Review of Bevieus. 1/3113. PROGRESS OF THE WORLD. 



19 



owing to pressure from the men them- 

 selves. This Act, by the wa}-, is now 

 by no means popular with them. There 

 will, it is feared, be a general strike 

 in the shipbuilding trade, if the men 

 get out of hand, or the negotiations 

 which will shortly take place between 

 their executive and the masters prove 

 futile. 



The White Slave Traffic. 



The Criminal Law Amendment Act, 

 which became law last year because 

 of pressure brought to bear on the 

 Government by those who regarded its 

 passing as the best and most suitable 

 memorial to my father, has already had 

 gratifying results in England. The 

 great number of prosecutions which 

 have taken place under the Act is suffi- 

 cient proof that the Amendment in the 

 law was badly needed. The British 

 capital has been for years a clearing 

 house for the abominable and brutal 

 traffickers who, before the passing of 

 the Act, were almost immune from ar- 

 rest or punishment. Hundreds of these 

 procureurs and pimps have fled the 

 country, for the cat has more terror 

 to them than imprisonment, and the 

 Courts at home have been availing 

 themselves of the new provisions, which 

 authorise tl e infliction of corporal 

 punishment, m addition to incarcera- 

 tion. The maximum sentence allowed 

 is two years' hard labour, and at last 

 a wholesome dread for their own crimi- 

 nal skins has taken possession of these 

 shameless men and women. The Act 

 did not contain provision for further 

 raising the age of consent, which has 

 remained at sixteen }'ears, to which it 

 was increased from thirteen, as a direct 

 result of my father's Maiden Tribute 

 campaign in 1885. Ere long, though 

 the efforts of those who are endeavour- 

 ing to protect the womanhood of 

 Britain promises to be successful, and 

 when a Bill dealing with this matter is 



imally introduced, it will became law, 

 despite the efforts of Sir Frederick 

 Banbury and his ilk to shelve any such 

 reform ior all time. 



South African Crisis. 



General Botha, finding it impossible 

 to continue in office any longer with 

 General Hertzog, resigned in Decem- 

 ber. It is an open secret that the two 

 men never spoke to one another, so bit- 

 ter was the feeling between them. 

 Lord Gladstone asked Botha to form an- 

 other Government, which he succeeded 



in doing, but General Hertzog imme- 

 diately began a campaign against the 



polic}' of his former colleagues. He 

 was joined by General de Wet and 

 other leaders of the back-block Boers. 

 I found a general anticipation in Cape- 

 town that Botha's stop-gap Government 

 would manage to hold together till the 

 elections, but would not survive the 

 poll. None of the three parties would 

 have a clear majority, and a coalition 

 would have to be formed under the 

 leadership of General Botha. The chief 

 difference between the Premier and his 

 quondam colleague is that, whilst 

 Botha is all for Imperial unity and the 

 welding of Dutch and English into one 

 nation, Hertzog desires the Taal pre- 

 served, taught in schools and used in 

 the Law Courts, and generally is in 

 favour of emphasising rather than ex- 

 tinguishing racial differences. He has 

 a solid following amongst the farming 

 Boers. 



The Federal Elections. 



It has been at last arranged that the 

 Federal Elections are to take place 

 on May 31st. The Liberals have a 

 programme, but guard it very jealously 

 and do not propose to discover it to 

 the expectant electors until a couple 

 of months before the poll takes place. 

 This seems a short-sighted policy, for 

 to be merely negative and anti-every- 



