The Review of Reviews. 



Aaguit 1, 190e. 



Another very useful and practical 

 Internationalism advance towards internationalism 

 by Post. was made last month by the Inter- 



national Postal Congress at Rome. 

 For years past everyone has admitted the need of an 

 international postage stamp. L^•erybody who does 

 business abroad or who has foreign correspondents 

 ii aware of the difficulty of sending remittances for 

 small sums, or of stamping an envelope for rep!v. 

 This difficulty has now been gcit over. There is not 

 to be an international stamp, but there is to be an 

 international postage order for 2id., which will be 

 exchangeable for a .stamp of the same value in inv 

 country in the Postal Union. This 2Ad. international 

 I)ostal order is the germ of the internatinnal cur- 

 rency of the future. In addition to this the Postal 

 Congress decided that the unit of weight that can 

 be sent for 2Ad. to foreign countries shall be raised 

 from i ounce to i ounce for letters posted in the 

 British Empire, from 15 grammes to 20 grarmiies for 

 letters posted in other countries. A letter of double 

 that weight will be charged only lid. for the excess. 

 That is to say, in future, instead of ha\-ing to put a 

 5d. stamp on an ounce letter and lod. on a two- 

 ounce letter going abroad, we shall onlv need to put 

 a 2id. stamp on one and a fourpennv stamp on the 

 other. Henceforth also foreign postcards will not be 

 charged as letters when there is any writing on the 

 left-hand half of the address side. 



The Education Bill has been read a 

 second time, and the first clau.se has 

 The Schools. ^^^" closured through Committee, 

 the majority in its favour against 

 tlie combined Tory and Irish vote being about 200. 

 The proposal to adopt a purely secular policy was 

 rejected by a majority of over 400, onh 63 Mem- 

 bers going into the secular lobbv. Mr. Chamberlain's 

 attempt to create a kind of religious pandemonium 

 by superadding to the .secular system a voluntaiy 

 imndenominational religicjus teaching b\ all the sects 

 — the teachers, who are to be free from tests, to be 

 equally free to teach the creed of the majority — was 

 rejected by 195. Mr. Hirst Hollowell has raised a 

 cry against the sjiecial facilities clau.se, but he had 

 no support from Mr. Llovd-George and Dr. ClifTord. 

 Clause 4 might be strengthened with advantage in 

 the interest of the Irish. The most satisfacturv 

 announcement made in the long debate was Mr. 

 Birrell's declaration in favour of making moral in- 

 struction an integral part of the secular curriculum. 

 That is the way in to the way out. There is little 

 <lirftrence about fundamental morality. Xo one has 

 anv conscientious scruples about the teaching of 

 truth, cleanliness, courtesy and kindness. 



The Clerical party has fared badly 



^'"oener"'' '" ^'^'-" ^'^^^''^ General Elections. 



Clectloos. ^^^ '''^' result of the appeal to the 



country has been that the Bloc — 



i!i- union of the anti-clerical parties yvhich separated 



Moral Instruction 

 in 



Church and ."-'tate and made war on the religfious 

 orders — has made a" gain of fifty-six seats. The 

 Socialists have increased their strength in the Cham- 

 ber. But there will be a sufficient Republican 

 majority. This result finally disposes of the last 

 delusion that lingers in some minds as to the hold 

 which the Roman Church has upon Frenchmen. 

 Never was the Church so rudely challenged to assert 

 its strength and demonstrate its hold upon the nation. 

 Xever has it failed so utterly. The Election was an 

 informal plebiscite for or against Disestablishitient 

 and war upon the religious orders, and the Church 

 has gone to the wall. France is not England, but 

 this signal demonstration of the overwhelming anti- 

 clericalism I if France is not exactly calculated to en- 

 courage those who are endeavouring to turn out the 

 Liberal Government in the interest of sacerdotalists. 



The May opened badlv in Russia with 



Revolution the resignation of Count ^^'itte — the 

 '"_ only possible man for an absolutely 



Russia. impossible situation. His place was 



taken by M. G iremykin, a Minister chiefly notab'e 

 for having declared that if the Duma attempted to 

 deal with the agrarian question it should promptly 

 be sent about its business. M. Dumovo, the second- 

 hand Plehve, who, as Minister of the Interior, had 

 been the agent of General TrepofF, followed Count 

 \Vitte into retreat, and a new Ministry was con- 

 stituted of political nonentities. On the eve of the 

 meeting of the Duma organic laws were promulgated 

 which, in the opinion of so thoroughgoing a revolu- 

 tionist as Mr. Wilton, the correspondent of the 

 Times " contained perhaps the widest constitutional 

 formula comparible with the safe administration of 

 the country," and did not e.xclude from the initiative 

 of the Duma, with the exception of the constitution 

 of the Council of the Empire, "' a single point in 

 the whole Constit'itional Democratic programme. ' 

 Xevertheless, their promulgation was greeted with a 

 howl of execration, " popular feeling being too much 

 excited to take these facts into account." On Sun- 

 ilay, by way of salute to the week that was to witness 

 the meeting' of the Duma, the Governor of 

 F.katerinoslav was assassinated, and the Governor- 

 General of Moscow wounded by the explosion of a 

 bomb. On Wednesday, May 9th, the Tsar opened 

 the Duma in the Winter Palace, delivering a speech 

 from the throne of his own composition, rejecting 

 three drafts prepared bv his Ministers. '" I welcome 

 in you," saiil the Tsar, '" the best men to whose elec- 

 tion I commaniled my beloved to proceed." '" I, for 

 my part," he proceeded, " will unswervingly uphold 

 the institutions which I have granted,' but he con- 

 tinued, " vou must realise that for the great welfare 

 of the State not only is liberty necessary, but also 

 order as the basis of laws. ' The Duma then took 

 up its quarters in the Taurida Palace, and proceeded 

 to debate an Address to the Throne. Next day the 

 Council of the P^mpire met and. after listening to a 



