The Progress of the World. 



349 



at present 'vhether Mr. Roosevelt will be able to secure 

 the return of a respectable minority to protest against 

 the re-nomination of President 'I'aft. The Executive 

 in America has an immense control over the machine, 

 and it has become part of the unwritten law of the 

 States that any President that fills the White House 

 creditably for four years is morally entitled to re-nomi- 

 nation. President Taft, although he has disappointed 

 many people of his own side, can nevertheless claim 

 that he has not brought discredit upon the office which 

 he holds. His re-nomination, therefore, may be 

 regarded as practically certain. There is no such 

 certainty about his re-election. 'l"he Democrats have 

 not yet decided whether they will put forward Mr. 

 Champ Clark, Mr. Woodrow Wilson, Mr. Underwood, 

 or Mr. Harman. Any one of these is capable of making 

 a good President, and as things lie at present, which- 

 ever one is nominated stands a very good chance of 

 lieing the occupant of the White Hcase. 



On March loth Yuan Shi-Kai took 



The the oath of office as provisional 



Chinese Republic President of the Republic. In his 



oath he swore ta " endeavour 

 •aithfulls' to develop the Republic, to sweep away 

 the disadvantages of, absolute monarchy, to observe 

 the constitutional laws, to increase the welfare of the 

 country, and to cement together a strong nation 

 embracing all the five races. When the National 

 .Assembly appoints a permanent President I shall 

 retire. This 1 swear before the Chinese Republic." 

 A new Cabinet has been formed with a new Foreign 

 Secretary, and things appear to be quietening down 

 much better than anyone had any right to expert. 

 There has been, however, a great deal of looting, from 

 which Peking itself did not escape. Mongolia seems 

 likely to be permanently lost to the Chinese 

 Republic. 



Sir Joseph Ward is no longer 



A New Premier prime Minister of New Zealand, 



New Zealand. for hc bowed to the adverse 



decision of the General Election. 

 His Party, while declaring its high appreciation of his 

 services as one nl the foremost statesmen and ablest 

 administrators of the Australasian Colonies, accepted 

 his resignation and proceeded to instal in his place 

 Mr, Thomas M.u kenzie, an Edinburgh Scotsman, who 

 had previously been Minister for Industries and 

 Commerce. Mr. .Mackenzie adds one more to the 

 number of Scotsmen who are holding the first places in 

 the British or, a. it may soon come to be called, the 

 North r.ritish Empire, 



The Royal Commission which was 



Report of appointed in iqo6 published its 



the Vivisection ' '^ , , ^ , ^, 



Commission. nnal report last month. The 

 majority of the Commissioners 

 were in favour of vivisection before the inquiry began, 

 and they remain in favour of it after the inquiry has 

 closed. They exonerate most of the holders of licences 

 and certificates from charges of cruelty. They have 

 showed loyalty and good faith in their endeavour to 

 conform to the provisions of the law. The\- mention 

 two operators whom they gibbet as unworthy to hold 

 licences in future, and they give us plainly to under- 

 stand that they think that vivisection can be con- 

 ducted without cruelty to animals, and that it ought 

 not to be conducted if it in\olves cruelty to animals. 

 They admit that many of the claims put forward by 

 vivisectors as to the result obtained by experiments on 

 living animals are exaggerated, and are proved to be 

 fallacious or useless. They say that notwithstanding 

 such failures valuable knowledge has been acquired by 

 vivisection, and that, on the whole, it has reduced 

 suffering both in man and in the lower animals. After 

 having returned this verdict they then proceed to make 

 various recommendations, all of which are in the direc- 

 tion of increasing the severity of the restrictions under 

 which vivisectors do their work. The Research Defence 

 Society plead for greater liberty ; the anti-Vi\i- 

 sectionists plead for greater restriction. On that issue 

 the anti-Vivisectionists win hands down. On the whole, 

 the conclusions of the Commission may be accepted 

 with satisfaction by the great body of the public which 

 is neither for nor against vivisection. 



Of all the cities in the world 



A Museum Greater London is the least self- 



01 



London. conscious. When the London 



County Council was created some 

 years ago London was little more than a great wilder- 

 ness of bricks and mortar, a sprawling body without a 

 soul. The City of London was intensely conscious of 

 its own historic glories, but Greater London had never 

 personified itself as Paris has done, or Vienna, or even 

 Herlin. The proof of which came home to me very 

 closely some years ago when I was endeavouring to 

 find a monument or drawing or painting symbolic of 

 Greater London. The opening of the London Mu.seum 

 at Kensington Palace marks another step towards the 

 realisation of self-consciousness, and Mr. Punch for 

 the first time in his life, if I am rightly informed, has 

 drawn a typical figure of London as the lady with a 

 past looking over the exhibits which Mr. Lulu Harcourt 

 and Mr. Guy Laking have collected in Kensington 

 Palace Museum. Museums are somewhat dull places 



