82 



BRITISH COLUMBIA. 



BULGARIA. 



into an agreement with the Government as to con- 

 ditions of construction and operation,' and the 

 House pass a resolution instructing the Govern- 

 ment to prohibit the employment of Asiatics on 

 all franchises granted by the provincial House. 



' 12. Conservation of our forest riches. Pulp- 

 land leases to contain a provision for reforesting, 

 -o as to produce a perennial revenue and make 

 pulp manufacture a growing and permanent in- 



13. That the act compelling the scaling of 

 logs by Government sealers be enforced. 



" 14. Absolute reservation from sale or lease of 

 a certain part of every known coal area. All coal 

 leases or grants hereafter made to contain a pro- 

 viMon enabling the Government to fix the price 

 of coal loaded on cars or vessels for shipment to 

 British Columbia consumers. 



" 15. Municipalization and public control of the 

 liquor traffic. 



" 16. The right to a referendum where a valu- 

 able subsidy or franchise is to be carried. 



" 17. That all transportation companies be 

 compelled to give transportation free to mem- 

 bers of the Legislative Assembly and Supreme 

 Court and county judges. 



" 18. Election day to be a public holiday. Pro- 

 vision made that every employee shall be free 

 from service at least four consecutive hours dur- 

 ing polling time.'' 



The British Pacific Cable. At three o'clock 

 in the morning of Oct. 31, 1902, at Suva, in the 

 Fiji Islands, was completed the last link in the 

 Pacific cable, placing Vancouver, British Colum- 

 bia, in direct communication with Australia and 

 New Zealand. A message of congratulation was 

 despatched immediately to the King, and another 

 to Lady Vogel, expressing regret that her hus- 

 band, the late Sir Julius Vogel, had not been 

 spared to see the consummation of the plan 

 which is a monument to his genius and foresight. 

 The new cable, which was laid under the direc- 

 tion of F. R. Lucas, engineer-in-chief to the Tele- 

 graph Construction and Maintenance Company, 

 extends southwest from Vancouver by way of 

 Fanning island, Fiji, and Norfolk island to Aus- 

 tralia and New Zealand, with its Australian ter- 

 miniis at Southport, Queensland, and its New 

 Zealand terminus at Doubtless Bay, Auckland, 

 and is the first cable across the Pacific Ocean. 

 The cable was laid by the Anglia and the Colonia, 

 the former ship lying on the Southport, Norfolk 

 island, New Zealand, and Fiji sections 2,438 

 knots of cable, weighing 5,421 tons. On the 

 Fanning-Fiji section she laid 2,181 knots, and a 

 small section of 113 knots, the gross weight of 

 these being 4,223 tons. The Colonia, which laid 

 the Vancouver-Fanning section, paid out in all 

 3,540 knots of cable, weighing 7,684 tons. The 

 cost of the project was about 2,000,000, of 

 which expense Great Britain bears five-eight- 

 eenths and the colonies the remainder, and the 

 scheme was successfully carried through by Sir 

 Sandford Fleming in the face of much oppo- 

 sition. The line is put down at depths never be- 

 fore attempted and will furnish the solution of 

 many interesting problems in deep-sea cable-lay- 

 ing. It is unlikely that the methods at present 

 in use for the recovery of broken cables would be 

 at all practicable in such deep waters. The com- 

 pletion of the Pacific cable puts Great Britain in 

 direct communication with all her colonies. 

 Hitherto telegraphic communication between 

 Canada and Australia has been possible only by 

 way of the West Coast of Africa or the Red Sea, 

 and en route the message had to pass through 

 territory belonging to a dozen different nation- 



alities; but now the Dominion has been brought 

 10,000 telegraphic miles nearer the Australasian 

 Commonwealth, while the mother country in 

 times of international stress can rest confident 

 that her messages to her children abroad will pass 

 through none but friendly hands. 



BULGARIA, a principality in eastern Europe 

 under the suzerainty of Turkey, created an 

 autonomous tributary principality by the treaty 

 of Berlin signed on July 13, 1878, by representa- 

 tives of the great powers. The Prince of 

 Bulgaria, according to the treaty, was to be 

 elected by the population and confirmed by the 

 Sublime Porte, but could not be chosen from any 

 of the dynastic families of the great powers. 

 Eastern Roumelia, which received administrative 

 autonomy under a Christian Governor-General 

 to be nominated by the Porte, proclaimed n-> 

 union with Bulgaria in 1885, and in 188G, the 

 powers having tacitly accepted the fait accoin[ili, 

 the Sultan appointed the Prince of Bulgaria to 

 be Governor-General and has not since attempted 

 to exercise the political or military authority 

 reserved to him by treaty. Prince Ferdinand of 

 Saxe-Coburg was elected Prince of Bulgaria by a 

 Great Sobranje on July 7, 1887, after the ab- 

 dication of Prince Alexander of Battenberg, but 

 his election was not confirmed by the Porte and 

 the great powers till 1896. The heir to the 

 throne is Prince Boris, born Jan. 30, 1894, who 

 was received into the Orthodox Greek Church on 

 Feb. 14, 1896. The legislative authority is 

 vested in a single Chamber called the Sobranje, 

 composed of 150 members, 1 to 20,000 of popula- 

 tion, elected for five years, unless the Sobranje is. 

 dissolved before the term expires, by the votes of 

 all adult male Bulgarians. A Great Sobranje of 

 300 members, specially elected, is convoked when- 

 ever the amendment of the Constitution, the suc- 

 cession to the throne, the appointment of & 

 regency, or the cession or annexation of territory 

 is in question. 



The Cabinet of ministers, constituted on March 

 14, 1901, consisted at the beginning of 1902 of the 

 following members: President of the Council and 

 Minister of Finance, Petko Karaveloff; Minister 

 of Foreign Affairs and Worship, Dr. S. Daneff; 

 Minister of the Interior, Michael Sarafoff; Minis- 

 ter of Justice, Dr. Alexander Radeff; Minister of 

 War, Major-Gen. S. Paprikoff; Minister of Com- 

 merce and Agriculture, Alexander Ludskanoff; 

 Minister of Public Works, Ivan Belinoff. 



Area and Population. The area of the prin- 

 cipality proper is 24,380 square miles; of East- 

 ern Roumelia, called South Bulgaria, 13,7f~ 

 square miles. The population of the entire coun- 

 try by the census of December, 1900, was found 

 to be 3,733,189, that of South Bulgaria beii 

 1,091,854. Sofia, the capital, had 67.920 inhab- 

 itants: Philippopolis, the capital of Eastern 

 Roumelia, 42.849; Varna, 33,443; Rustchuk, 32,- 

 661; Slivno, 24.548; Shumla, 22,928; Plevna, 18,- 

 709. The number of marriages in 1899 wa '!->.- 

 027; of births, 149,006; of deaths, 90,324; excess- 

 of births, 58,682. 



Finances. The estimated revenue for 1901 

 was 95.286,900 lei, or francs, and the estimated 

 expenditure 95,222,535 lei. Of the revenue 38,- 

 654,000 lei came from direct taxes and 27.920. :><M> 

 lei from indirect taxes. The chief expenditures 

 were 31,586.750 lei for the public debt, 20,200.000 

 lei for the army. 10.710.863 lei for public works. 

 7,800,188 lei for education, and 6.586.453 lei for 

 the interior. The debt on Sept. 30, 1900, con- 

 sisted of 39,188,000 lei of the 6-per-cent. loan of 

 1888 for the purchase of the Rustchuk and 

 Varna Railroad, 24,840,000 lei of the 6-per-cent. 





