agreed with 

 Mrs. Besant and Dr. Parkhurst that school chil- 

 dren ought to be fed at public expense. 



Colonies. The expenditure of the Imperial 

 Government in connection with the colonies, ex- 

 clusive of India, amounts to about 2,000,000 a 

 year, the chief part of it for military and naval 

 purposes. The colonies contributed 213,400 

 toward military expenses in 1890-'91, the Straits 

 Settlements giving 100,000, Hong-Kong 40,- 

 000, Mauritius 30,000, Ceylon 34,400, and 

 Malta and Natal the rest. The British troops 

 maintained in the colonies in 1890-'91 numbered 

 31,680 men, not including officers, 8,796 being, 

 stationed in Malta, 5,196 in Gibraltar, 3,324 in 

 South Africa, 2,989 in Hong-Kong, 1,493 in 

 Halifax, 1,569 in Jamaica, 1,331 in the Wind- 



ward and Leeward Islands, 1,391 in Bermuda, 

 1,416 in Ceylon, 553 in Mauritius, 953 in West 

 Africa, 881 in Cyprus, 151 in St. Helena, and 

 111 in the Bahamas. Besides these there were 

 3,389 men in Egypt and 72,429 in India. In ac- 

 cordance with a general plan of defense for the 

 colonies adopted in 1889, the British troops have 

 been withdrawn from British Guiana and other 

 colonies and concentrated at the coaling stations 

 of Jamaica and St. Lucia, which are being 

 strongly fortified. The military forces are to be 

 restricted to the number necessary to defend 

 those posts from an enemy's ships, the defense 

 of the West India colonies being made to depend 

 on the operations of the navy alone. 



Gibraltar, with a population of 23,991, mostly 

 descendants of Genoese settlers, is under the 

 civil and military administration of the com- 

 mander of the forces. The present Governor is 

 Gen. Sir Leicester Smyth. The local revenue in 

 1890 was 63,674 ; the" expenditure, 57,594 ; the 

 military expenditure of the Imperial Govern- 

 ment, 243,237. 



Malta, with an area of 95 miles and a popu- 

 lation in 1889 of 163,850 persons, of whom 2,201 

 were English, produces cotton, honey, oranges, 

 figs, grain, and potatoes. The Governor is as- 

 sisted by a Legislative Council of 6 nominated 

 and 14 elected members. Lieut.-Gen. Sir Henry 

 Augustus Smyth was Governor in 1891. The 

 revenue for 1890 was estimated at 242,972 and 

 expenditure at 232,751. 



Cyprus is administered by a High Commis- 

 sioner, a post held by Sir Henry Ernest Bulwer 

 since 1886. The Legislative Council has 18 

 members, of whom 6 are official, 3 are elected 

 by Mohammedans, and 9 by other inhabitants, 

 who have resided five years on the island and 

 pay certain taxes. In 1881 there were 45,458 

 Mohammedans, 137.631 Greek Christians, and 

 3,084 others. Under the convention with the 

 Porte by which Great Britain occupied the 

 island in 1878 the annual sum of 92,799 is paid 

 to the Turkish Government. The revenue, 

 amounting in 1889-'90 to 174,499, is derived 

 from taxes on real estate and trade profits, tithes 

 on the chief products, military exemption, taxes 

 on sheep, goats, and hogs, customs and excise 

 duties, stamps and fees, and the salt monopoly. 

 The expenditure in 1889-'90 was 106.338. The 

 chief exports are raisins, cocoons, wine, wheat, 

 barley, flour, wool, and carobs. In 1889-'90 the 

 value of the imports was 244,324, and that of 

 the exports 314,628. 



Aden, an important coaling station on the 

 Suez Canal route to the East, with the island of 

 Perim at the entrance of the Red Sea, the 

 Somali Coast protectorate, the island of Socotra, 

 off the African Coast, and the Kuria Muria 

 Islands, on the Arabian side, is administered by 

 a political resident who is commander of the 

 troops and is subject to the authority of the 

 Government of Bombay. The exports from 

 Aden in 1890, consisting of gums, coffee, skins, 

 cloth, and tobacco, the produce of the interior 

 of Arabia, were valued at 25,274,678 rupees for 

 the sea trade alone. The whole population of 

 Aden and Perim is 34.711. From Berbera, 

 which has 30.000 inhabitants, and the other 

 Somali ports were exported gums, sheep and 

 cattle, hides, ostrich feathers, coffee, and other 



