That the crisis is by no means passed has been brought home to us by a remarkable speech which Mr. Balfour delivered at a political luncheon yesterday. '*'The present position," he declared ''cannot be indefinitely prolonged. If endless patience, endless desire to prevent matters from coming to an extremity, if all the resources of diplomacy are utterly ineffectual to untie the knot, other means must inevitably be found by which that knot must be loosened." It is, of course, a deliberate declaration that the Government is prepared in the last resource to make war on the Transvaal, rather than be satisfied with bogus concessions. There is, unfortunately, too much evidence that President Kriiger, and the Government of the South African Republic are once more ph double game. Tuey are often sions with one hand and withdrawing them with the other. I believe our Government, in spite of the protests of the Outlanders, would agree to a seven-year qualification for the franchise in place of the five-qualification asked for by Sir Alfred but they are determined that the conditions by which the concession is surrounded, and which practically destroy its force, shall be withdrawn; and they are determined, too, that a fair measure of redistribution shall accompany the extension of the franchise. There is little doubt that if President Kriiger sees that our Government is determined, and that it has the support of the nation behind it, he will induce the Riad to yield everything that we demand, and that war will be averted, HOME LEGISLATION, With their programme of legislation the Government is making rapid progress, and there is little doubt now that our sporting legislators will be able to get off to the moors on the twelfth" with easy conscience 'The Tithe Rites Bill has passed its second reading in the Lords, and the Food and Drugs Bill, designed' to check adulteration and perhaps at the sume time to afford British dairy far and others little protection against foreign competi-has passed through all its stages in the Commons. As regards this Intter Bill even the most rigid free-traders are inclined tondmit that its good qualities outweigh its defects. As far us it 1s Protectionist, too, it will probably defeat its own object. "Just as the Merchandise Marks Act has given evaluable advertisement to foreign-made goods, so this measure will very likely kill much' of the prejudice against margarine and give an impetus to the trade in a cheap and wholesome article of food. As to the Tithes Bill, only three Unionist peers voted inst it; and almost the only point of interest in the debate was the reason given by Lord Salisbury for not affording to lay impropriators the same relief which is iven to the clerical owners of tithes.
he clergy, he points out, have to render services in return for their tithes, and the lay impropristors have not. It is an admission, they urge, that money which is earned should not be so heavily rated and taxed as money which comes without labour, and the admission will be made the most of when the time comes for overhauling our whole system of rating,—a task which Lord Salisbury himself says must soon be undertaken.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.