History for ready reference, Volume 7 (part 2 of 11)
"It now has as a territory a hundred and fifty acres of land owned by the Board of Trustees, and the practical use of a hundred and fifty more belonging to Mr. George and some other friends of the Republic who have made their home here because such residence affords them an opportunity to give guidance and inspiration to the boys and girls. The citizens, i. e. the boys and girls in the Republic, number upwards of a hundred and fifty. They are in some cases signed over to the Republic by the parents, in other cases practically committed on suspended sentences by the courts. They are extraordinarily free within the territory, but are not free to leave it. Laundry, baking, carpentry, and printing are the principal trades indoors; road-making and land improvement the principal industries out-of-doors. There are two jails, one for the boys, one for the girls; a library, a school-house, a chapel, bank, and a well-organized banking and currency system. There is a court, and there is a judge, who is elected every year by the citizens. From this court an appeal lies in certain cases to a Supreme Court chosen by the boys from the Board of Trustees, but this court only passes on the regularity of the proceedings in the court below, that is, on what might be regarded as equivalent to constitutional and jurisdictional questions. There are a President, a Vice-President, a Secretary of State, and a Secretary of the Treasury, all of whom are elected annually; the three latter officers constituting the Police Commissioners, the Board of Health, and the President’s Cabinet. There are both a girl and a boy District Attorney, who are appointed by the President, and certain police officers and prison keepers. All citizens of the Republic, both boys and girls, over fourteen years of age, are voters; no one can remain a citizen after twenty-one. The legislature has been abolished by the citizens themselves, and all laws are made in town meeting, which is held once a month. …
"The Republic has been in existence long enough to give the experiment a fair trial, and the results justify the expectations of its friends. In round numbers, about five hundred have gone out from the Republic into life, most of them taken from the class of boys and girls whose environment was fruitful of crime and whose tendency was toward a criminal career. Of these five hundred two or three are known to have returned to crime, and five or six have disappeared entirely. But of these eight or ten failures not one was in the Republic more than a few months—not long enough to get the benefit of the training. The other four hundred and ninety are known to be earning an honest livelihood by honorable labor; and of these four hundred and ninety, twenty have either graduated from college, are now in college, or are just preparing to enter college. At this writing two new Republics are about being organized, one in Georgia and one in California, and a movement is on foot for the organization of a National Association."
Some months later than the above account of the Junior Republic there were reported to be kindred organizations modelled upon it in Connecticut and Maryland, with movements to the same end in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, as well as in some countries abroad. Mr. Thomas M. Osborne, of Auburn, who has been from an early day the chief supporter of Mr. George in his work, said recently in a published letter:
"I believe that the success of the Junior Republic idea, as we have worked it out during the last fourteen years, is no longer dependent upon Mr. George, its originator, or upon any one man. Its established principles will now live on into the far future, and work the sure righting of thousands of youngsters gone wrong in every section of the greater republic."
But it may work much more than "the sure righting of thousands of youngsters gone wrong." It may, if its working widens and roots itself among the institutions of the future, as it seems likely to do, have a very potent and positive political influence in the world. If men and women representative of a class that is now troublesome to democracy, politically as well as otherwise, should by and by be brought in large numbers yearly from graduation in the Young Republic training schools of imitative citizenship, to be joined with their elders in larger spheres of more entire self-government, are they not likely to introduce a profounder change in the operation of republican institutions than can now be foreseen?
CHILDREN, UNDER THE LAW: Juvenile Courts. Their origin and development.
A collection of reports on "Children’s Courts in the United States," prepared for the International Prison Commission and edited by Mr. Samuel J. Barrows, Commissioner for the United States, was published in 1904 as House Document No. 701 of the 58th Congress, 2d Session. The following account of the origin of the now widely established Juvenile Courts of America and Europe, and of their development in the United States during the first four years of their existence, is derived from those reports.
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Commissioner Barrows opens his introduction to the collected reports with the following remarks:
"If the question be asked, 'What is the most notable development in judicial principles and methods in the United States within the last five years?’ the answer may unhesitatingly be, ‘The introduction and establishment of juvenile courts.’ Never perhaps has any judicial reform made such rapid progress. Beginning in Chicago in 1899, this institution has sprung up in city after city and State after State until it is now established in eight States and eleven large cities. This progress has been made not merely by changes in procedure or legal technique, nor by the introduction of a new method; it is most of all by the introduction of a new spirit and a new aim. … It must not be supposed that the juvenile court is only a smaller court for smaller offenders or simply a court holding separate sessions for such offenders; it represents an altogether different principle. The juvenile court is a life-saving institute in society.
"It is scarcely necessary to say that child-saving methods, institutions, and organizations have long flourished in the United States. The Northern States have regarded juvenile reformatories as a part of their correctional equipment, and the courts have served as vestibules for such institutions; but they have only been incidentally a part of the process. We have not before realized what the court might be and do before resorting to institutions. The children’s court still maintains relations with the reform school, but it represents in itself active and vital forces and invokes a whole range of influence and motives which are personal and formative. It appeals to the reform school not as the first, but only as the last resort. The juvenile court has discovered that the child is a child, and, as Judge Hurley says, ‘The child should be treated as a child. Instead of reformation, the thought and idea in the judge’s mind should always be formation. No child should be punished for the purpose of making an example of him.’ …
"The methods of children’s courts, or juvenile courts, as they are termed in some States, differ in different places. In some States the judge is detailed from some other court; in some courts but one judge is assigned to this work. In New York several judges from the court of special sessions act successively in turn as judges of the children’s court. In Maryland and Indiana the judges of the children’s courts exercise this function only, and it is claimed that it is better than the method of rotation, since the judge who confines himself to juvenile court cases becomes a specialist in this work. In Colorado Judge Lindsey is not only judge of the juvenile court, but also of the county court. He finds advantage in the fact that in his first capacity he can protect the child, while as judge of the county court he can also sentence the guardian or parent who is responsible for the child’s delinquency.
"An essential feature of every juvenile court is the probation system and probation officers. Their duty is to investigate the case before trial, and, if the child is placed on probation, to exercise watchcare over them until the period of probation is closed. It is in this way that the parental care of the State is exerted."
The City of Chicago and the Legislature of Illinois have the honors of the origination of the Children’s Court as a distinct creation of law. The Visitation and Aid Society of Chicago had been laboring since 1891 to secure various measures of advanced legislation bearing on child-saving, without much success, until, as related in a report by Mr. Hurley, of that Society, the Bar Association of Chicago took the matter in hand, in 1899, and appointed a committee to press it. This committee drafted the first juvenile court law ever planned distinctly to that end and secured its enactment by the Legislature of the State. The law went into force on the 1st of July, 1899. The Court was soon opened, and Judge Tuthill, of the Circuit Court of Illinois, who presided in it from the first, has stated the principles of its constitution and action in these following words:
"The basic principle of the law is this: That no child under 16 years of age shall be considered or be treated as a criminal; that a child under that age shall not be arrested, indicted, convicted, imprisoned, or punished as a criminal. It of course recognizes the fact that such children may do acts which in an older person would be crimes and be properly punishable by the State therefor, but it provides that a child under the age mentioned shall not be branded in the opening years of its life with an indelible stain of criminality, or be brought, even temporarily, into the companionship of men and women whose lives are low, vicious, and criminal.
"The law divides children into two classes, the ‘dependent’ and the ‘delinquent.’ A dependent child, in the language of the law, is a child—‘who for any reason is destitute or homeless or abandoned, or has not proper parental care or guardianship, or who habitually begs or receives alms, or who is found living in any house of ill fame or with any vicious or disreputable person, or whose home, by reason of neglect, cruelty, or depravity on the part of the parents, guardian, or other person in whose care it may be, is an unfit place for such a child.’ A ‘delinquent child’ is defined to be—‘any child under the age of 16 who violates any law of this State or any city or village ordinance, or who is incorrigible, or who knowingly associates with thieves, vicious, or immoral persons, or who is growing up in idleness or crime, or who knowingly frequents a house of ill fame, or who knowingly patronizes any policy shop or place where any gaming device is or shall be operated.’
"The law places its enforcement upon the judges of the circuit court, who are required to select one of their number to perform these duties as a part of the judicial work of such judge. … The circuit court is a court of original and unlimited jurisdiction, the highest in the State, and the duty of holding the juvenile court was placed in the circuit court (which for convenience is designated the ‘juvenile court’) as an indication by the legislature of the importance to the State of the work to be done.
"The case of each child brought into court, whether dependent or delinquent, becomes of record, and every step taken in the case is shown upon the court record."
Interest in the Illinois Law was awakened quickly in many parts of the country, and requests for copies of it, says Mr. Hurley in his historical sketch, "began to pour in from all directions. These requests were promptly answered and copies of the Juvenile Court Record, published by the Visitation and Aid Society, containing the necessary information, were sent to applicants. {86} Agitation began in other States for a law similar to the one passed in Illinois, and those who helped to form the Illinois law were invited to visit other States to explain the measure and the method of administering the law in Cook County.
"The Illinois law proved so satisfactory that many judges throughout the country, not wishing to await the action of a legislature, established branches in their several courts for children cases only, and in the treatment of the cases applied the probate and chancery powers of the court. This was the case especially in Denver, Colorado, where Judge Ben D. Lindsey had a complete and well-equipped juvenile court and probation system before the legislature took any action whatever. A like court was subsequently adopted in Indianapolis by George W. Stubbs. The two latter courts were carried on practically in the same way that they have been since laws were adopted by these States. In most of the States the probation officers are volunteers."
Judge Lindsey, of Denver, has won celebrity among the presiding magistrates of the Juvenile Courts by the kindly shrewdness of the methods by which he has won the confidence, the admiration and devotion of the boys and girls of his city, within the classes with which he has to deal. The scene which his court-room presents on the appointed days when the delinquents on probation come in a body to report to him and to be talked to by him has been often described, and it seems to exemplify a kind of influence that would go farther than any other in resistance to the vitiating conditions which surround masses of the young in all cities. Judge Lindsey’s extended report of his work and experience in the Denver Juvenile Court, published in the collection referred to above, is a paper of remarkable interest.
As stated already, the Juvenile Court is now an established institution in nearly every part of the United States, and in many countries abroad. It was established in Great Britain by the notable "Children Act" of 1908 (see above), and was instituted that year in several of the German cities. A Press despatch from Berlin, March 15, 1909, reported the opening of a congress in that city, under the auspices of the German Association for the Care of the Young, which aims at the extension of this important reform. "The labors of the society," says the despatch, "seem to have been stimulated by the passing of the English Children Act of 1908, a German translation of which has been distributed to members of the congress. The movement for the establishment of special Courts for juvenile offenders was taken up in Germany later than in some other countries, but has recently made rapid progress. The first children’s Courts were established on January 1, 1908, at Cologne, Stuttgart, and Breslau, and there are now 26 such Courts in Prussia. Official statistics, however, indicate that in recent years the total number of juvenile offenders in Germany has grown about three times as fast as the total number of offenders of all ages. During 1906, 55,211 persons under the age of 18 were sentenced, as compared with 51,232 in 1905 and 49,993 in 1904."
At the meeting of the International Prison Commission, at Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1907, it was significant of the deep interest which the children’s court has awakened in Europe that nineteen societies in France, including the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences, the General Society of Prisons, and the faculties of law of Paris, Lille, and Montpellier, and several of the most prominent tribunals in France, asked to have the whole subject of the organization of children’s courts elucidated and discussed. A similar interest was shown in Switzerland and Germany.
In an extended letter to the London Times, published August 19, 1909, Miss Florence Davenport-Hill traced the origin of children’s courts to Massachusetts, and gave the following account of their introduction from that source of suggestion into Australia, and thence, to some extent, into Great Britain. Miss Davenport-Hill’s statements on the subject are, in part, as follows:
"Although we hear little now from our earliest exemplar, Massachusetts—possibly because she has, I believe, cleared away the class to be dealt with—it is desirable to remember it was she who evolved the then new principle of absolute separation of child from adult, and devised its potent supporter, the probation system—a system affording watchful and kindly help to strong and maybe wilful weaklings. Thus did Massachusetts become a noble example, making the way plain for her successors. Mr. Joseph Sturge, attracted early in the eighties by reports of the ‘plan,’ visited Boston to investigate its methods. He describes in a pithy narrative subsequently published how his highest expectations were fulfilled; and it is interesting to learn from his pen that ‘the probation system by which juvenile offenders are saved from imprisonment has been so successful, economically and morally, that the city of Boston now employs a probation agent to deal with suitable adult cases in a corresponding manner.’
"A copy of Mr. Sturge’s narrative reached, by good fortune, the Chief Justice of South Australia, then presiding at a Royal Commission of inquiry concerning adult and juvenile dependents on the State. He recognized, and in his forthcoming report expounded, the value of the Massachusetts plan in its application to children. The result was the creation by the South Australian Government of a department, entitled the State Children’s Council, consisting of 12 ladies and gentlemen nominated by the State as honorary members, to deal with erring and neglected children on the lines of that plan. …
"Nineteen years ago the Children’s Court was opened in Adelaide, and in October, 1903, thanks, Sir, to your sympathetic courtesy, the reproduction in The Times of a letter describing it in the Melbourne Argus from Miss Alice Henry made known among us its scope, methods, and success. Gradually Benches of Magistrates in various parts of Great Britain and of Ireland who led the way tried the experiment, which was then discovered to be already existing among us here and there, and in a more or less developed form, as at Greenwich, Hull, &c."
CHILDREN, UNDER THE LAW: As Workers: Canada: Child Labor Legislation.
"There is not in any province a comprehensive act dealing with the subject of child labor as a whole, and even in Ontario, which has its Factories Act, its Shops Act, its Mines Act, its Municipal Act, its Truancy Act—all bearing on the matter more or less directly—it is still possible for young children to be kept at work by their parents for mercilessly long hours under sweat-shop conditions. {87} Prince Edward Island, Saskatchewan, and Alberta have neither Shops nor Factories Acts. Ontario, Nova Scotia, Manitoba, and British Columbia have both; Quebec and New Brunswick have Factories Acts, and six of the provinces have Mines Acts. The several Factories Acts resemble one another closely. In general, they prohibit the employment of girls under eighteen and boys under sixteen in factories where the work is dangerous or unhealthy; forbid the employment of children under fourteen in any manufacturing establishment (except canning factories) in three provinces; limit the hours of labor for women and children to ten hours a day and sixty hours a week; and specify the amount of overtime permissible for these classes of workers. The Shops Acts, upon the whole, allow greater latitude to the employers of children; thus the hours of labor are longer and the conditions often not less injurious than those in factories. Except in Ontario, no age limit is set under which a child may not begin work in a shop. Again by the Mines Acts of British Columbia, children of twelve may be employed above ground, and by those of Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia boys of twelve may work under ground. The enforcement of the laws restricting child labor has, from various causes, proved somewhat inadequate. For instance, Nova Scotia has had a Factories Act since 1901, but no inspector of factories till the present year; while Ontario, with a Truancy Act that, if enforced, would prevent many children from engaging in unsuitable labor, has vested the appointment of truancy officers in the municipalities, and these, in many instances, have neglected to make appointments."
_The Outlook, November 14, 1908._
Recent changes in child labor laws in Canada are as follows:
In Ontario the Factories Act limits the working time of boys under sixteen to ten hours, forbids the employment of children under twelve within doors, and restricts the privileges extended to canning factories. The Shops Act is amended by raising the age limit from ten to twelve years. Manitoba forbids the employment of minors as bartenders. Alberta has raised the age limit of children employed in mines from twelve to sixteen years. British Columbia prohibits the employment of boys under fourteen and girls under fifteen except in the canning of fish.
CHILDREN, UNDER THE LAW: England: The Employment of Children Act, 1903.
An Act "to make Better Provision for Regulating the Employment of Children" became law in August, 1903. Most of the responsibility for a proper protective regulation of child labor was imposed by this enactment on the local authorities of the Kingdom. Among its provisions were the following:
"1. Any local authority may make byelaws— (i) prescribing for all children, or for boys and girls separately, and with respect to all occupations or to any specified occupation,— (a) the age below which employment is illegal; and (b) the hours between which employment is illegal; and (c) the number of daily and weekly hours beyond which employment is illegal: (ii) prohibiting absolutely or permitting, subject to conditions, the employment of children in any specified occupation.
"2. Any local authority may make byelaws with respect to street trading by persons under the age of sixteen. …
"3. (1) A child shall not be employed between the hours of nine in the evening and six in the morning: Provided that any local authority may, by byelaw, vary these hours either generally or for any specified occupation.
(2) A child under the age of eleven years shall not be employed in street trading.
(3) No child who is employed half-time under the Factory and Workshop Act, 1901, shall be employed in any other occupation.
(4) A child shall not be employed to lift, carry, or move anything so heavy as to be likely to cause injury to the child.
(5) A child shall not be employed in any occupation likely to be injurious to his life, limb, health or education, regard being had to his physical condition. …
"4. (1) A byelaw made under this Act shall not have any effect until confirmed by the Secretary of State, and shall not be so confirmed until at least thirty days after the local authority have published it in such manner as the Secretary of State may by general or special order direct. …
"13. In this Act—The expression ‘child’ means a person under the age of fourteen years:
"The expression ‘guardian,’ used in reference to a child, includes any person who is liable to maintain or has the actual custody of the child:
"The expression ‘employ’ and ‘employment,’ used in reference to a child, include employment in any labour exercised by way of trade or for the purposes of gain, whether the gain be to the child or to any other person: …
"The expression ‘street trading’ includes the hawking of newspapers, matches, flowers, and other articles, playing, singing, or performing for profit, shoe-blacking, and any other like occupation carried on in streets or public places."
CHILDREN, UNDER THE LAW: Germany: Child Labor Legislation and its operation.
The Reichstag, in 1903, passed a new law for the protection of children, concerning the operation of which a well known English student of social conditions in Germany wrote as follows in 1908:
"Several significant facts may be noted in relation to the protection of childhood in Germany. The legal age of admission to full employment in factories and workshops is fourteen years, though on the production of efficiency certificates children may be employed for not more than six hours daily at the age of thirteen, yet of the 5,607,657 industrial workers subject to inspection in 1905 only 10,245, or under 0.2 per cent., were below fourteen years, and in some States there were none. To show the progress which has been made in this respect it may be stated that in 1875 10 per cent. (88,000 out of a total of 880,500) of the factory workers were between twelve and fourteen years of age. … At the same time there is reason to believe that a serious exhaustion of juvenile strength takes place in the unregulated home industries of Germany. Further, from the age of six the child of the people attends the primary school for seven or eight years, and in many cases he is required to attend a continuation school several years longer. In most of the large towns the scholar from first to last receives free systematic medical care at the hands of the school doctors. It begins with a thorough examination on admission, and the health record thus opened is continued throughout the whole period of school life, so that the child is under constant medical supervision until it reaches the working age. Many towns have gone further, and have established dental surgeries, and attached eye and ear specialists to the primary schools."
W. H. Dawson, The Evolution of Modern Germany, page 327 (Unwin, London; Scribner’s, New York).
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CHILDREN, UNDER THE LAW: United States: Child Labor Laws of the several States in 1908, and as amended since.
The requirements of an effective child labor law are set forth in Pamphlet No. 60 of the National Child Labor Committee as resting "primarily upon certain definite prohibitions, among which are the following:
Labor is prohibited (1) for all children under the age of fourteen years;
labor is prohibited (2) for all children under sixteen years of age who do not measure sixty inches and weigh eighty pounds;
labor is prohibited (3) for all children under sixteen years of age who cannot read fluently and write legibly simple sentences in the English language;
labor is prohibited (4) for all children under the age of sixteen years, between the hours of 7 p. m. and 7 a. m. or longer than eight hours in any twenty-four hours, or longer than forty-eight hours in any week;
labor is prohibited (5) for all children under the age of sixteen years in occupations dangerous to life, limb, health or morals."
Further prescriptions of the Committee relate to the regulations and agencies of authority requisite to an effective enforcement of the Law.
In Bulletin Number 62 of the United States Bureau of Labor published in January, 1906, there is published a compilation of the laws relating to child labor in each State of the Union, as amended and in force at the close of the year 1905. An examination of them shows that the proposed standard had not then been measured up to in any State, or approached even nearly by more than a few. In not one had the law prescribed a test by weight or measure of the bodily development of a child that should mark Nature’s consent to his employment in any kind of work.
Thirteen States, namely, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Indiana, Kansas, Minnesota, New Jersey, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Wisconsin, prohibited in general terms the employment of children under fourteen years in mechanical, manufacturing or mercantile establishments, or to that apparent effect. New York did the same, with the proviso that children over twelve might have employment during school vacation times. Rhode Island, likewise, excepted the vacation time for children under fourteen. The State of Washington allowed certain judges to make exemptions from a similar prohibition, for the needed support of helpless parents. Maine, Michigan, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wisconsin fixed the age under which no child may be employed in wage-earning labor at twelve. Louisiana appointed it at twelve for a boy and fourteen for a girl. Colorado placed it at twelve for labor in mines only. Florida raised it to fifteen, but only as prohibitory without consent of "those having legal control" of the child. Alabama and Nebraska had it lowered to ten years. South Carolina had kept it at ten until 1903, at eleven until 1904, and at twelve until May, 1905. In the Massachusetts law no absolute prohibition of child labor within any age line appeared.
Educational requirements, conditioning the employment of children, were in most of the State laws, as they stood at the end of 1905, and many of them satisfied the third rule propounded by the National Child Labor Committee, as given above.
In the next three years after the Bureau of Labor’s compilation of child labor laws, great reforms in them were brought about, as shown by comparison with the "Handbook 1908" of "Child Labor Legislation" compiled by Josephine Goldmark for the National Consumers’ League, and published originally as a Supplement to the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, May, 1908. Some statements from this are given below:
"The age below which child labor is prohibited varies from sixteen to ten years. The number of employments prohibited also varies greatly—from all employment during school hours to mine work only. … Eleven states prohibit work to the sixteenth birthday in either mines or specific occupations injurious to health, or both. These are, for mines, New York, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania (inside anthracite mines), Texas; for specific occupations, Kentucky, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, Wisconsin; for both, Illinois and Montana."
The fifteen year age limit is prescribed in only one State, South Dakota, which forbids it in mines, factories, hotels, laundries, theatres, bowling alleys, elevators, messenger service, or places where liquors are sold.
The age limit of fourteen years is prescribed differently in different States. With various qualifications, employment below that age in factories, stores, offices, laundries, hotels, theatres, bowling alleys, is prohibited in California, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
In factories or stores it is forbidden in Connecticut, Massachusetts, North Dakota, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Washington.
In factories it is not permitted in Arkansas, Colorado, Delaware, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Minnesota, New Jersey, Tennessee, Texas, Wisconsin.
In messenger service it is made unlawful in California, Idaho, Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin.
Children under this age are excluded from mines in Arkansas, Colorado, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Minnesota, Missouri, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Utah, Washington, Wisconsin, Wyoming.
In all the prohibitions above cited many and various exceptions are allowed in the laws of different States—as for school-vacation periods, for children of widows and disabled fathers, etc. In like manner, the following State laws which, on general principles, forbid all employment of children under fourteen years during school hours, provide for numerous and different exceptional circumstances: California, Colorado, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Idaho, Illinois, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, South Dakota, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin.
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The thirteen year age limit is fixed only in North Carolina, which excepts apprentices.
The twelve year limit is applied (with exceptions for the vacation months) to factories or stores in California, to most descriptions of regular employment in Maryland, and to factories in West Virginia. It is applied to factories, with varied exceptions, in Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Carolina, and Texas. It applies to factories, quarries, railroads, and messenger service in Vermont, and to factories, stores, and mines in Virginia. To mines distinctly it applies in Alabama, Florida, Maryland (if the twelve-year child is not wholly illiterate), North Carolina, North Dakota (in school hours), Pennsylvania (in bituminous mines only), South Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia (vacation excepted).
The ten year old limit for labor to be lawful was only in Georgia factories, with exceptions for the babes of widows and disabled fathers.
As to hours of labor, "six states limit employment to 9 hours in one day and 54 in one week:—California, Delaware, Florida, Idaho, Missouri, and New York (applying to children under 16 in stores and as messengers).
"Twenty-four states restrict work to 10 hours in one day and either 55, 58 or 60 hours in one week.
"Five states, Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Tennessee allow more than 10 hours work in one day," in the hours per week they permit.
"Those states which fail to restrict the hours of labor allowed in one week as well as in one day invite the possibility of seven days’ labor. In Washington, for example, women and girls may not only work ten hours at night, they may do this every night, including Sunday.
"Work at night is effectively restricted to the 16th birthday in 18 states. Twelve states set an early closing hour for children under 16 years, New York fixing 5 p. m.; Michigan, Ohio, Oregon and Wisconsin 6 p. m., and Alabama, Idaho, Illinois, Kentucky, Minnesota, Missouri and New Jersey (in stores) fixing 7 p. m. Of these, the Ohio law is the most comprehensive, since it includes girls to the 18th birthday."
"Children have no positive immunity from night work unless the hours are explicitly stated between which it is unlawful to employ them. … The District of Columbia, 4 territories and 20 states fail to prohibit work at night after a definite closing hour. The sinister feature of this list is the presence of Connecticut, Delaware, Indiana, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, New Hampshire, Tennessee and West Virginia, all of them important manufacturing states having industries in which children are employed."
Since the compilation of the above several states have made important changes in or additions to their child labor laws, as follows:
In Kentucky the age limit is raised to 14 years during school terms, children between 14 and 16 not to be employed without certificate from school authorities. The hours of labor are limited to ten hours a day and sixty hours a week, and night work is prohibited for children under 16 years.
In Louisiana a fourteen-year age limit is established, with a 9 hour working day, and night work is prohibited for boys under 16 and girls under 18 years.
Mississippi has established a twelve-year limit, applicants under sixteen being required to furnish a certificate of age and educational advantages, and one from county health officer showing physical condition. The time limit is ten hours daily, 58 hours a week.
"New Jersey enacted a compulsory education law, requiring school attendance of all children between the ages of seven and seventeen, except that children of fifteen who have completed the grammar grades and are regularly employed may be excused. This places the age limit for employment during the school period at fifteen years.
"In New York a law was passed transferring the enforcement of the mercantile child labor law from local boards of health in cities of the first class to the State Labor Department, and providing for the creation of a bureau of mercantile inspection. This law became effective October 1st, 1908." It made important changes, affecting dangerous employments, which became effective October 1st, 1909.
"In Ohio an important measure was passed limiting the hours for boys under sixteen and girls under eighteen to eight per day and forty-eight per week."
_National Child Labor Committee (General Secretary’s Annual Report)._
An act to regulate the employment of child labor in the District of Columbia was passed by Congress on May 28, 1908. This law prescribes an age limit of fourteen years, and prohibits employment during school hours. Exceptions may be made for children in the service of the Senate, or for those whose labor is necessary for the support of a disabled or widowed parent. Street trades are forbidden to boys under ten and girls under sixteen years of age. The time limit for children under sixteen is eight hours a day and forty-eight hours a week.
The report of the National Child Labor Committee, for the year ending September 30, 1909, gives the following additional changes: In South Carolina a system of factory inspection was adopted. The hours of labor, however, were changed from 10 to 11 hours a day. In Maine an educational test was adopted, and the hours reduced from 60 to 58 per week. Rhode Island reduced the hours for women and children from 60 to 56 per week. Pennsylvania enacted a law requiring adequate proof of age of children seeking employment, and requiring school certificate.
Hours of labor have been reduced in the following States: Michigan to 54 hours a week for all women and for males under 18; Kansas, Oklahoma, North Dakota to 8 hour day and 48 hour week; Delaware to 9 hour day and 54 hour week; Maine to 10 hour day and 58 hour week for boys under 16, and girls under 18; Rhode Island to 56 hour week for minors under 16 and all women.
Night work has been prohibited in the following additional States: Delaware, Kansas, North Dakota, Michigan, Oklahoma, California.
Compulsory education laws have been passed in Arkansas and Tennessee, and revised and improved in New Jersey, New York, and Missouri.
See, also. LABOR PROTECTION: HOURS OF LABOR.
----------CHILDREN, UNDER THE LAW: End--------
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CHILDREN, Public Playgrounds for.
See (in this Volume) PLAYGROUND MOVEMENT.
CHILDS, RICHARD S.
See (in this Volume) ELECTIVE FRANCHISE: UNITED STATES.
----------CHILE: Start--------
CHILE: A. D. 1901-1906. Participation in Second and Third International Conferences of American Republics, at Rio de Janeiro.
See (in this Volume) AMERICAN REPUBLICS.
CHILE: A. D. 1902. Noble Peace Agreements between Chile and the Argentine Republic. Treaty for Arbitration of all Disputes. Limitation of Armaments.
See (in this Volume) War, The Revolt against: A. D. 1902.
CHILE: A. D. 1903. Sale of war vessels to Great Britain.
Pursuant to her Convention with Argentina, for the reduction of armaments, Chile, in this year, sold two newly built war vessels to Great Britain.
CHILE: A. D. 1906. Installation of President Montt. His prospective difficulties.
Don Pedro Montt, elected President of Chile in June, 1906, was installed in office on the 10th of September following—the anniversary of Chilean independence. United States Minister Hicks, reporting the ceremony to his Government, added the following remarks on the political situation:
"The new President takes office while enjoying great personal popularity. He is the son of Don Manuel Montt, who was President of Chile from 1851 to 1862. His reputation is that of a calm, well-balanced man, of unimpeachable integrity, strong and self-reliant, but conciliatory and far-seeing. He begins his career with many difficulties on his hands. One question left over from the last administration—that of the rectorship of the university—is already causing considerable trouble. Under the law the President appoints the rector from three persons named by the doctors of the university itself. Señor Letelier has been so named, but as he is said to be a liberal and even a freethinker, the church party and the conservatives generally are fighting him. The new President selected a cabinet last week entirely different from the one now in office, but owing to the rectorship question and some other things it failed and a new one had to be appointed hurriedly.
"Among other difficulties to be met by the new President is the opposition of the Senate. It is understood that there is a majority in that body against him, and it is liable to operate unfavorably to him. Still his friends have full confidence that he will succeed in quieting opposition and will retain the unlimited confidence of the people.
"Under the Chilean constitution much of the power delegated to the President under the American Constitution is retained by Congress. That body really dictates to the President the appointment or removal of his cabinet and thus his functions are quite different from those of the President of the United States."
CHILE: A. D. 1906. Destructive earthquake.
See (in this Volume) EARTHQUAKES: CHILE.
CHILE: A. D. 1907. Diplomatic relations with Peru reestablished.
Diplomatic relations with Peru were reestablished in 1907; but the old sore question between the two countries, concerning the interpretation of the peace treaty of Ancón (1884), relative to the provinces of Tacna and Arica, which Chile took from Peru in the preceding war, remains open.
See (in Volume VI.) CHILE.
CHILE: A. D. 1909. Contract given for the Arica-La Paz Railway.
See (in this Volume) RAILWAYS: CHILE-BOLIVIA.
CHILE: A. D. 1909. Arbitration of the Alsop Claim of the United States.
"Many years ago diplomatic intervention became necessary to the protection of the interests in the American claim of Alsop and Company against the government of Chili. The government of Chili had frequently admitted obligation in the case, and had promised this government to settle it. There had been two abortive attempts to do so through arbitral commissions, which failed through lack of jurisdiction. Now, happily, as the result of the recent diplomatic negotiations, the governments of the United States and Chili, actuated by the sincere desire to free from any strain those cordial and friendly relations upon which both set such store, have agreed by a protocol to submit the controversy to definitive settlement by his Britannic Majesty, Edward VII."
_Message to Congress of President Taft, December, 1909._
The claim referred to is that of "the Alsop Company of New York and Connecticut which advanced large sums of money to the Bolivian government in exchange for the right to valuable guano deposits in that country and other concessions. The government contracted further to return a part of the loan from the receipts of customs at the port of Arica. Before her contract could be fulfilled Bolivia lost Arica and the adjoining districts to Chili in war. In 1885, following representations by the American State Department, Chili agreed to assume the obligations of Bolivia to the Alsop Company. She has never, however, made good her promise, and the matter has been the subject of diplomatic negotiations ever since. The claim now amounts to more than $1,500,000."
CHILE: A. D. 1909. Building of the Transandine Railway Tunnel.
See (in this Volume) RAILWAYS: ARGENTINA-CHILE.
CHILE: A. D. 1909 (October). Naval plans.
See (in this Volume) WAR, THE PREPARATIONS FOR: NAVAL: CHILEAN.
----------CHILE: End--------
----------CHINA: Start--------
CHINA: A. D. 1887-1907. Increase of Christian Mission Schools.
See (in this Volume) EDUCATION: CHINA.
CHINA: A. D. 1900-1905. Sudden and rapid upspringing of newspapers.
"Without giving actual statistics, it may be mentioned that Peking, which had no newspaper up to the time of the Boxer rising—except a short-lived weekly started by the Peking Reform Club and suppressed by the Empress Dowager—has now three daily newspapers and two fortnightly ones, some of these being partly illustrated. Tientsin has at least three dailies, one of these, the ‘Ta-kung Pao’ ('The Impartial’), having the very respectable circulation of twenty thousand. The official organ which calls itself the ‘Times’ (the ‘Shih Pao’), although not so widely circulated, is well written under European auspices and has considerable influence. {91} In Shanghai there are now sixteen daily papers (price, eight to ten cash each), some of which have circulations of as much as ten thousand, and besides these there are many journals published there. Further south (at Foochow, Soochow, and Canton), there are in all some six or seven daily papers, and at Hong-Kong five, while Kiaochow has one, which is supported by the local German government. In addition to these, several papers are now published in the interior, but the majority, for various reasons, flourish in the treaty ports."
_A. R. Colquhoun The Chinese Press of To-day (North American Review, January, 1906)._
CHINA: A. D. 1900-1906. Progressive tariff and internal taxation measures to check the consumption of opium.
See (in this Volume) OPIUM PROBLEM.
CHINA: A. D. 1901-1902. The Russian grip on Manchuria. Coercive negotiations with China. Protests from other Powers. The Manchurian Treaty of 1902 and its impotence.
Early in December, 1901, the American Minister to China, Mr. Conger, reported to Secretary Hay, at Washington, an impending treaty which Russia seemed likely to force on the Chinese Government, which would practically secure to that aggressive Power, through a prolonged agreement of China with the Russo-Chinese Bank, exclusive railway and mining concessions in Manchuria, and which would protract the Russian evacuation of that country through three years. England and Japan were using all their influence at Peking to prevent the signing of the treaty, and Mr. Hay entered a vigorous protest on the part of the Government of the United States, "animated now, as heretofore, by the sincere desire to insure to the whole world full and fair intercourse with China on equal footing." The pressure from Russia on China was so potent, however, that Mr. Conger, on the 29th of January, 1902, reported to Mr. Hay that Prince Ch’ing, who acted with authority from his Government in the negotiation with Russia, had informed him "that the latter has done the best he could and has held out as long as possible, but that Russian possession of Manchuria has become intolerable, and that China must at once sign the convention or lose everything; that he has therefore agreed to sign the convention [modified in some particulars] and will also sign the separate agreement with the Russo-Chinese Bank, which practically gives exclusive privileges of industrial development in Manchuria." Nevertheless the consummation of the Russian project of coercive diplomacy was delayed until the 8th of April, and the terms of the treaty then signed were considerably moderated from the original design. Its provisions of interest to others than the contracting parties were as follows:
"ARTICLE I. His Majesty the Emperor of all the Russias, desiring to give a fresh proof of his love of peace and his sentiments of friendship for His Majesty the Emperor of China, notwithstanding the fact that the first attacks upon the peaceable Russian population were made from various points of Manchuria, which is situated on the frontier, consents to the reestablishment of the authority of the Chinese Government in the aforesaid province, which remains an integral part of the Empire of China, and restores to the Chinese Government the right to exercise governmental and administrative powers there as before its occupation by the Russian troops.
"ARTICLE II. In resuming possession of governmental and administrative powers in Manchuria, the Chinese Government confirms, as well in regard to the terms as to all the other articles, the engagement strictly to observe the stipulations of the contract concluded with the Russo-Chinese Bank on the 27th of August, 1896, and assumes, according to article 5 of said contract, the obligation to protect the railroad and its personnel by every means, and also pledges itself to guarantee the security in Manchuria, of all Russian subjects in general who reside there and the enterprises established by them. The Russian Government, in view of the assumption of this obligation by the Emperor of China, consents on its part, in case there shall be no agitations of any sort, and if the action of the other powers shall offer no obstacle thereto, gradually to withdraw all its troops from Manchuria so as (a) To withdraw, in the course of six months from the signing of the convention, the Russian troops from the southwest portion of the province of Moukden, as far as the Liao-he River, and again to place China in control of the railways; (b) To withdraw, in the course of the six months following, the Imperial Russian troops from the remaining portion of the province of Moukden and the province of Kirin; and (c) To withdraw, in the course of the six months following, the remainder of the Imperial Russian troops now in the province of Hei-lung Kiang.
"ARTICLE. III. In view of the necessity of obviating in future a repetition of the disturbances of 1900, in which the Chinese troops quartered in the provinces adjacent to Russia took part, the Russian Government and the Chinese Government agree to order the Russian military authorities and the dzian-dziuns, to come to an understanding for the purpose of regulating the number and determining the places of cantonment of the Chinese troops in Manchuria until the Russian troops shall have been withdrawn therefrom. The Chinese Government further pledges itself not to organize any other troops above the number thus agreed upon by the Russian military authorities and the dzian-dziuns which shall be sufficient to exterminate the brigands and to pacify the country. After the complete evacuation of the country by the Russian troops, the Chinese Government shall have the right to make an examination of the number of troops in Manchuria which are subject to increase or diminution, giving timely notice of such examination to the Imperial Government, for the maintenance of troops in the aforesaid province in superfluous numbers would manifestly lead to the increase of the Russian military forces in the adjacent districts, and would thus occasion an increase of military expenses, to the great disadvantage of both countries. For police service and the maintenance of internal order in this region outside of the territory ceded to the Chinese Eastern Railway Company, there shall be formed, near the local dzian-dziun governors, a police force, both on foot and mounted, composed exclusively of subjects of the Emperor of China
"ARTICLE IV. The Russian Government consents to restore to their owners the railway lines of Shan-hai-kwan—Yin-kow—Simminting, which have been occupied and protected by the Russian troops since the end of the month of September, 1900. In consideration of this the Government of the Emperor of China pledges itself:
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"1. That in case it shall become necessary to insure the security of the aforesaid railway lines it will itself assume that obligation, and will not request any other power to undertake or participate in the defense, construction, or exploitation of these lines, and will not permit foreign powers to occupy the territory restored by Russia.
"2. That the above-mentioned railway lines shall be completed and exploited on the precise bases of the agreement made between Russia and England April 16, 1899, and on those of the contract concluded September 28, 1898, with a private company, relative to a loan for the construction of the aforesaid lines, and, moreover, in observance of the obligations assumed by the company, especially: Not to take possession of the Shan-hai-kwan—Yin-kow—Simminting line or to dispose of it in any manner whatever.
"3. That if a continuation of the railway lines in the south of Manchuria, or the construction of branch lines connecting with them, and the construction of a bridge at Yin Kow or at the transfer of the terminus of the Shan-hai-kwan Railroad, which is situated there, shall hereafter be undertaken, it shall be done after a previous understanding between the Government of Russia and that of China."
Papers relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, 1902, pages 271-281.
During the next two years Russia was accused from all sides of infidelity to the engagements of this treaty, and her conduct, which seemed especially menacing to Japan, gave rise to the Russo-Japanese War.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1901-1904.
CHINA: A. D. 1901-1902. Edicts for educational reform. Modernizing examinations for literary and military degrees. Establishing universities, colleges, and schools. Sending students abroad.
See (in this Volume) EDUCATION: CHINA: A. D. 1901-1902.
CHINA: A. D. 1901-1904. Persistent occupation of Manchuria by the Russians. Remonstrances of the Japanese.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1901-1904.
CHINA: A. D. 1901-1908. Settlement of the indemnity to be paid to fourteen Powers on account of the Boxer Rising. Remission of part of it by the United States.
In April, 1901, when the record of events connected with the Boxer rising against foreigners in China was closed in Volume VI. of this work, the Chinese government had promised satisfaction and indemnity to the fourteen Powers whose subjects had suffered from the barbarous attack and whose forces had overcome it, and the measure of indemnity to be paid was then being discussed. The discussion and the reckonings involved were prolonged till September. The final protocol was signed September 7, but it was not until the 30th of that month that the formulated claims of the Powers concerned were accepted by China, and the responsibility of payment assumed by an imperial decree. The total was 450,000,000 taels, equivalent to $334,000,000, divided between Austria-Hungary, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sweden, and the United States. The sum was not reckoned solely for the covering of losses and expenses, consequent on the Boxer outrages, but was intended to be, in some degree, a penalty imposed on the Chinese nation; and some of the claimant nations were said to be more exacting on this score than others were.
The amount for which the United States stipulated was $24,440,000, and the American government received an indemnity bond for that sum. But when the expenses of the American relief expedition had been accurately ascertained, and all losses and destruction of property belonging to American claimants had been settled, it was found that they would be largely overpaid. It was possible, according to common practice in international dealings, to regard the excess as justly punitive; but a different view was dictated by the wish to show friendliness to China, and a return of the overpayment was proposed. Recommended by President Roosevelt, the necessary sanction was given by Congress, and on the 11th of July, 1908, the American Minister to China addressed the following communication to the Prince of Ch’ing, President of the Wai-Wu-Pu, or Board of Foreign Affairs, at Peking:
"Your Highness: "It is with great satisfaction that I have the honor to inform your Highness, under direction of the Secretary of State of the United States, that a bill has passed the Congress of the United States authorizing the President to modify the indemnity bond given the United States by China under the provisions of Article VI. of the final protocol of September 7, 1901, from twenty-four million, four hundred and forty thousand dollars ($24,440,000), United States gold currency, to thirteen million, six hundred and fifty-five thousand, four hundred and ninety-two dollars and twenty-nine cents ($13,655,492.29), with interest at four per cent (4%) per annum. Of this amount two million dollars ($2,000,000) are held pending the result of hearings on private claims presented to the Court of Claims of the United States within one year. Any balance remaining after such adjudication is also to be returned to the Chinese Government, in such manner as the Secretary of State shall decide.
"The President is further authorized under the Bill to remit to China the remainder of the indemnity as an act of friendship, such payments and remissions to be made at such times and in such a manner as he may deem just.
"I am also directed by the Secretary of State to request the Imperial Government kindly to favor him with its views as to the time and manner of the remissions.
"Trusting that your Imperial Highness will favor me with an early reply to communicate to my Government, I avail myself of this occasion to renew to your Highness the assurance of my highest consideration —W. W. ROCKHILL."
In his reply, after reciting the statements conveyed to him by Mr. Rockhill, the Prince wrote (as translated) the following:
"On reading this despatch I was profoundly impressed with the justice and great friendliness of the American government, and wish to express our sincerest thanks.
"Concerning the time and manner of the return of the amounts to be remitted to China, the Imperial Government has no wishes to express in the matter. It relies implicitly on the friendly intentions of the United States Government, and is convinced that it will adopt such measures as are best calculated to attain the end it has in view.
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"The Imperial Government, wishing to give expression to the high value it places on the friendship of the United States, finds in its present action a favorable opportunity for doing so. Mindful of the desire recently expressed by the President of the United States to promote the coming of Chinese students to the United States to take courses in the schools and higher educational institutions of the country, and convinced by the happy results of past experience of the great value to China of education in American schools, the Imperial Government has the honor to state that it is its intention to send henceforth yearly to the United States a considerable number of students there to receive their education. The Board of Foreign Affairs will confer with the American Minister in Peking concerning the elaboration of plans for the carrying out of the intention of the Imperial Government. "A necessary despatch. "SEAL OF THE WAI-WU-PU."
Simultaneously with the note from Prince Ch’ing, the Wai-Wu-Pu as a body addressed the following to Mr. Rockhill:
"_To his Excellency W. W. Rockhill, American Minister, Peking_:
"Referring to the despatch just sent to your Excellency regarding sending students to America, it has now been determined that from the year when the return of the indemnity begins, one hundred students shall be sent to America every year for four years, so that four hundred students may be in America by the fourth year. From the fifth year and throughout the period of the indemnity payments a minimum of fifty students will be sent each year.
"As the number of students will be very great, there will be difficulty in making suitable arrangements for them. Therefore, in the matter of choosing them, as well as in the matters of providing suitable homes for them in America and selecting the schools which they are to enter, we hope to have your advice and assistance. The details of our scheme will have to be elaborated later, but we take this occasion to state the general features of our plan, and ask you to inform the American Government of it. We sincerely hope that the American Government will render us assistance in the matter.
"Wishing you all prosperity, (Signed) PRINCE OF CH’ING, YUAN-SHIH-K’AI, NA-TUNG LIEN-FANG LIANG-TUN-YEN."
The remittance of somewhat more than $10,000,000 of the indemnity did not involve a repayment of that sum of money to the Chinese government, for the reason that payments on the original indemnity bond were to be in annual instalments, running until 1940, certain revenues being pledged to secure them. The remittance is effected, accordingly, by a readjustment of those payments hereafter.
Writing in The Outlook of this transaction, and of the impression it has made in China, Mr. George Marvin, who has been for some time in official connection with the Chinese Government, says:
"In pledging itself to the American educational mission the Chinese Government has given the fullest evidence of its appreciation. According to estimates made in Peking last summer, it was calculated that by and after the fourth year of the proposed educational foundation the investment necessary to finance the Chinese students in America would amount to $500,000 annually, a sum nearly equivalent to the entire yearly revenue remitted. Already, and quite apart from the scheme proposed in the note of the Wai-Wu-Pu, there are maintained in the United States by Imperial and Provincial funds one hundred and fifty-five Chinese students, picked boys and young men, sons of officials and prominent and wealthy merchants, chosen often by competitive examinations. The students now to be sent annually by the Imperial Government will be still more carefully selected. These are the men destined for positions of responsibility and influence in that ‘Awakening China’ of which we hear so much."
_G. Marvin, in The Outlook, November 14, 1908._
A Special Ambassador from China, bearing a letter of thanks from the Emperor, presented it to the President on the 2d of December, 1908.
CHINA: A. D. 1902. Return to Peking of the Emperor, Empress-Dowager, and Court. Receptions to foreign representatives. Withdrawals of foreign troops. Recurrence of Boxer outbreaks.
The Emperor, Empress Dowager, and their suite reentered Peking on the 7th of January, 1902. On the 22d the foreign representatives were admitted to audience with the Emperor; on the 28th the Emperor and Empress-Dowager, together, gave a reception to the diplomatic body, the Empress-Dowager being throned on a higher seat than the Emperor; on the 1st of February the Empress-Dowager entertained the ladies of the foreign legations at a banquet, where presents of jewelry were made to all the guests. Sorrow for the misdoings from which the foreigners in China had suffered was expressed on all these occasions, and there seemed to be an earnest desire to make amends for them.
Foreign troops were withdrawn from Tien-tsin on the 15th of August, 1902, and the city delivered to the Chinese Viceroy. Many improvements in streets, bridges, and public grounds had been made by the provisional government which the Allies instituted in 1900. Shanghai was evacuated by the allied forces at the end of the year 1902.
Some recurrence of Boxer movements and insurrections occurred in different parts of the Empire during 1902. Several missionaries and a number of native converts were murdered, chapels were burned, and other outrages committed; but in general there was a restoration of order in the country, and considerable building of railways and forwarding of other enterprises went on.
CHINA: A. D. 1902. Russo-Chinese Treaty concerning Tibet.
See (in this Volume) TIBET: A. D. 1902.
CHINA: A. D. 1902 (January). Agreement respecting China between Great Britain and Japan.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1902.
CHINA: A. D. 1902 (February). Wei-hai-wei found to be strategically worthless by the British Government.
See (in this Volume) ENGLAND: A. D. 1902 (FEBRUARY).
CHINA: A. D. 1902-1904. The British opening of Tibet by force.
See TIBET: A. D. 1902.
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CHINA: A. D. 1903 (MAY-OCTOBER). Treaty with the United States. Opening of two ports in Manchuria. Rights and privileges enlarged.
"In the protocol of September 7, 1901, China had agreed to extend the scope of her commercial treaties with the powers.
See, (in this Volume) above, A. D. 1901-1908.
When the negotiation of a new treaty was begun by Consul-General Goodnow at Shanghai, the United States demanded that at least two new ports in Manchuria be opened to foreign trade and residence. The Chinese commissioners declined to discuss this subject, on the alleged ground that they had no instructions to do so. It was evident that there was secret opposition somewhere, and on May 7, 1903, Mr. Conger reported that it came from the Russian charge d'affaires. Later he secured a written acknowledgment from the Chinese government that such was the case. … Mr. Hay then appealed with the utmost directness to the Russian government. … On July 14 a definite answer was at length received from Russia, in which she declared that it had never entered into her views to oppose the opening of certain cities in Manchuria to foreign commerce, but that this declaration did not apply to Harbin, one of the cities selected by the United States, which was situated within the railway zone, and therefore was not under the complete jurisdiction of China. A copy of this note was shown to the Chinese government; which finally agreed to insert in the treaty on October 8 (the date on which Russia had agreed to completely withdraw from Manchuria) a provision for the opening of two ports. The United States agreed to this arrangement, and on October 8 the treaty was signed, and Mukden and Antung named as the open ports."
John H. Latané, America as a World Power, chapter 6 (Harper & Bros., New York, 1907).
The further scope of the treaty was announced by President Roosevelt in his Message to Congress, December 7, 1903, as follows: "It provides not only for the ordinary rights and privileges of diplomatic and consular officers, but also for an important extension of our commerce by increased facility of access to Chinese ports, and for the relief of trade by the removal of some of the obstacles which have embarrassed it in the past. The Chinese Government engages, on fair and equitable conditions, which will probably be accepted by the principal commercial nations, to abandon the levy of ‘liken’ and other transit dues throughout the Empire, and to introduce other desirable administrative reforms. Larger facilities are to be given to our citizens who desire to carry on mining enterprises in China. We have secured for our missionaries a valuable privilege, the recognition of their right to rent and lease in perpetuity such property as their religious societies may need in all parts of the Empire."
CHINA: A. D. 1904. Railways and Chinese travel on them. Unused British Concessions.
"It may not have passed out of the public mind that in February, 1899, Mr. Balfour came down to the House of Commons and paraded before it and the country the magnificent triumph England had won in China in respect of Railway Concessions.
See, in Volume VI., CHINA: A. D. 1898 (FEBRUARY-DECEMBER.).
They totalled up to 2,800 miles! The House cheered, the country indulged in a fit of self-complacency, and the critic who asked questions was an ignoramus or a nuisance. Well, five years have gone by, and not one mile of those railways is in existence except the Chinese Northern State Railway, which has passed out of our hands. Of the rest the two great trunk lines, one from Hankow to Canton, and the other in Yunnan, have been abandoned, while among those of shorter length the only one that still remains in active force is the subject of this paper. …
"In more than one recently published consular dispatch attention has been drawn to the fact that the Chinese, backward or hesitating in the adoption of every other European or Western innovation, have shown no reluctance to avail themselves of improved means of locomotion. The Northern Railway is used by several million passengers every year; the sections already open of the German railway in Shantung and of the Belgian in Shansi can complain of no lack of traffic. The fears of an earlier period as to what the Chinese would do with regard to railways have been dissipated by experience."
_D. C. Boulger, The Shanghai-Nanking Railway (Contemporary Review, June, 1904)._
CHINA: A. D. 1904. The Russo-Japanese War in Manchuria.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1904 (FEBRUARY-JULY) and after.
CHINA: A. D. 1904-1909. The Hankau Sze-chuen Railway Loan. The question of American participation.
In 1904 the American Minister at Peking concluded an agreement with the Chinese Government to the effect that, when loans for the construction of a projected railway into the western province of Sze-chuen, from Hankau, should be negotiated, Americans should have an opportunity to subscribe to it. Nearly five years passed before arrangements for the loan were made, and then, in the spring of 1909, it was found that terms had been concluded with a group of British, German, and French bankers for the whole sum sought, of $27,500,000, while American capitalists had not been given the promised opportunity. On behalf of the latter the Government of the United States intervened, claiming fulfilment of the agreement of 1904. The matter was regarded as being both politically and financially important. "A precedent is what we want to establish," said Mr. Crane, the newly appointed Minister to China, in an interview on the subject at New York. "The task of this Government to maintain its position with the European Powers in the East will be less difficult. We are looking twenty years ahead." As the result of communications in July from Washington to Peking, in which President Taft took part personally, the loan arrangement was readjusted, and American capitalists became participant in it to the extent of one-fourth.
According to a despatch from Peking, August 17, the matter was settled definitely that day, on the following terms: "The loan to be increased from $27,500,000 to $30,000,000, and of this latter amount American bankers to get one-quarter, the other three-quarters going to British, French, and German interests. Americans are to have equal opportunity with the other nations to supply material for both the Sze-chuen and the Canton lines and the branches; they will appoint subordinate engineers, and they will have also one-half of all future loans of the Sze-chuen Railroad and its branches with the corresponding advantages."
{95}
Subsequently, however, some difficulty in the readjustment of business details in the matter arose, which delayed the final settlement. The motives of the American Government in claiming a participation in the enterprise were stated as follows by President Taft in his Message to Congress, December 6, 1909: "By the treaty of 1903 China has undertaken the abolition of likin with a moderate and proportionate raising of the customs tariff along with currency reform. These reforms being of manifest advantage to foreign commerce as well as to the interests of China, this government is endeavoring to facilitate these measures with the needful acquiescence of the treaty Powers. When it appeared that Chinese likin revenues were to be hypothecated to foreign bankers in connection with a great railway project, it was obvious that the governments whose nationals held this loan would have a certain direct interest in the question of the carrying out by China of the reforms in question. Because this railroad loan represented a practical and real application of the open-door policy through coöperation with China by interested Powers, as well as because of its relations to the reforms referred to above, the Administration deemed American participation to be of great national interest. Happily, when it was as a matter of broad policy urgent that this opportunity should not be lost, the indispensable instrumentality presented itself when a group of American bankers, of international reputation and great resources, agreed at once to share in the loan upon precisely such terms as this government should approve. The chief of those terms was that American railway material should be upon an exact equality with that of the other nationals joining in the loan in the placing of orders for this whole railroad system. After months of negotiation the equal participation of Americans seems at last assured. It is gratifying that Americans will thus take their share in this extension of these great highways of trade, and to believe that such activities will give a real impetus to our commerce, and will prove a practical corollary to our historic policy in the Far East."
CHINA: A. D. 1905 (August). New agreement respecting China between Great Britain and Japan.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1905 (AUGUST).
CHINA: A. D. 1905 (December). Treaty with Japan relative to Manchuria.
By a treaty with Japan, concluded December, 1905, China consented to lease to Japan the Kwangtung peninsula, at the southern extremity of which are Port Arthur and Dalny, formerly held by Russia under lease from China, and concede to Japan the control of the railway on the peninsula northward as far as Changchin. China also conceded to Japan the right to build a railway from Antung on the Yalu River to Mukden, the ancient capital of Manchuria, provided, however, that at the end of a certain period the road may be purchased by China. More important is the fact that China agreed in the treaty to open to the world’s commerce and trade sixteen principal ports and cities in Manchuria, including Harbin, or Kharbin, the modern Russian capital of the province and its most important railway center.
CHINA: A. D. 1905-1908. The stir of new ideas. Imperial Commission to study Representative Systems of Government. Signs of fruit from it. Reformative movements. The Constitutional Programme set forth in August, 1908. Nine years of approach to a Promised Constitution.
A significant token of the dawning in China of a changed state of mind respecting the western world of Europe and America, and its very different development of scientific knowledge and of social institutions, was afforded in the fall of 1905, when an imperial commission, headed by Prince Tsai-Tse, was sent abroad to study representative systems of government. The Commission returned in the following July, and in August a committee of high dignitaries, with Prince Ch’ing for its chairman, was appointed to consider the report it had submitted on administrative reforms. The outcome, soon afterwards, was an imperial edict which recognized a "lack of confidence between the highest and the lowest, between the throne and ministers and the masses," and went so far as to say that "foreign countries become wealthy and powerful by granting a constitution to the masses and allowing suffrage to all." While intimating that China must look forward to a similar admission of the masses to some voice in the government, the edict set forth the prior need of many reforms, in the official system, in the laws, in education, in the finances, and in the army and police. To begin the undertaking of such reforms, Prince Tsai-Tse was put at the head of a committee for dealing with the official system, and before the year closed there were several changes of importance introduced, tending towards more simplicity of methods in public business and more centering of responsibilities. Examinations in Western subjects of knowledge began to replace the old conventional examinations in classic Chinese literature, as tests for admission and promotion in official service, and eagerness was shown in the opening of schools and colleges that approached the European and American type. Simultaneously with these stirrings of a new consciousness and purpose in China, a great moral reform was taken in hand. This was no less than an attempt to rescue the nation from its opium curse. Some account of the opium edict issued in September, 1906, will be found elsewhere.
See, (in this Volume) OPIUM PROBLEM.
That these reformative steps were actually taken with a view to the ultimate granting of "a constitution to the masses and allowing suffrage to all" was proved in the summer of 1908, when a programme of gradual approach to constitutional government, by stages which extend through the next nine years, was promulgated at Peking on August 27th. According to Western ideas the document lacks definiteness, but it is not difficult to believe in the sincerity of its intent. There may be great wisdom of sincerity in the serial planning of successive measures that are to unfold and introduce a constitution at the end of nine years.
The edict of August 27 was summarized and partially translated in a communication to the New York Tribune, as follows:
"The preamble alone fills twenty large pages and is written in an incongruous mixture of Chinese Classical terms and new Japanese terminology invented to fit Western meanings. The efforts of the authors have been aimed at conveying to the Chinese mind an understanding of things hitherto beyond its comprehension. The explanations often convey nothing to the Western mind.
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"The subject is approached in an almost prayerful attitude. The fact that China obtains this constitution ‘by the imperial will’ is reiterated again and again. It is set forth that the imperial government, under the constitution, shall not be criticised, on the principle that the ‘sacred majesty of the sovereign may not be offended against,’ and that the leaders of the political parties are to be appointed by the throne. Full government under this constitution will become effective at the end of nine years. While the proposed system is called constitutional, it is far removed from Western constitutional government.
"Broadly speaking, the document follows the constitution of Japan. Some of its most striking clauses follow:
"‘We beg, as the condition of the country is perilous, and the hearts of the people are uneasy—trouble within and calamity from without, danger threatening, and no parliament at the side to investigate matters—that urgent measures may be taken to overcome half-heartedness and procrastination, that there may be peace above and completion below.
"‘We have therefore laid down the general principles of the constitution and the programme for the work of getting everything in readiness in nine years. These may not be changed in the least particular.
"‘There will be boundless daily improvement. May the "silken sounds" descend to inform the empire and fix the road for ten thousand years, comforting the hopes of the myriads who long for peace.’
"Fourteen laws are then submitted, as follows:
"1. The Ta Ch’ing Emperor will rule supreme over the Ta Ch’ing Empire for one thousand generations in succession, and be honored forever.
"2. Majesty of the sovereign.
"3. Right of promulgating laws.
"4. Convocation, suspension, extension and dissolution of parliament.
"5. Appointment, payment, promotion, degradation of officials.
"6. Command over army and navy.
"7. Power to make war, peace, treaties; to receive and appoint ambassadors.
"8. Martial law.
"9. Rewards and pardons.
"10. Right over judges and the administration of laws.
"11. Injunction.
" 12. Right of raising funds when parliament is not in session.
"13. Right of fixing the expenses of the imperial household.
"14. Respecting authority over the imperial clan.
"‘We look to our Empress Dowager and Emperor and see that they take the measure of heaven and earth as their measure and the heart of the people as their heart. The officials and people within the wide seas are reverently grateful.
"‘The people should earnestly fulfil all the duties without selfish reservations, which would hinder the public welfare, and without rash impatience, which would confuse the regulation; not looking on the matter as too easy, so that the deliberations become empty wrangling, not failing to understand the limitation of powers, so as to make laws which overstep authority.
"‘The sovereign has absolute power, which he exercises in constitutional form.’
"It is then set forth that on the dissolution of parliament the people shall be called on to elect a new parliament, and the document continues:
"‘Mercy is from above; officials, below, may not arrogate it to themselves.
"‘Officers and people who keep within the law will have freedom of speech, of the press and of assembly. They shall not be disturbed without cause in their possession of property, nor interfered with in their dwellings; and they have the obligation to pay taxes and render military service and the duty of obedience to the law of the land.
"‘Members of parliament shall not speak disrespectfully of the court or slander others. Violation of this law will be punished.’
"The nine year programme is as follows:
"‘Thirty-fourth year of Kwang Hsu, or 1908—Local self-government; rules for reorganization of finance; fusion of the Manchu and Chinese military; revision of criminal code.
"‘Thirty-fifth year, or 1909—Election of provincial assemblymen; election to constitutional commission; local self-government bureaus established; census; provincial budgets; determination of functions of Peking officials; issuing of school books.
"‘Thirty-sixth year, or 1910—Provincial assemblies opened; local self-government established; census reports; tax rate fixed; organization of provincial officials; courts of law at provincial capitals and treaty ports; publishing criminal code; extension of schools; preparation for organization of sub-prefecture; department and district police.
"‘Thirty-seventh year, or 1911—Local self-government continued; public account; imperial budget; rules on imperial taxation; rules governing appointments and salaries of civil officials; extension of schools; codes of municipal and commercial laws and civil and criminal procedure drawn up.
"‘Thirty-eighth year, or 1912—Completion of general arrangement of urban self-government; census reports; publication of taxation laws of empire; perfection of arrangements for provincial and lesser courts; extension of schools.
"‘Thirty-ninth year, or 1913—Police registration; imperial trial budget of variable expenses; Supreme Court; courts of law in prefectures, sub-prefectures, departments and districts; criminal code promulgated; urban self-government established; rules for rural self-government; rules for urban police.
"‘Fortieth year, or 1914—Imperial trial budget of fixed expenses; publication of system of national accounts; rural self-government established; rules for lower courts.
"‘Forty-first year, or 1915—Imperial household expenses fixed; organization of the Banners’ controller’s office; public accounting enforced; lower courts established; municipal and commercial laws and civil and criminal procedure rules established; police system complete.
"‘Forty-second year, or 1910—Promulgation of full constitution and the laws of the imperial clan; parliamentary rules and rules for parliamentary elections; budget for consideration of parliament; reorganized official system; appointment of a premier.’
"The document concludes with these words:
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"'In the forty-third year of Kwang Hsu, or 1917, China will be, by following this plan, a parliamentary country like Japan or Russia.'"
_China's Constitution (New York Tribune, October 19, 1908)._
Prince Ito, the veteran statesman of Japan, regards the constitutional experiment in China with more anxiety than hopefulness. Speaking on the subject in August, 1909, he expressed doubt of its success, and thought failure would imperil peace in the Far East. His reasoning in brief was this:
"First—the enormous area of the Empire and the defective facilities for communication would greatly impede the assembling of a Parliament, especially in time of emergency.
Secondly, the immovable character of Chinese conservatism forbade a change even of the system of taxation, notwithstanding the State’s urgent need of funds, and there was, therefore, still greater difficulty in effecting the radical alterations required by a constitutional system.
Thirdly, the Chinese were untrained in local administration, the institution of which was an essential prelude to a national Assembly. He said he was astonished at the silence of Occidental publicists on this question so vital to the peace of the Orient."
CHINA: A. D. 1905-1908. Chinese Exclusion Laws of the United States. Boycott of American goods in the Empire.
See (in this Volume) RACE PROBLEMS: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1905-1908.
CHINA: A. D. 1905-1909. Disputes with Japan. The Fa-ku-menn Railway and the Antung-Mukden Railway questions. Settlement of the latter by Japanese ultimatum.
It could hardly have been possible for cordially friendly relations to be maintained between China and Japan, in the circumstances which transferred to the latter the extensive rights and privileges in Southern Manchuria, which Russia had acquired in that Chinese province by treaty and lease. By a protocol of December, 1905, after the closing of the Russo-Japanese War, there was an attempt, between Peking and Tokyo, to define the effects of the Treaty of Portsmouth, especially in the bearings of that article of the Treaty which ceded to Japan, "with the consent of the Government of China, the lease of Port Arthur, of Talien, and of the adjacent territories and territorial waters, as well as the rights, privileges and concessions connected with this lease or forming part thereof," and likewise, of "all the public works and property within the territory over which the above lease extends"; but misunderstandings and differences of opinion were sure to arise. Whether it has been more by the fault of Japan than of China that they arose and increased until, in the past year, they became a serious estrangement, is a question on which the judgment of foreign observers is conflicting. The veteran representative of the London Times at Peking, whose friendship for the Chinese is fast-fixed by long residence among them, lays the greater weight of responsibility on Japan, though he finds a lack of reasonableness on both sides. Japan, he says (writing July 19, 1909), was welcomed in China with open arms after her victorious war. "No nation ever had a greater opportunity, and faulty must have been the policy which in so short a time has wrought so great a change. Japan is now regarded with a comprehensive distrust that is most disquieting. Not long ago more than 1,000 Japanese of different classes were employed in China, in schools and colleges, in the army and police, in law and prison reform, in agriculture and sericulture, in telephone and electric light companies, on railways, and in many other capacities. At present there are fewer than 400, 52 of whom are in Peking, and these numbers will be further reduced as existing contracts expire. Similar reductions are noted in the number of Chinese being educated in Japan. Three years ago there were more than 20,000; last year there were more than 10,000. The number now is 5,125, and only yesterday it was arranged that in the case of a body of 300 Government students just returned to China, only 88 would be sent to take their places."
"At present each country, through its Press, is protesting against the unreasonableness of the other. Contradictory statements on questions of fact are made on almost every point at issue."
The main contention has related to the projected extension by China of a railway to Fa-ku-menn from the terminus of an existing line at Hsin-min-tun, west of Mukden. It was in the agreement of December, 1905, that no railways in competition with the South Manchurian line, which Japan took from Russia, should be built. The Japanese assert that they had in view this very Fa-ku-menn extension when that stipulation was inserted. The Chinese declare that the negotiation on their part had reference solely to the area east of the Liao River. Japan made two alternative proposals for the settlement of this question: "One that the Chinese should build a railway from Fa-ku-menn to the South Manchurian Railway instead of to Hsin-min-tun, or that the Japanese should build a railway from the South Manchurian line to Fa-ku-menn and thence to the North, in which case Japan would withdraw her objection to the Fa-ku-menn-Hsin-min-tun railway, provided that China undertook not to extend the line beyond Fa-ku-menn without a previous agreement with Japan." China is said to have declined discussion of these proposals, but offered arbitration of the whole matter. Japan objected to arbitration without previous discussion of her new proposals. And so the dispute seemed deadlocked.
Another dispute turned on the interpretation of a clause in the Agreement of December, 1905, which reads: "China agrees that Japan has the right to improve the Antung-Mukden Railway so as to make it fit for the conveyance of commercial and industrial goods of all nations." Japan undertook, as a necessary "improvement" of the road, to reconstruct it, with a change of gauge to connect it with the standard gauge of the South Manchuria and Korean roads. China denied that the agreement gave a right to reconstruction. Several other questions arising between the two peoples have helped to raise hard feeling on both sides; but these have seemed to be at the front.
At length on the 6th of August, 1909, Japan brought discussion of the Antung-Mukden Railway question to a summary ending, by a note to the Chinese Government which announced that "the Imperial Government is now compelled to take independent action, and to proceed to carry out the necessary work of reconstruction and improvement according to treaty rights." {98} Before taking this decisive step, the Japanese Government is said to have consulted Great Britain and other powers, and to have had approval of her action from London, if not from elsewhere. China yielded to the ultimatum, and this leading cause of quarrel between the great nations of the East was removed on the 4th of September by the signing, at Mukden, of a memorandum of agreement, reported in substance as follows:
China agrees, first, not to construct the Hsin-min-tum-Fa-ku-men Railroad without consulting Japan; second, that half the capital required to extend the Kirin Railroad shall be borrowed in Japan; third, that Japan will be permitted to extend the Yinkow and improve and modernize the Antung-Mukden Railroads, to which China was bitterly opposed; fourth, that Japan may work the mines in the Fushun and Yentai districts, and have joint exploitation of the mines reached by the Antung and Manchurian Railroad lines.
In the Chientao boundary dispute Japan agrees to recognize China’s sovereignty, while China agrees to open four trade marts in the district.
In a letter to a London journal, a few days before this settlement of the Antung-Mukden Railway question, Lord Stanhope said:
"The Chinese have surely deeper reasons for opposing this scheme than the mere fact of reconstruction. They well realize that this railway, crossing narrow valleys, can have no commercial future, but is virtually a strategic railway to strengthen the Japanese grip on Manchuria."
CHINA: A. D. 1906. A Commission sent to America and Europe for the study of political and other institutions.
The new spirit astir in China was manifested in the early months of 1906 by the sending of a large Commission of carefully chosen men to the United States and Europe, for observations that would be helpful toward reforms in their own country. It was headed by two High Commissioners of distinction, Tai Hung-chi and Tuan Fang, and they were attended by thirty-five scholars and functionaries of note. They received much attention during their stay of five weeks in the United States, and were placed by the Government under the special charge of Professor J. W. Jenks. Writing subsequently of their mission Professor Jenks said:
"The purpose of the commission is, primarily, to make such a study of the political institutions of the various countries visited that they will be able, on their return, to offer valuable suggestions for the improvement of their own. There is even serious talk among the high officials in China of some form of a constitution. In consequence, the commissioners are as eager to learn regarding the working of some of our institutions as regarding their form of organization. Inasmuch as political reform necessarily involves social reform, even as a condition precedent, the commission is devoting special attention to the study of education, in universities and schools, and to methods of social amelioration, in prisons and asylums for the insane and the poor. They, however, are not neglecting the study of our large manufacturing plants, and have clearly in mind, also, the improvement of the industrial conditions of China. It is a matter of peculiar interest that the Empress-Dowager charged them to inquire especially into the education of girls in the United States, since she hoped, on their return, to be able to found a school for the education of the daughters of the princes."
CHINA: A. D. 1906. Sixty cities being opened to foreign settlement.
A memorandum on the subject of the foreign settlements at the open ports of China, prepared by the Chinese Secretary of the American Legation at Peking, was transmitted to the State Department at Washington in December, 1906. It conveyed the following information:
"In China proper and in Manchuria 46 cities and towns have been thrown open already to foreign residence and international trade. This does not include Dalny, in Manchuria, leased to Japan; Wei-hai-wei, in Shantung, leased to Great Britain; Kiaochow, in Shantung, leased to Germany; Kowloon, in Kuangtung, leased to Great Britain; nor Kuang-chou-wan, in Kuangtung, leased to France. Besides the above, there are 3 cities in Tibet thrown open to trade, making 49 ports in the Empire. In addition to these already declared open, there are 13 cities whose opening in the immediate future is arranged for, and 3 others whose opening depends upon the acceptance by other treaty powers of the provisions of Article VIII. of the last commercial treaty between China and Great Britain. No account is taken of the cities of Turkestan, Mongolia, and the Amur region, in which Russian subjects have for many years enjoyed privileges of trade and consular jurisdiction. It will be seen, therefore, that in the immediate future foreigners will enjoy the right of residence for purposes of trade at more than 60 cities of the Chinese Empire."
CHINA: A. D. 1906. Edict against the use of opium.
See (in this Volume) OPIUM PROBLEM.
CHINA: A. D. 1906 (January). Chinese students in Japan.
See (in this Volume) EDUCATION: CHINA: A. D. 1906.
CHINA: A. D. 1906-1907. Flood and famine in the region traversed by the Grand Canal.
One of the frequent destructive floods in China which produce famine befell the region that is traversed by the Grand Canal in the summer of 1906. Heavy rains covered its vast plains with lakes of water, which drowned out the crops throughout an area estimated at 40,000 square miles. From ten to fifteen millions of people were reduced to famine, and could only be kept alive until the harvests of another year by the generosity of the outside world. It was not vainly appealed to; but the suffering and death in the afflicted country were appallingly great.
CHINA: A. D. 1906-1907. Christian Missions.
See (in this Volume) MISSIONS: CHINA.
CHINA: A. D. 1907-1909. Restriction on Chinese immigration to Canada. Labor hostility. Riotous attacks. Lately modified regulations.
See (in this Volume) RACE PROBLEMS: CANADA.
CHINA: A. D. 1908. Expansion of the Postal Service.
According to a report from Peking on the working of the Imperial Chinese Post Office in 1908, "the operations show an unprecedented expansion." The postal routes cover 88,000 miles, of which 68,000 are courier lines. The number of post offices open in 1901 was 176. There were 2,803 open in 1907, and 3,493 in 1908. The number of postal articles handled in 1901 was 10,000,000. The number was 168,000,000 in 1907, and 252,000,000 in 1908. The number of parcels was 127,000, weighing 250 tons, in 1901; 1,920,000, weighing 5,509 tons, in 1907; and 2,445,000, weighing 27,155 tons, in 1908.
CHINA: A. D. 1908. Administration of the Department of Education.
See (in this Volume) EDUCATION: CHINA: A. D. 1908.
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CHINA: A. D. 1908. Chinese students in the United States.
See (in this Volume) EDUCATION: CHINA: A. D. 1908.
CHINA: A. D. 1908 (November). Death of the Emperor, Kuang-hsu, and of the Empress-Dowager, Tze-Hsi. Accession of the child-Emperor, Hsuan-Tung (Pu-Yi).
The circumstances of the death, almost simultaneously, of the late Emperor, Kuang-hsu, and of the Dowager-Empress, Tze-Hsi, who had been the real ruler of the Empire, are involved in considerable obscurity. The Emperor is said to have died on the 14th of November, 1908, and the Empress on the following day. The announcement of their decease was preceded by the publication of two imperial edicts, one of which made Prince Chun, of the royal family, Regent of the Empire, while the other named Pu-Yi, the Prince’s son, three years old, as the heir presumptive to the throne. As communicated later to foreign governments, the Regent was given, by another imperial rescript, full power over the civil and military departments of government, and the entire appointment and dismissal of officials. The promised creation of a Parliament was anticipated in the prescription of his duties, among which were the following:
"When a Parliament has been established the Prince Regent shall attend the same in place of the Emperor, but he need not attend the ordinary sessions. When the Constitutional Commission meets, the Prince Regent shall likewise represent the Emperor there.
"The Prince Regent shall have full authority in negotiating treaties and in appointing representatives abroad.
"The Prince Regent shall enter and leave his chair at the Ch’ien Ch’ing gate. The yamens, according to their duty, shall draw up and report on regulations modelled on the precedent established by Prince Jui-Chung regarding the equipage, escort, and general preparations for movements of the Prince Regent outside the palace.
"Every year the Board of Finance shall transfer to the Department of the Imperial Household the sum of taels 150,000 for disbursement. When the Emperor comes of age, his studies being completed, and his marriage takes place, the official body shall unite in asking him to assume personal direction of the government."
On the 21st of November the members of the Diplomatic Corps at Peking were received in a body at the palace, to present the condolences of the Governments they represent on the deaths of the late Emperor and Empress. As reported to the Associated Press, there were present on the occasion "every official or member of the imperial family who recently has been reported ill, dead by his own hand or estranged from the government, and the desired impression of official stolidity at Pekin which, it was most evident, this occasion was intended to convey, was imparted successfully. This was the answer of the government to the rumors of suicides and deaths current in Pekin for the last week.
"Prince Ching, for the first time since the passing away of their majesties, appeared officially as the head of the foreign board. The heads of the various governmental departments were present, with the members of the imperial clan, and, in addition, several thousand minor officials, all in white, had assembled at imperial command. At the conclusion of the functions, in honor of the dead, the diplomats paid homage to Prince Chun, the regent."
On the 2d of December the strict mourning observed at Peking was suspended briefly, to permit the ceremonies attending the ascension of the dragon throne by the child-Emperor, Pu-Yi, who, as Emperor, took the name of Hsuan-Tung. The ceremonies, described to the Associated Press, lasted but half an hour. "The function began by the princes of the imperial family and the high officials of the empire kowtowing to the memorial tablets of their late majesties. After this they all kowtowed in turn to Pu-Yi: Pu-Yi then offered a sacrifice before the tablets of the Emperor and the Dowager Empress. After this he was relieved of his dress of mourning and clad with much care in a diminutive imperial garment, embroidered with the imperial dragon. His nurses performed this duty with great attention and care. Thus arrayed, the toddling Emperor ascended the throne amid a fanfare of drums, bells and firecrackers. He made his way alone and showed no need of the assistance which willing hands would have given him had his little feet faltered. From the throne Pu-Yi kowtowed to his stepmother, the Dowager Empress Yiahonala. He then received the kowtows, while still on the throne, of all the princes and officials present. This over, he descended from the throne and was again clad in his little dress of mourning.
"The ceremony took place in the throne hall of the Forbidden City. The officials present were selected with great care and were the highest men in the empire. According to an old established custom, a number of humble coolies, men from the lowest walks of life, were brought into the sacred precincts of the Forbidden City to act as witnesses. The soldiery played but an inconspicuous part in the proceedings."
Following the ceremony, an imperial edict proclaiming the ascension was issued. This edict grants amnesty for certain specified offences; rewards all the imperial princes, princesses, and dukes; promotes all officials by one degree and bestows honors on their parents; erases the demerits entered against minor officials; advances the degree of scholars; dismisses all pending petty criminal cases; excuses certain liabilities, and grants bounties to the soldiers in the service of the empire.
CHINA: A. D. 1908 (December). Decree reaffirming the Constitutional Programme of the late Empress Dowager.
An imperial edict reaffirming the determination of the new government of China to carry out in its entirety the Constitutional programme laid down by the late Empress Dowager of China in August, 1908, was promulgated on the 4th of December. A literal translation was made public at Washington in January as follows:
"On the first day of the 8th moon (August 27, 1908), the late Emperor reverently received the excellent decree of the late great Empress Dowager strictly ordering the officials and people of Peking and of the provinces to carry out completely by the ninth year all the preparatory work, so that at the appointed time the Constitution may be proclaimed. Also proclamations for the members of Parliament to assemble, and other decrees brightly manifested the sacred instructions, and all between the seas applauded. {100} From ourselves down to the officials and people high and low all must sincerely obey the excellent decree previously issued. The eighth year of Hsuan T’ung [whose first year dates from January 22, 1909] is the limit of time. Let there be no ‘reabsorption of sweat’ in this matter. Our hope is that this will certainly be carried out. Let the officials of Peking and the provinces on no account look idly on, and procrastinate, delaying the opportune time. Let patriotism be shone forth. Exert yourselves that constitutional government may be established. And court and ‘wilds’ (people) may have peace; and so we may comfort the spirits of the late great Empress Dowager and the late Emperor in heaven, and make firm the foundations of countless years of peaceful government."
CHINA: A. D. 1909. Progress in the opium reform.
See (in this Volume) OPIUM PROBLEM.
CHINA: A. D. 1909. Progress in technical education.
See (in this Volume) EDUCATION: CHINA: A. D. 1909.
CHINA: A. D. 1909. Existing treaties with United States and existing laws in the latter country relative to the admission of Chinamen. The question of their consistency with each other. Present status of the question.
See (in this Volume) RACE PROBLEMS: IN THE UNITED STATES.
CHINA: A. D. 1909 (January). Abrupt dismissal of Viceroy Yuan Shih-kai from his offices.
Much disturbance of feeling and apprehension of a troublesome reaction in Chinese policy was excited among the foreign representatives in China, on the 2d of January, 1909, by the sudden dismissal of the able and powerful Viceroy of Chi-li, Yuan Shih-kai, from all his offices. He had been looked upon as the great leader of progress in China,—the statesman to be counted on for the most and best influence in the government of the Empire for some years to come. He had the confidence of foreign powers, and was supposed to have acquired a sure footing in the councils at Peking. Latterly, however, it is said to have become known in Peking that "a powerful Manchu cabal was working for his downfall, led by Tieh-liang, the Minister of War, and supported by the aged doctrinaire and Chinese ex-Viceroy, Chang Chih-tung," and the stroke which overthrew him at the beginning of the new year was ascribed to that source. "The cabal has been successful," was the wired message of the Peking correspondent of the London Times to his paper; and he summarized the merits of the fallen statesman thus: "No man in China deserved better of his country. He has been in the forefront of progress, and is the best administrator China has produced in this generation. When Governor of Shantung in 1900 his action in resisting the Boxer insurrection and in safeguarding foreigners really saved the Empire from disruption. He created China’s modern army and was the leader of the modern educational movement in China, and his famous memorial of September 2, 1905, urging the summary abolition of the antiquated system of literary examination was epoch-making. Under his Viceroyalty the Metropolitan province became the most advanced in the Empire. With Tang Shao-yi he led the anti-opium movement. Since he entered the Ministry for Foreign Affairs China has attained a measure of respect among the Powers which was unknown before."
Some weeks after the blow had fallen, and when the peculiarly Oriental manner of its infliction had been learned, a letter from Peking to the New York Evening Post told of it as follows:
"At 11 a. m. on Saturday, January 2, the grand councillors were summoned by the regent. Prince Ching had evidently heard a whisper of what was to come, and he pleaded illness. The other grand councillors answered the summons promptly, but when Yuan reached the door of the council chamber he was told that he was not wanted. Three grand councillors therefore went in and found the regent awaiting them with the edict dismissing Yuan Shih-kai already drawn up. ‘I want no discussion. Sign this edict!’ said the regent. Chang Chih-tung turned to reply. The regent repeated his words impressively, and the edict was signed without further demur.
"Within the next hour, while Yuan Shih-kai was hastily making plans for his personal safety, the news flew around Peking and the city throbbed with excitement. Every one but his immediate councillors was astounded at Prince Chun’s temerity. Never in the history of China had such a man as Yuan been thrown out of office at such short notice. To the Western mind, however, there was nothing very harsh in the edict; it said simply:
"‘Yuan Shih-kai, a member of the Grand Council and president of the Waiwupu, formerly received repeated offices and advancement under the late Emperor. After our enthronement we gave him great honors, because we considered that his talent certainly was one that could be made use of, if he exerted himself in the public service. Unexpectedly Yuan Shih-kai has now contracted rheumatism in the foot, which makes it hard for him to walk and difficult for him to attend to the duties of his offices. Yuan Shih-kai, therefore, is ordered to vacate his posts and return to his native place to nurse his disorder. Thus is our great mercy to him manifested.’"
Yuan Shih-kai left Peking in haste, evidently in fear of his life, and it was expected that his whole following of friends and supporters would be swept out of their offices and employments. But no such result followed, and credit began to be given to the assurances of the Imperial Government that the dismissal of Yuan meant no reversal of policy or reaction whatever. He was distrusted, it was intimated, because he had been disloyal to the late Emperor in 1898, when the latter attempted great reforms.
See, in Volume VI. of this work, CHINA: A. D. 1898 (JUNE-SEPTEMBER), and after.
Yuan Shih-kai was then the chief agent and instrument of the Dowager-Empress in overcoming the well-meaning but weak sovereign and annulling his reformative work. Hence, it was claimed, the present Government’s distrust of him.
The Ministers of Great Britain and the United States had ventured some questions as to the significance of the act, but their colleagues did not join them, and no further discussion of the matter diplomatically took place.
CHINA: A. D. 1909 (February). Meeting of the International Opium Commission at Shanghai.
See (in this Volume) OPIUM PROBLEM.
CHINA: A. D. 1909 (May). New Russo-Chinese Agreement concerning the Chinese Eastern Railway. Municipalities on the Line. The Kharbin question.
The Chinese Eastern Railway, so named, is the line which Russia, by Convention with China in August, 1896, obtained permission to construct, from a point on her Trans-Siberian Railway, through Northern Manchuria, to Vladivostok. {101} Under that agreement the Russian authorities claimed a right to institute certain organizations of municipal administration at Kharbin and other towns of rising importance on the line. This right was challenged in 1908 by the American Consul at Kharbin (sometimes written Harbin), Mr. Fisher, who refused to recognize some ordinances of the Russian administration, on the ground that he was accredited to China, only, and could know no other sovereignty in Manchuria than the Chinese. This led to a new Russo-Chinese Agreement, signed at Peking on the 10th of May, 1909, distinctly authorizing the "organization of municipalities on the lands" of the Chinese Eastern Railway. The "sovereign rights of China" are "not to be prejudiced in any way," says the new Agreement; but "municipal bodies are to be established in the commercial centres of a certain importance situated on the lands of the railway. The inhabitants of these commercial centres, according to the importance of the localities and the number of the residents, shall elect delegates by vote, who shall choose an Executive Committee; or else the residents themselves shall take part in the business of the municipality and a representative shall be elected from amongst them who will take upon himself to carry out the resolutions decided upon by meeting of all the residents.
"No difference shall be made on the lands of the railway between the Chinese population and that of other nationalities; all residents shall enjoy the same rights and be subject to the same obligations.
"The right to vote shall belong to every member of the community who owns real estate of a fixed value or who pays a fixed annual rental and taxes."
Reading no farther in the Agreement than this, imperial Russia and China would seem to have jointly planted a seed of democratic municipalities in Manchuria; but that impression is destroyed by qualifying provisions, such as this:
"The President of the Chiao-She-Chu [a Mixed Russo-Chinese Court, formerly created] and the director of the railway, occupying a position superior to the Presidents of the assemblies of delegates and of committees, have a right of control and personal revision, which they may exercise whenever they think fit. … in the event of decisions by the assembly of delegates not being approved by the President of the Chiao-She-Chu or the director of the railway, these decisions shall be returned to the assembly for further consideration. If the original decision is adopted by a majority of three-quarters of the members present, it becomes binding."
The effect of the whole agreement would undoubtedly be to give the Russian railway officials supreme authority in the so-called municipalities. Remonstrances against it by the Government of the United States have been supported by Great Britain, Germany, and Austria. The question remains open and troublesome. Dr. Morrison, of The Times, wrote of the situation in November as follows:
"The situation in Manchuria is receiving close attention from the Legations because of the increasing difficulty of the problems created by Russian and Japanese claims to territorial and administrative jurisdiction in connexion with their respective railways, claims which conflict with China’s unimpaired sovereignty and with the treaty rights of other nations. A tentative proposal was recently submitted to the consideration of the Diplomatic Body, with the approval of the Wai-wu-pu and M. Korostovetz, to create an international settlement at Kharbin on a separate site adjoining the railway settlement. The proposal was unacceptable to the Powers interested because it implied a fundamental discrimination in favour of the railway company, leaving it to exercise, in an important trade centre, powers which are incompatible with treaties and which are not conferred by its charter. …
"The Chinese Government entirely fails to avail itself of its opportunities at this juncture. The local authorities are unable, and the Peking Government is unwilling, to take any initiative. The Wai-wu-pu adheres to its policy of shifting opportunism, as shown by its proposal to the Russian Minister to cancel, in deference to the protests of the Powers, the agreement with regard to the Kharbin municipal regulations concluded on May 10, a proposal unaccompanied by any practical alternative whereby political requirements might be reconciled with the undeniable vested interests of the railway. In this connexion it is interesting to note that, whereas England, America, France, Germany, Italy, and Austria-Hungary refused an unqualified assent to the Kharbin agreement, yet no exception has been taken to the regulations of the Japanese railway settlements, although, without any reference to China, they confer the widest powers on the Japanese authorities, including the right of arbitrary taxation and forcible expulsion."
The Russian side of the question was presented in a semi-official statement, made public in October, 1909, as follows:
"The representatives of certain Powers which have trade interests in China have, both in Peking and St. Petersburg, expressed doubts as to the rights of authority exercised by the Kharbin municipality. These representatives have endeavoured, in notes presented to the Chinese and Russian Governments on the matter, and in verbal communications, to prove that certain paragraphs of the treaty which was signed at Peking on May 10, 1909, violated the extra-territorial rights granted to their nationals by treaty with China, and further that some of the measures taken by the Kharbin authorities were opposed to the regulations of the international concession which, in their opinion, has been recently established at Kharbin.
"It is easy to demonstrate that such a point of view is based on a misunderstanding. Extra-territorial rights, so far as they are secured by treaty, comprise exclusively the right of every foreigner to be judged by his own Consul. They do not, however, in any way exempt him from the obligation to pay town and other taxes, or to submit to established regulations. The difference between the pure Chinese open ports where there are no foreign concessions and places which lie in the territorial zone of the Chinese Eastern Railway, and are open to foreign trade, consists solely in the fact that in the former the Chinese authorities have the power to make administration rules at their own discretion, while in places in the territorial zone of the Eastern Railway the Chinese Government has, by the concession agreement signed on August 28, 1896, and the convention of May 10, 1909, transferred the rights of administration to the Chinese Eastern Railway Company, as a private concession, so that the company acts as the agent of the Chinese Government in supervising the administration of Kharbin and other places.
{102}
"Another misunderstanding has evidently given rise to the statement that Kharbin has recently been converted into an international concession. The contracting parties never had any such intentions. By reason of legal acts, as well as of traditions and conditions of a local character, under which Kharbin originated, it is clear that this is a special kind of concession, which is distinguished from other concessions by its exceptionally liberal and exceedingly hospitable regulations in regard to foreigners."
CHINA: A. D. 1909 (October). Naval plans.
See (in this Volume) WAR, THE PREPARATIONS FOR: NAVAL: CHINESE.
CHINA: A. D. 1909 (October). Opening of the Peking-Kalgan Line of Railway. A purely Chinese undertaking.
See (in this Volume) RAILWAYS: CHINA.
CHINA: A. D. 1909 (October). Death of Chang Chih-Tung.
Chang Chih-Tung, Grand Councillor of the Empire of China, died on the 4th of October, 1909, and Tai Hung-tze, President of the Board of Justice, was appointed his successor in office.
CHINA: A. D. 1909 (October-November). Election and opening of Provincial Assemblies. Beginnings of the institution of Constitutional and Representative Government.
The following, from the Peking reports to The Times, London, narrates the actual beginning of the series of proceedings planned and promised for the gradual institution of representative constitutional government. The first is of the date of October 14, 1909:
"To-day marks an era in the establishment of constitutional government in China. In obedience to the Imperial decrees of October 19, 1907, and of July 22, 1908, ordering the establishment, within one year of the latter date, in each of the 22 provinces of China proper and in Manchuria and the New Dominion of provincial deliberative assemblies, elections have been in progress for some time past, and the assemblies meet in accordance with the regulations for the first time to-day, the first day of the ninth moon. …
"The elections have taken place according to the regulations, and halls have been erected for the assemblies to sit wherever a Viceroy or a Governor has his seat. The number of members varies from 140 in Chih-li, 114 in Che-kiang, to 30 each in Kirin, Lchlun-chiang, and Hsin-kiang. The incomplete returns which have been published show nearly 1,000 voters for each representative.
"For weeks past reports have been coming in from provincial authorities asking for instructions and information concerning this new departure. An edict issued last night renews the Imperial admonitions to members of the assemblies as to their deliberations, and to Viceroys and Governors as to their supervision of the deliberations, and exhorts all to display a loyal patriotism so that the country may attain strength and prosperity. The event may be one of great historical importance."
The next was sent from Peking on the 6th of the following November:
"Already, in the opening debates of these Provincial Assemblies, one apprehends the coming chaos, one hears the first whispering of the approaching storm. Peking, panoplied in ignorance and petrified in medieval statecraft, trifles with Demos at its doors, evidently hoping that the Assemblies will consume their own smoke, and that the Mandarin may be preserved by the time-honoured device of holding the balance between contending classes. But the spirits which the Vermilion Pencil has called from the Celestial deep, though elected with all possible precautions of ‘silkcoated’ franchise, and under the close direction of Viceroys and Governors, show signs of scant respect for the Central Government and of little sympathy for its difficulties. Already, within a fortnight of their birth, many of the Assemblies have passed resolutions denouncing several of the Government’s pet proposals—e. g., the opium monopoly, the stamp tax, and the foreign loan for the Hankau-Canton and Hankau-Szechuan Railways. In the case of the stamp tax, 15 provinces have expressed the opinion, and have induced the local officials in many cases to endorse it, that the proposed levy is impracticable, so that, in the words of the native Press, 'its imposition is deferred and the Ministry of Finance is at its wits’ end.’ Concerning the vexed question of the railway loan, the Hupei Assembly is reported to have endorsed, without a dissentient, their chairman’s declaration that the Government’s scheme should be resisted ‘to the death.’
"The spirit which animates these Assemblies is evidently very similar to that which speaks through the vernacular Press; iconoclastic, patriotic—in the sense that it denounces everything foreign—but lacking, so far, in intelligent leadership and constructive policy. Their attitude towards the Central Government is generally one of scarcely veiled contempt. I cannot illustrate better its general tendency than in the words of a native journalist who, in a recent criticism of the Grand Council, congratulated these rulers of China on their remarkable longevity, but observed that ‘there is little hope of longevity for an Empire that is governed by such incompetent survivals.’"
A few weeks later, after the forty days’ session of the new Provincial Assemblies had ended, this writer had changed his view. Writing on the 22d of December, he said: "A study of the reports of the proceedings so far available of the first session of the Provincial Assemblies supports the contention that the Throne has been justified in granting the subjects of the Empire a limited right of speech through their chosen representatives. The programmes of debate have been strictly in accordance with the Imperial edict, and the proceedings have been marked with dignity and decorum. The net result justifies the declaration made by a high authority, who has been given special opportunity of forming a judgment, that the ‘members have fulfilled their appointed task of working in harmony with the executive authorities in the interests of their respective provinces.’"
CHINA: A. D. 1909-1910. Proposal of the United States for the neutralization of Manchurian Railways. Proposed Chinchow-Aigun Railway.
Late in December, 1909, the United States Government submitted to that of China, and to the interested Powers, a proposition which contemplated the neutralization of the railways in Manchuria, now partly under Russian and partly under Japanese control, and which looked, also, to an international undertaking of the construction of a Chinchow-Aigun line, to tap the Russian Trans-Siberian road at Tsitshar. {103} In a published statement subsequently, the American Secretary of State, Mr. Knox, explained that his Government, during the recent railway loan negotiations, had pointed out to the interested Powers that the greatest danger to the policy of the open door in China and the development of her foreign trade arose from disagreements among the great Western nations, and had expressed the opinion that nothing would afford so impressive an object-lesson to China and the world as the spectacle of the four great capitalist nations—Great Britain, Germany, France, and the United States—standing together for equality of commercial opportunity. The American Government believed that one of the most effective steps to this end in order to secure for China the enjoyment of all political rights in Manchuria and to promote the normal development of the Eastern provinces was to take the Manchurian railroads out of Eastern politics and to place them under an economic and impartial administration by vesting in China herself the ownership of the railways. Such a policy would require the cooperation, not only of China, but of Russia and Japan, both of whom it would enable to shift their onerous responsibilities in connexion with those railways on to the shoulders of the combined Powers, including themselves, and would effect a complete commercial neutralization of Manchuria.
The proposal of a neutralization of the existing Manchurian railways was not received with favor in either Japan or Russia, and the other Powers concerned have manifested a disposition to defer to the view taken by those two Governments, which are most immediately touched by it. The position of the Japanese Government on the question was stated publicly in an address to the Diet on the 27th of January by Baron Komura, Minister for Foreign Affairs, who said:
"The United States government recently proposed a plan regarding the neutralization of Manchurian railways. The Imperial government, in view of the important Japanese interests involved, and considering that the proposal came from a friendly Power with which the empire was on terms of close intimacy, submitted the question to the most careful examination. While determined to adhere scrupulously to the policy of the open door and equal opportunity, it should be recognized that the realization of the proposed plan would involve radical changes in the condition of affairs in Manchuria which were established by the treaties of Portsmouth and Peking. The change must be attended by serious consequences. In the region affected by the South Manchurian Railway numerous undertakings have been promoted in the belief that the railway would remain in our possession. As a consequence, the Imperial government, with regret, was obliged to announce its inability to consent to the proposal. I trust that the United States will appreciate our position and that the other Powers will equally recognize the justice of Japan’s attitude."
The Russian Government is understood to have taken substantially the same ground, on the general question of a neutralization of Manchurian railways. There and elsewhere, however, there is said to be a readiness to consider the incidental proposition of an internationally financed Chinchow-Aigun road.
----------CHINA: End--------
CHINA EMERGENCY APPEAL COMMITTEE.
See (in this Volume) EDUCATION: CHINA: A. D. 1909.
CHINCHOW-AIGUN RAILWAY, Proposed.
See (in this Volume) CHINA: A. D. 1909-1910.
CHINESE HIGHBINDER ASSOCIATIONS: Their dangerous character.
See (in this Volume) SAN FRANCISCO: A. D. 1902.
CHINESE IMMIGRATION: The Resistance to it in America, Australia, and South Africa.
See (in this Volume) RACE PROBLEMS.
CH’ING, Prince of.
See (in this Volume) CHINA: A. D. 1901-1908.
CHOATE, Joseph H.: Commissioner Plenipotentiary to the Second Peace Conference.
See (in this Volume) WAR, THE REVOLT AGAINST: A. D. 1907.
CHRISTENSEN, Jens Christian.
See (in this Volume) DENMARK: A. D. 1901, and 1905-1909.
CHRISTIAN IX., King of Denmark: Death.
See (in this Volume) DENMARK: A. D. 1906.
CHRISTIAN MISSIONS.
See (in this Volume) MISSIONS, CHRISTIAN.
CHUN, Prince: Regent of China.
See (in this Volume) CHINA: A. D. 1908 (NOVEMBER).
CHURCH OF SCOTLAND: Act of Parliament authorizing change of the Formula of Subscription required from its ministers.
See (in this Volume and Volume 4.) SCOTLAND: A. D. 1904-1905.
CHURCH, Roman Catholic.
See (in this Volume and Volume 4.) PAPACY.
CHURCH AND STATE: The French Separation Law and its execution.
See (in this Volume) FRANCE: A. D. 1905-1906, 1906, and 1907; also, PAPACY.
CHURCH AND STATE: Russia: Emancipation of the Church urged by M. Witte.
See (in this Volume) RUSSIA: A. D. 1905 (APRIL-AUGUST).
CHURCH SCHOOL CONTROVERSIES.
See (in this Volume) FRANCE: A. D. 1903; ENGLAND: A. D. 1902, and 1906; CANADA: A. D. 1905.
CHURCHILL, Winston L.: Under Secretary for the Colonies.
See (in this Volume) ENGLAND: A. D. 1905-1906.
CHURCHILL, Winston L.: President of the Board of Trade.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1908 (April).
CHURCHILL, Winston L.: To the British Suffragettes.
See (in this Volume) ELECTIVE FRANCHISE: WOMAN SUFFRAGE.
CHURCHILL, Winston L.: On the Budget of 1909 and the House of Lords.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1909 (APRIL-DECEMBER).
CITIZENSHIP, American: Principles of Naturalization defined. The New Law.
See (in this Volume) NATURALIZATION.
CITY GOVERNMENT.
See (in this Volume) MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT.
CITY PLANNING.
See (in this Volume) SOCIAL BETTERMENT; also, CHICAGO: A. D. 1909.
CIVIC FEDERATION, The National.
See (in this Volume) SOCIAL BETTERMENT: UNITED STATES; also, NATIONAL CIVIC FEDERATION.
{104}
CIVIL SERVICE REFORM: CANADA: A. D. 1908. Introduction of Competitive Examinations and the Merit System of appointment and promotion.
An "Act to Amend the Civil Service Act," which came into force September 1, 1908, divides the Civil Service of the Dominion into the Inside Service and the Outside Service, the former embracing "that part of the public service in or under the several departments of the Executive Government of Canada and in the offices of the Auditor General, the Clerk of the Privy Council, and the Governor-General’s Secretary, employed at the City of Ottawa, or at the Experimental Farm Station or the Dominion Astronomical Observatory near Ottawa." The employés of this Inside Service are required to be classified according to their salaries, in three divisions, and all appointments to positions in it are (except as otherwise provided in the Act) to "be by competitive examination, which shall be of such a nature as will determine the qualifications of candidates for the particular positions to which they are to be appointed, and shall be held by the Commission from time to time in accordance with the regulations made by it and approved by the Governor in Council."
For the administration of the Act a Civil Service Commission is created, consisting of two members appointed by the Governor in Council, who are to have no other office or employment, and who may employ necessary assistance for the examinations they conduct. The following are provisions of the Act:
"No person shall be admitted to such an examination unless he is a natural-born or naturalized British subject, and has been a resident of Canada for at least three years, and is, at the time of the examination, of the full age of eighteen years and not more than thirty-five years, and presents the required certificates as to health, character and habits.
"Before holding any such examination the Commission shall require each head of a department to furnish it with the number of additional permanent officers or clerks likely to be required in his department within the next six months.
"On this basis, and having regard also to the requirement of the several departments for temporary services, a computation shall be made by the Commission of the number of competitors to be selected at the next ensuing examination.
"If there remain from a previous examination successful competitors who have not received appointments, their number shall be deducted in making the computation, and their names, in the order of merit, shall be placed at [the top of the list] to be prepared in accordance with section 17 of this Act.
"Thereupon due notice of the examination shall be given by the Commission, stating the character and number of the positions to be competed for.
"Immediately after the examination the Commission shall make out a list of the successful competitors thereat for each position, in the order of merit, up to the number computed in accordance with Section 15.
"From the said list the Commission, on the application of the deputy head, with the approval of the head, of any department, shall supply the required clerks, whether for permanent or temporary duty. …
"The selections shall be, so far as practicable, in the order of the names on the list, but the Commission may select any person who in his examination shows special qualifications for any particular subject. …
"The cause of the rejection shall be reported by the deputy head to the Commission, who shall thereupon select another person to take the place of the one rejected, and decide whether the latter shall be struck off the list or allowed a trial in another department.
"After a person so selected has served a probationary term of six months, [he shall be deemed] to be permanently accepted for the service. …
"The head of the department, on the report in writing of the deputy head, may, at any time after two months from the date of assignment, and before the expiration of six months, reject any person assigned to his department. …
"Promotion, other than from the third to the second division, shall be made for merit by the Governor in Council upon the recommendation of the head of the department, based on the report in writing of the deputy head and accompanied by a certificate of qualification by the Commission to be given with or without examination, as is determined by the regulations of the Commission.
"Except as herein otherwise provided, vacancies in the first division shall be filled by promotions from the second division."
Regulations prepared by the Civil Service Commission appointed under the Act require fees, ranging from $2 to $10 to be paid by the candidates for examination.
CIVIL SERVICE REFORM: United States: A. D. 1901-1909. Progress of reform under President Roosevelt.
At the close of the administration of President Roosevelt, the journal published by the National Civil Service Reform League, entitled Good Government, bore the following testimony to the fidelity with which the principles of the reform had been upheld and promoted by the retiring executive:
"One of the first acts of President Roosevelt was the reorganization of the civil service commission, which, under the administration of President McKinley, had become lax and ineffective. Since then the enforcement of the law and rules by the commission has been sincere, vigorous and impartial. Particularly strict has been the enforcement of the prohibition against political assessments. Twice in the midst of political campaigns has the President ordered the removal of prominent officials for levying assessments on their subordinates.
"During his administration President Roosevelt has extended the scope of competition to many new and important offices. Notable among these extensions have been the restoration of the field service of the War Department (withdrawn by President McKinley) and the classification of the rural free delivery service (now numbering some 40,000), the forestry service, deputy collectors of internal revenue, deputy collectors of customs, deputy naval officers, and cashiers and finance clerks in post offices. Prevented by the civil service law from ‘classifying’ unskilled laborers, President Roosevelt, under general executive authority, has prescribed a system of examination for laborers in Washington and the principal cities. By executive order of June 27, 1906, he provided a system of examination and promotion for the consular service which has done away with the more flagrant evils of that service. His latest and most striking extension has been the classification of over 15,000 fourth-class postmasters, thereby taking them out of politics.
{105}
"He has prohibited the participation of competitive officials in politics further than to vote as they please and to express privately their opinions, and has made this prohibition effective by incorporating it in the civil service rules, thus giving to the commission the power to investigate. He has by vetoing the Crumpacker census bill defeated the attempt by Congress to obtain as spoils some 4,000 clerkships for the next census.
"This is a brief record of President Roosevelt’s service to civil service reform during his administration. In considering the criticisms of his course which have been made from time to time by the League and the press, this service should be kept in mind and carefully weighed. For instance, against this record of constant advancement, the suspension of the rules in individual cases—in all about 370—although in our opinion arbitrary and dangerous as precedents, are of comparatively minor importance. A few have been made for political reasons; the far greater number, however, were acts of charity or personal impulse, and President Roosevelt himself realized the danger in this practice and took steps to curtail it.
"In passing on the justice of the other criticisms of President Roosevelt’s course regarding the civil service one should keep in mind the distinction which he has so sharply drawn between the classified and the unclassified service. This is clearly set forth in a reply to a letter from the civil service commission calling his attention to the omission from the postal regulations of President Cleveland’s ‘pernicious activity’ order, and quoting a passage from the 11th report of the commission. President Roosevelt said:
‘I personally drew the paragraph which you quote. The paragraph was drawn with a view to making a sharp line between the activity allowed to public servants within the classified service and those without the classified service—the latter under our system are as a rule chosen largely with reference to political considerations, and as a rule are, and expect to be, changed with the change of parties. … It seemed to me at the time, and I still think, that the line thus drawn was wise and proper.’
"In considering such appointments to positions in the unclassified service as that of James C. Clarkson as surveyor of the Port of New York for instance, a just analysis must take into account these frankly expressed views. President Roosevelt drew a line between the classified and unclassified service, and as to the latter recognized and availed himself to some extent of existing conditions. He believed that so long as positions remained in the unclassified service it was impractical to eliminate political considerations and that any attempt to do so led to hypocrisy. His remedy was to place the positions in the classified service, wherever practicable. And he has extended the line of the classified service higher than ever before. The League does not believe this theory is ideal, but in carrying it out the President has certainly not set the reform back. Criticism based only on the fact that one who has rendered great service to a cause has not accomplished all that its ardent supporters wish to accomplish can be properly set down as captious.
"In performing its duty to the public, the League has at various times during his administration frankly criticised certain acts of President Roosevelt, which in its opinion were not in line with the best interests of the service. But this does not prevent us from recognizing that during his entire administration President Roosevelt has been loyal to the reform with which he has been so prominently identified. We do not believe that any act of his was intended to injure the reform. Wherever he has thought it practicable to extend the reform he has done so. A President less devoted to the reform would not have been criticised for what President Roosevelt has failed to do."
_Good Government, March, 1909._
The following exhibit of the whole progress in civil service reform, from its beginning to the end of 1908, was made in the annual report of the Council of the National Civil Service Reform League, presented at the meeting of the League, on the 17th of December in that year:
"The whole United States civil service, in 1883, consisted of 110,000 persons, and of these 14,000 were put under the civil service law. Now the federal civil service has grown to 352,000 positions, and, including the last extension, those under the competitive system have increased from 14,000 to about 222,000. Not only in numbers but in proportion to the total has the competitive service increased from 12.7% in 1883 to 63% now."
CIVIL SERVICE REFORM: A. D. 1902-1903. Extension of classification to the Rural Free Delivery Service. Order concerning unclassified laborers.
"During the year ended June 30 [1903], 25,566 persons were appointed through competitive examinations under the civil-service rules. This was 12,672 more than during the preceding year, and 40 per cent of those who passed the examinations. This abnormal growth was largely occasioned by the extension of classification to the rural free-delivery service and the appointment last year of over 9,000 rural carriers. A revision of the civil-service rules took effect on April 15 last, which has greatly improved their operation. … Executive orders of July 3, 1902; March 26, 1903, and July 8, 1903, require that appointments of all unclassified laborers, both in the Departments at Washington and in the field service, shall be made with the assistance of the United States Civil Service Commission, under a system of registration to test the relative fitness of applicants for appointment or employment. This system is competitive, and is open to all citizens of the United States qualified in respect to age, physical ability, moral character, industry, and adaptability for manual labor: except that in case of veterans of the civil war the element of age is omitted. This system of appointment is distinct from the classified service and does not classify positions of mere laborer under the civil-service act and rules. Regulations in aid thereof have been put in operation in several of the Departments and are being gradually extended in other parts of the service. The results have been very satisfactory, as extravagance has been checked by decreasing the number of unnecessary positions and by increasing the efficiency of the employees remaining."
_President’s Message, December 7, 1903._
{106}
CIVIL SERVICE REFORM: A. D. 1906. Excellent legislation in Pennsylvania.
See (in this Volume) PENNSYLVANIA.
CIVIL SERVICE REFORM: A. D. 1906-1909. The Reform of the Consular Service.
A great and greatly needed reformation of the consular service of the United States was begun in 1906, by the passage of an Act of Congress, approved April 5, which provided for the reorganization of the service, primarily by the classifying and grading of the consuls-general and the consuls, and the fixing of salaries in each class. Consuls-general were placed by the Act in seven classes, with salaries as follows:
Class one, twelve thousand dollars. London, Paris.
Class two, eight thousand dollars. Berlin, Habana, Hongkong, Hamburg, Rio de Janeiro, Shanghai.
Class three, six thousand dollars. Calcutta, Cape Town, Constantinople, Mexico City, Montreal, Ottawa, Vienna, Yokohama.
Class four, five thousand five hundred dollars. Antwerp, Barcelona, Brussels, Canton, Frankfort, Marseilles, Melbourne, Panama, Saint Petersburg, Seoul, Tientsin.
Class five, four thousand five hundred dollars. Auckland, Beirut, Buenos Ayres, Callao, Chefoo, Coburg, Dresden, Guayaquil, Halifax, Hankau, Mukden, Munich, Niuchwang, Rome, Rotterdam, Saint Gall, Singapore.
Class six, three thousand five hundred dollars. Adis Ababa, Bogota, Budapest, Guatemala, Lisbon, Monterey, San Salvador, Stockholm, Tangier.
Class seven, three thousand dollars. Athens, Christiania, Copenhagen.
Consuls were divided among nine classes, receiving salaries that range from $8000 in the first class and $6000 in the second, down to $2000 in the ninth. The first and second classes hold but one incumbent each, at Liverpool and Manchester, respectively. There are eight places in the third class, twelve in the fourth, and then the numbers mount rapidly, up to the sixty-nine included in the ninth class.
All fees allowed to be collected for services rendered in connection with the duties of the consular office (which the President may prescribe) are directed by the Act to be accounted for thereafter and paid into the Treasury of the United States. All consular officers whose salaries exceed $1000 are forbidden to be interested in or to transact any business as a merchant, factor, broker, or other trader, or a clerk or other agent of one, or to practice as a lawyer for compensation, or to be interested in the fees or compensation of any lawyer. The whole service is placed under inspection by five inspectors, to be appointed from the members of the consular service; and each consular office must be inspected at least once in every two years.
In June following this important enactment, the Secretary of State, Mr. Root, submitted to President Roosevelt the draft of a recommended executive order, which prescribed new rules to be followed in filling the consular offices, as classified by the recent Act. In doing so, the Secretary made this explanation: "The main features of the order were embodied in the early forms of the Consular Reorganization Bill passed at this session of Congress, but they were dropped out, largely for the reason that their enactment by Congress would appear to be an infringement upon the President’s constitutional power to appoint consuls. Your adoption of these rules by executive order will be free from that objection, and judging from the very positive commendation which many members of both Houses have expressed for the proposed change in the method of appointing consuls, I do not doubt that the new system will receive the hearty approval of the Senate and of Congress whenever occasion may arise for an expression upon the subject."
The recommended order was approved and issued by the President. "Subject to the advice and consent of the Senate," it declared in substance as follows:
(1) Vacancies in the office of Consul-General and in the office of Consul above class 8 (salary, $2500) shall be filled by promotion from the lower grades of the service, based upon "ability and efficiency, as shown in the service";
(2) vacancies in the office of Consul of these two remaining classes, 8 and 9, are to be filled
(a) by promotion, "on the basis of ability and efficiency, as shown in the service," of consular clerks, vice-consuls, and consular agents, and
(b) by new appointments from candidates who have passed an examination;
(3) officials in the service of the Department of State, with salaries of $2000 or upward, shall be eligible for promotion, always on the basis of ability and efficiency, as shown in the service, to any grade of the consular service above the eighth class;
(4) the board of examiners for admission to the service shall consist of the Secretary of State (or such other officer of the department as the President shall designate), the chief of the Consular Bureau, and the chief examiner of the Civil Service Commission (or such other officer, as this commission shall designate);
(5) this board of examiners shall formulate the rules for examinations;
(6) among the compulsory subjects shall be at least one modern language other than English, the natural industrial and commercial resources and commerce of the United States, political economy, and the elements of international, commercial, and maritime law;
(7) 80 per cent. shall be necessary for eligibility;
(8) candidates must be over twenty-one and under fifty years of age, citizens of the United States, and of good character and physique. They must also have been specially designated by the President for examination.
Other significant provisions of the order are to the effect that no promotion shall be made except for efficiency and conduct, that "neither in the designation for examination or certification or appointment will the political affiliations of the candidate be considered"; and that "due regard should be had to the rule that, as between candidates of equal merit, appointments should be made so as to secure in the service proportional representation of all the States and Territories."
The first examination of candidates for appointment under this order was held on the 14th and 15th of March, 1907, since which time no one has entered the consular service of the United States without satisfying that test.
In June, 1908, Secretary Root announced the promotion or transfer of nearly sixty consular offices, setting in motion the desirable advancement of these officials from post to post, to make the best use of their proved capacity and acquired experience. About a year later, Mr. Root’s successor, Secretary Knox, made public the promotion of twenty-seven incumbents of consular office, and the appointment of twenty-three new recruits to the service from his eligible list. So the long striven-for reform of the American consular service may safely be said to have arrived.
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A bill introduced in the Senate, providing for a permanent consular service, based on competitive examinations, was decided by the Committee on Foreign Relations to be unconstitutional, for the reason that the Constitution itself confers the power of appointment of consular officers upon the President, and that Congress has no right to limit this power in any way. President Taft, by an executive order, has practically put the scope of the proposed bill into effect, thereby, in part, limiting the power conferred upon himself. This, in the opinion of the Senators, is all that can be done legally.
CIVIL SERVICE REFORM: A. D. 1908. Extension of the Merit System to nearly one-third of the Fourth Class Postmasters of the country.
In the Annual Report of the Council of the National Civil Service Reform League, presented at the annual meeting of the League in December, 1908, it was said:
"The great event of the year, which so aptly commemorates the 25th anniversary of the passage of the Pendleton bill, is the extension of the competitive system to all fourth class postmasters in the part of the country north of the Ohio and east of the Mississippi, that is, in the New England States, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Michigan. This is an extension covering more positions than suggested by the civil service commission. It is an extension large enough to be of present advantage, is made in the more thickly settled portions of the country, where it is easiest to carry it out, and yet it is not on so large a scale as to invite mistakes or perhaps partial failure. This extension covers about 15,000 positions. The order of President Cleveland of May 26, 1896, covered about 31,000 places; and yet, from the point of political significance, this present extension is the most important, we believe, in the history of civil service reform since January 16, 1883, and when its purpose is fully carried out it will include some 53,000 places."
_See, in Volume VI. of this work, Civil Service Reform: United States._
The report then reviewed the efforts that had been in progress since 1889, with the support of Presidents Cleveland and Roosevelt, to bring about the inclusion of this class of postmasters, at the least, under the rule of appointment subject to competitive examination. President Roosevelt, in his annual Message of 1907, had said:
"The fourth-class postmasters’ convention has passed a very strong resolution in favor of placing the fourth-class postmasters under the civil-service law. The Administration has already put into effect the policy of refusing to remove any fourth-class postmasters save for reasons connected with the good of the service; and it is endeavoring so far as possible to remove them from the domain of partisan politics. It would be a most desirable thing to put the fourth-class postmasters in the classified service. It is possible that this might be done without Congressional action, but, as the matter is debatable, I earnestly recommend that the Congress enact a law providing that they be included under the civil-service law and put in the classified service."
Congress refused the desired legislation. The law committee of the League was unanimous in the opinion that the President held authority already to make the change by Executive Order, and Mr. Roosevelt gave a hearing on the subject to Messrs. McIlhenny and Greene, of the National Civil Service Commission, and the Honorable Richard Henry Dana, Chairman of the Council of the League. Evidently he became persuaded that his authority was sufficient, and was prepared to act accordingly. About the middle of November, 1908, the National League of Postmasters of the United States, which had been organized in 1905, sent a Committee, with its President, Mr. A. K. Hoag, of Orchard Park, New York, to present to the authorities at Washington their claim to a footing of non-political appointment under civil service rules. By good fortune they met at Washington Mr. Dana and Mr. Goodrich, of the National C. S. R. League, who were visiting the Capital on the same errand, and the doubled appeal had quick success. In an interview with President Roosevelt, the Committee of the Postmasters’ League received assurances that he would issue an order on the subject, provided that the President-elect, Mr. Taft, would approve his taking that step. The Committee went at once to the Hot Springs in Virginia, where the President-elect was then sojourning, received his ready endorsement of the plan, and conveyed it to the President in power. A fortnight later, on the 1st day of December, the memorable order was proclaimed. On the 1st of the following February a plan of filling vacancies was put into effect.
It was wise, no doubt, to apply the extension of the reform in post-office appointments to one large and important section of the country, and obtain a showing of practical results, before attempting to overturn the old system as a whole. That more will follow in due time is reasonably sure. Mr. Hoag, the President of the National League of Postmasters, in a private note, remarks:
"It is already evident that the change is to redound to a better service. Scores of new buildings, new quarters and new equipments are being installed by the emancipated postmasters; which shows that postmasters of this class dare, for the first time, to invest their money in better equipment, feeling that they are likely to remain postmasters long enough to make the investment a paying one, now that their tenure of office does not depend upon their relations to a political faction or boss."
CIVIL SERVICE REFORM: A. D. 1909. The Census Bill. Inveteracy of Spoils-seeking in Congress. Veto of the bill in its first form by the President. The Amended Bill which became law.
The greatness of the advance of civil service reform in the United States, within the quarter century since its beginning, is one of the most hopefully inspiring facts in recent American history. But, by the side of it stands the warning and shaming fact, that it has been achieved, from first to last, by forces outside of Congress, and outside of all other legislative bodies which supposedly represent the political will of the people. Every measure of legislation that has promoted it has been wrung from unwilling majorities in those bodies,—yielded only when they feared to refuse. That Congress, in both Houses, would wreck with eagerness, to-day, if it dared, the bettered public service of the nation, to recover for its members and their party henchmen the old "spoils" of office and place, was shown unmistakably, within the last year of this record, by its action on the bill to provide for the taking of the Census of 1910.
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The President, and every responsible official connected with the Census Bureau, had borne testimony to the inefficiency and wasteful costliness of previous census-taking under the old system of appointment, and had besought Congress to provide in the bill for an effective test of qualification for the employment by competitive examination. Considerable majorities in both House and Senate turned an equally deaf ear to all considerations of public interest in the matter, and passed a bill which enabled Senators and Representatives to parcel out between themselves the large number of appointments to be made.
President Roosevelt did not hesitate to veto the bill, and gave it a thorough dissection in the Message which explained his disapproval. In part, his comments on the Act offered to him were as follows:
"Section 7 of the act provides in effect that appointments to the census shall be under the spoils system, for this is the real meaning of the provision that they shall be subject only to non-competitive examination. The proviso is added that they shall be selected without regard to political party affiliations. But there is only one way to guarantee that they shall be selected without regard to politics and on merit, and that is by choosing them after competitive examination from the lists of eligibles provided by the Civil Service Commission. The present Director of the Census in his last report states the exact fact about these non-competitive examinations when he says:
‘A non-competitive examination means that every one of the many thousands who will pass the examinations will have an equal right to appointment, and that personal and political pressure must in the end, as always before, become the determining factor with regard to the great body of these temporary employments. I cannot too earnestly urge that the Director of the Census be relieved from this unfortunate situation.’
"To provide that the clerks and other employés shall be appointed after non-competitive examination, and yet to provide that they shall be selected without regard to political party affiliations, means merely that the appointments shall be treated as the perquisites of the politicians of both parties, instead of as the perquisites of the politicians of one party. I do not believe in the doctrine that to the victor belongs the spoils; but I think even less of the doctrine that the spoils shall be divided without a fight by the professional politicians on both sides; and this would be the result of permitting the bill in its present shape to become a law. Both of the last censuses, the eleventh and the twelfth, were taken under a provision of law excluding competition; that is, necessitating the appointments being made under the spoils system. Every man competent to speak with authority because of his knowledge of and familiarity with the work of those censuses has stated that the result was to produce extravagance and demoralization."
The veto went to Congress on the 5th of February, 1909, one month before the expiration of President Roosevelt’s term of office. His successor-to-be was well known to be in sympathy with his views of the public service, and no attempt was made either to pass the bill over the veto, or to proffer its spoils-seeking provisions to the new occupant of the Presidency when he came in. Congress was compelled, in this case, as in many before, to surrender its cherished spoils of salaried public employment to civil service reform, simply because public interests and public sentiment are better represented, as a rule, in the White House than in the Capitol, which is not a pleasing fact.
During the extra session that was called by President Taft, in March, an amended bill was passed which came near to satisfying the demands of reform. It kept a little opening for political favoritism, in a proviso, that the director of the Census may, "when the exigencies of the service require," make his selections from the list of eligibles, not by the candidates’ rating, but on the ground of "immediate availability" or previous experience in census work; but this was so small a loophole that the President’s signing of the bill was generally approved. "The act empowers the director of the census to appoint special agents to whom will be assigned principally the work of obtaining statistics from manufacturing establishments, mines and quarries. While no qualifying test is required by law for the appointment of these agents, Director Durand has nevertheless provided for their selection subject to a carefully worked out scheme of competitive examinations, to be conducted by the United States civil service commission. In rating the candidates the experience declaration and practical test are to be given equal credit. All candidates who receive a combined rating of 70 will be placed on an eligible list, from which selection will be made as the needs of the service require. Eligibility, according to the instructions, ‘is not of itself a guarantee of appointment, but selection will be made solely with reference to equipment and availability for appointment.’"
_Good Government, October, 1909._
CIVIL VETO, in Papal Elections.
See (in this Volume) PAPACY: A. D. 1904.
CIVILISTAS, The.
See (in this Volume). PERU.
CLANRICARDE ESTATE, Evicted tenants of the.
See (in this Volume) IRELAND: A. D. 1907.
CLARION FELLOWSHIP.
See (in this Volume) SOCIALISM: ENGLAND: A. D. 1909.
CLARK, Edgar E.: On the Anthracite Coal Strike Arbitration Commission.
See (in this Volume) LABOR ORGANIZATION: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1902-1903.
CLEMENCEAU, Eugene: In the Sarrien-Clemenceau Ministry, and as Prime Minister.
See (in this Volume) FRANCE: A. D. 1906, and after.
CLEMENCEAU, Eugene: Disclaims for France the desire to revenge the German conquest of Alsace.
See (in this Volume) WAR, THE REVOLT AGAINST: A. D. 1907-1908.
CLEMENCEAU, Eugene: Triumph in the senatorial elections of 1909.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1909 (JANUARY).
CLEMENCEAU, Eugene: His downfall from Premiership produced by an intemperate speech.
See (in this Volume) FRANCE. A. D. 1909 (JULY).
CLERICAL PARTY.
See (in this Volume) FRANCE: A. D. 1903; BELGIUM: A. D. 1904; GERMANY: A. D. 1906-1907.
CLEVELAND, Grover: Trustee of stock controlling the Equitable Life Assurance Society.
See (in this Volume) INSURANCE, LIFE.
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CLEVELAND, Ohio: A. D. 1901-1908. The Farm Colony Experiment.
See (in this Volume) CRIME AND CRIMINOLOGY, PROBLEMS OF.
COAL, Wasteful mining and use of.
See (in this Volume) Conservation of Natural Resources.
COAL AND COKE CARTELS.
See (in this Volume) COMBINATIONS, INDUSTRIAL (IN GERMANY).
COAL COMBINATION, Alleged Anthracite: Proceedings of Government against it.
See (in this Volume) COMBINATIONS, INDUSTRIAL: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1907-1909, AND RAILWAYS: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1906-1909.
COAL MINES EIGHT HOURS ACT.
See (in this Volume) LABOR PROTECTION: HOURS OF LABOR: ENGLAND.
COAL MINING STRIKES.
See (in this Volume) LABOR ORGANIZATION.
COBALT SILVER MINES.
See (in this Volume) CANADA: A. D. 1903, and 1906-1907.
COLLECTIVISM.
See (in this Volume) SOCIALISM.
COLLEGES.
See (in this Volume) EDUCATION.
COLOGNE: Insurance against unemployment.
See (in this Volume) POVERTY, PROBLEMS OF: UNEMPLOYMENT.
COLOMBIA: A. D. 1898-1902. Castro, of Venezuela, and the Liberals (Yellows) of Colombia. How they helped one another.
The following passages are from an article in the American Review of Reviews on "South American War Issues," by Edwin Emerson, Jr., who spent some time with the Colombian insurgents in 1902 and acquired a good knowledge of the troubled political conditions in that republic and its near neighbors. It adds something to what is told in Volume VI. of this work concerning the revolt started in 1899 by Rafael Uribe-Uribe, and about its relation to the beginnings of the career of Cipriano Castro, in Venezuela
See, in Volume VI, COLOMBIA, and VENEZUELA).
"At the time when Spain was losing Cuba, the last Congress of Colombia sat in Bogota. The Liberal party had but one spokesman in the Congress—to wit, Rafael Uribe-Uribe. The government majority championed the cause of Spain. Many of the more ardent Liberals were fighting in the field for ‘Cuba Libre.’ Uribe-Uribe was the only man in the Congress who spoke for America as against Spain. He was hissed down. Next, the Panama Canal question came up. The French concession was to be extended for ten years. Again Uribe-Uribe spoke for America as against France. The project was voted down. The Congress was dissolved. President San Clemente, on his own motion, extended the French concession. For this he is said to have received one million dollars, cash. Then the revolution broke out, and Uribe-Uribe took the field, in Santander, the richest coffee-growing state of Colombia. He fell upon the town of Cúcuta and took it, only to be driven out again after a disastrous rout at Palo Negro. To make things worse for the rebels, the Bishop of Santander ordered the excommunication of those who would not renounce liberalism or all connection with Liberals. It was a crushing blow, aimed at the wives and daughters of the fighting insurgents.
"While affairs were thus disturbed in Santander, Cipriano Castro, a Venezuelan exile living in Cúcuta, profited by the occasion to lead a small band of Colombian Liberals into Venezuela. They dashed across the border by night, and fell into Castro’s native town, Capachio Viejo. Castro’s father and five brothers, with other townsfolk, joined his standard and helped him win his first battle over a small detachment of Venezuelan government troops. Now the number of his adherents grew, especially as he won battle after battle or bought over his rival leaders. After a crushing defeat at Valencia, President Andrade fled the country, and Castro entered Caracas in triumph. His early Colombian adherents got Venezuelan government jobs.
"All went well for a while, especially after the prompt suppression of a counter-revolution, until Castro’s sympathies with the Colombian Liberals in the field began to tell on his foreign policy. Uribe-Uribe had been badly beaten in Colombia. He was made welcome by Castro in Venezuela, and was intrusted with the command of a division on the Colombian frontier. The command was recruited from Colombians across the border. At the same time, Castro arbitrarily stopped all navigation on the Zulia and Catacumbo rivers, running from Colombian Cordillera to the Lake of Maracaibo, in Venezuela. This was a death-blow to the coffee industry of the Colombian state of Santander, which has no other outlet to the sea. Cúcuta was ruined. A German house failed for half a million dollars, an American hacienda lost $200,000, and other foreign merchants suffered in proportion. All commerce in Cúcuta and Maracaibo coffee almost came to a standstill. Then it was that the government forces in Santander, to bring relief to the stricken district, tried to open the closed rivers by a sudden armed invasion into that region. For the sake of appearances, they were led by Ranjel Garbiras, a Venezuelan revolutionist. They made for the prosperous town of San Cristobal, but Uribe-Uribe had managed to gather his corps of insurgents, and beat off the attack in a three days’ battle. Some two thousand men fell on both sides. Uribe-Uribe promptly prepared a counter invasion. He was aided in this by Castro, who practically put all Venezuelan forces in the Cordillera at his disposal.
"President Castro, who was furious at so overt an act of war on the part of his old enemies, the Colombian Clericals, furthermore sent another expedition across the Goajira desert to aid his Colombian insurgent friends in that peninsula to take the Colombian port of Rio Hacha. Venezuelan gunboats appeared before Rio Hacha to do their part in the capture. Unfortunately for the Liberal cause, the Venezuelan army in the Goajira was taken unawares while on the march, and was all but annihilated. The gunboats chose to retire without firing a shot. Castro never recovered from this reverse. The expenses of his various armed expeditions ate up all his ready finances. When he could no longer maintain Uribe-Uribe’s troops, Uribe cut loose and recrossed the border, to join forces with other insurgent leaders in the interior of Colombia. Uribe’s cousin proceeded to Panama, and the civil war there broke out with fresh vigor. By their recent brilliant stroke in the harbor of Panama, the Colombian Liberals have won the command of the sea on the Pacific side. To assist them in doing the same on the Atlantic side, Castro has now supplied them with a torpedo-boat and a small gunboat."
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These last mentioned successes of Uribe-Uribe had no permanent effectiveness, for his surrender, with 1300 men and 10 pieces of artillery, was announced presently as having occurred on the 25th of October, 1902. It seemed unfortunate that he did not succeed in overthrowing the Conservatives, or "Blues," who held the government, since most accounts of their rule represented it as hopelessly bad; but a change for the better came without revolution after no long time.
The state of civil war was closed by a treaty of peace, signed on board the United States battleship Wisconsin, November 21.
COLUMBIA: A. D. 1901-1906. Participation in Second and Third International Conferences of American Republics, at Rio de Janeiro.
See (in this Volume) AMERICAN REPUBLICS.
COLUMBIA: A. D. 1903. Rejection of Treaty with the United States for the building of the Panama Canal. Revolt and independence of Panama.
See (in this Volume ) PANAMA CANAL.
COLUMBIA: A. D. 1903-1906. Feeling toward the United States.
Of the feeling in Colombia toward the United States, consequent on what occurred in Panama, Mr. Barrett, American Minister at Bogota, reported in 1906 as follows:
"The question is continually asked me: What is the attitude of the Colombian Government and people toward Americans and American interests on account of the Panama affair? Without entering upon any political discussion, I wish, in answering this pertinent inquiry, to take advantage of the opportunity to pay a just and frank tribute to Colombia. Speaking in the first place for myself as minister, I can truthfully say that, ever since my arrival here seven months ago, I have been treated with a generous kindness and sincere hospitality that have made a deep impression on me and increased my respect for Colombians in particular and Latin Americans in general. The United States minister has been extended invitations official and personal, and the United States legation in turn has been continually frequented by leading men of all parties, as if nothing had ever happened to mar the entente cordiale of the two countries.
"In the granting of concessions and in the hearing of claims the Government has treated Americans with as much consideration as Europeans. During my stay here, and up to this writing, there has not been one complaint lodged by Americans in this legation of unkind treatment by Colombians due to any political anti-American feeling. In my own travels in various parts of the country, officials and peons alike have everywhere accorded me polite and even gracious attention. To let it be known that I was United States minister has always led to extra courtesies rather than to any lack of them.
"I could not, however, have it understood abroad that there is not still strong feeling against the United States. It does exist, but the passing of years, and generous, fair treatment of Colombia and Colombians by the United States and its citizens, in international relations and friendly social and commercial intercourse, can effect its gradual disappearance. Such feeling does not take the attitude of personal enmity toward Americans. The Colombians, high and low, are too polite and sensible for that. It is a feeling in the minds and hearts, based on high political and patriotic grounds, which, however, with commendable philosophy, recognizes the inevitable and now turns to the future to bring blessings that will counterbalance the losses and sorrows of the past. The very courage and nobility of this attitude of Colombia is one of the chief reasons why I predict for her a magnificent future. Already this policy—if I may call it a policy—is bearing fruit in the development of a greater and more friendly and sympathetic interest throughout the United States in Colombia, which is destined to lead to a mutually favorable understanding and settlement of all differences in the near future."
COLUMBIA: A. D. 1904. Arbitration of boundary dispute with Equador.
A treaty for the arbitration of boundary questions with Equador was concluded November 4, 1904 .
COLUMBIA: A. D. 1905. Arbitration Treaties with Peru.
See (in this Volume) PERU: A. D. 1905.
COLUMBIA: A. D. 1905-1906. A New Era, under President Reyes.
"The New Era in Colombia" is the title of an article in the American Review of Reviews, May, 1906, by Francis P. Savinien, writing from the country in question.
"By judicious, if not generous, action," says the writer, "President Rafael Reyes [who became President in the previous year] has succeeded in harmonizing nearly all elements of the population. His administration is neither Liberal nor Conservative. It is Nationalist. Placed in power by Conservatives and sustained by Liberals, his favors to the former preserve order in the center of the country, and his implicit trust in the latter insures peace on the frontiers. He has made General Uribe-Uribe minister to Chile, Argentina, and Brazil, and General Herrera commander along the Venezuelan border, thus bestowing the highest diplomatic and military honors on Liberals. From Conservatives he chose all his ministers (except Dr. Modesto Garees, of the Department of Public Works), the governor of the capital district, and other high officials for the center of government. His government is like that of Panama, the secession of which made a policy of reconciliation predominant in both countries. … The Colombian army has become a body of laborers. Troops are converted into sappers and employed in building or improving ways of communication. Idleness, as well as agitation, is beginning to receive general condemnation. It is true that there is little liberty. There is, however, less persecution than formerly. Journals are abject and individuals mute. There is no free speech or press. But there are few persons in prison or exile for political reasons. The policy of the government has become that of abstention rather than restraint."
General Reyes had represented Colombia at the Pan-American Conference in the City of Mexico, in 1902, and had made a most favorable impression on the delegates from the United States. Referring to the occasion long afterwards, Mr. Sylvester Baxter said of him: "It is notable that in that Conference Colombia was represented by General Rafael Reyes, a high type of man—gentleman by birth and education, of scientific attainments, a natural leader, one of the strong characters of Spanish America; a man whose existence makes things seem hopeful when else they might look hopeless; a soldier-statesman in whom many see the potentialities of a second Diaz."
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A similar expression of admiration appears in an interesting special report, entitled "Colombia, a Land of Great Possibilities," made in June, 1906, by the Honorable John Barrett, then American Minister to Colombia, more recently the Director of the International Bureau of American Republics. "Great credit," wrote Mr. Barrett, "is due to General Rafael Reyes, President of this Republic, for his untiring efforts to restore the prosperity of his country to the position it occupied before the last civil war and the loss of Panama. If he succeeds, he will deserve a place in history like that of President Diaz in Mexico. He has so far effectually stopped revolutions, and, if his life and health are spared, Colombia would seem to be assured of peace at least during his administration."
COLUMBIA: A. D. 1905-1909. Troubles with Venezuela over the navigation of rivers flowing through both countries.
The arbitrary action begun by the ill-tempered and arrogant Castro, of Venezuela, in 1902, when he stopped navigation on the rivers which flow from Colombia to Lake Maracaibo, in Venezuela, and thus open communication to the sea (see above), was continued or resumed in subsequent years, and was a distressing trouble to his Colombian neighbors.
In July, 1905, the Colombian Government appealed to that of the United States for its good offices in maintaining the principle of free navigation on rivers that are common to neighboring countries. "From the time of the award which decided the boundary dispute between the two countries," said the Colombian Minister to the United States, in a communication to the American Secretary of State, "the policy of Venezuela in matters relating to the transit trade of Colombia and the navigation of the common rivers, has been marked by a conspicuous spirit of hostility. … Neither logical arguments nor historic precedents, such as those submitted by the Colombian chancellery to the Government of Venezuela for the recognition by the latter of the principle of free trade over the natural waterways placed by God at the disposal of all nations, have availed."
The writer then reviewed at considerable length the arguments with which the Government of the United States had contended in the past with Spain and Great Britain for the free navigation of the Mississippi and the St. Lawrence, and said in conclusion: "It would be desirable, and I would ask that it be done if this note were favorably received by the Government of the United States, that the American minister at Caracas be appropriately instructed in the sense of declaring on behalf of the commercial interests of the citizens of the United States his desire that the Government of Venezuela make the navigation of the Zulia and Orinoco rivers free, and urging, by persuasion, that the principle be solemnly consecrated in its public treaties. My Government will join in such an action, which comes within its traditional policy in the matter, and will interpose no obstacle or delay to the meeting of an international mixed commission for the framing of regulations concerning the use of the above-named rivers without detriment to the legitimate interests of the countries through which they flow."
To this request the then Acting Secretary of State, Mr. Adee, made a favorable reply, August 5, saying:
"The principle of the free navigation of rivers has been advocated by the United States and maintained in its relations with its neighbors for many years. This government is ready, therefore, to use its good offices in the sense requested, and Mr. Russell has been instructed upon arriving at his new post in Venezuela to take advantage of fitting occasion to express to the minister for foreign affairs the great satisfaction with which the United States would view the adoption and proclamation by Venezuela of the general principle of the free navigation of rivers and fluvial arteries of communication common to neighboring countries.
"It is of course to be understood that in touching upon this matter this government does not seek to intervene or mediate in any way in the relations between Colombia and Venezuela, but is merely interested in the universal recognition of a policy beneficial to the commerce of the world."
In the following December, the endeavor seemed promising; for the American Minister to Colombia was able to report the signing, at Bogota, of a protocol, preparatory to a new treaty of amity, commerce, and navigation, to be concluded at Caracas. Four months later, on the 27th of April, 1906, Minister Russell, at Caracas, announced the arrival there of the Colombian plenipotentiary, General Benjamin Herrera, appointed for the negotiation of the treaty agreed upon, but reported further that the Venezuelan Government had refused to receive him, demanding that somebody else be sent. No settlement of the matter could be obtained while Castro controlled Venezuela. Since his elimination it has been reported that President Gomez, his successor, has annulled his decrees of hostility to Colombian commerce.
COLUMBIA: A. D. 1906-1909. Efficient but arbitrary Government produces discontent. Opposition to treaty with Panama and the United States. Vacation of President Reyes which ends in resignation. Revolt. Elections.
While the Government organized under President Reyes was undoubtedly efficient and effective in restoring order and prosperity to the country, it was not satisfactory to the people; and perhaps it speaks well for them that they showed discontent. It was not a representative government, the existing Congress not being an elective body, but a provisional legislature made up by appointment. As admitted in the quotation above from a friendly Colombian writer, the citizens under it were tongue-tied subjects, having no free speech or Press. The political situation and the differing states of feeling produced by it were discussed in April, 1909, by a special correspondent of the New York Evening Post, who wrote from Bogotá:
"It seems to be confessed by the great majority of the people here that the country has not entered on that stage of political development in which the people can govern themselves by parliamentary methods. The history of their nearly one hundred years of independent national life has been that of almost continual civil strife, and of frequent civil wars, which have interrupted and almost destroyed all efforts at self-government; so that the present system of government by executive decrees, to be ratified by an appointed ‘Constitutional and Legislative Assembly,’ is about the only one that can preserve the peace and direct the country into the line of prosperity and progress.
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"Under this system of government the country has enjoyed almost perfect internal peace during the year. This is the political theory that is most widely accepted at the present time in Colombia. Of course, there are those who do not agree with this theory, which they consider as the natural action of men who are more anxious to preserve order than they are to establish truth and justice, and there are not lacking those who say that in the long run it will be found to be a foolish system.
"It is pointed out that the idea that grievances can be done away with by forbidding men to complain, or that the criticisms can be met by excommunicating the critics, or that changes can be prevented by putting the troublers to silence, is contradicted by the experience of the rest of the world. The kind of effort that is being made in Colombia to prevent the liberty of the press, of public speech, and of personal opinion, is like the effort to prevent the escape of steam by the safety valve, and is very likely to result in an explosion."
The state of public feeling in Colombia became further complicated, no doubt, when, early in January, 1909, a tripartite treaty was negotiated, with Panama and the United States, for the settlement of questions connected with the secession of Panama in 1903. Panama, in this treaty, agreed to pay Colombia the sum of $3,500,000, as her share of the Colombian public debt, receiving recognition of her independence in return. The treaty was submitted to the Colombian Congress by President Reyes on the 24th of February, with a special message of recommendation; but public feeling was said to be bitterly against it, for the reasons that no wrongfulness in the transaction was recognized and the indemnity was insufficient. Disturbances which broke out at Bogota and in the provinces about the middle of March were attributed mostly to this cause of discontent. For some reason of discouragement or disgust, the President was reported to have resigned his office on the 13th, but was persuaded to resume it next day.
It was now decided to suspend consideration of the tripartite treaty, until it could be submitted to an elected National Congress, the election for which would be held on the 20th of the coming July. In June, a few weeks before the appointed election, President Reyes made a sudden departure for Europe. Rumors that he had gone because tired of political strife and would not return were contradicted by the Colombian Consul at New York, in a published note which said: "His departure, the causes of which are well known throughout Colombia, was due to the fact that after five years’ strenuous labor he desired a rest, and last March to the National Assembly expressed his desire to retire temporarily from the Presidency, but, owing to the opposition of public sentiment and the strong desire of the people to have him remain, he determined not to leave the Presidency until elections to the coming Congress had been made. To this Congress, about to be convened, and in which all parties are represented, President Reyes confides many of the cares of government, left by law under his jurisdiction until Congress should assemble, and withdraws, temporarily only, from the discharge of his Presidential duties, leaving in his stead General Jorge Holguin, his most intimate friend and former minister of war, who will continue to pursue in all matters the same policy as that adopted by his predecessor. General Reyes during his stay in Europe, whence he has gone, will perfect plans for developing railroad and other industries in Colombia. There is absolute peace and tranquillity in all parts of the country."
But the "absolute peace and tranquillity" of the country was shaken in the first week of July by a revolutionary outbreak at Barranquilla, soon suppressed, and the resignation of President Reyes was received soon thereafter, from abroad. The election of his successor now devolved on the new National Congress, elected by the people on the 20th of July. It gave the office, for the remainder of the unfinished term (which expires August 7, 1910) to Señor Gonzales Valencia, who had been proclaimed by the Barranquilla revolutionists the month before, though he disavowed their movement.
COLONIAL CONFERENCES, British.
See (in this Volume) BRITISH EMPIRE.
COLONIAL DOMINION, The passing of the age of.
See (in this Volume) WORLD MOVEMENTS.
COLONIZATION: The colonizable regions of Africa.
See (in this Volume) AFRICA.
COLORADOS.
See (in this Volume) PARAGUAY: A. D. 1902.
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY: Interchange of Professors with German and Scandinavian universities.
See (in this Volume) EDUCATION: INTERNATIONAL INTERCHANGES.
COMBES, Justin Louis Émile: Head of French Ministry.
See (in this Volume) FRANCE: A. D. 1902 (April-October; also 1903, and 1905-1906.
COMBES, Justin Louis Émile: Vindication under scandalous charges.
See (in this Volume) FRANCE: A. D. 1904 (JUNE-JULY).
--------COMBINATIONS, INDUSTRIAL AND COMMERCIAL: Start------
COMBINATIONS: AUSTRALIA: A. D. 1909. Decision of the Federal High Court on the Anti-Trust Law. Prosecutions by the Government.
"The first case brought under the Federal Anti-Trust Law ended in June last in a decision of the High Court to the effect that two important sections of the Act were ultra vires, as the Constitution only empowered the Commonwealth to regulate foreign and inter-State trade and gave it no authority to interfere with trade within a State. The Federal Government is now instituting proceedings against 27 firms which are alleged to belong to a coal combine trading with other countries and among the States of the Commonwealth. Each firm has been called upon to answer certain questions under the Act in question."
_Reuter Telegram, Melbourne, September 27, 1909._
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COMBINATIONS: Canada: A. D. 1909. Merger of Dominion Iron, Steel, and Coal Companies. Cement Combination.
The following is a Press despatch from Halifax, Nova Scotia, November 13, 1909:
"The formation of the Canada Steel Corporation, the proposed $70,000,000 merger of the Dominion Iron and Steel Company and the Dominion Coal Company, was made possible by the agreement of James Ross of Montreal, president of the Dominion Coal Company, to transfer to a syndicate of Toronto capitalists a portion of his holdings of the coal company stock. Final arrangements regarding the stock transfer will be made here to-day. President Ross owns coal company stock of a par value of $5,000,000, and, although he does not dispose of all this, he is to transfer enough to give control of the coal company to the Toronto capitalists, who have already acquired a controlling interest in the steel company. The plants of the Dominion Iron and Steel Company and the Dominion Coal Company are in Cape Breton, where they give employment to thousands of men, and where they have caused little fishing villages to spring up into flourishing cities."
Announcement of the completion of the merger was made in December.
COMBINATIONS: CANADA: A. D. 1910. Anti-Trust Bill in the Dominion Parliament.
A strongly constructed measure for controlling and regulating commercial and industrial combinations, to check restraints of trade and undue enhancement of prices, was brought into the Dominion House of Commons on the 18th of January, 1910, by the Minister of Labor, Mr. Mackenzie King, and its passage was said to be assured. Mr King’s explanation of the Bill, as summarized for the Associated Press, was as follows:
"The Bill, Mr. King stated, was not designed to interfere with trade, but to protect the public from the operation of monopolies. The bill provides that if six or more persons show prima facie evidence to a superior court judge that a combine exists, which has unduly enhanced the price of a manufactured article, unduly limited the production of any commodity, or unduly restricted trade in any way, the judge shall order the minister of labor to have an investigation made. This shall be done by a board of three, one member to be appointed by those who complain, one by those complained against, and a chairman by the first two, and if they fail to select the judge who has heard the complaint shall act.
"This board has the full powers of a court to compel the attendance of witnesses and the production of evidence. The board must report to the minister and he must give the report the fullest publicity.
"Two remedies are provided where a combination is reported to exist. The government may withdraw the tariff protection from the articles produced by the combine and bring the manufacturers into competition with the world.
"The other remedy is a provision that if the combine persists in its course after ten days there shall be a fine of $1,000 a day imposed until the abuse is remedied. There is also provision that when a patentee makes use of the protection of the patent act to restrict trade or unduly enhance prices his patent may be revoked.
"The act provides for its expeditious and thorough enforcement, and all expenses of investigation are to be borne by the government.
"Where question is raised as to the scope of the investigation, the board shall make it as thorough and complete as public interest requires. Boards are to conduct their investigations in public and the decision of two members shall be the decision of the board. Whenever the minister of labor believes that counsel should aid the investigation, the board may retain the services of a lawyer upon the consent of the minister of justice. Witnesses are to be allowed the same fees and traveling expenses allowed at the present in civil suits. With the consent of the minister of labor a board may employ experts to examine books and to report upon technical questions."
COMBINATIONS: GERMANY: Corporation Reform as the Germans have handled it.
"Thirty years ago the German people went through corporation experiences much like our own. There, as here, the corporation, as originally designed, was a mere shell. There, as here, under the shelter of that shell, the property of the country was being transferred from the German people at large, even the little they had, to the few. There, thirty years ago, as here now, great corporate scandals were exposed. And there, as here, the human nature that is everywhere behind civilization eventually began to recoil. It began there before it began here, only because conditions reached a climax there earlier than here, and because we as a people were too prosperous and too busy to look even a little way beneath the surface of things.
"But when the work of reform did come there, it was a genuine reform. It did not content itself with indiscriminate denunciation, or with mere lawsuits. Nor did it die out, leaving the door still open to every character of corporation the cunning of men might conceive. Before a corporation can be organized in that country, it must prove, as in a court proceeding, its rightful title to a corporate existence. In the same way it must establish the amount and the character of the capitalization it is allowed to put out. When property is turned in, its value must be judicially ascertained. Upon officers and directors is not conferred supreme power; in the German corporation the shareholders’ meeting is the counterpart of our New England town meetings—a genuine assembly intended to do something more than pass resolutions of approval. And every violation of trust, not merely to the public, but to the shareholder as well, is quickly punished with punishment that smarts. There is in the German corporation no room for one to do, with impunity, in his capacity as a corporation officer or promoter, what if done individually would land him in the penitentiary."
_Judge Peter S. Grosscup, The Corporation and the People (The Outlook, January 12, 1907)._
COMBINATIONS: The Cartels. Industrial combinations, quite as effective as the Trusts of the United States, have been created in Germany on a wholly different plan. The constituent organizations in them, of capital and industry, are simply knitted or tied together by hard and fast agreements, instead of being fused into huge corporations, as the Trusts are. For the kind of covenant which unites them a military term has been borrowed, and they are called Cartels. The difference between the Cartel and the Trust is described by a Scottish writer, D. H. Macgregor, in his work on Industrial Combinations, as follows:
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"The Cartel is an agreement for a time, the Trust is a permanent structure; the former is therefore a factor in industry full of speculative possibilities, both as regards its actual operation, and because the 'residual' competition of parties who break away at the end of the period is considerably to be feared. … The principle of the pure Cartel is compensatory action. It is an organization in which certain producers deal with themselves, and exist for that purpose in a double relation; they are producers of goods, and purchasers of their own produce. What they stand to lose in one aspect they stand to gain in the other. …
"The operation is broadly as follows. The members of the Cartel, meeting as producers in general assembly, determine a price for their product which covers cost of production, being in fact practically a competitive price. This is the base or normal price (Richtpreis). Thus they assure themselves, in this capacity, of adequate remuneration. They then sell to the Syndicate, that is to themselves as members of the Syndicate, for what is called the ‘taking over’ or ‘accounting’ price (Verrechnungspreis) which is usually on the average higher than the base price, so that they have now created for themselves as producers a ‘Cartel advantage.’ The Syndicate then resells to the consumer, for a price which will be as high as it can get, but which varies with the competition to be met in different parts of the market; this price (Verkaufspreis) may not in some cases be so high as the taking-over price, or may not exceed it by more than the margin necessary to cover the Syndicate’s expenses of management. … It is the Syndicate which figures in the public eye; and while it itself offers no sign of monopoly profit it shelters the companies which gain by its handling of their goods. It conceals monopoly dividends."
_D. H. Macgregor, Industrial Combination (G. Bell & Sons, London, 1906)._
COMBINATIONS: The Coal and Coke Cartels. Their influence.
An elaborate history and description of the "Monopolistic Combinations in the German Coal Industry," by Francis Walker, was published for the American Economic Association in 1904. These are treated as representative, because, says Mr. Walker, "the most important and fundamental of all German castellated industries" are those in mining and metallurgy. He traces their development from a beginning in 1858, when an association of the mining interests of the mining district of Dormund was founded. In part, his conclusions as to the effect of the coal cartels are as follows:
"The German coal cartels have not had an injurious influence, in general, on the production of coal. More particularly they cannot be accused, justly, of unduly limiting production among themselves. Nor have they attempted to accomplish the same end by crushing outside competition, by unfair methods. It would be preposterous to say that they have hindered technical progress. The cost of production, on the other hand, probably has been somewhat increased by the preservation of weak and costly mines through participation in the cartels. In regard to prices, the policy of the coal cartels, on the whole, has been moderate, taking circumstances into consideration, while the policy of the coke cartel may be fairly pronounced extortionate. The prices of coal have been more stable than they would have been under free competition; during the hausse they were not screwed up so high as they might easily have been, but, on the other hand, they have not declined so quickly with the baisse. The like may be said of the coke prices, but, at the same time, they were exorbitant considered from the point of view of costs and profits. … The déroute of the iron industry was not due to the coal or coke cartels in any important degree, i. e., even with low prices, disaster to the iron industry would have been inevitable. No other industry was affected so much as iron, and it is at least very questionable whether the cartels in general (excluding the coal cartels in particular) are to be blamed for the crisis. … That they are to be blamed for the ill-judged over-development of certain industries, which was apparently the real cause of the crisis, does not seem to be a just conclusion. On the other hand, the cartels may be accused, with more probability of truth, of retarding the convalescence of German industry by not reducing prices, and if this is true, the coal and coke cartels are specially to blame."
F. Walker, Monopolistic Combinations in the German Coal Industry (American Economic Association), 1904.
COMBINATIONS: Growing magnitude of companies. Industrial concentration.
"The tendency to industrial concentration is shown by the returns of public companies, which point to the growing domination of large undertakings. Of 4,749 registered public companies in 1895, 13.6 per cent. had a share capital not exceeding £5,000, but in 1906, of 5,000 such companies, only 9.6 per cent. had a capital of that amount; the companies with a capital of from £5,000 to £12,500 decreased from 14.0 to 10.4 per cent., and those with a capital of from £12,500 to £25,000 decreased from 16.9 to 14.2 per cent. On the other hand the companies with a capital of from £25,000 to £50,000 increased from 20.7 to 21.3 percent.; those with a capital of from £50,000 to £250,000 increased from 28.5 to 35.0 per cent.; those with a capital of from £250,000 to £500,000 increased from 3.4 to 5.4 per cent., and those with a capital exceeding £500,000 increased from 2.9 to 4.1 per cent. In 1896 there were only two companies with a capital exceeding five millions; in 1906 there were nine such companies, and their combined capital was over seventy millions, having been more than doubled since 1896. In spite of this tendency towards the concentration of capital and the multiplication of large undertakings, however, Germany is still an interesting illustration of an industrial country which has not yet entirely gone over to the factory system of production. The handicrafts, the characteristic feature of which is the small, independent master-workman, surrounded by his handful of journeymen and apprentices, contend tenaciously, yet unfortunately with only partial success, against the on-coming tide of ‘great capitalism’ (private joint stock, and cooperative), and the house industries continue to afford employment to a multitude of workers of both sexes, estimated at half a million."
William H. Dawson, The Evolution of Modern Germany, pages 59-60 (Unwin, London; Scribner's, New York, 1909).
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"Among the home interests of the country nothing loomed up so large last year [1904] as the subject of industrial combinations. The process of consolidating industries and banks into powerful organizations again made gigantic strides; and the public mind, dazed and disquieted, is wondering what will be its final outcome. All the largest steel manufacturers have united in an association that shall have complete control of the steel and iron products of the country; and it is already effecting agreements with manufacturers of other countries for parceling out the world’s markets. At the same time the Coal Syndicate was reorganized to include all the independent producers of the West; and in connection with it, a great shipping and selling company was formed for the purpose of controlling the retail trade and eliminating recalcitrant dealers. These steel and coal combinations are working in complete harmony, and no independent manufacturer can exist against their will.
"In that great industrial region many large iron companies had come into possession of coal mines. In order to induce these to put their mines into the Syndicate, they were given the right to produce, over and above their allotments, all the coal that they might need for their own furnaces. A new impetus was thus given to the process of consolidation. Strong coal companies hastened to absorb iron establishments, in order to earn larger profits by consuming their own coal in indefinite quantities. Furthermore, as the allotments were fixed absolutely for a long period, the strongest companies proceeded to buy weaker, less economically worked collieries, in order to shut them down and produce their allotments elsewhere at lower cost. This movement assumed large proportions. Miners by the thousand had to betake themselves to other parts of the country, and entire communities were threatened with depopulation. Industrial towns held indignation meetings, to protest, and to demand the nationalization of the mines; and excited operatives are still holding conferences to discuss a general strike. The Government has sent a commission to inquire into the movement; and the Minister of Commerce has urged the coal magnates to proceed as mildly as possible.
"This powerful concentric movement of industries has taken a strong hold upon the thoughts of people and Government alike. The public is deeply concerned at the growth of private monopolies, and many persons who had hitherto favored letting economic development take its own course now call for drastic measures of prevention and repression. Country squires of the most conservative type advocate the nationalization of all coal deposits; and it is already asserted that a majority of the Prussian Diet would vote for such a measure. This convergence of the views of extreme Conservatism and radical Socialism is certainly one of the oddest results of the movement under discussion,—and one of the most instructive. The natural trend of events is unquestionably in the direction of some form of socialism. The Social Democracy clearly perceives this, and so hails every industrial consolidation as but another milestone on the way to state collectivism."
_W. C. Dreher, Recent Events in Germany (Atlantic Monthly, March, 1905)._
COMBINATIONS: International: Of Transatlantic Shipping Companies. Agreements with the British Government.
Announcement was made in October, 1902, of the incorporation on the 1st of that month, under a New Jersey charter, of the International Mercantile Marine Company, with a capital of $120,000,000, and an issue of 4½ per cent. bonds to the amount of $75,000,000. The combination included the American, the Red Star, the White, the Atlantic Transport, the Leyland and the Dominion lines. Both American and British capitalists were represented in the board of directors, the former in the majority. Several partners in the firm of J. Pierpont Morgan & Company were included, and Mr. Morgan was understood to be the architect of the combination; but he did not appear personally in its organization.
The first step towards such a shipping combination had been taken sixteen years before, when the British Inman steamship line was taken over by the International Navigation Company, made up of Americans, at the head of whom was Mr. Clement A. Griscom, of Philadelphia. "The British Government promptly withdrew the liberal subsidy which it had been paying to the Inman liners; but Mr. Griscom and his comrades brought the New York and Paris beneath the Stars and Stripes, built the St. Louis and St. Paul, secured a subsidy from the United States and gave the first-class British lines a most formidable competitor. Indeed, commercial rivalry in high grade ships on the North Atlantic soon became too keen to permit of reasonable dividends and Mr. Griscom found British ship-owners in a responsive mood when he broached anew the great idea of an international combination.
"This union was made all the easier by the fact that meanwhile another important British steamship concern, the Leyland line, had been acquired by Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan in the spring of 1901. This line, itself the fruit of several consolidations, controlled the largest British tonnage in the North Atlantic trade. It owned no fast mail ships, no greyhounds. But it did possess forty or fifty good, useful steamships of moderate speed, many of them of large tonnage, and fit for passengers as well as freight. The main Leyland service lay between Boston or New York on this side, and Liverpool or London on the other, and the business of the company had been so profitable for a long term of years that its shares were quoted at a handsome premium. Mr. Morgan paid a generous price for his maritime investment. It is said that he gave £14 10s. for each £10 share, or a bonus of 45 per cent. But amazement at Mr. Morgan’s ‘liberality’ ceased when the next stage in the great, far-sighted negotiation was unfolded.
"This was the dramatic uniting of the Leyland line with the American and Red Star lines of the International Navigation Company, and the Atlantic Transport line, another British steam fleet owned by American capital. Later still it transpired that the famous White Star line of fast mail, passenger, and freight ships and the smaller but excellent Dominion line were embraced in the huge consolidation. The White Star was one of the two lines—the Cunard was the other—which performed the British mail service between Queenstown and New York. Its fleet included the great liners Oceanic and Celtic, the swift Teutonic and Majestic, and the favorite Britannic and Germanic which had held ocean records in their day, together with a considerable number of large and efficient freighters. The American purchase of the White Star line was long disputed, and when it was finally confirmed, something like consternation seized the British press and people, for the White Star fleet had been regarded as distinctively a British institution as the Bank of England. Its fast ships received not only the mail pay of the post-office, but the subventions of the Admiralty, and were enrolled on the ‘merchant cruiser’ list."
Winthrop L. Marvin, The Great Ship "Combine" (American Review of Reviews, December, 1902).
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The anxieties with which the combination was regarded at first in Great Britain were allayed materially by Mr. G. Balfour, President of the Board of Trade, who made public, in a speech at Sheffield, the terms of an arrangement that had been made by the Government with the Cunard Company, on one hand, and the Combination on the other. The Cunard Company, he said, "pledged themselves to remain in every respect a British company, managed by British directors—the shares not to be transferred to any but British subjects. Their ships were to be officered by British officers. They also engaged to construct two vessels of twenty-four to twenty-five knots which, as well as the entire Cunard fleet, the Admiralty would have the right to charter or purchase at any time on terms fixed in the agreement. The money for the construction of the fast steamers would be advanced to the company at the rate of 2¾ per cent. interest, while in lieu of the present Admiralty subvention—£28,000 a year for the contingent use of three ships—the company would receive £150,000 a year. With Mr. Pierpont Morgan, the head of the Shipping Combination, who had shown the utmost readiness to meet the wishes of His Majesty’s Government, it had been agreed that the British companies in the Combination should remain British, not merely in name but in reality. The majority of their directors were to be British subjects. All their ships now flying the British flag were to continue to fly it, and at least one-half of those hereafter to be built for the Combination would likewise fly British colours, be commanded by British officers, and manned in reasonable proportion by British sailors. On the other hand, the combined companies would continue to be treated, as heretofore, on a footing of equality with other British companies in respect of any services, whether postal, or military, or naval, which His Majesty’s Government might require from the British mercantile marine. It had been further stipulated that in the event of the Combination pursuing a policy hostile to our mercantile marine or to British trade, the King’s Government should have the right to terminate the agreement."
COMBINATIONS: United States: A. D. 1900. Definition of the term Industrial Combination formulated at the Census Bureau. Statistics as collected in 1900.
"The officials of the Census Office, in order to prevent misconceptions and insure consistency in the plan and system of tabulation, formulated the following definition of the term ‘industrial combination’:
"‘For the purpose of the Census, the rule has been adopted to consider no aggregation of mills an industrial combination, unless it consists of a number of formerly independent mills which have been brought together into one company under a charter obtained for that purpose. We therefore exclude from this category many large establishments comprising a number of mills, which have grown up, not by combination with other mills, but by the erection of new plants or the purchase of old ones.’ …
"So far as can be ascertained from the data in the Census Office, the number of these industrial consolidations is 183. They control 2203 separate plants, scattered throughout the United States, 2029 being active and 174 idle during the census year. For 56 of the idle plants no returns could be obtained, making the total number of reporting plants 2147. The 183 combinations extend to almost all lines of industry, producing articles of luxury, materials essential to the upbuilding and growth of the country, and even the very necessities of life. Fully 50 per cent. of these combinations were chartered just prior to or during the census year; and it is noteworthy that the epidemic of industrial consolidation, as far as the so-called monopolies are concerned, has been practically confined to the past four years. It is evident, therefore, that the disease—if it be regarded as such—has spread very rapidly.
"Naturally enough, iron and steel, with 69 combinations, heads the list. The number of reporting plants engaged in this industry is 469, and the capital invested, consisting of land, buildings, machinery, tools and implements, and cash and sundries, is valued at $348,000,000."
_W. R. Merriam, "Trusts" in the Light of Census Returns (Atlantic Monthly, March, 1902)._
COMBINATIONS: A. D. 1901-1903. The question of Federal Control and Regulation. Urgency of President Roosevelt for effective legislation.
In his first Message to Congress, three months after his succession to the Presidency, President Roosevelt expressed his mind frankly and clearly on the then increasing demand in the country for more stringent measures of government, to control and regulate the exercise of the power which great aggregations of incorporated capital have created in recent times. In part, he then said:
"The tremendous and highly complex industrial development which went on with ever accelerated rapidity during the latter half of the nineteenth century brings us face to face, at the beginning of the twentieth, with very serious social problems. The old laws, and the old customs which had almost the binding force of law, were once quite sufficient to regulate the accumulation and distribution of wealth. Since the industrial changes which have so enormously increased the productive power of mankind, they are no longer sufficient. The growth of cities has gone on beyond comparison faster than the growth of the country, and the up building of the great industrial centers has meant a startling increase, not merely in the aggregate of wealth, but in the number of very large individual, and especially of very large corporate, fortunes. … The process has aroused much antagonism, a great part of which is wholly without warrant. It is not true that as the rich have grown richer the poor have grown poorer. On the contrary, never before has the average man, the wage-worker, the farmer, the small trader, been so well off as in this country and at the present time. There have been abuses connected with the accumulation of wealth; yet it remains true that a fortune accumulated in legitimate business can be accumulated by the person specially benefited only on condition of conferring immense incidental benefits upon others. … {117} The captains of industry who have driven the railway systems across this continent, who have built up our commerce, who have developed our manufactures, have on the whole done great good to our people. Without them the material development of which we are so justly proud could never have taken place. … It cannot too often be pointed out that to strike with ignorant violence at the interests of one set of men almost inevitably endangers the interests of all. … Much of the legislation directed at the trusts would have been exceedingly mischievous had it not also been entirely ineffective. In accordance with a well-known sociological law, the ignorant or reckless agitator has been the really effective friend of the evils which he has been nominally opposing.
"All this is true; and yet it is also true that there are real and grave evils, one of the chief being over-capitalization because of its many baleful consequences; and a resolute and practical effort must be made to correct these evils. There is a widespread conviction in the minds of the American people that the great corporations known as trusts are in certain of their features and tendencies hurtful to the general welfare. This springs from no spirit of envy or uncharitableness, nor lack of pride in the great industrial achievements that have placed this country at the head of the nations struggling for commercial supremacy. … It is based upon sincere conviction that combination and concentration should be, not prohibited, but supervised and within reasonable limits controlled; and in my judgment this conviction is right. … The first essential in determining how to deal with the great industrial combinations is knowledge of the facts—publicity. In the interests of the public, the Government should have the right to inspect and examine the workings of the great corporations engaged in interstate business. …
"When the Constitution was adopted, at the end of the eighteenth century, no human wisdom could foretell the sweeping changes, alike in industrial and political conditions, which were to take place by the beginning of the twentieth century. At that time it was accepted as a matter of course that the several States were the proper authorities to regulate so far as was then necessary, the comparatively insignificant and strictly localized corporate bodies of the day. The conditions are now wholly different and wholly different action is called for. I believe that a law can be framed which will enable the National Government to exercise control along the lines above indicated; profiting by the experience gained through the passage and administration of the Interstate-Commerce Act. If, however, the judgment of the Congress is that it lacks the constitutional power to pass such an act, then a constitutional amendment should be submitted to confer the power."
_President’s Message to Congress, December 3, 1901._
In the following summer, during a tour which he made through some of the New England States the President gave prominence to the same subject in his addresses, emphasizing the necessity of federal legislation to arm the General Government with more effective authority for regulating the action of corporations engaged in interstate trade. In speaking at Providence especially, his remarks caused a great stir of feeling in the country, and seem to have signalled the beginning of an open array of hostile corporate interests against him. On that occasion he spoke partly as follows:
"Those great corporations containing some tendency to monopoly, which we have grown to speak of rather loosely as trusts, are the creatures of the State, and the State not only has the right to control them, but is in duty bound to control them wherever the need for such control is shown. There is clearly a need of supervision—need to exercise the power of regulation on the part of the representatives of the public, wherever, as in our own country at the present time, business corporations become so very strong, both for beneficent work and for work that is not always beneficent. It is idle to say that there is no need for such supervision. A sufficient warrant for it is to be found over and over again in any of the various evils resulting from the present system, or, rather, lack of system.
"There is in our country a peculiar difficulty in the way of exercising such supervision and control because of the peculiar division of governmental power. When the industrial conditions were simple, very little control was needed, and no trouble was caused by the doubt as to where power was lodged under the constitution. Now the conditions are complicated, and we find it difficult to frame national legislation which shall be adequate, while as a matter of practical experience State action has proved entirely insufficient, and in all human probability cannot or will not be made sufficient, to meet the needs of the case. Some of our States have excellent laws—laws which it would be well indeed to have enacted by the national legislature. But the wide differences in these laws, even between adjacent States, and the uncertainty of the power of enforcement result practically in altogether insufficient control.
"I believe that the nation must assume this power of control by legislation, and if it becomes evident that the constitution will not permit needed legislation, then by constitutional amendment. The immediate need of dealing with trusts is to place them under the real, not nominal, control of some sovereign to which, as its creature, the trusts shall owe allegiance, and in whose courts the sovereign’s orders may with certainty be enforced. That is not the case with the ordinary so-called 'trust’ to-day, for the trust is a large State corporation, generally doing business in other States also, and often with a tendency to monopoly. Such a trust is an artificial creature not wholly responsible to or controllable by any legislature, nor wholly subject to the jurisdiction of any one court. Some governmental sovereign must be given full power over these artificial and very powerful corporate beings. In my judgment this sovereign must be the national government. When it has been given full power, then this full power can be used to control any evil influence, exactly as the government is now using the power conferred upon it under the Sherman Anti-Trust law.
"Even when the full power has been conferred it would be highly undesirable to attempt too much or to begin by stringent legislation. The mechanism of modern business is as delicate and complicated as it is vast, and nothing would be more productive of evil to all of us, and especially to those least well off in this world’s goods, than ignorant meddling with this mechanism, and, above all, if the meddling was done in a spirit of class or sectional rancor. {118} It is desirable that this power should be possessed by the nation, but it is quite as desirable that the power should be exercised with moderation and self-restraint. The first exercise of that power should be the securing of publicity among all great corporations doing an interstate business. The publicity, though non-inquisitorial, should be real and thorough as to all important facts with which the public has concern. The full light of day is a great discourager of evil. Such publicity would by itself tend to cure the evils of which there is just complaint, and where the alleged evils are imaginary, it would tend to show that such is the case. When publicity is attained it would then be possible to see what further should be done in the way of regulation.
"Above all, it behooves us to remember not only that we ought to try to do what we can, but that our success in doing it depends very much upon our neither attempting nor expecting the impossible. …
"I see no promise of a complete solution for all the problems we group together when we speak of the trust question. But we can make a beginning in solving these problems, and a good beginning if only we approach the subject with a sufficiency of resolution, of honesty and of that hard common sense which is one of the most valuable, and, unfortunately, not one of the most common, assets in the equipment of any people. I think the national administration has shown its firm intention to enforce the laws as they now stand on the statute books without regard to persons, and I think that good has come from this enforcement. I think, furthermore, that additional legislation should be had, and can be had, which will enable us to accomplish much more than has been accomplished along these same lines."
_Theodore Roosevelt, Address at Providence, August 23, 1902 (New York Tribune, August 24, 1902)._
In his next Message to Congress, President Roosevelt renewed his urgency for the needed legislation. "No more important subject can come before the Congress," he said, "than this of the regulation of interstate business. This country cannot afford to sit supine on the plea that under our peculiar system of government we are helpless in the presence of the new conditions, and unable to grapple with them or to cut out whatever of evil has arisen in connection with them. The power of the Congress to regulate interstate commerce is an absolute and unqualified grant, and without limitations other than those prescribed by the Constitution. The Congress has constitutional authority to make all laws necessary and proper for executing this power, and I am satisfied that this power has not been exhausted by any legislation now on the statute books."
_President’s Message to Congress, December 2, 1902._
A year later, when the President addressed his Message to the next Congress, at the opening of its first session, he was able to say:
"The country is especially to be congratulated on what has been accomplished in the direction of providing for the exercise of supervision over the great corporations and combinations of corporations engaged in interstate commerce. The Congress has created the Department of Commerce and Labor, including the Bureau of Corporations, with for the first time authority to secure proper publicity of such proceedings of these great corporations as the public has the right to know. It has provided for the expediting of suits for the enforcement of the Federal anti-trust law; and by another law it has secured equal treatment to all producers in the transportation of their goods, thus taking a long stride forward in making effective the work of the Interstate Commerce Commission."
_President’s Message to Congress, December 1, 1903._
COMBINATIONS: A. D. 1901-1906. A summary of governmental action against corporate wrongdoers, by Elihu Root. Legislation. Litigation. Court decisions.
"The act creating the bureau of corporations, the act expediting the trial of trust cases, the anti-rebate act, the act for the regulation of railroad rates, have made possible redress which was impossible before. Under the direction of two successive Attorney Generals of the first order of ability, sincerity and devotion, in hundreds of courts, incessant warfare has been waged and is being waged under the federal laws against corporate wrongdoers.
"The Northern Securities Company, which sought to combine and prevent competition between two great continental railroads, has been forced to dissolve by the judgment of the Supreme Court of the United States. The methods of the Beef Trust in combining to suppress competition in the purchase of livestock and the sale of meat have been tried and condemned, and the trust has been placed under injunction to abandon these practices by judgment of the Supreme Court. The combination of paper manufacturers in the territory from Chicago to the Rocky Mountains has been dissolved by the judgment of the Supreme Court, and the combination has been abandoned, and the price of white paper in that territory has gone down 30 per cent. The Retail Grocers’ Association in this country has been dissolved by decree of the court. The elevator combination in the West has been dissolved in like manner. The salt combination west of the Rocky Mountains has been dissolved by decree of the court. The Wholesale Grocers’ Association in the South, the meat combination and the lumber combination in the West, the combination of railroads entering the city of St. Louis to suppress competition between the bridges and ferries reaching that city; the Drug Trust, which suppresses competition all over the country, are being vigorously pressed in suits brought by the federal government for their dissolution. The salt combination has been indicted and convicted and fined for failing to obey the judgment of dissolution. The Beef Trust has been indicted for failing to obey the injunction against them, and have been saved so far only by a decision that they had secured temporary immunity by giving evidence against themselves. One branch of the Tobacco Trust is facing an indictment of its corporations and their officers in the federal court in New York, and the other branches are undergoing investigation. The lumber combination in Oklahoma is under indictment. The Fertilizer Trust, a combination of thirty-one corporations and twenty-five individuals to support and fix prices, has been indicted, the indictments have been sustained by the courts, and the combination has been dissolved. The ice combination of the District of Columbia is facing criminal trial. Special counsel are investigating the coal combination, and special counsel are investigating the Standard Oil combination.
{119}
"Three of the causes won in the Supreme Court of the United States have furnished decisions of the utmost importance. In the Tobacco Trust case of Hale agt. Henkel, the Supreme Court denied the claim of the trust corporations to be exempt under the Constitution from furnishing testimony against themselves by the production of their books and papers before a federal grand jury. Thus, the protection of secrecy for corporate wrongdoing is beaten down. In the Northern Securities case the Supreme Court held that a wrong accomplished by means of incorporating in accordance with the express provision of the New Jersey statute was just as much a violation of federal law as if there had been no incorporation. Thus, the state rights defence of protection from favoring state statutes is beaten down. In the Beef Trust case the Supreme Court held that, although the business of manufacture was carried on within the limits of a single state, yet the purchase of the raw material in different states and the sale of the finished product in different states brought the business within the interstate commerce clause of the Constitution and gave the federal government authority over it. Thus, the defence that the state alone can deal with manufacturing corporations, however widespread their business, is beaten down.
"The obstacles to the enforcement of the federal anti-trust act thus removed are obstacles which stood in the way of all proceedings, and they had to be cleared away before any proceedings of the same character against the same classes of corporations could be successfully maintained. They have been removed, not by newspaper headlines and denunciation, but by skill, ability, and energy of the highest order.
"After the Elkins anti-rebate law was passed by Congress in 1903 it was supposed, and the Interstate Commerce Commission reported, that the railroads had substantially abandoned giving rebates. Their good resolutions do not seem, however, to have lasted. The struggle for business enabled the shippers soon to secure a renewal of rebates, or, by ingenious devices advantages equivalent to rebates. Thereupon the Department of Justice began active prosecutions for the enforcement of the law. Fifty-three indictments have been found against hundreds of defendants and covering many hundreds of transactions. There have been fourteen criminal convictions. Fourteen individuals have been fined, to the gross amount of $66,125. Nine corporations have been fined to the amount of $253,000. Thirty-five indictments are ready for trial in their regular order upon the court calendar. The original statute provided only for punishment by fine. Last winter it was amended by providing for punishment by imprisonment, and, if the lines imposed under the original law shall not prove to have stopped the practice, we shall see whether fear of the penitentiary under the amendment will not do so.
"Under this statute also it was necessary to sweep away defences which stood as barriers to general prosecution, and in the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad case, decided by the Supreme Court February 19 of this year, and the Milwaukee Refrigerator Transit case, decided in the Seventh Circuit on May 31 of this year, the courts have held that the substance and not the form is to control in the application of the statute, and that, however the transaction may be disguised, an unlawful discrimination can be reached and punished. The way is therefore cleared for all other prosecutions.
"The Railroad Rates act, which was the subject of such excited discussion during the last session of Congress, has already justified itself. Since the passage of the act, less than five months ago, there have been more voluntary reductions of rates by our railroads than during the entire nineteen years of the previous life of the Interstate Commerce Commission. On the single day of the 29th of August, 1906, two days before the act went into force, over five thousand notices of voluntary reduction of rates were filed with the Interstate Commerce Commission by the railroads of the United States."
_Elihu Root, Speech at Utica, November 1, 1906 (New York Tribune, November 2, 1906)._
COMBINATIONS: A. D. 1903-1906. The "Beef Trust" suits and investigations. The United States v. Swift & Co. et al. Commissioner Garfield’s investigation. Indictment of Armour & Co. and others. Immunity decision of Judge Humphrey. Fines for receiving rebates from railways.
In the case known as that of the United States v. Swift & Company et al., the defendants were seven corporations, one copartnership, and twenty-three other persons (commonly styled "the Beef Trust"), charged with violations of the anti-trust law, by combination in restraint of the trade which they conducted, namely, the buying of live stock, slaughtering the same in different states and selling the meats thus produced. It was affirmed by the Government that they, together, controlled about sixty per cent. of the total Volume of that trade in the country, and that if the alleged combination among them did not exist they "would be and remain in competition with each other"; but that by such "unlawful combination and conspiracy" they were directing and requiring their agents (1) not to bid against one another in the live-stock markets of the different States; (2) to bid up prices for a few days so as to induce cattlemen to send their stock to the stock-yards; (3) to fix prices at which they would sell, and hence, when necessary, to restrict shipments of meat; (4) to establish a uniform rule of credit to dealers and to keep a blacklist; (5) to make uniform and improper charges for cartage; and (6) to obtain less than lawful rates from the railways to the exclusion of all competitors.
The case, on motion for injunction, was tried first in the Circuit Court of the Northern District of Illinois, Judge Peter S. Grosscup. The Opinion of the Court, given April 18, 1903, held that, under the definition of the term by the Supreme Court in the Trans-Missouri Freight Association Case (see, in this Volume, Railways: United States: A. D. 1890-1902), "there can be no doubt that the agreement of the defendants to refrain from bidding against each other in the purchase of cattle is combination in restraint of trade: so also their agreement to bid up prices to stimulate shipments, intending to cease from bidding when the shipments have arrived. {120} The same result," continued the judge, "follows when we turn to the combination of defendants to fix prices upon and restrict the quantities of meat shipped to their agents or their customers. Such agreements can be nothing less than restriction upon competition, and, therefore, combination in restraint of trade; and thus viewed, the petition, as an entirety, makes out a case under the Sherman Act. … The demurrer is overruled, and the motion for preliminary injunction granted."
On appeal, the case went to the Supreme Court, where it was argued in January, 1905, and decided on the 30th of the same month. The Opinion of the Court, rendered by Justice Holmes, with no dissent, affirmed, but modified, the decree of injunction issued by Judge Grosscup; the aim of the modifications being to give more definiteness to the decree. "The defendants," said Justice Holmes, for example, "cannot be ordered to compete, but they properly can be forbidden to give directions or to make agreements not to compete. The injunction follows the charge. No objection was made on the ground that it is not confined to the places specified in the bill. It seems to us, however, that it ought to set forth more exactly the transactions in which such directions and agreements are forbidden. The trade in fresh meat referred to should be defined somewhat as it is in the bill, and the sales of stock should be confined to sales of stock at the stock-yards named, which stock is sent from other States to the stock-yards for sale or is bought at those yards for transport to another State."
Federal Anti-Trust Decisions, 1900-1906, Volume 2, prepared and edited by James A. Finch, by direction of the Attorney-General (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1907).
COMBINATIONS: Investigation by the Commissioner of Corporations.
On the 7th of March, 1904, the House of Representatives adopted a resolution requesting the Secretary of Commerce and Labor to "investigate the causes of the low prices of beef cattle in the United States since July 1st, 1903, and the unusually large margins between the prices of beef cattle and the selling prices of fresh beef, and whether the said conditions have resulted in whole or in part from any contract, combination, in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of commerce among the several States and Territories or with foreign countries; also, whether said prices have been controlled in whole or in part by any corporation, joint stock company, or corporate combination engaged in commerce among the several States or with foreign nations; and, if so, to investigate the organization, capitalization, profits, conduct and management of the business of such corporations, companies, and corporate combinations, and to make early report of his findings according to law."
In compliance with this resolution, the Commissioner of Corporations, Mr. James R. Garfield, went to Chicago in April and began the requested investigation, which was prosecuted throughout most of the ensuing year. "The inquiries of the Bureau of Corporations were naturally concerned chiefly with the six great concerns which, by the injunction of 1902, were grouped together, and which were popularly considered as the Beef Trust. The ‘Big Six,’ in the approximate order of their magnitude as indicated by the number of animals slaughtered, are: Swift & Company, with seven large plants; Armour & Company, and the Armour Packing Company, which have the same stockholders, and which together operate five packing-houses; the National Packing Company, with eight comparatively large plants and two or three minor ones; Morris & Company, operating three plants; the Cudahy Packing Company, with three plants in the middle West and a minor one at Los Angeles; and the Schwarzschild & Sulzberger Company, operating three plants. Nearly all of the important packing-houses of these six companies are situated in the eight great live-stock markets,—Chicago, Kansas City, South Omaha, East St. Louis, South St. Joseph, Fort Worth, South St. Paul, and Sioux City."
As for the National Packing Company, it grew, apparently, out of an abortive scheme for the consolidation of the other five concerns which was rumored in 1902. "Shortly prior to the formation of this company the Armour interests had acquired control of the G. H. Hammond Company and the Omaha Packing Company, the Swifts had secured the Anglo-American Provision Company and the Fowler Packing Association, and the Morris family had become dominant in the United Dressed Beef Company of New York. The National Packing Company, organized in 1903, took over the control of the various corporations thus previously acquired by the three packing interests named, and has since absorbed two or three other smaller concerns. The directorate of the National Company consists almost wholly of representatives of the Armour, Swift, and Morris companies. Aside from this community of interest, the bureau finds that there is no important inter-ownership of securities among the six leading packing companies."
"The ‘Big Six’ are by no means the only slaughterers of cattle in the United States. They, with a few minor affiliated concerns, killed 5,521,697 cattle in 1903, while, from the best available data, the Bureau of Corporations computes the total slaughter of the country at about 12,500,000. But the proportion of 45 per cent. thus indicated by no means measures the full economic significance of the six great packers. Their importance lies in the fact that they are the only concerns which do an extensive business in shipping dressed beef. … The ‘Big-Six’ kill about 98 percent, of the cattle slaughtered at the eight leading Western markets above named."
_Edward Dana Durand, The Beef Industry and the Government Investigation (American Review of Reviews, April, 1905)._
Early in March, 1905, just before the adjournment of Congress, his report of it, in part, was transmitted by the President to Congress. The following summary of important facts set forth in the extended report was published in The Outlook of the following week:
"The report as sent to Congress deals with the prices of cattle and dressed beef, the margins between such prices, and the organization, conduct, and profits of the corporations engaged in the beef-packing business. In some respects the conclusions presented are distinctly favorable to the packers; in others, quite as unfavorable. It appears that the profits of the six great companies whose operations were covered by the investigation were very much smaller during the years 1902 and 1903 than the public had been led to suppose,—that, in fact, for a part of that period the business was conducted at an actual loss. {121} The percentage of profit on the gross Volume of business during the years 1902-1904 was comparatively low. That realized by Swift & Company is placed at two per cent. This, however, we repeat, is the percentage on total sales, which is a very different thing from profit on the investment. It is a well-known fact that the actual capitalization of the packing companies is very much less than the annual Volume of business. From statements made by the six companies to the Bureau of Corporations it appears that their gross business is not less than $700,000,000 per year, while their nominal capitalization is only $88,000,000, exclusive of $5,000,000 bonds of Swift & Company. On the other hand, it is practically impossible, as the report shows, to determine accurately just what proportion of the total investment represents plants and properties concerned with the beef industry exclusively. Still, it is obvious that Swift & Company’s net profit of two per cent. on their sales would amount to very much more than two per cent, on their investment. The report makes an approximate estimate of twelve per cent.
"On one other count the report is favorable to the companies. It declares that they are apparently not overcapitalized. This conclusion, it is true, is robbed of some of its exculpatory force when the private-car system is taken into consideration. It is shown that the companies’ profits on refrigerator cars, derived from mileage paid by the railroads, has ranged from 14 to 22 per cent. The report gives clear and definite information as to the trust’s field of operations. It shows that the six companies slaughtered in 1903 only about 45 per cent. of all the cattle killed in that year, but that these companies slaughter nearly 98 per cent. of all the cattle killed in the leading Western packing centers, and that they control a large percentage of the trade in beef in many large cities—75 per cent. in New York, 85 per cent. in Boston, 95 per cent. in Providence, and in a number of other important cities from 50 to 90 per cent. In all these centers of population the consumer is now paying more for meats than ever before, while the cattle-grower on the Western plains is receiving less for his beeves. These two facts are doubtless capable of explanation, but the published results of the investigation ordered by Congress throw little light on the matter."
COMBINATIONS: Case of the United States v. Armour & Company et al.
Soon after the publication of the report of the Bureau of Corporations a special Federal Grand Jury at Chicago began the investigation of charges brought by the Attorney-General of the United States against five of the corporations engaged in the meat-packing business and seventeen of their officials. An indictment was returned by the Grand Jury on the 1st of July, 1905, charging, in a number of counts, persistent violation of the injunction laid on these corporations and their officials by Judge Grosscup with affirmation by the Supreme Court, and continued combination in restraint of trade,—by requiring their purchasing agents to refrain from bidding in good faith against one another; by agreements that fixed the prices of beef; by restricting sales to maintain prices, etc. On the trial of the indictment, which was begun on the 29th of January and concluded on the 21st of March, 1906, the defendants claimed immunity, under that clause of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States which reads:
"Nor shall any person be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself."
Their claim for immunity under this constitutional prescription was founded on the fact that "upon the lawful requirement of the Commissioner of Corporations" they "had furnished evidence, documentary and otherwise, of and concerning the matters charged in the indictment"; and that a section of the Act creating the Department of Commerce and Labor provides that persons testifying or producing evidence before the Commissioner shall be entitled to the immunities conferred by the Act in relation to testimony before the Interstate Commerce Commission of February 11, 1893. Judge Humphrey, of the United States District Court, before whom the case was tried, sustained the plea in his charge to the jury, so far as concerned the individual defendants, saying: "Under the law of this case, the immunity pleas filed by the defendants will be sustained as to the individual defendants, the natural persons, and denied as to the corporations, the artificial persons, and your verdict will be in favor of the defendants as to the individuals, and in favor of the Government as to the corporations."
COMBINATIONS: Fines for accepting rebates.
The same Federal Grand Jury at Chicago which returned the indictments dealt within the case mentioned above brought another indictment against four men in the employ of one of the meat-packing companies, who were accused of unlawfully combining and agreeing to solicit rebates for their corporation from the Michigan Central, the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific, the Grand Trunk Western, the Lehigh Valley, the Boston and Maine, and the Mobile and Ohio railroads. It was charged that the defendants conspired with one another in presenting to the railroad companies pretended claims for damages which were in fact claims for rebates. They were brought for trial before Judge Humphrey in September, 1905, and pleaded guilty. The Judge then pronounced sentence on them as follows:
"Punishment for this offense as fixed by Congress has a wide range, giving the Court unusual latitude, ranging from a nominal fine without imprisonment to a heavy fine and two years’ imprisonment, all in the discretion of the Court. I am disposed to consider this case with reasonable moderation. The sentence of the Court in the case of the defendant Weil will be a fine of $10,000 and costs, and commitment to the county jail until the fine is paid, and in the cases of Todd, Skipworth, and Cusey a fine of $5,000 and costs, with the same provision in regard to payment."
COMBINATIONS: A. D. 1904-1909. The Standard Oil Company. Federal Government investigation of its methods of business. Criminal prosecutions for violation of the law against rebates. The $29,000,000 fine and its annulment. Acquittal of the Company.
After a dozen years or more of slight oil production in Kansas, that state became quite suddenly, in 1904, one of the important sources of petroleum supply. The Standard Oil Company had taken care to be prepared for whatever development might occur, and had organized its operations in this western field under the name of the Prairie Oil and Gas Company, of Kansas. {122} Its refineries were ready to furnish a market to the Kansas producers of crude oil, and they had no other. Independent enterprises in oil refining were made quite impossible, and the Prairie Oil and Gas Company was complete master of the situation. The Kansas oil producers were soon writhing under its dictation of prices and rules of dealing, as the Pennsylvanians had been years before, and the Kansas Legislature came promptly to their rescue. In the winter of 1904-1905 it passed five vigorous acts; authorizing the establishment of a State oil refinery; making pipe lines common carriers within the State; placing them under the jurisdiction of the State board of railroad commissioners; fixing maximum rates for the transportation of oil by freight or pipe line; and, finally, prohibiting discrimination between localities in the sale of any commodities. Furthermore, the anti-trust laws of the State were brought into action against the Standard Oil Company and the railroads accused of giving it special rates and privileges.
At the same time, the Kansas situation was brought to the attention of Congress and the Federal Executive. On motion of a Kansas representative, the lower House of Congress, in February, adopted a resolution calling on the President for an investigation of the methods of business pursued by the Standard Oil Company. The desired investigation was conducted in the following year by Commissioner Garfield, the head of the Bureau of Corporations, and his report was communicated to Congress on the 5th of May, 1906, with an accompanying special message, by the President. Nothing of the detail of facts in the report can be given here; but the conclusions drawn from them by the Commissioner were summed up by him, as follows:
"Upon the request of its attorney, all the essential facts discovered by this Bureau were presented to the company at the close of the investigation, and an exhaustive statement relating thereto was made by its chief traffic officer. There was no denial of the facts found, but explanations of particular situations were offered, and it was urged that the facts did not show any violation by the Standard of the letter or spirit of the interstate-commerce law. A most careful review of the facts and the explanations leads to the following conclusions:
"The Standard Oil Company has habitually received from the railroads, and is now receiving, secret rates and other unjust and illegal discriminations.
"During 1904 the Standard saved about three-quarters of a million dollars through the secret rates discovered by the Bureau of Corporations, and of course there may be other secret rates which the Bureau has not discovered. This amount represents the difference between the open rates and the rates actually paid. Many of these discriminations were clearly in violation of the interstate-commerce law, and others, whether technically illegal or not, had the same effect upon competitors. On some State business secret rates were applied by means of rebates.
"These discriminations have been so long continued, so secret, so ingeniously applied to new conditions of trade, and so large in amount as to make it certain that they were due to concerted action by the Standard and the railroads.
"The Standard Oil Company is receiving unjust discriminations in open rates.
"The published rates from the leading Standard shipping points are relatively much lower than rates from the shipping points of its competitors. The advantage to the Standard over its competitors from such open discriminations is enormous, probably as important as that obtained through the secret rates.
"If an unfair discrimination be obtained by one shipper through a device which in itself is seemingly not prohibited by law, that fact shows that the law is defective and should be strengthened; it does not show that the discrimination is proper or just.
"The following are a few of the most important discriminations and the methods by which they were obtained:
"(1) For about ten years the New England territory has been in control of the Standard Oil Company by reason of the refusal of the New York, New Haven and Hartford road and of the Boston and Maine road, on all but a few divisions, to pro-rate—i. e., to join in through rates—on oil shipped from west of the Hudson River, and by means of the adjustment of published rates. …
"(2) The Standard Oil Company has been able to absolutely control for many years the sale of oil in the northeastern part of New York and in a portion of Vermont by means of secret rates from its refineries at Olean and Rochester. …
"The saving to the Standard during 1904 by the secret rate from Olean to Rochester alone was $115,000. This and other less important rates from Olean were unknown to the independent refiners, and were not published on the ground that they were wholly State rates; yet in fact they were used for oil consigned to points beyond the State boundary of New York. Furthermore, all shipments from Olean on these secret rates were blind-billed—i. e., the rates were not shown on the waybills.
"(3) The Standard Oil Company has maintained absolute control of almost the whole section of the country south of the Ohio River and east of the Mississippi by means of secret rates and open discriminations in rates from Whiting, Indiana. …
"(4) The Standard Oil Company has for at least ten years shipped oil from Whiting to East St. Louis, Illinois, at a rate of 6 or 6¼ cents on three of the five railroads running between those places, while the only duly published rate on all roads has been 18 cents during all that period! This discrimination saved the Standard about $240,000 in 1904. …
"Whiting is located in Indiana, about two miles from the Illinois line. East St. Louis is in Illinois, just across the river from St. Louis. The secret low rates were given by the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy, Chicago and Alton, and Chicago and Eastern Illinois railroads. They were not published, on the ground that they were State rates. …
"(5) In the Kansas-Territory field there were some unfair open rates. …
"(6) In California direct rebates, as well as discriminations by the use of secret rates, have been given on oil. …
"(7) Open published rates from Whiting into a large part of the United States have given the Standard Oil Company an unfair advantage of from 1 to 20 cents per hundred pounds.
{123}
"This discrimination seriously limits independent refiners in some markets, and shuts them out completely from other markets. It is accomplished by the use of commodity rates—that is, rates which apply only to petroleum and its products—and by refusal to pro-rate."
_Report of the Commissioner of Corporations on the Transportation of Petroleum, May 2, 1906, Letter of Submittal, pages xxi-xxv. (59th Congress, 1st Session House Document. number 812)._
Consequent on the information secured by this investigation, criminal proceedings against the Standard Oil Company in its various State organizations were instituted in 1906-1907. The number and character of the indictments found in these cases are set forth in tabular form, in an article on "The Oil Trust and the Government," by Francis Walker, published in the Political Science Quarterly, March, 1908. The following statement of them is summarized from that table:
In the Northern District of Illinois, August 27, 1906, against the Standard Oil Co. of Indiana, 1903 and 134 indictments on shipments over the Chicago and Alton Railway, from Whiting, Indiana, to East St. Louis, Illinois, and from Chappell, Illinois, to St. Louis, Missouri.
In same District, same date, against same Company, 2124 and 220 indictments on shipments over the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railway, from Whiting to East St. Louis and St. Louis.
In same District, same date, against same Company, 1318 and 597 indictments on shipments over the Chicago and Eastern Illinois and the Evansville and Terre Haute railways, from Whiting to Evansville.
In same District, same date, against same Company, 103 indictments, on shipments over the Chicago and Eastern Illinois and the Evansville and Terre Haute railways from Whiting, via Grand Junction, Tennessee, to various points in the South.
In the Eastern Division of the Western District of Tennessee, October 16, 1906, against the Standard Oil Company of Indiana, 1524 indictments, on shipments over the Illinois Central and Southern railways, from Evansville, via Grand Junction, to various points.
In the Eastern District of Missouri, November 18, 1906, against the Waters-Pierce Oil Company, 76 indictments, on shipments over the St. Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern Railway, to various points.
In the Western District of Louisiana, January 28, 1907, against the Waters-Pierce Oil Company, 32 indictments, on shipments over the St. Louis, Iron Mountain. and S. Railway, to various points.
In the Western District of New York, August 10, 1907, against the Vacuum Oil Company, 23 indictments, on shipments from Olean to Vermont.
In the Western District of New York, August 24, 1906, against the Standard Oil Company of New York, 23 and 123 indictments, on shipments from Olean to Vermont.
In same District, August 9, 1907, against same Company, 188 and 40 indictments, on shipments from Olean, New York, to Burlington, Vermont, over New York Central and Rutland and Vermont Central railways.
In same District, same date, against the Vacuum Oil Company, 188 and 40 indictments on shipments from Olean to Burlington and to Rutland and Burlington.
In same District, September 6, 1907, against the Standard Oil Company of New York, 54 indictments, on shipments from Olean and Rochester to points in Vermont.
The most notable of these criminal prosecutions has been the one described first in the list above. The opening chapter of its history is sketched as follows by Mr. Walker, in the article already referred to:
"The only important case which, up to December, 1907, had come to trial, was the indictment against the Standard Oil Company of Indiana for accepting a secret rate on shipments over the Chicago and Alton Railway, from Whiting, Indiana, to East St. Louis, Illinois, and from Chappell, Illinois, to St. Louis, Missouri. The published rate on this traffic was eighteen cents per hundred pounds (as far as East St. Louis, a bridge toll of one and a half cents being added on shipments to St. Louis); while the rate paid by the Standard Oil Company of Indiana, during the period of about three years covered by the indictment and for many years before, was only six cents per hundred pounds. On this rate, the Standard had transported, as charged in the indictment, 1903 carloads of oil, each carload being made the subject of a distinct count and separate proof. The trial of this case began in Chicago, on March 4, 1907.
"The defence not only exhausted every device of technical objection and obstruction but also attacked the constitutionality of the ‘Elkins’ law forbidding rate discrimination, alleging the right of the railroads and shippers to make private contract rates, an impudent assertion which the court justly characterized as an ‘abhorrent heresy.’ The question of guilt in the matter of technical proof depended to a large extent on the requirements of the law that carriers must file rates, and the argument of the prosecution was that shippers must be charged with the knowledge as to whether such rates were lawfully filed or not. The defendant pretended ignorance of the fact that the six-cent rate had not been filed by the Alton and alleged that it was an unreasonable requirement to charge it with such knowledge. On this point the court said in rendering judgment:
"‘The honest man who tenders a commodity for transportation by a railway company will not be fraudulently misled by that company into allowing it to haul his property for less than the law authorizes it to collect. For the carrier thus to deceive the shipper would be to deliberately incriminate itself, to its own pecuniary detriment, which it may safely be trusted not to do. The only man liable to get into trouble is he who, being in control of the routing of large Volumes of traffic, conceives a scheme for the evasion of the law, and connives with railway officials in its execution.’
"The jury returned a verdict of guilty on 1462 counts, on April 14, 1907: a considerable number of counts, namely 441, were thrown out on technical grounds. In the matter of penalty, the Standard’s counsel argued (1) that there were only three offences shown, namely, one for each year in which the rate was in force; (2) that there were only 36 offences shown, namely, one for each monthly settlement of freight charges; and (3) that each train load constituted a separate offence. The court held, however, that the unlawful rate was made on a carload basis, and that each carload unlawfully transported constituted a distinct offence. {124} In considering the amount of the fine to be levied, the court demanded information from the officials of the Standard Oil Company regarding the net earnings and dividends of the chief holding company of the trust—the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey. Their attendance and testimony were obtained only by writ of subpoena; and it was admitted that the net profits during the years 1903 to 1905 (when these rebates existed) amounted to $81,336,994, $61,570,110, and $57,459,356 respectively.
"In view of the fact that the counsel of the defendant openly maintained the right of the railways and shippers to make private contracts for rates, the court declared that it was ‘unable to indulge the presumption that in this case the defendant was convicted of its virgin offence.’ The defendant also claimed that, as there were no other shippers of oil over the Chicago and Alton Railway, no one was injured by the secret rate. On this matter the court said:
"‘It is novel, indeed, for a convicted defendant to urge the complete triumph of a dishonest course as a reason why such a course should go unpunished.
"‘Of course, there was no other shipper of oil, nor could there be, so long as, by secret arrangement, the property of the Standard Oil Company was hauled by railway common carriers for one-third of what anybody else would have to pay.’
"Moved by these considerations, the court adjudged, on August 3, 1907, that the defendant should pay the maximum penalty and fined the Standard Oil Company $20,000 for each offence, that is, for each of the 1462 counts in the indictment upon which conviction was obtained. The total fine, therefore, amounted to $29,240,000."
_Francis Walker, The Oil Trust and the Government (Political Science Quarterly, March, 1908)._
On a writ of error the case went now to the United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, where it was argued at the April session, 1908, and the opinion, by Judge Peter S. Grosscup, Circuit Judge, delivered on the 22d of the following July. In this opinion the District Court was held to have erred in deciding that each single carload of oil was to be dealt with as a separate offence, and that it reasoned erroneously in determining the fine imposed. On this latter point Judge Grosscup said:
"Did the court, in the fine imposed, abuse its discretion? The defendant indicted, tried, and convicted, was the Standard Oil Company, a corporation in Indiana. The capital stock of this corporation is one million dollars. There is nothing in the record, in the way of evidence, either before conviction, or after conviction and before sentence, that shows that the assets of this corporation were in excess of one million dollars. There is nothing in the record, either before conviction, or after conviction and before sentence, that shows that the defendant, before the court, had ever before been guilty of an offence of this character. It may, therefore, be safely assumed, that but for the relation of the defendant before the court to another corporation, not before the court—a relation to be presently stated—the court would have measured out punishment on the basis of the facts just stated.
"That under such circumstances the punishment would have been the maximum punishment, does not seem possible; for the maximum sentence, put into execution against the defendant before the court, would wipe out, many times, and for its first offence, all the property of the defendant. …
"Briefly stated, the reason of the trial court for imposing this sentence was because, after conviction and before sentence, it was brought out, on an examination of some of the officers and stockholders of the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey, that the capital stock of the Standard Oil Company of Indiana, the defendants before the court, was principally owned by the New Jersey corporation, a corporation not before the court—the trial court adding (upon no evidence however to be found in the record, and upon no information specially referred to) that in concessions of the character for which the defendant before the court had been indicted, tried, and convicted, the New Jersey corporation was not a ‘virgin’ offender.
"Is a sentence such as this, based on reasoning such as that, sound? Passing over the fact that no word of evidence or other information supporting the trial court’s comment is to be found in the record, would the comment, if duly proven, justify a sentence such as this—one that otherwise would not have been imposed? Can a court, without abuse of judicial discretion, wipe out all the property of the defendant before the court, and all the assets to which its creditors look, in an effort to reach and punish a party that is not before the court—a party that has not been convicted, has not been tried, has not been indicted even? Can an American judge, without abuse of judicial discretion, condemn any one who has not had his day in court?
" That, to our mind, is strange doctrine in Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence. …
"The judgment of the District Court is reversed and the case remanded with instructions to grant a new trial, and proceed further in accordance with this opinion."
The Government failed in attempts to secure a rehearing before the Appellate Court, as well as in an application for the reviewing of the case by the Supreme Court.
On the new trial to which the case was remanded Judge Landis, whose judgment had been set aside, declined to sit, and Judge A. B. Anderson, of Indianapolis, was called to Chicago to occupy his bench. The trial was opened on the 23d of February, 1909. On the 2d of March Judge Anderson sustained the motion of the defence that the government must proceed on the theory that there were thirty-six alleged offences—that is, that each settlement on which an alleged rebate was paid instead of each carload, constituted a separate offence. This made it impossible to claim a penalty beyond $720,000, being at the rate of $20,000 for each offence. But even that was put out of the question by the ultimate decision of the Judge, that the law, as laid down by the United States Court of Appeals, required him to direct the jury to find the Standard Oil Company not guilty on the charge of accepting rebates from the Chicago and Alton Railroad. This instruction he gave on the 10th of March, thus bringing the case to an end.
{125}
The outcome in this case was said to mean that all but two of the pending indictments against the Standard Oil Company of Indiana, as recapitulated above, are void and would be abandoned by the Government. The two cases not affected are cases involving the shipment of 1915 carloads of oil from Whiting, Indiana, to Evansville, Indiana, via Dolton Junction, over the Chicago and Eastern Illinois Railroad.
On the 15th of March, five days after the acquittal of the Company in Illinois, a fine of $20,000 was imposed upon it by the United States District Court of the Western District of New York, on one of the indictments founded on shipments from Rochester and Olean to points in Vermont. Previously, the New York Central Railroad had paid a heavy fine for granting rebates on those shipments.
Numerous State prosecutions, under State laws in Missouri, Texas, Minnesota, Ohio, and elsewhere, had been assailing the monopolistic corporation simultaneously with the proceedings of the General Government against it, and some of them with greater seriousness of effect than the Federal prosecutors had accomplished. The more important of these were in Texas, against the subsidiary Waters-Pierce Oil Company of Missouri, and in Missouri, against that Company in association with the Standard of Indiana, and with another of the same Trust family. The Texas suit, after making its slow way through the State courts and to the United States Supreme Court, came to its conclusion early in 1909, with the result of a fine of $1,623,500, and the exclusion of the Company from business in the State. The suit in Missouri, as decided at about the same time by the Supreme Court of the State, resulted in an order for the dissolution of the Waters-Pierce Company and for the perpetual exclusion of the other companies, chartered elsewhere, from operations within the State. The outcome of this vindication of the law of the State is understood to have been an arrangement under which the business of the Waters-Pierce Company is taken over by a new company, the stock of which is held by trustees approved by the Supreme Court of the State and acting as officers of the Court.
COMBINATIONS: A. D. 1905-1906. The Tobacco Trust Case of Hale v. Henkel. Denial by the Supreme Court of the claim of corporations to be exempt from the production of books and papers before a Grand Jury.
A proceeding begun by the Government of the United States, in the spring of 1905, to ascertain the lawfulness or unlawfulness of the methods of business pursued by the so-called Tobacco Trust, was embarrassed by the refusal of a witness to give evidence for which he was summoned before the grand jury of the Circuit Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York. The case pending was between the United States and the American Tobacco Company and MacAndrews & Forbes Company. The witness, Hale, was secretary and treasurer of the MacAndrews & Forbes Company. He refused to answer any questions that were put to him concerning the business of that company, or to produce any of the books, accounts, contracts, correspondence, etc., that were demanded, being advised by counsel that he was under no legal obligation to do so, and that the evidence given or produced by him might tend to incriminate himself. He was held to be in contempt of Court and was committed to the custody of the United States Marshal. Being then, on a writ of habeas corpus, brought before another judge of the same Court, after a hearing, the writ was discharged and he was remanded to custody (June 18, 1905). An appeal to the Supreme Court followed, which was argued in the early days of January, 1906, and decided on the 12th of March following.
The decision of the Court, rendered by Justice Brown, was on two issues which it found to be presented in the case: The first involving "the immunity of the witness from oral examination; the second the legality of his action in refusing to produce the documents called for by the subpœna duces tecum." The witness justified his refusal to answer questions, "1st upon the ground that there was no specific ‘charge’ pending before the grand jury against any particular person; 2d that the answers would tend to criminate him." On the first point the Court found it "entirely clear that under the practice in this country, at least, the examination of witnesses need not be preceded by a presentment or indictment formally drawn up, but that the grand jury may proceed, either upon their own knowledge or upon the examination of witnesses, to inquire for themselves whether a crime cognizable by the Court has been committed." As to the plea of an apprehended self-incrimination, the Court held that the witness was protected by the act which provides that no person shall be prosecuted on account of anything concerning which he may testify or produce evidence. But it was further insisted that while the immunity statute may protect individual witnesses it would not protect the corporation of which the appellant was the agent and representative. "This is true," says the Court, "but the answer is that it was not designed to do so. The right of a person under the Fifth Amendment to refuse to incriminate himself is purely a personal privilege of the witness. It was never intended to permit him to plead the fact that some third person might be incriminated by his testimony, even though he were the agent of such person."
On the second issue in the case, the substance of the decision is in the following passages from it:
"Having already held that, by reason of the immunity act of 1903, the witness could not avail himself of the Fifth Amendment, it follows that he cannot set up that Amendment as against the production of the books and papers, since in respect to these he would also be protected by the immunity act. … We are of the opinion that there is a clear distinction in this particular between an individual and a corporation, and that the latter has no right to refuse to submit its books and papers for an examination at the suit of the State. … The individual may stand upon his constitutional rights as a citizen. He is entitled to carry on his private business in his own way. … Among his rights are a refusal to incriminate himself, and the immunity of himself and his property from arrest or seizure except under a warrant of the law. … Upon the other hand, the corporation is a creature of the State. It is presumed to be incorporated for the benefit of the public. … Its rights to act as a corporation are only preserved to it so long as it obeys the laws of its creation. There is a reserved right in the Legislature to investigate its contracts and to find out whether it has exceeded its powers. … The defense amounts to this: That an officer of a corporation, which is charged with a criminal violation of the statute, may plead the criminality of such corporation as a refusal to produce its books. {126} To state this proposition is to answer it. While an individual may lawfully refuse to answer incriminating questions unless protected by an immunity statute, it does not follow that a corporation, vested with special privileges and franchises, may refuse to show its hand when charged with an abuse of such privileges."
Taking note of the fact that the franchises of the corporation in this case were derived from one of the States, the Court proceeds to say:
"Such franchises, so far as they involve questions of inter-State commerce, must also be exercised in subordination to the power of Congress to regulate such commerce, and in respect to this the General Government may also assert a sovereign authority to ascertain whether such franchises have been exercised in a lawful manner, with due regard to its own laws. … The powers of the General Government in this particular, in vindication of its own laws, are the same as if the corporation had been created by an act of Congress."
Justices Harlan and McKenna dissented from some of the views set forth in the opinion of the majority, as declared by Justice Brown, but concurred in the final judgment, which affirmed the order of the Circuit Court, remanding the prisoner to the custody of the Marshal. Justice Brewer and the Chief Justice dissented from the conclusions relative to corporations, and from the judgment, holding that "the order of the Circuit Court should be reversed and the case remanded with instructions to discharge the petitioner, leaving the grand jury to initiate new proceedings not subject to the objections to this."
_Federal Anti-Trust Decisions, 1900-1906, prepared and edited by James A. Finch by direction of the Attorney-General, Volume 2, page 874 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1907)._
COMBINATIONS: A. D. 1906-1910. The Standard Oil Company. Suit of the Government for its dissolution. Decree for its dissolution by the Circuit Court. Appeal to the Supreme Court.
Entirely distinct from the criminal prosecutions of the Standard Oil Company by the United States Government, as reviewed above was a suit begun in November, 1906, in the United States Circuit Court for the Eastern Division of Missouri. The former actions were to penalize the Company for violations of the Elkins Act, by the procuring of railway rebates. The later suit was to dissolve the combination in restraint of trade which the Company was alleged to be, and therefore illegally existing, in the view of the Sherman Anti-Trust Law. The complaint was directed against the parent organization, known as the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey, with its various subsidiary corporations. It was also directed against seven individuals namely, John D. Rockefeller, William Rockefeller, Henry M. Flagler, Henry H. Rogers (now deceased), John D. Archbold, Oliver H. Payne, and Charles M. Pratt. The main company, its branches, and these individuals were charged in the complaint with having entered into an agreement, combination, and conspiracy to restrain trade and commerce among the several States, to monopolize the trade in petroleum, both in its purchase and its shipment and transportation by pipe-line, steamships and by rail, also in the manufacture and refining of petroleum.
One of the evidences of its monopoly adduced by the Government was the enormity of its earnings which were summarized thus: The Standard Oil Trust and the Standard Oil Company, on an investment of $69,024,480, had earned up to the end of 1906, $838,783,783. Adding the estimated profits of 1907 and 1908, we have substantially, the brief states, a billion dollars earned by this company in twenty-seven years, with an original investment of about $69,000,000.
The United States asked for a perpetual injunction, and for the dissolution of the Standard Oil combination. Hearings were held in New York, Washington, Chicago, Cleveland, and St. Louis, about four hundred witnesses being examined. It was not until the 5th of April, 1909, that the case reached the stage of argument, before Judges Walter H. Sanborn, Willis Van Devanter, William C. Hook and Elmer B. Adams, constituting the United States Circuit Court at St. Louis. The decision of the Court was announced on the 20th of the following November, the four judges concurring in the opinion, written by Judge Sanborn, which held the Standard Oil Company to be an illegal corporation and decreed its dissolution. The character of the decision appears from the syllabus of Judge Sanborn’s opinion, which reads:
"Congress has power under the commercial clause of the Constitution to regulate and restrict the use in commerce among the several States, and with foreign nations, of contracts, of the method of holding title to property and of every other instrumentality employed in that commerce, so far as it may be necessary to do so, in order to prevent the restraint thereof denounced by the Anti-Trust Act of July 2, 1890 (26 Stat. 29).
"Test of the legality of a combination under this act is its necessary effect upon competition in commerce among the States or with foreign nations. If its necessary effect is only incidentally or indirectly to restrict the competition, while its chief result is to foster the trade and increase the business of those who make and operate it, it does not violate that law. But if its necessary effect is to stifle or directly and substantially to restrict free competition in commerce among the States, or with foreign nations, it is illegal within the meaning of that statute.
"The power to restrict competition in commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, vested in a person or an association of persons by a combination, is indicative of the character of the combination, because it is to the interest of the parties that such a power should be exercised, and the presumption is that it will be.
"The combination in a single corporation or person, by an exchange of stock, of the power of many stockholders holding the same proportions, respectively, of the majority of the stock of each of the several corporations engaged in commerce in the same articles among the States, or with foreign nations, to restrict competition therein, renders the power thus vested in the former greater, more easily exercised, more durable, and more effective than that previously held by the stockholders, and it is illegal.
{127}
"In 1899 the stockholders of the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey owned a majority of the stock of nineteen other corporations in the same proportions that they owned the stock of the Standard Company, and those twenty corporations controlled by the owners of the majority of their stock or otherwise many other corporations. Each of these corporations was engaged in some part of the business of producing, buying, refining, transporting, and selling petroleum and its products, and they were conducting about 30 per cent. of the production of the crude oil and more than 75 per cent. of the business of the purchasing, refining, transporting, and selling petroleum and its products in this country. Many of them were engaged in commerce in these articles among the several States and with foreign nations, and were naturally competitive.
"During the ten years prior to 1879 the seven individual defendants had acquired control of many corporations, partnerships, and refiners that had been competing in this business, had placed the majority of the stock of those corporations and the interests in property in business thus obtained in various trustees to be held and operated by them for the stockholders of the Standard Oil Company, one of the nineteen companies in which the individual defendants were principal stockholders, and had thereby suppressed competition among these corporations and partnerships.
"In 1879, they and their associates caused all the trustees to convey their interests in the stock, property and business of these corporations to five trustees, to be held, operated and distributed by them for the stockholders of the Standard Company of Ohio. From 1879, until 1892, they prevented these corporations and others engaged in this business, of which they secured control, from competing in this commerce by causing the control of their operations and generally of a majority of their stocks, to be held in trust for the stockholders of the Standard Company of Ohio, and, from 1892, until 1899, they accomplished the same result by a similar stock-holding device, and by the joint equitable ownership of the majority of the stocks of the corporations."
Appeal from the decree has been taken to the Supreme Court, where it was preceded by the appeal of the Tobacco Trust from a similar decree, involving substantially the same questions, according to what seems to be the general view of the Bar. On the 17th of January, 1910, the Supreme Court of the United States granted the motion of the Government for the advancement on the docket of the Standard Oil case, and set the hearing for March 14.
COMBINATIONS: A. D. 1907. The chief existing combinations. Their operation through stock ownership.
"Passing the matter of railroad combinations, as to which it may be said that through stock ownership the control of all American lines is now concentrated in seven groups of parent properties, we are chiefly concerned with the practical use that has been made of the new corporate power by the largest and strongest of our manufacturing and industrial enterprises.
"The United States Steel Corporation, organized under the laws of New Jersey, with a capital stock of $1,100,000,000 owns a majority of the stock of eleven subsidiary companies, and controls industries scattered over the entire country under different styles and corporate names. This corporation owns or manages 213 manufacturing and transportation plants and forty-one mines located in eighteen different States; it has more than 1,000 miles of railroad tracks to ore, coke and manufacturing properties, and a lake fleet of 112 vessels. This stock ownership gives it control of hundreds of millions of capital that is not represented by its own billion dollars of stock.
"The Amalgamated Copper Company, incorporated in New Jersey, has no asset whatever except the stocks of other corporations. It owns all the stock of four operating companies and a controlling interest in seven others, and has taken them over by an issue of $155,000,000 of its own stock.
"The American Smelting and Refining Company, organized under the laws of New Jersey, controls the business of thirteen corporations, in which it either owns the entire stock or a majority interest. Associated with it are the American Linseed Company, the National Lead Company and the United Lead Company, and they together control twenty-eight concerns and ninety-three affiliated corporations.
"The Standard Oil Company, incorporated in New Jersey, with a capital stock of $110,000,000, controls, directs and manages more than seventy corporations through its possession of a majority of their stock. Some of these companies own stock in still other corporations, and all together the combine operates more than 400 separate and distinct properties, thus monopolizing 90 per cent, of the export oil trade and 84 per cent. of the domestic trade. The market value of its capitalization is about $650,000,000, and all this vast property was brought together under one head without the payment of a single dollar of cash, the whole consolidation being effected through the issue of stock in the holding company in payment of stock in the companies that are held.
"The United Gas Improvement Company, incorporated in Pennsylvania, own stock in thirty corporations doing the character of business for which it was organized, and in addition to this is interested in numerous street railway properties, including the New York City surface railways. With it is allied the Public Service Corporation of New Jersey and the Rhode Island Securities Company, which last named owns all the stock of the Rhode Island Company, which again has leased for 999 years several of the most important railroad companies doing business in that State. The power of this corporation, through this system of stock ownership, is scarcely calculable, and the value of properties controlled would equal hundreds of millions, although its own capital stock is but $36,000,000.
"The American Tobacco Company, organized under the laws of New Jersey, with a capital stock of $40,000,000, practically controls the whole market through its ownership of the stock of innumerable other corporations.
"The International Harvester Company, incorporated in New Jersey, with a capital stock of $120,000,000, while probably not a holding company, maintains most, if not all, the corporations which it has bought out, and they are operated as if they were distinct and competing concerns.
"The American Sugar Refining Company, incorporated in New Jersey, with a common stock of $40,000,000, controls fifty-three other corporations.
{128}
"The American Telegraph and Telephone Company, incorporated in New York, with a capital stock of $250,000,000 controls, through stock ownership, thirty-five subsidiary corporations.
"The Western Union Telegraph Company owns stock in twenty-four other corporations; the Distillers’ Security Company owns 90 per cent. of the stocks of the Distilling Company of America, and has acquired ninety-three plants, representing 60 per cent. of the industry; the Philadelphia Rapid Transit Company owns the stock of twelve elevated and street railway companies; the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company owns the stock of seven others; the Metropolitan Securities Company of New York owns the stock of many traction companies, and the controlling interest in others; the Inter-State Railways of New Jersey own all the stock of the United Power and Transportation Company, which latter company controls the capital and franchises of about forty other projected companies in New Jersey and Pennsylvania; while the International Mercantile Marine Company of New Jersey owns a majority of the shares of many of the most important steamship companies whose vessels cross the Atlantic Ocean.
"These are but a few instances of the promotion of combinations through stock ownership."
_Wade H. Ellis, Attorney-General of Ohio, Paper read at National Conference on Trusts and Combinations, Chicago, October 22, 1907._
COMBINATIONS: A. D. 1907. National Conference on the Trust Question, invited by the National Civic Federation.
A remarkably representative and impressive assembly at Chicago, of delegates from all parts of the country, and voicing all interests, was brought about by the invitation of the National Civic Federation, in October, 1907, for a thorough discussion of the questions which troubled the country and confused its attitude toward Trusts and Combinations, as subjects of regulation by law. There had been a similar conference at Chicago in 1899, at the call of the Civic Federation of that city; but no common ground of agreement could then be found. The subject, as was afterwards said, "was too new, too vaguely understood for men to be of one mind in regard to it." But eight years later, in 1907, "it appeared to the leaders of the National Civic Federation not improbable that a new conference might lead to some definite pronouncement of opinion. … Leaders of opinion in all walks of life gave the project their hearty endorsement. … The matter was taken up with great interest by the Governors of the several States and by the presidents of commercial bodies, who named delegates in response to the invitation of the National Civic Federation. A significant evidence of this greater interest is found in the larger number of delegations appointed in 1907 than in 1899. The records show the following:
Delegations. 1899. 1907.
Appointed by Governors 33 39
Appointed by national and State organizations 22 33
Appointed by labor organizations 7 14
Appointed by local commercial bodies 33 58
Total 95 144
"Furthermore, the attendance of 492 delegates in 1907 might be contrasted with that of 238 delegates at the earlier conference.
"The conference of 1907, though larger in numbers, was much more of a unit in sentiment. It developed at an early stage of the discussion that there was no important element antagonizing the trust and combination as such. There were few speakers who failed to dwell upon the advantages which had accrued to the nation from some combinations, and from the spirit of association which, after all, cannot be separated from them. On the other hand, there was no lack of emphasis in dwelling upon the evils which had been disclosed among trusts and combinations.
"The resolutions of the conference, adopted by a unanimous vote, reveal these tendencies. They are a call for further examination and more light, but a call for such examination along certain pretty well-defined lines. They should receive the attention of Congress as an expression of the popular will on this pressing question."
The Conference held nine sessions, extending over four days, focusing the thought of the best minds of the country, and the counsels of the largest practical experience, on all points in the many-sided problem before it. On all that appear most important among those points it came to a full and clear agreement in its conclusions, as embodied in the following resolutions, which were adopted by unanimous vote, a committee being appointed to present them to Congress and to the President:
"After twenty years of Federal legislation as interpreted by the courts, directed against the evils of trusts and combinations, and against railroad rebates, beginning with the interstate commerce act of 1887 and the anti-trust act of 1890, a general and just conviction exists that the experience gained in enforcing these federal acts and others succeeding them demonstrates the necessity of legislation which shall render more secure the benefits already gained and better meet the changed conditions which have arisen during a long period of active progress, both in the enforcement of statute law and in the removal of grave abuses in the management of railroads and corporations. These changes now demanded are:
"First—Immediate legislation is required, following the recommendation of President Roosevelt and the Interstate Commerce Commission, permitting agreements between railroad corporations on reasonable freight and passenger rates, subject in all respects to the approval, supervision, and action of the Interstate Commerce Commission.
"Second—The enforcement of the Sherman act and the proceedings under it during the administrations of Presidents Harrison, Cleveland, McKinley, and Roosevelt have accomplished great national results in awakening the moral sense of the American people and in asserting the supremacy and majesty of the law, thus effectually refuting the impression that great wealth and large corporations were too powerful for the impartial execution of law. This great advance has rendered more secure all property rights, resting, as they must, under a popular government, on universal respect for and obedience to law. But now that this work is accomplished, it has revealed the necessity for legislation which shall maintain all that the Sherman act was intended to secure and safeguard interests it was never expected to affect.
{129}
"As the next step in executing the determination of the American people to secure in all industrial and commercial relations justice and equality of opportunity for all, with full sympathy and loyal support for every effort to enforce the laws in the past, we urge upon Congress without delay to pass legislation providing for a non-partisan commission, in which the interests of capital, of labor, and of the general public shall be represented. This commission, like a similar commission, which proved most successful in Germany in 1870, shall consider the entire subject of business and industrial combinations and report such proposals, as to the formation, capitalization, management and regulation of corporations (so far as the same may be subject to federal jurisdiction) as shall preserve individual initiative competition, and the free exercise of a free contract in all business and industrial relations. Any proposed legislation should also include modification of the prohibition now existing upon combinations on the following subjects:
"1. National and local organizations of labor and their trade agreements with employers relating to wages, hours of labor, and conditions of employment.
"2. Associations made up of farmers, intended to secure a stable and equitable market for the products of the soil free from fluctuations due to speculation.
"3. Business and industrial agreements of combinations whose objects are in the public interest as distinguished from objects determined to be contrary to the public interest.
"4. Such commission should make a thorough inquiry into the advisability of inaugurating a system of federal license or incorporation as a condition for the entrance of certain classes of corporations upon interstate commerce and also into the relation to the public interest of the purchase by one corporation of the franchises or corporate stock of another.
"On no one of these subjects must what has been gained be sacrificed until something better appears for enactment. On each, this conference recognizes differences between good men. On all, it asks a national non-partisan commission to be appointed next winter to consider the question and report at the second session of the approaching Congress for such action as the national legislature, in the light of this full investigation, may enact.
"Third—The examination, inspection and supervision of great producing and manufacturing corporations, already begun by the Department of Commerce and Labor and accepted by these corporations, should be enlarged by legislation requiring, through the appropriate bureaus of the Department of Commerce and Labor, complete publicity in the capitalization, accounts, operations, transportation charges paid, and selling prices of all such producing and manufacturing corporations whose operations are large enough to have a monopolistic influence. This should be determined and decided by some rule and classification to be devised by the commission already proposed.
"Fourth—The conflicts between State and Federal authorities raised in many States over railroad rates being now under adjudication and under way to a final and ultimate decision by the Federal Supreme Court, this conference deems the expression of an opinion on these issues unfitting, and confidently leaves this great issue to a tribunal which for 118 years has successfully preserved the balance between an indissoluble union and indestructible State, defining the supreme and national powers of the one and protecting the sovereign and individual powers of the other."
Proceedings of the National Conference on Trusts and Combinations, Chicago, October 22-25, 1907 (New York: National Civic Federation, 1908).
COMBINATIONS: A. D. 1907-1909. Thievery of the Sugar Trust.
In the fall of 1907 disclosures were made to the Government which led to an investigation of the methods whereby imports of raw sugar for the American Sugar Refining Company, known commonly as the Sugar Trust, were weighed for the payment of Customs duties, at the Company’s docks in Williamsburgh and Jersey City. The result of the investigation was to prove that this enormously wealthy corporation, not satisfied with extortions of profit from the public by its monopoly of the vast sugar trade of the country, had stooped to practices of systematic theft from the Government, by devices that would almost shame the professional players of a thimble rigging game. Several ingenious inventions of trickery with the weighing scales had been employed at the sugar docks prior to 1904, but the crowning one appears to have been brought to use in that year. "This," said the New York Evening Post of April 29, 1909, in a full rehearsal of the story of the Sugar Trust larcenies, "consisted of a thin steel corset spring, which was inserted through a hole drilled in the uprights or stanchions supporting the scales. If inserted at a time when there was a load on the platform, its pressure against the walking beam of the scale resulted in creating a false balance, and in making the load appear considerably lighter than it really was. This little device proved to be so satisfactory for the purposes for which it was designed that it was fitted to all the seventeen government scales at the Havemeyer & Elder refinery. Holes were drilled in the stanchions of each of the scales—hence the ‘case of the seventeen holes’ to which Mr. Stimson called attention. So successful was the operation of this mechanism that it was used constantly down to the very day, November 20, 1907, when a United States Treasury agent found it in use.
"The method of use was simple. The scales were placed with the stanchions in a dark corner, next to the wall, and close beside this stanchion sat the company’s checker, whose ostensible duty it was to record in a little book the weight of each load as it was read off to him by the government weigher standing at the other end of the scale. The checker’s really important duty seems to have been, however, to manipulate the steel spring through the hole in the stanchion, so that on each truck load, the company which employed him was saved the payment of duty on some fourteen pounds of sugar.
"Evidence was adduced at the subsequent trial to show that the company considered this special service on the part of its checkers worthy of additional compensation. For although there were seventeen scales, all of which could be used for this purpose, practically all the weighing was done on six, and the six reliable checkers who, year in and year out, operated the little steel springs, all received extra pay in their weekly pay envelopes for this service."
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Consequent on the discovery of these facts, "several indictments were found against the Sugar Trust’s employees, and with that discovery as a basis the government began to work up its case. … When the government came to work up its case and to fix approximately the amount out of which it had been defrauded, it was found possible to present a piece of evidence which so thoroughly clinched the case that defence, when it came to be made, was so weak as to be negligible. This evidence consisted of a tabulation comparing the weights of sugar on which duty was paid and the weights for which the company paid the planters between the time the first cargo of sugar of December, 1901, arrived at the refinery and the discovery of the fraud in November, 1907.
"It took a score or more of accountants working steadily for six months to complete the tabulation, but when it was finished the astonishing corroborative story it told made it well worth all the time and trouble expended. Never was there a better example of the deadly parallel. For every entry the weights on which duties were levied was set alongside of the weights for which the company paid the planters."
The first result of the proceedings of the Government against the thievish Trust was a pecuniary settlement with it, concerning which the following official statement was given out at Washington, by Attorney-General Wickersham, on the 29th of April, 1909:
"The Attorney-General, with the concurrence of the Secretary of the Treasury, has just approved a settlement between the American Sugar Refining Company and the United States Government of all the claims which the latter has against it arising out of the fraudulent weighing on the docks of its refineries at Brooklyn and Jersey City. In making this settlement the sugar company pays in full the recent judgment for the penalty in the amount of $134,411.03, which was awarded against it by the jury in the case tried in the federal court last March, with interest, and agrees to take no appeal from the judgment.
"In addition to this, it pays into the United States treasury $2,000,000 more, representing the duties which have been unpaid during the last twelve years, owing to the fraudulent practices, $1,239,088.97 of this amount has already been paid in under protest to Collector Loeb on his reliquidation, as a result of the trial above mentioned, of the duties upon the cargoes entered at the Havemeyer & Elder refineries between the years 1901 and 1907, when the frauds were discovered.
"The sugar company abandons its protests on these payments and gives up its right to appeal from Mr. Loeb’s reliquidation and in addition to this pays into the United States treasury the above judgment and over $760,000 more to cover the duties unpaid at the Havemeyer & Elder docks prior to 1901 and at the Jersey City refinery between 1896 and 1906.
"This settlement with the sugar company in nowise affects the criminal prosecution of the individuals who are responsible for the perpetration of these frauds, and such prosecutions will be pressed to a finish by the government."
[Soon after this settlement with the Government by the Sugar Trust for shortage in payment of duties, the firm of Arbuckle Brothers made a similar settlement, paying $695,573.19.]
A few days after the above announcement of a pecuniary settlement with the American Sugar Refining Company, the Grand Jury of the Circuit Court in the New York District presented indictments against Oliver Spitzer, who was superintendent on the company’s docks, Thomas Kehoe, Eugene M. Voelker, Edward A. Boyle, J. R. Coyle, J. M. Halligan, Jr., and Patrick J. Hennessy.
In November, further indictments were found against these employees of the company, and James F. Bendernagel, general superintendent of the Williamsburgh refinery for many years past, was arrested on an indictment found by the same grand jury. The trial of the accused, in the United States District Court, was opened on the 30th of November.
On the 17th of January, 1910, Charles R. Heike, secretary and treasurer of the American Sugar Refining Company, was arraigned before Judge Hough in the criminal branch of the United States Circuit Court, charged with making false entries and conspiring to defraud the government.
COMBINATIONS: A. D. 1907-1909. Suit of the Government against the Tobacco Trust. Decree of Circuit Court restraining the combined companies from interstate and foreign trade.
On the 10th of July, 1907, the Government began suit at New York against the so-called Tobacco Trust. The defendants in the case included 65 corporations and 27 individuals, the principals, however, being six companies, namely, the American Tobacco Company, the British-American Tobacco Company, the Imperial Tobacco Company, the American Snuff Company, the American Cigar Company, and the United American Cigarette Company. Of these the parent organization, dominating all the others, is the American Tobacco Company, which began the finally gigantic combination in a small way in 1890. The object sought in the Government’s suit was an injunction to restrain the combination as such from engaging in interstate and foreign trade, or for the appointment of receivers to take the management of the business concerned.
The case was argued before the Second Circuit Court of the United States in May, 1908, and the decision of the Court was announced on the 7th of November following, Judges Lacombe, Noyes, and Coxe agreeing and Judge Ward dissenting. The Court found that an injunction should issue against some, but not all, of the principal defendants, to prevent the continuance of their violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Law. It acquitted the Trust, however, of the charge of dishonest and oppressive practices, and it denied the application for receiverships. The final decree of the Court was filed on the 15th of December, 1908.
Appeals to the Supreme Court of the United States were taken, both by the Government and by the defendants, and the case was pending in that Court at the close of the year 1909. Mean time the decree has been in suspense.
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COMBINATIONS: A. D. 1907-1909. Suit to dissolve the alleged Anthracite Coal Combination.
The following statements were made in an Associated Press despatch from Philadelphia, March 8, 1909:
"Testimony of the Government in its suit against the anthracite coal-carrying railroads and several coal companies, to dissolve a so-called Trust agreement, alleged to be existing among them, has been filed in the Circuit Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
"Suit was begun here on June 12, 1907, and in the course of three months all the defendants made answer, denying the allegations of the Government. Subsequently, the court appointed an examiner to take testimony, and a great part of last year was taken up in hearing witnesses, sessions being held mainly in Philadelphia and New York.
"The Government closed its case in New York several weeks ago, having taken more than its allotted time, and the next move will be for the Government to file a motion apportioning a certain amount of time for the defendant companies to present their witnesses for examination. Much of the testimony thus far has been documentary, and it is believed this will be the case with the defendants. After all the testimony is filed with the court for review, arguments will be had on the case.
"It is impossible at this time to indicate when the case will be ended, but it seems probable that a year or more will have elapsed before it is legally decided whether a hard coal monopoly, as alleged, exists in Pennsylvania."
See, also, proceedings under the "Commodities Clause" of the Hepburn Act, and decision of United States Supreme Court, in this Volume, under RAILWAYS: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1906-1909.
COMBINATIONS: A. D. 1908. Declarations in Party Platforms on Trusts.
See (in this Volume) UNITED STATES: A. D. 1908 (APRIL-NOVEMBER).
COMBINATIONS: A. D. 1908-1909. Amending the Sherman Anti-Trust Law. Action of the National Civic Federation.
The resolutions adopted at the great National Conference of 1907 on the Trust Question, as recited above, were duly presented to Congress at its next session, and to the President, with results which were stated at the annual meeting of the National Civic Federation in December, 1908, by its President, the Honorable Seth Low, as follows:
"When these resolutions were presented to the two Houses, the Conference Committee was asked to submit a definite Bill in legislative form to carry out its proposals. The Conference itself had given no such authority to any Committee; but, in view of the situation as it had developed, the Executive Committee of the Federation took the matter up. The result of its action was the preparation of a Bill, which was submitted in due time to Congress, and which became the subject of numerous hearings before the Judiciary Committees both of the House and of the Senate, but especially of the House. The Bill of last spring was based upon the belief that at that time, and before the approaching Presidential election, it would be impossible to change the substantive law as embodied in the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. This being taken for granted, it became impossible to do more than propose a method by which, without changing the law, certain restraints of trade, if not disapproved in advance by some government authority, might be assured freedom from prosecution. The hearings before the Congressional Committees made it evident that no relief from the embarrassments caused by the Sherman Anti-Trust Law can be looked for along this line of procedure. Perhaps it ought also to be said that none ought to be looked for, because the situation really calls for a change in the substantive provisions of the law. Let no one imagine, however, that it is an easy thing to say what such changes in the law ought to be. Your Committee last spring began its work in the hope that it would be able to submit a law which would command very large support, not only from employers but also from organized labor. After working upon the subject for many weeks, the Bill which it actually presented commanded no large measure of support from either. The mercantile classes favor amendments to the law which, instead of forbidding all restraints of trade, will forbid only unreasonable restraints of trade; and which will provide amnesty for the past, (1) on the theoretical ground that what has been done has often been done without any realization that it was contrary to the law; and (2) on the practical ground that to attempt to rip up what has already been done will destroy the industry of the country. The representatives of organized labor, on the other hand, ask to be omitted altogether from the provisions of the Sherman Act. It is evident to your Committee that the changes desired by the mercantile classes are going to meet with very serious objection, unless they are combined with some positive legislation which will provide some effective method of assuring to the country, in the future, the power to protect itself in advance from new combinations in the industrial sphere, such as have been made in the past, and which originally created the sentiment which placed the Sherman Anti-Trust Law upon the statute books.
"In other words, precisely as a city may desire to limit the height of buildings, for the future, without taking down those that are already erected, so many persons believe that the right to make commercial combinations, in the future, should be under some sort of governmental control, even though those already formed be left unmolested; and such persons, also, believe that there is the same inherent right in the body politic to do the one as the other. On the other hand, the demand of organized labor to be exempted altogether from the operations of this Act has been objected to in the past, and is likely to be objected to in the future, as class legislation of a kind that has no place on American soil, because organized labor is believed to be capable of exercising restraint of trade no less than commercial corporations.
"These being the terms of the problem, it is apparent, on the face of things, that the effort to amend the Sherman Anti-Trust Law in any effective way is beset by difficulties at every turn. … The whole subject is made infinitely difficult by the Constitutional limitations upon the power of Congress, which have led the United States Supreme Court to decide, in effect, that Congress can regulate inter-State commerce, but cannot regulate the corporation that does it; because the corporation that does inter-State commerce is a creature of the State and not of the United States. The separate States, on the other hand, can regulate the corporations that do inter State commerce, because they create them; but the States cannot regulate the inter-state commerce that is done, because under the United States Constitution, inter-State commerce is under National control. It cannot be too clearly apprehended that the effect of this situation is, that neither sovereignty—neither the National sovereignty nor the State sovereignty—can regulate both the agent that does inter-State commerce and the inter-State commerce that is done."
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In the National Civic Federation Review of March, 1909, it was announced that "the Executive Council of the National Civic Federation has appointed a committee to draft proposed amendments to the Sherman Anti-Trust act. By request of the lawyers upon the committee Seth Low will serve as chairman. The other members are Frederick P. Fish, of Boston; Frederick N. Judson, of St. Louis; Reuben D. Silliman, of New York, and Henry W. Taft, of New York.
"No attempt will be made to submit anything to the present session of Congress. It is proposed to draft a tentative bill as soon as a careful study of the problems will permit. This will then be submitted for examination and suggestion to various representative bodies in all parts of the country, and with the aid of the comments thus received the final draft of the bill to be submitted will be prepared."
COMBINATIONS: A. D. 1909. Report of the Commissioner of Corporations on the Tobacco Combination, or so-called Trust.
Parts of an elaborate report on the organization of the Tobacco Combination were published in February, 1909, by the Commissioner of Corporations, Herbert Knox Smith. It showed the combination to be composed of "the American Tobacco Company and its three great subsidiary combinations, the American Snuff Company, the American Cigar Company, and the British-American Company, besides eighty two other subsidiary concerns doing business in the United States, Porto Rico, and Cuba. The combination represents a total net capitalization of over $316,000,000. A very small group of ten stockholders controls 60 per cent. of the outstanding voting stock of the American Tobacco Company, through which company the entire combination is controlled."
A list of the subsidiary companies controlled, "including over twenty hitherto secretly controlled, so-called ‘bogus independent concerns,'" is given in the report. It is shown also that the combination is practically the only important exporter of tobacco manufactures from this country. In 1891 the combination controlled 89 per cent. of the business of cigarette manufactures, and this proportion practically is maintained. In cigars its output increased from 4 per cent. of the business in 1897 to 14.7 per cent, in 1906; while in manufactured tobacco (chewing, smoking, fine-cut, and snuff) "the combination’s output increased from 7 per cent. of the total in 1891 to 77 per cent. in 1906. Finally, in 1906, the combination controlled of these separate products, respectively, plug, 82 per cent.; smoking, 71 per cent.; fine-cut, 81 per cent., and snuff, 96 per cent." In the year 1906 the combination used in the manufacture of its various products nearly 300,000,000 pounds of leaf tobacco. The report adds:
"An idea of the absorption of competing plants and of the changes through combination within the last decade may be had from the fact that in 1897 the combination had ten plants, each producing over 50,000 pounds of manufactured tobacco or snuff per year, while there were 243 independent plants of the same class. In 1906, on the other hand, the combination had 45 plants of this class, and independent manufacturers 140. Especially conspicuous has been the absorption of the large plants. In 1897 the combination had eight plants, each producing over 1,000,000 pounds of these products per year, while its competitors had forty-six such plants. In 1906 the combination had thirty-four plants of this size, and independent concerns only seventeen."
COMBINATIONS: A. D. 1909. Merger of Telephone and Telegraph Corporations.
Announcement of one of the most important financial mergers of recent years was made November 16, 1909, when the American Telephone and Telegraph Company disclosed its acquirement of control of the Western Union Telegraph Company. "The American Telephone and Telegraph Company has obtained the control of a substantial minority interest in the shares of the Western Union Telegraph Company," was the wording of the official statement, but it became known that sufficient voting rights of other stock had been obtained to give the telephone interests control of the telegraph company.
According to a statement issued on May 1, 1909, the total capital and outstanding interest-bearing obligations of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company and allied systems was $592,475,400. This amount included capital stock aggregating $361,636,800, subdivided as follows: American Telephone and Telegraph Company, $208,393,500; associated operating companies in the United States and Canada, about thirty-five in number, $142,674,400; associated holding and manufacturing companies, $10,668,900. "The Western Union has a capitalization of $125,000,000 in stock and $40,000,000 in bonds.
COMBINATIONS: A. D. 1909. Threatened combination to control the Water Power of the country.
Speaking at the National Irrigation Congress, convened at Spokane, Washington, in August, 1909, the National Forester, Gifford Pinchot, declared that, notwithstanding the contradictions issued by the parties in interest, a gigantic combination was forming to seize the sources of the country’s water power, and be in a position later to dominate all industry.
"There could be no better illustration," he said, "of the eager, rapid, unwearied absorption by capital of the rights which belong to all the people than the Water Power Trust, not yet formed, but in rapid progress of formation. This statement is true, but not unchallenged. We are met at every turn by the indignant denial of the water power interests. They tell us that there is no community of interest among them, and yet they appear year after year at these Congresses by their paid attorneys, asking for your influence to help them remove the few remaining obstacles to their perpetual and complete absorption of the remaining water powers. They tell us it has no significance that the General Electric interests are acquiring great groups of water powers in various parts of the United States, and dominating the power market in the region of each group. And whoever dominates power, dominates all industry. … The time for us to agitate this question is now, before the separate circles of centralized control spread into the uniform, unbroken, nation-wide covering of a single gigantic Trust. There will be little chance for mere agitation after that. No man at all familiar with the situation can doubt that the time for effective protest is very short."
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The same warning has been given by others who are in a position to speak with knowledge, and heed has been given to them by the Government. The annual report of the Secretary of the Interior, the Honorable Richard A. Ballinger, made public November 28, 1909, contained the following important announcement: "In anticipation of new legislation by Congress to prevent the acquisition of power sites on the public domain by private persons or corporations with the view of monopolizing or adversely controlling them against the public interest, there have been temporarily withdrawn from all forms of entry approximately 603,355 acres, covering all locations known to possess power possibilities on unappropriated lands outside of national forests. Without such withdrawals these sites would be enterable under existing laws, and their patenting would leave the general government powerless to impose any limitations as to their use.
"If the Federal government desires to exercise control or supervision over water-power development on the public domain, it can only do so by limitations imposed upon the disposal of power and reservoir sites upon the public lands, the waters of the streams being subject to State jurisdiction in their appropriation and beneficial use. I would, therefore, advise that the Congress be asked to enact a measure that will authorize the classification of all lands capable of being used for water-power development, and to direct their disposal, through this department. …
"Unreasonable or narrow restrictions beyond the necessity of public protection against monopoly, or extortion in charges, will, of course, defeat development and serve no useful purpose. The statute should, therefore, while giving full protection against the abuses of the privileges extended, so far as consistent, encourage investment in these projects; and it must always be borne in mind that excessive charges for the franchise will fall upon the consumer. Legislation of this character proceeds upon the theory that Congress can impose such contractual terms and conditions as it sees fit in the sale or use permitted of government lands so long as such limitations do not conflict with the powers properly exercised by the State wherein they may be situated."
COMBINATIONS: A. D. 1909. The Sugar Trust settles a conspiracy charge.
While the American Sugar Refining Company, in the spring of 1909, was being forced to make good to the Government its long cheating of the Custom House, it was being compelled, at the same time, to indemnify a competitor in business, whom it had ruined by means which the Sherman Anti-Trust Law forbade. Its victim was the Pennsylvania Sugar Refining Company, whose refinery had been established by Mr. Adolph Segal, of Philadelphia, in 1903. Segal became financially embarrassed, and was lured into taking a loan of $1,250,000, from a person who acted secretly in the transaction for the American Sugar Refining Company. The loan was made on terms which gave the lender control of a majority of the stock of the Pennsylvania Sugar Refining Company, and Mr. Segal found, when too late, that the real lender was the Sugar Trust. It used its power to shutdown the plant, which was said to be the most perfect of its kind, and the Pennsylvania Company was wrecked. It brought a suit for damages to the amount of $30,000,000, inflicted upon it in contravention of the Anti-Trust Law. Before the trial ended, the defendants found so much reason to fear its outcome that negotiations were opened which resulted (June 8, 1909) in a settlement of the claim outside of court. The settlement was said to involve a cash payment by the American Company to the Pennsylvania Company of $750,000, the cancellation of the $1,250,000 loan made by the trust to Adolph Segal, of Philadelphia, and the return of the securities given by Segal as collateral for the loan.
Subsequently the Government procured indictments of certain of the officials of the American Sugar Refining Company for their participation in the conspiracy; but the prosecution was blocked in October by a decision from Judge Holt, of the United States Circuit Court, that the acts charged were outlawed by the statute of limitations. Later, in November, it was reported that the Government was preparing an appeal to the Supreme Court.
COMBINATIONS: A. D. 1909. Dissolution of a Paper-making Combination.
By a decree of the United States Circuit Court, Judge Hough, at New York, in May, 1909, the Fiber and Manila Association, a combination of 25 paper manufacturers, located in many parts of the country, East and West, was adjudged to be an illegal combination in restraint of trade, and perpetually enjoined from further operations in such combination. The members were enjoined further from fixing prices or the qualities that shall be manufactured or to maintain any pool or fund made up of contributions from its members. Counsel for the Association announced that no appeal would be made.
COMBINATIONS: A. D. 1909. Chartering of the United Dry Goods Companies.
"Details of the greatest dry goods combination ever attempted in this country were available to-day for the first time since the United Dry Goods Companies took out a Delaware charter last Friday [April 21, 1909], The concern will control many of the largest dry goods stores in this city and at important commercial centres of the South and West, acting first as a holding company and later possibly as an operating concern, with headquarters here. John Claflin will be the head of the combination. The present managers of the various absorbed stores will be continued. J. P. Morgan & Co. are financing the deal, and public announcement will be made immediately.
"The United Dry Goods Companies will have a capital of $51,000,000. Of this only $20,000,000 will be immediately issued in the form of $10,000,000 7 per cent. cumulative preferred stock and $10,000,000 common stock. The preferred stock has preference as to both assets and dividends. The new combination will purchase $8,650,000 of the outstanding $17,250,000 capital stock of the Associated Merchants’ Company. …
"John Claflin said this afternoon that the new company would not buy any mills, as it was not the purpose of the combination to control the sources of production. All the stores—there are more than forty, which the United Companies and its allies will own in whole or in part—will be free to purchase from whatever interests they wish, without being restricted to any one market or to the product of any special mills. The general business will be directed from the city, but resident directors at different centres will have full charge of the detail work."
_New York Evening Post, May, 25-26, 1909._
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COMBINATIONS: A. D. 1909. The illegality of a Trust invalidates a debt to it.
In a suit brought by the Continental Wall Paper Company to recover a debt, payment of which was resisted on the ground that the Company was an illegal combination in restraint of trade, the Supreme Court of the United States, on the 1st of February, 1909, affirmed a judgment of the Circuit Court of Appeals which had dismissed the suit. The case was so decided by a bare majority of one. The opinion of the majority, delivered by Justice Harlan, held that a judgment in favor of the Company would give effect to agreements constituting the illegal combination. "Upon the whole case," said Justice Harlan, "and without further citation of authority, we adjudge upon the admitted facts that the combination represented by the plaintiff in this case was illegal under the anti-trust act of 1890; is to be taken as one intended, and which would have the effect, directly to restrain and monopolize trade among the several states and with foreign states; and that the plaintiff cannot have a judgment for the amount of the account sued on because such a judgment would, in effect, be in aid of the execution of agreements constituting that illegal combination. We consequently hold that the circuit court of appeals properly sustained the third defense in the case and rightly dismissed the suit."
In the dissenting opinion by Justice Holmes and others it was set forth that "whenever a party knows that he is buying from an illegal trust, and still more when he buys at a price that he thinks unreasonable, but is compelled to pay in order to get the goods he needs, he knows that he is doing an act in furtherance of the unlawful purpose of the trust, which always is to get the most it can for its wares. But that knowledge makes no difference, because the policy of not furthering the purposes of the trust is less important than the policy of preventing people from getting other people’s property for nothing when they purport to be buying it."
COMBINATIONS: A. D. 1909-1910. Morgan & Co. Banking Combination.
See (in this Volume) FINANCE AND TRADE: UNITED STATES.
COMBINATIONS: A. D. 1910. Special Message of President Taft on Legislation touching "Trusts."
An important special Message, recommendatory of legislation on the two subjects of interstate commerce and the combinations called "Trusts," was addressed to Congress by President Taft on the 7th of January, 1910. It had been expected that the Executive would advise amendments to the Sherman Anti-Trust Law, so-called, but he did not. On the contrary he favored the policy of leaving that law untouched, on the ground that its defects have been cured already to a great extent by judicial decisions, and that it is safer and better for the business interests of the country to trust the law to the gradual molding which the courts are giving it, than to undertake amendments which would start anew series of judicial interpretations. But the President’s conclusions on this point were supplemented by the advocacy of an enactment to provide for the federal chartering of corporations engaged in interstate commerce, as a means of substituting continuous regulation of such organizations for the spasmodic and disturbing investigations which the Government is now compelled frequently to institute.
In part, the President’s discussion of these questions is as follows:—
"The statute has been on the statute book now for two decades, and the Supreme Court in more than a dozen opinions has construed it in application to various phases of business combinations and in reference to various subjects-matter. It has applied it to the union under one control of two competing interstate railroads, to joint traffic arrangements between several interstate railroads, to private manufacturers engaged in a plain attempt to control prices and suppress competition in a part of the country, including a dozen States, and to many other combinations affecting interstate trade. The value of a statute which is rendered more and more certain in its meaning by a series of decisions of the Supreme Court furnishes a strong reason for leaving the act as it is, to accomplish its useful purpose, even though if it were being newly enacted useful suggestions as to change of phrase might be made.
"It is the duty and the purpose of the Executive to direct an investigation by the Department of Justice, through the grand jury or otherwise, into the history, organization, and purposes of all the industrial companies with respect to which there is any reasonable ground for suspicion that they have been organized for a purpose, and are conducting business on a plan which is in violation of the Anti-Trust law. The work is a heavy one, but is not beyond the power of the Department of Justice, if sufficient funds are furnished, to carry on the investigations and to pay the counsel engaged in the work. But such an investigation and possible prosecution of corporations whose prosperity or destruction affects the comfort not only of stockholders, but of millions of wage-earners, employees, and associated tradesmen, must necessarily tend to disturb the confidence of the business community, to dry up the now flowing sources of capital from its places of hoarding, and produce a halt in our present prosperity that will cause suffering and strained circumstances among the innocent many for the faults of the guilty few. The question which I wish in this message to bring clearly to the consideration and discussion of Congress is whether in order to avoid such a possible business danger something cannot be done by which these business combinations may be offered a means, without great financial disturbance, of changing the character, organization, and extent of their business into one within the lines of the law under Federal control and supervision, securing compliance with the anti-trust statute.
"Generally, in the industrial combinations called ‘Trusts,’ the principal business is the sale of goods in many States and in foreign markets; in other words, the interstate and foreign business far exceeds the business done in any one State. This fact will justify the Federal government in granting a Federal charter to such a combination to make and sell in interstate and foreign commerce the products of useful manufacture under such limitations as will secure a compliance with the Anti-Trust law. It is possible so to frame a statute that while it offers protection to a Federal company against harmful, vexatious, and unnecessary invasion by the States, it shall subject it to reasonable taxation and control by the States, with respect to its purely local business.
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"Many people conducting great businesses have cherished a hope and a belief that in some way or other a line may be drawn between ‘good Trusts’ and ‘bad Trusts,’ and that it is possible, by amendment to the Anti-Trust law, to make a distinction under which good combinations may be permitted to organize, suppress competition, control prices, and do it all legally, if only they do not abuse the power by taking too great profit out of the business. … Now, the public, and especially the business public, ought to rid themselves of the idea that such a distinction is practicable or can be introduced into the statute. Certainly under the present Anti-Trust law no such distinction exists. It has been proposed, however, that the word ‘reasonable’ should be made a part of the statute, and then that it should be left to the court to say what is a reasonable restraint of trade, what is a reasonable suppression of competition, what is a reasonable monopoly. I venture to think that this is to put into the hands of the court a power impossible to exercise on any consistent principle which will insure the uniformity of decision essential to just judgment. It is to thrust upon the courts a burden that they have no precedents to enable them to carry, and to give them a power approaching the arbitrary, the abuse of which might involve our whole judicial system in disaster.
"In considering violations of the Anti-Trust law, we ought, of course, not to forget that that law makes unlawful, methods of carrying on business which before its passage were regarded as evidence of business sagacity and success, and that they were denounced in this act, not because of their intrinsic immorality, but because of the dangerous results toward which they tended, the concentration of industrial power in the hands of the few, leading to oppression and injustice. In dealing, therefore, with many of the men who have used the methods condemned by the statute for the purpose of maintaining a profitable business, we may well facilitate a change by them in the method of doing business. …
"To the suggestion that this proposal of Federal incorporation for industrial combinations is intended to furnish them a refuge in which to continue industrial abuses under Federal protection, it should be said that the measure contemplated does not repeal the Sherman Anti-Trust law, and is not to be framed so as to permit the doing of the wrongs which it is the purpose of that law to prevent, but only to foster a continuance and advance of the highest industrial efficiency without permitting industrial abuses. …
"A Federal compulsory license law, urged as a substitute for a Federal incorporation law, is unnecessary except to reach that kind of corporation which, by virtue of the considerations already advanced, will take advantage voluntarily of an incorporation law, while the other State corporations doing an interstate business do not need the supervision or the regulation of a Federal license and would only be unnecessarily burdened thereby.
"The attorney-general, at my suggestion, has drafted a Federal incorporation bill embodying the views I have attempted to set forth, and it will be at the disposition of the appropriate committees of Congress."
COMBINATIONS: A. D. 1910. Renewed investigation of the Beef Trust.
A renewed investigation of the business methods of the great meat-packing concerns at Chicago, by the grand jury of the United States District Court, Judge K. M. Landis, was begun on the 24th of January, 1910. It is understood to have special reference to the causes of the rising prices of meats. The firms against which the Government is thus preparing to proceed are: Swift & Co., Armour & Co., and Morris & Co., who, it is alleged, control the National Packing Company, for their common benefit.
----------COMBINATIONS: End--------
COMMERCE AND LABOR, The United States Department of.
See (in this Volume) UNITED STATES: A. D. 1903 (FEBRUARY).
COMMERCIAL UNIVERSITIES, in Germany: Their recent rise.
See (in this Volume) EDUCATION: GERMANY: A. D. 1898-1904.
"COMMISSION PLAN," of City Government.
See (in this Volume) MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT.
COMMITTEE OF ONE HUNDRED.
See (in this Volume) PUBLIC HEALTH.
COMMITTEE OF UNION AND PROGRESS.
See (in this Volume) TURKEY: A. D. 1908 (JULY-DECEMBER), and after.
COMMODITIES CLAUSE, of the Hepburn Act: Supreme Court decision on.
See (in this Volume) RAILWAYS: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1906-1909.
COMMUNAL SYSTEM, Russian: Its modification.
See (in this Volume) RUSSIA: A. D. 1906 AND 1909 (APRIL).
CONCENTRATION CAMPS.
See (in this Volume) SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1901-1902.
CONCILIATION BOARDS, Canadian.
See (in this Volume) LABOR ORGANIZATION: CANADA: A. D. 1907-1908.
CONCILIATION COMMITTEE, of National Civic Federation.
See (in this Volume) LABOR ORGANIZATION: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1902.
CONCORDAT OF 1802, The.
See (in this Volume) FRANCE: A. D. 1905-1906.
CONFÉDÉRATION GÉNÉRALE DU TRAVAIL.
See (in this Volume) LABOR ORGANIZATION: FRANCE: A. D. 1884-1909.
CONFERENCE OF STATE GOVERNORS.
See (in this Volume) CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES: UNITED STATES.
CONFERENCES FOR EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH, Annual.
See (in this Volume) EDUCATION: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1898-1909.
CONGER, Edwin H.: U. S. Minister to China.
See (in this Volume) CHINA: A. D. 1903 (MAY-OCTOBER).
CONGESTED ESTATES.
See (in this Volume) IRELAND: A. D. 1909.
{136}
----------CONGO STATE: Start--------
CONGO STATE: How the natives have been enslaved and oppressed. The "Domaine Privé."
"The Berlin Conference laid it down that no import dues should be established in the mouth of the Congo for twenty years. But in 1890 King Leopold, alleging the heavy expenses to which he had been put by the campaign against the Arabs in the Upper Congo, applied for permission to levy import duties. It was the first disillusionment; and the British Chambers of Commerce began to wonder whether their opposition to the Anglo-Portuguese Convention had not been mistaken. The King’s request was granted (the Powers merely reserving to themselves the right to revert to the original arrangement in fifteen years), but not without the bitter opposition of the Dutch, who had very important commercial interests in the Congo, backed by the British Chambers of Commerce and all the traders in the Congo, irrespective of nationality. A representative gathering was held in London on November 4th, 1900, presided over by Sir Albert Rollit, to protest against the imposition of import duties and to denounce the hypocrisy which attributed to philanthropic motives the desire on the part of the Congo State so to impose upon them. …
"They were able to show that … King Leopold, notwithstanding his formal assurances to the commercial world that the Congo State would never directly or indirectly itself trade within its dominions, was buying, or rather stealing, ivory from the natives in the Upper Congo and retaining the proceeds of the sale on the European market. They proved that, profiting by the silence of the Berlin Treaty on the subject of export duties, the Congo State had already imposed taxes amounting to 17½ per cent. on ivory, 13 per cent, on rubber and 5 per cent. on palm kernels, palm-oil and ground-nuts, the total taxation amounting to no less than 33 per cent. of the value of the whole of the trade. Finally they had no difficulty in demonstrating that, with all his professed wish to stamp out the slave-raiding carried on by the half-caste Arabs in the Upper Congo, His Majesty was himself tacitly encouraging the slave trade by receiving tribute from conquered Chiefs in the shape of slaves, who were promptly enrolled as soldiers in the State army. …
"Five months after the termination of the Berlin Conference King Leopold issued a decree (July, 1885) whereby the State asserted rights of proprietorship over all vacant lands throughout the Congo territory. It was intended that the term vacant lands should apply in the broadest sense to lands not actually occupied by the natives at the time the decree was issued. By successive decrees, promulgated in 1886, 1887 and 1888, the King reduced the rights of the natives in their land to the narrowest limits, with the result that the whole of the odd 1,000,000 square miles assigned to the Congo State, except such infinitesimal proportions thereof as were covered by native villages or native farms, became ‘terres domaniales.' On October 17th, 1889, the King also issued a decree ordering merchants to limit their commercial operations in rubber to bartering with the natives. This decree was interesting merely as a forewarning of what came later, because at that time the rubber trade was very small. In July, 1890, the same year as the Brussels Conference, the Congo State went a step further. A decree issued in that month confirmed all that was advanced in November of the same year by the speakers at the London Conference held to protest against the imposition of import duties by the State. By its terms King Leopold asserted that the State was entitled to trade on its own account in ivory—the first open violation of his pledges. Moreover the decree imposed sundry extra taxes upon all ivory bought by merchants from the natives, which, since the State had become itself a trading concern, constituted an equally direct violation of the Berlin Act, by establishing differential treatment in matters of trade. Such were the plans King Leopold made, preparatory to obtaining from the Powers the power to impose import duties. Everything was ready for the great coup, which should also inaugurate the Fifth Stage of His Majesty’s African policy.
"The Brussels Conference met. The Powers with inconceivable fatuity allowed themselves to be completely hoodwinked, and within a year the greatest injury perpetrated upon the unfortunate natives of Africa since the Portuguese in the XVth century conceived the idea of expatriating them for labour purposes had been committed, and committed too by a Monarch who had not ceased for fifteen years to pose as their self-appointed regenerator. On September 21st, 1891, King Leopold drafted, in secret, a decree which he caused to be forwarded to the Commissioners of the State in the Uban-ghi-Welle and Aruwimi-Welle districts, and to the Chiefs of the military expeditions operating in the Upper Ubanghi district. This decree never having been published in the official Bulletin of the State, its exact terms can only be a matter of conjecture, but we know that it instructed the officials to whom it was addressed ‘to take urgent and necessary measures to preserve the fruits of the domain to the State, especially ivory and rubber.’ By ‘fruits of the domain’ King Leopold meant the products of the soil throughout the ‘vacant lands’ which he had attributed to himself, as already explained, by the decree of 1885. The King’s instructions were immediately followed, and three circulars, dated respectively Bangala, 15th December, 1891, Basankusu, 8th May, 1892, and Yokoma, 14th February, 1892, were issued by the officials in question. Circular Number 1 forbade the natives to hunt elephants unless they brought the tusks to the State’s officers. Circular Number 2 forbade the natives to collect rubber unless they brought it to the State’s officers. Circular Number 3 forbade the natives to collect either ivory or rubber unless they brought the articles to the State’s officers, and added that ‘merchants purchasing such articles from the natives, whose right to collect them the State only recognised provided that they were brought to it, would be looked upon as receivers of stolen goods and denounced to the judicial authorities.’ Thus did the Sovereign of the Congo State avail himself of the additional prestige conferred upon him by the Brussels Conference. …
{137}
"In theory, then, the decrees of September, 1891, and October, 1892, made of the native throughout the Domaine Privé a serf. In theory a serf he remained, for a little while. But as the grip of Africa’s regenerator tightened upon the Domaine Privé, as the drilled and officered cannibal army, armed with repeating rifles, gradually grew and grew until it was larger than the native forces kept up by any of the great Powers of Europe on African soil, as the radius of the rubber taxes was extended, as portions of the country began to be farmed out to so-called 'Companies' whose agents were also officials of the King, the native of the Domaine Privé became a serf not in theory only but in fact, ground down, exploited, forced to collect rubber at the bayonet’s point, compelled to pay onerous tribute to men whose salaries depend upon the produce returns from their respective stations—the punishment for disobedience, slothfulness or inability to comply with demands ever growing in extortion, being anything from mutilation to death, accompanied by the destruction of villages and crops."
_E. D. Morel, The Belgian Curse in Africa (Contemporary Review, March, 1902)._
CONGO STATE: A. D. 1903-1905. The alleged oppressiveness, barbarity, and rapacity of its administration under King Leopold. Observations of Lord Cromer on the Nile border. Reports of a British Consular Officer, and of King Leopold’s Belgian Commission. Action of the British Government.
Serious accusations of oppression and barbarity in the exploiting of the natural wealth of the so-called Independent Congo State, under the administration of its royal proprietor, King Leopold, of Belgium, were beginning to be made a dozen years ago, as will be seen by reference to the subject in Volume VI. of this work. The King and the companies which operated in the region under his grants were reputed to be taking enormous profits from it. Of one of those concessionaire companies, sometimes referred to as the A. B. I. R. Co. and sometimes as "the Abir," it was stated in 1901 that its £40,000 of shares could have been sold for £2,160,000, and that half of its profits went to Leopold. But, as was said later by a member of the British Parliament, who wrote on the subject in one of the reviews, "meanwhile Europe was becoming aware of the price that was being paid in Africa for these profits in Belgium. Travellers, missionaries of various nationalities, administrators in the neighbouring territories belonging to England and France, sent home graphic reports of the cruel oppression that was being practised on the helpless population. In England especially, through the efforts of Sir Charles Dilke, of Mr. Fox-Bourne, the secretary of the Aborigines Protection Society, of Mr. E. D. Morel and of other disinterested men, public opinion was informed of the truth. In May, 1903, a resolution, which I had the honor of moving in the House of Commons, calling upon the Government to take action with a view to the abatement of the evils prevalent in the Congo Free State, was accepted by Mr. Balfour and unanimously passed. A diplomatic correspondence ensued between the two governments. The British Consul in the Lower Congo, Mr. Roger Casement, was sent on a tour of inquiry into the interior, and his lengthy and detailed report fully confirmed—in some respect extending—the indictment that had been drawn. A Congo Reform Association was founded, and immediately secured influential support. … At last King Leopold, pressed by the despatches of the British Government and bowing to the storm of public opinion, yielded so far as to authorise further inquiry into the charges that had been made. The investigation by an International Commission, which had been proposed, he rejected. He nominated three Commissioners of his selection, one a legal officer in the service of the Belgian Government, one a judge in the service of the Congo State, and the third a Swiss jurist of repute. In October, 1904, the Commission reached the Congo. It stayed for five months and made an extended journey into the interior. After an unexplained delay of eight months its report was published on the 6th of November of this year [1905]. …
"Had the report embodied an acquittal of the Congo State it would not, under the circumstances, have been surprising. The Commissioners, however, have to a great degree risen superior to their natural prepossessions. … It is most regrettable … that they present no minutes of the evidence taken before them—a circumstance which deprives the report of actuality and force, and prevents outside observers from drawing their own conclusions from the facts which had been ascertained. But the inquiry was painstaking. The case was fairly tried. The judgment is an honest judgment.
"Being honest, it is necessarily a condemnation. The Belgian defenders of the Congo Government, who were led by a conception of patriotic duty as profoundly false as that of the anti-Dreyfusards in France to deny everything and to meet the critics merely with unceasing torrents of abuse, now have their answer. A tribunal, not of our choosing, selected by the defendant in their cause, has shown that those who denounced Congo misrule were in the right, that the atrocities were not imaginary, that a cruel oppression of the natives has been proceeding unchecked for years."
_Herbert Samuel, The Congo State (Contemporary Review, December, 1905)._
Before this report appeared many witnesses had testified for and against the impeached Government and its commercial monopoly of the Congo State. Atrocities of slaughter, mutilation and flogging, committed by the soldiery, the sentries and other extortioners of a labor tax from the helpless natives, were asserted and denied. It is best, perhaps, to drop these blackest counts from the Congo indictment, because of the controversy over them; and enough remains in the Report of the King’s own Commission of Inquiry, and in general conditions which are flagrantly in evidence, to convict King Leopold and his agents of soulless rapacity, in their treatment of the vast African country that was entrusted to him by the Conference of Powers assembled at Berlin in 1884-1885.
There is great weight of meaning, for example, in a few words that were written, in January, 1903, by Lord Cromer, while returning from a long trip up the Nile, in which his steamer passed along about eighty miles of Congolese shore. Before reaching that border of Leopold’s domain he had traversed 1100 miles of the country lately wrested by the British from dervishes and slave dealers, where, he remarks, "it might well have been expected that much time would be required to inspire confidence in the intentions of the new Government." But, "except in the uninhabitable ‘Sudd’ region," he wrote, "numerous villages are dotted along the banks of the river. {138} The people, far from flying at the approach of white men, as was formerly the case, run along the banks, making signs for the steamer to stop. It is clear that the Baris, Shilluks, and Dinkas place the utmost trust and confidence in the British officers with whom they are brought in contact. …
"The contrast when once Congolese territory is entered is remarkable. From the frontier to Gondokoro is about 80 miles. The proper left, or western, bank of the river is Belgian. The opposite bank is either under the Soudanese or the Uganda Government. There are numerous islands, and as all these are under British rule—for the thalweg which, under Treaty, is the Belgian frontier, skirts the western bank of the river—I cannot say that I had an opportunity of seeing a full 80 miles of Belgian territory. At the same time, I saw a good deal, and I noticed that, whereas there were numerous villages and huts on the eastern bank and on the islands, on the Belgian side not a sign of a village existed. Indeed, I do not think that any one of our party saw a single human being in Belgian territory, except the Belgian officers and men and the wives and children of the latter. Moreover not a single native was to be seen either at Kiro or Lado. I asked the Swedish officer at Kiro whether he saw much of the natives. He replied in the negative, adding that the nearest Bari village was situated at some distance in the interior. The Italian officer at Lado, in reply to the same question, stated that the nearest native village was seven hours distant. The reason of all this is obvious enough. The Belgians are disliked. The people fly from them, and it is no wonder they should do so, for I am informed that the soldiers are allowed full liberty to plunder, and that payments are rarely made for supplies. The British officers wander, practically alone, over most parts of the country, either on tours of inspection or on shooting expeditions. I understand that no Belgian officer can move outside the settlements without a strong guard."
This is in line with some parts of the experience of Mr. Casement, the British Consular Officer referred to in the article quoted above, who travelled for about ten weeks on the Upper Congo in 1903, and whose report of what he saw includes such accounts as the following, of conditions around Lake Matumba:
"Each village I visited around the lake, save that of Q. and one other, had been abandoned by its inhabitants. To some of these villages the people have only just returned; to others they are only now returning, In one I found the bare and burnt poles of what had been dwellings left standing, and at another —that of R—the people had fled at the approach of my steamer, and despite the loud cries of my native guides on board, nothing could induce them to return, and it was impossible to hold any intercourse with them. At the three succeeding villages I visited beyond R., in traversing the lake towards the south, the inhabitants all fled at the approach of the steamer, and it was only when they found whose the vessel was that they could be induced to return."
An incident related by Mr. Casement is this:
"Steaming up a small tributary of the Lulongo, I arrived, unpreceded by any rumour of my coming, at the village of A. In an open shed I found two sentries of the La Lulanga Company guarding fifteen native women, five of whom had infants at the breast, and three of whom were about to become mothers. The chief of these sentries, a man called S—who was bearing a double-barrelled shot-gun, for which he had a belt of cartridges—at once volunteered an explanation of the reason for these women’s detention. Four of them, he said, were hostages who were being held to insure the peaceful settlement of a dispute between two neighbouring towns, which had already cost the life of a man. … The remaining eleven women, whom he indicated, he said he had caught and was detaining as prisoners to compel their husbands to bring in the right amount of india-rubber required of them on next market day. When I asked if it was a woman’s work to collect india-rubber, he said, ‘No; that, of course, it was man’s work.’ ‘Then why do you catch the women and not the men?’ I asked. ‘Don’t you see,’ was the answer, ‘if I caught and kept the men, who would work the rubber? But if I catch their wives, the husbands are anxious to have them home again, and so the rubber is brought in quickly and quite up to the mark.’ When I asked what would become of these women if their husbands failed to bring in the right quantity of rubber on the next market day, he said at once that then they would be kept there until their husbands had redeemed them."
_Parliamentary Papers, Africa, Number 1 (1904), Cd. 1933._
But the facts which condemn the Congo administration most conclusively are found in the report of the Commission of Inquiry appointed by King Leopold himself,—especially in what it represents of the heartless oppression of the labor tax, or labor imposed on the natives, in their compulsory carrying of goods or collection of rubber, food and wood, for the State and for the companies that operate under the King’s grants. As to the labor tax exacted in food, for example, the Commission expresses itself as follows:
"The decree fixes at forty hours per month the work which each native owes to the State. This time, considered as a maximum, is certainly not excessive, especially if one takes account of the fact that the work ought to be remunerated; but as in the immense majority of cases … it is not precisely the work which is demanded of the native, but rather a quantity of products equivalent to forty hours of work, the criterion of time disappears in reality and is replaced by an equivalent established by the Commissioner of the district after diverse methods. …
"Chikwangue (kwanga)is nothing but manioc bread. … The preparation of this food requires many operations: the clearing of the forest, the planting of manioc, the digging up of the root and its transformation into chikwangue, which comprises the operations of separating the fibers and stripping the bark, pulverizing, washing, making it into bundles, and cooking it. All these operations, except clearing the land, fall to the women. The chikwangues so prepared are carried by the natives to the neighboring post and served for the food supply of the personnel of the State—soldiers and laborers. … As the chikwangue keeps only a few days, the native, even by redoubling his activity, cannot succeed in freeing himself from his obligations for any length of time. {139} The requirement, even if it does not take all his time, oppresses him continually by the weight of its recurrent demands, which deprive the tax of its true character and transform it into an incessant corvée. … Doubtless the adage, ‘time is money,’ cannot be applied to the natives of the Congo; it is none the less inadmissible that a taxpayer should be obliged to travel over ninety-three miles to carry to the place of collection a tax which represents about the value of twenty-nine cents. …
"Natives inhabiting the environs of Lulonga were forced to journey in canoes to Nouvelle-Anvers, which represents a distance of forty to fifty miles, every two weeks, to carry their fish; and taxpayers have been seen to submit to imprisonment for delays which were perhaps not chargeable to them, if we take into account the considerable distances to be covered periodically to satisfy the requirements of the tax."
As applied to the collection of rubber, the so-called labor tax was found by the commission to consume so much of the time of the natives subjected to it that it practically made slaves of them, and nothing less.
When the abused native is pretendedly paid for his labor or its product, it is by some trifle in metal or flimsy woven stuff, which costs the State and its tributary companies next to nothing and is next to worthless to the recipient.
And not only does the State exercise over the unfortunate subjects that were delivered to it an authority of Government which appears to be little else than a power of extortion, but it has taken all their lands from them, substantially, and left them next to nothing on which to perform any labor for themselves. It has decreed to itself the ownership of all land not included in the native villages or not under cultivation. Concerning which decree the Commission remarks:
"As the greater part of the land in the Congo has never been under cultivation, this interpretation gives to the State a proprietary right, absolute and exclusive, to almost all the land, and as a consequence it can grant to itself all the product of the soil and prosecute as robbers those who gather the smallest fruit and as accomplices those who buy the same. … It thus happens sometimes that not only have the natives been prohibited from moving their villages, but they have been refused permission to go, even for a time, to a neighboring village without a special permit."
In the summer of 1903 the British Government was moved to address a formal communication to all the Powers which had been parties to the Act of the Berlin Conference of 1884-1885, whereby the Congo State was created and entrusted to King Leopold, asking them to consider whether the system of government and of trade monopoly established in that State was in conformity with the provisions of the Act. The British Foreign Secretary, Lord Lansdowne, in his despatch (August 8, 1903), rehearsed at length the charges that were brought against the Congo administration, concerning its extortion of labor from the natives by a method "but little different from that formerly employed to obtain slaves," saying: "His Majesty’s Government do not know precisely to what extent these accusations may be true; but they have been so repeatedly made, and have received such wide credence, that it is no longer possible to ignore them, and the question has now arisen, whether the Congo State can be considered to have fulfilled the special pledges, given under the Berlin Act, to watch over the preservation of the native tribes, and to care for their moral and material advancement."
At the same time, the dispatch called the attention of the Powers to the question of rights of trade in the Congo, saying: "Article I of the Berlin Act provides that the trade of all nations shall enjoy complete freedom in the basin of the Congo; and Article V provides that no Power which exercises sovereign rights in the basin shall be allowed to grant therein a monopoly or favour of any kind in matters of trade. In the opinion of His Majesty’s Government, the system of trade now existing in the Independent State of the Congo is not in harmony with these provisions. … In these circumstances, His Majesty’s Government consider that the time has come when the Powers parties to the Berlin Act should consider whether the system of trade now prevailing in the Independent State is in harmony with the provisions of the Act; and, in particular, whether the system of making grants of vast areas of territory is permissible under the Act if the effect of such grants is in practice to create a monopoly of trade."
_Parliamentary Papers, Africa, Number 14 (1903), Cd. 1809._
CONGO STATE: A. D. 1904. Feeling in Belgium concerning the charges of oppression and inhumanity to the natives.
See (in this Volume) BELGIUM: A. D. 1904.
CONGO STATE: A. D. 1906-1909. Reform Decrees and their small effect. Continued reports of rapacious exploitation. Concession secured by American capitalists. Annexation of the State by Belgium. Recognition of the annexation withheld by Great Britain and the United States.
Apparently the endeavor of the British Government to set in motion some action of the Powers which had been parties to the creation of the Congo State, for the purpose of ascertaining whether the provisions of the Berlin Act were being complied with in the administration of that great trust, had no practical result. During the next two years the Congo Government was persistent in denying and attempting to refute some parts of the reports sent home by British consular officers in the Congo; but after the publication of the report of its own investigating Commission, in 1905, there seems to have been more reticence observed. In June, 1906, a series of new decrees, supposed to embody the recommendations of the Reforms Commission, was sanctioned by the King. But the Consuls who reported to London from the Congo country do not seem to have found the wretched natives much relieved by these decrees. Vice-Consul Armstrong, writing from Boma December, 1907, after a prolonged journey through rubber-collecting regions, declared his conviction that "the people worked from twenty to twenty-five days a month" to satisfy their labor tax. He added:
"The improvement that has been made by the application of the Reform Decrees of June 1906 is solely in the withdrawal of armed sentries, a reform which the serious decimation of the population by the sentries demanded. … I saw nothing which led me to view the occupation of this country in the light of an Administration. {140} The undertakings of the Government are solely commercial, with a sufficient administrative power to insure the safety of its personnel and the success of its enterprise. … The following is an estimate of the profits of the State on their rubber tax. I take the village of N’gongo as being a large one, and one of the few villages that supply the amount actually assessed:—
Amount assessed yearly. 1,440 kilograms of rubber. £ s. d. 1,440 kilograms of rubber at 10 fr. 576 0 0 Amount paid to natives at 50 c. per kilogram 28 16 0
"I calculate the rubber at 10 fr. per kilogram, the value placed upon it by the State in the Commercial Report issued this year. The market value in Antwerp is from 12 fr. to 13 fr. per kilogram. From this amount of 576£. must be deducted the cost of transport, which cannot be more than 2 fr. per kilogram rendered at Antwerp, so that the net profits derived from this one village would be a little more than 456£. per annum. One hundred and twenty natives, together with their wives and children, which would bring the population of the town to about 400 souls, share this amount of 28£ 16s., and as this is paid in cloth at 7½d. per yard and salt at 1s. 7½d. per kilogram, it is evident that they cannot receive very much each, and that they complain of their remuneration."
These were not the only official witnesses now testifying to the barbarities of commercial exploitation that were perpetrated in the Congo country under pretences of administering the Government of a State. Reports to the same effect were coming to the Government of the United States from its Consuls in the Congo. Consul-General C. R. Slocum wrote on the 1st of December, 1906, to the Department of State at Washington:
"I have the honour to report that I find the Congo Free State, under the present regime, to be nothing but a vast commercial enterprise for the exploitation of the products of the country, particularly that of ivory and rubber. Admitted by Belgian officials and other foreigners here, the State, as I find it, is not open to trade in the intended sense of article 5 of the Berlin Act under which the State was formed."
A year later, the succeeding Consul-General of the United States in the Congo State, Mr. James A. Smith, made a similar report:
"In excluding the native," he wrote, "from any proprietary right in the only commodities he possessed which would serve as a trade medium—that is, the products of the soil—and in claiming for itself and granting to a few concessionary companies in which it holds an interest exclusive ownership of these products, the Administration, in its commercial capacity, has effectively shut the door to free trade and created a vast monopoly in all articles the freedom of buying and selling which alone could form a proper basis for legitimate trade transactions between the native and independent purchasers. Competition, by which alone can a healthy condition of trade be maintained, has been entirely eliminated. The Government is but one tremendous commercial organization; its administrative machinery is worked to bar out all outside trade and to absolutely control for its own benefit and the concessionary companies the natural resources of the country."
In the same report Mr. Smith gave details of an experiment he had made, in conjunction with the chef de secteur at Yambata, to test the truth of the assertions made by the natives as to the length of time necessary to gather the rubber which they are compelled to furnish. The place for the experiment was selected by the chef de secteur, and he chose the five natives who were employed in the experiment, and who were promised rewards as an incentive to do their best. The men worked for four hours, and although Mr. Smith vouches for the fact that they did not lose a minute, they only succeeded in gathering 650 grammes. From this, as Mr. Smith argues, the amount of time they would have to spend in collecting the rubber tax works out at 93 hours a month, or, counting eight hours a day, at 140 days a year. This did not include the time spent in travelling to and from the rubber-bearing districts.
Before this time, American interest in the Congo State had become more than humanitarian, and more than a commercial interest in the general opportunities of trade; for heavy American capitalists had secured concessions from King Leopold in a large territory for the development of railways, rubber production and mines. The fact was announced in the fall of 1906, and the names of John D. Rockefeller, Jr., Thomas F. Ryan, Harry Payne Whitney, Edward B. Aldrich and the Messrs. Guggenheim were mentioned as prominent in the group to which the grant was made.
Under the Convention of 1890 between King Leopold and the Congo State, as one party, and the Kingdom of Belgium as the other, it became the right of the latter, on the expiration of ten years, in 1900, to annex the Congo State to itself.
See, in Volume VI. of this work, CONGO STATE: A. D. 1900.
The right was not then exercised; but the question of taking over the sovereignty of that great African domain came under warm discussion in Belgium before many years, and, finally, in 1908, it reached the point of a keen negotiation of terms with the King, attended by lively conflicts in the Belgian Chambers. While the question was thus pending in Belgium, the British Government took occasion to express its views to the Belgian Government, as to the obligations which such an annexation would involve. This was done on the 27th of March, 1908, in a despatch from the Foreign Minister, Sir Edward Grey, communicating an extended "Memorandum respecting Taxation and Currency in the Congo Free State." The language of the despatch, in part, was as follows:
"His Majesty’s Government fully recognize that the choice of the means by which the administration of the Congo may be brought into line by the Berlin Act rests exclusively with Belgium. Nevertheless, while disclaiming all idea of interference, His Majesty’s Government feel that in fairness they should leave the Belgian Government in no doubt that in their opinion the existing administration of the Congo State has not fulfilled the objects for which the State was originally recognized, or the conditions of Treaties, and that changes are therefore required, which should effect the following objects: 1. Relief of the natives from excessive taxation. 2. The grant to the natives of sufficient land to ensure their ability to obtain not only the food they require, but also sufficient produce of the soil to enable them to buy and sell as in other European Colonies. 3. The possibility for traders whatever their nationality may be to acquire plots of land of reasonable dimensions in any part of the Congo for the erection of factories so as to enable them to establish direct trade relations with the natives. …
{141}
"Taking the three points enumerated above in order, it appears to His Majesty’s Government that—
"1. As regards the question of taxation in labour, the abuses to which the system has given rise have only been rendered possible by the absence of a proper standard of value. They believe, therefore, that the only sure and efficacious means of precluding the existence of such abuses in the future is the introduction of currency throughout the State at the earliest possible date. Both the Reports of the Commission of Inquiry and the experience of His Majesty’s Consular officers agree in the conclusion that the native has learnt the use of money, and that currency would be welcomed by all classes, native and European alike.
"2. The natives in the concessionary areas should not be compelled, by either direct or indirect means, to render their labour to the Companies without remuneration. The introduction of currency should contribute greatly to the protection of the native against the illicit and excessive exactions on the part of private individuals. Such protection, however, cannot be adequately secured unless the latter be compelled to pay the native in specie at a fair rate to be fixed by law.
"3. They would urge that a large increase should be made in the land allotted to the natives."
The exceptional failure of the Congo State, among African colonies, to introduce the use of currency in transactions with the natives, and the connection of this failure with the state of things existing there, is discussed at length in the Memorandum, with a practical summing up in these sentences:
"The Secretaries-General said the native in the Congo had no specie. True, but why has he no specie? Because, as already explained, during the twenty-three years that the Congo State has been in existence no serious attempt, in spite of all assertions to the contrary, has ever been made by the State to introduce currency on a sufficiently large scale. In every other European Colony in Africa has the native come to learn the practical value of a medium of exchange. What are the reasons that the Congo State should stand in an exceptional position in this respect? They are unfortunately obvious enough. The truth is that it is precisely owing to the absence of a proper standard of value that the Congo Government and the Concessionary Companies have been able to abuse the system of taxation in labour, and realize enormous profits out of the incessant labour wrung from the population in the guise of taxation."
This communication from Great Britain to the Belgian Government was followed soon (in April) by memoranda from the Government of the United States, setting forth the hopes and expectations of administrative reform with which it contemplated the proposed annexation of the Congo State.
A few months later the treaty of annexation was agreed upon, and the annexation consummated by an Act of the Belgian Parliament, promulgated on the 20th of October, 1908. To an announcement of the fact by the Belgian Minister at Washington, Secretary Root replied at considerable length, in a communication which bears the date of June 11, 1909: "The Government of the United States," said the Secretary, "has observed with much interest the progress of the negotiations looking to such a transfer, in the expectation that under the control of Belgium the condition of the natives might be beneficially improved and the engagements of the treaties to which the United States is a party, as well as the high aims set forth in the American memoranda of April 7 and 16, 1908, and declared in the Belgium replies thereto, might be fully realized.
"The United States would also be gratified by the assurance that the Belgian Government will consider itself specifically bound to discharge the obligations assumed by the Independent State of the Congo in the Brussels Convention of July 2, 1890, an assurance which the expressions already made by the Government of Belgium in regard to its own course as a party to that convention leave no doubt is in entire accordance with the sentiments of that Government. Among the particular clauses of the Brussels Convention which seem to the United States to be specially relevant to existing conditions in the Congo region are the clauses of Article II., which include among the objects of the convention:
"‘To diminish intestine wars between tribes by means of arbitration; to initiate them in agricultural labour and in the industrial arts so as to increase their welfare; to raise them to civilization and bring about the extinction of barbarous customs. …
"‘To give aid and protection to commercial enterprises; to watch over their legality by especially controlling contracts for service with natives; and to prepare the way for the foundation of permanent centres of cultivation and of commercial settlements.’
"The United States has been forced to the conclusion that in several respects the system inaugurated by the Independent State of the Congo has, in its practical operation, worked out results inconsistent with these conventional obligations and calling for very substantial and even radical changes in order to attain conformity therewith." Moreover, it renders nugatory the provisions of the successive declarations and conventions, cited by the Secretary, which have given such rights in the Congo State to citizens of the United States and others as must be maintained.
"It should always be remembered," wrote Mr. Root, "that the basis of the sovereignty of the Independent State of the Congo over all its territory was in the treaties made by the native Sovereigns who ceded the territory for the use and benefit of free States established and being established there under the care and supervision of the International Association, so that the very nature of the title forbids the destruction of the tribal rights upon which it rests without securing to the natives an enjoyment of their land which shall be a full and adequate equivalent for the tribal rights destroyed."
Referring to a statement made in the Belgian reply given to his memorandum of April 16, which he quotes as in these words:—
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"When it annexes the possessions of the Independent State Belgium will inherit its obligations as well as its rights; it will be able to fulfil all the engagements made with the United States by the declarations of April 22, 1884"—Mr. Root closes his letter with these remarks:
"It would be gratifying to the United States to know that the last clause of the statement just quoted is not intended to confine the rights of the United States in the Independent State to the declarations of the Commercial Association which preceded the creation of the Congo State as a sovereign power, but includes the conventional rights conferred upon the United States by the treaty concluded with the Independent State immediately after its recognition.
"In the absence of a fuller understanding on all these points, I confine myself for the present to acknowledging your note of November 4 last and taking note of the announcement therein made."
Thus no recognition was given to the Belgian annexation. Recognition was held in abeyance, awaiting further information and evidence of reform in the administration of the Congo State. And this is the attitude assumed by the British Government, which waited long and with growing impatience for assurances from Belgium, with proceedings that would give sign of making them good. On the 24th of February, 1909, the subject came up in Parliament, with assertions that "oppression of the natives was still going on just as before the annexation," and that "Great Britain had waited for months while the cruelties against which she had protested still continued." In the debate, Sir Charles Dilke referred to the harmony of action in the matter by the United States and Great Britain, and expressed his conviction that "the cooperation of two such powerful Governments in the cause of humanity would be irresistible." Sir Edward Grey, speaking for the Ministry, said:
"I am glad that in the course of the debate it has been emphasized that this attitude is not ours alone, but that the United States has spoken with equal emphasis and taken up the same position. I am sorry that no other Power has taken up the same position so strongly; but as there is only one Power which has declared itself so definitely on the question as ourselves, I should like to say that I am glad it is the United States."
Alluding to a remark made by one of the speakers in the debate, that the Government might have prevented the annexation of the State by Belgium, Sir Edward said:
"I do not think we should have prevented the annexation, but in any case I should not have tried to prevent the annexation. And for this reason among others—that if Belgium was not going to take the Congo State in hand and put it right, who was? I have never been able to answer that question. Certainly not ourselves, because we have always denied the intention of assuming any responsibility over an enormous tract of land where we have sufficient responsibility already."
The Foreign Secretary concluded his speech by saying:
"If Belgium makes the administration of the Congo humane and brings it into accord, in practice and spirit, with the administration which exists in our own and neighbouring African colonies, no country will more cordially welcome that state of things than this or more warmly congratulate Belgium. But we cannot commit ourselves to countersign, so to say, by recognition a second time, the system of administration which has existed under the old regime."
Again, in May, the question came up in Parliament, with impatient criticism of the Government for not taking peremptory measures to compel a reformation of Belgian rule in the Congo State, one speaker suggesting a "peaceful blockade" of the mouth of the Congo. Sir Edward Grey replied:
"If this question were rashly managed it might make a European question compared to which those which we have had to deal with in the last few months might be child’s play. Take, for instance, the question of peaceful blockade. It is no good talking of peaceful blockade. Blockade is blockade. It is the use of force. If you are to have blockade you must be prepared to go to war, and a blockade of the mouth of the Congo means blockading a river which is not the property of the Congo or Belgian Government. They have one bank of the river. It is a river which by international treaty must be opened to navigation, and if you are to blockade to any effect you must be prepared to stop every ship going in or out of the Congo, whether under the French, Belgian, German, or whatever flag it is. Surely if you are going to pledge yourself to take steps of that kind, and to accept the responsibility for them, it is not too much to say that you must be prepared to raise a European question which would be of the gravest kind. I do not say there are not circumstances which might justify a question of that kind, but do not let the House think that by smooth words, such as by applying the adjective ‘peaceful’ to blockade, you are going to minimize what will be the ultimate consequences of the step you are taking."
CONGO STATE: A. D. 1909 (October). Programme of reforms promised by the Belgian Government.
The programme of long promised reforms to be instituted by the Belgian Government in its administration of the now annexed Congo State was announced in the Belgian Chamber on the 28th of October, 1909, by the Minister for the Colonies, M. Renkin. "He repeated his solemn assurance that the charges of cruelty or oppression made against the Belgian Colonial Administration were false. He had questioned missionaries, officials, chiefs, and other natives during his visit, and heard nothing to justify the accusation. Individual breaches of the law might possibly have occurred, but every abuse brought to the notice of the authorities was immediately made the object of inquiry.
"It was useless, he said, to refer to the past; the situation had been radically altered by the annexation. As regards the land system, the assignment of vacant lands to the State was juridically unassailable, but they must also have regard to the development of the natives. The natives would therefore be granted the right to take the produce of the soil in the Domain. This would be accomplished in three stages. On July 1, 1910, the Lower Congo, Stanley Pool, Ubangi, Bangala, Kwango, Kasai, Katanga, the southern portion of the Eastern Province, Aruwimi, and the banks of the river as far as Stanleyville would be opened to freedom of trade. On July 1, 1911, the Domain of the Crown, and on July 1, 1912, the Welle district would also be thrown open. Furthermore, the Government would levy taxes in money, and the system of the provisioning of the agents would be abolished."
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M. Renkin said furthermore that in regard to the territories held by concessionnaires in the Congo the Government would make an investigation with a view to ascertaining whether it would not be advisable to make fresh arrangements in agreement with the persons interested.
Writing from Brussels a mouth later, an English correspondent represents the Belgian Reformers, who had most bitterly denounced the atrocities of the Leopold regime in the Congo State, as believing that M. Renkin's scheme is on the whole a reasonable and satisfactory scheme, and above all a practical scheme, that the Belgian Government are sincerely determined to carry it through, and that, even if there were any sufficient reason for doubting their sincerity, the Belgian nation is in earnest and has the means of enforcing the execution of the reforms by the exercise of the Parliamentary control with which it is now for the first time invested over the affairs of the Congo as a consequence of annexation.
On the other hand, English opinion, which had been roused to much heat on the Congo question, is far from satisfied with the Belgian proposals, and criticises them with a sharpness which the Belgians resent.
----------CONGO STATE: End--------
----------CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES: Start--------
CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES: Australia: Undertakings of Irrigation and Forestry.
During a brief visit to the United States in 1902, Sir Edmund Barton, then Premier of the Commonwealth of Australia, contributed to The Independent an article on "Australia and her Problems," in which he wrote:
"Another great problem with which we are struggling is that of irrigation, and a joint irrigation scheme is afoot for using the waters of the Murray, our greatest river, to fertilize lands in New South Wales and Victoria. The Murray forms the boundary of those two States and afterward flows through South Australia. It is to the interest of New South Wales and Victoria to use the waters of the Murray for irrigation purposes, and it is to the interest of South Australia to use the Murray for navigation. We hope to harmonize those interests and are working to that end.
"Just before I left Australia I attended a conference, held on the border, between representatives of the various States as a result of which each has appointed a hydraulic engineer to a joint commission on irrigation. These will make an investigation and report their opinion in regard to the best practicable system for conserving, storing and distributing the Murray’s waters without interfering with its navigation. We have good reason to believe that by means of a system of locks and weirs it is quite possible to irrigate a very large extent of dry country by means of the Murray without injuring its navigability. Later we will take up the problem of using the waters of the Darling in a similar way. It is a very long river, which during the rainy season sends an immense Volume of water into the Murray.
"Another of our problems is in regard to forestry. We have planted some trees but not nearly enough of them, and cannot yet tell anything about results. Along with this tree planting, also, denudation of our timber has been going on, for Australian hard woods, being impervious to water, are now used all over the world for street paving purposes. Great harm has been done, and the waste is still going on, for our national Government cannot interfere in the matter, and the land owners are in many instances reckless. The remedy must come from the common sense of the people."
Since the above was written, progress has been made in carrying out the projects of irrigation, as was stated in a speech by Lord Northcote after his return to England, in the autumn of 1909, from five years of service as Governor-General of Australia. "Both in New South Wales and Victoria," he said, "very large irrigation works are in progress, and will be completed in a very short time, adding enormously to the acreage of land fit for cultivation."
CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES: Canada: The Dominion Forest Reserves Act. Irrigation in the Northwest.
A Dominion Act of 1906, thus short-titled, provides as follows:
"All Dominion lands within the respective boundaries of the reserves mentioned in the schedule to this Act are hereby withdrawn from sale, settlement and occupancy under the provisions of the Dominion Lands Act, or of any other Act, or of any regulations made under the said Act or any such Act, with respect to mines or mining or timber or timber licenses or leases or any other matter whatsoever; and after the passing of this Act no Dominion lands within the boundaries of the said reserves shall be sold, leased or otherwise disposed of, or be located or settled upon, and no person shall use or occupy any part of such lands, except under the provisions of this Act or of regulations made thereunder."
The schedule referred to lists 21 Forest Reserves in British Columbia, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. They are placed under the management of the Superintendent of Forestry, for the maintenance and protection of the growing timber, the animals and birds in them, the fish in their waters and their water supply, the Governor in Council to make the needed regulations.
In a paper read before the Royal Colonial Institute at London, England, in January, 1910, Mr. C. W. Peterson, Manager of the Canadian Pacific Irrigation Colonization Company, gave the following account of what is being done in the Arid Belt, so called, near Calgary, in the Canadian Northwest:
"The irrigated land in Alberta and Saskatchewan nearly equalled half of the total irrigated area of the United States. In the year 1894 the Dominion Government withdrew from sale and homestead entry a tract of land containing some millions of acres located east of the city of Calgary, along the main line of the Canadian Pacific Railway. The object of that reservation was to provide for the construction, ultimately, of an irrigation scheme to cover the fertile Bow River Valley. The Canadian Pacific Railway Company undertook to construct the gigantic irrigation system in question, and selected as part of its land grant a block comprising three million acres of the best agricultural lands. It had now been opened for colonization, and this project—the greatest of the kind on the American continent—was being pushed to its completion. The tract had an average width of forty miles from north to south, and extended eastwards from Calgary 150 miles."
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CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES: Egypt: A. D. 1909. Completion of the Esneh Barrage.
An important addition to the irrigation works in Egypt, supplementing the great dam at Assouan and the Assiout barrage, was completed in February, 1909, when the Esneh barrage was formally opened, on the 9th of that month. Esneh is a town of some 25,000 inhabitants, situated in Upper Egypt, on the west bank of the Nile, and the work now completed will, even in the lowest of floods, ensure a plentiful supply of water to a great tract of land in the Nile valley from Esneh northwards. In deciding to undertake the construction of this latest barrage, at a point about 100 miles north of the Assouan reservoir, the Government were influenced by the great success of the Assiout barrage, but that work differs from the new barrage in being designed as a low-water summer regulator, whereas the function of the Esneh barrage is to hold up the water in low floods.
CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES: Germany: The work begun a century ago, and its result.
"Germany, a century ago, faced just such a situation as now confronts us [the United States]. Then there began the work which we must now undertake. New forests were planted, wherever the land was unsuitable for other purposes. This planting was done year after year, so that each year a new tract would come to maturity. Forest wardens watched for fires, and laws forbade careless hunters setting fires in the woods. Timbermen were forced to gather and burn what twigs from the slashings could not be used in the still or burned for charcoal, and broad lanes were left through the forests as stops for fires. In this way there arose those magnificent German forests which now return the empire an average net annual profit of two dollars and a half for each acre, on land which is otherwise unusable; and, besides, give their services free for the storage of water and for the retention of the soil.
"In our own land something of this sort has already been done. New York has nearly two million acres of land in forest reserves which are being carefully tended. Pennsylvania has half as much. Minnesota is already securing considerable profit from the management of its white pine reserves and is seeding down large areas; and the other lake states are also moving, but all this is being done slowly, and lacks much of the energy and cooperation which should accompany it."
_J. L. Mathews, The Conservation of our National Resources (Atlantic Monthly, May, 1908)._
CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES: Great Britain: Outline of undertakings by the Government in 1909. Development and Road Improvement Act.
In his Budget speech to the House of Commons April 29, 1909, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. David Lloyd-George, gave a broad indication of undertakings contemplated by the Government, in forestry work (afforestation, or reafforestation) and on other lines directed toward a more effective preservation and development of the natural resources of the country. In the afforestation of the waste lands of the country, he said, "We are far behind every other civilized country in the world. I have figures which are very interesting on this point. In Germany, for instance, out of a total area of 133 million acres, 34 millions, or nearly 26 per cent., are wooded; in France, out of 130 million acres, 17 per cent.; even in a small and densely-populated country such as Belgium, 1,260,000 acres are wooded, or 17 per cent. In the United Kingdom, on the other hand, out of 77 million acres, only 3 millions, or 4 per cent., are under wood. Sir Herbert Maxwell, who has made a study of this question for a good many years, and whose moderation of statement is beyond challenge, estimates that, in 1906, ‘eight millions were paid annually in salaries for the administration, formation, and preservation of German forests, representing the maintenance of about 200,000 families, or about 1,000,000 souls; and that in working up the raw material yielded by the forests wages were earned annually to the amount of 30 millions sterling, maintaining about 600,000 families, or 3,000,000 souls.’ The Committee will there perceive what an important element this is in the labour and employment of a country. Any one who will take the trouble to search out the census returns will find that the number of people directly employed in forest work in this country is only 16,000. And yet the soil and the climate of this country are just as well adapted for the growth of marketable trees as that of the States of Germany. Recently we have been favoured with a striking report of a Royal Commission, very ably presided over by my honourable friend the member for Cardiff. A perusal of the names attached to that report will secure for it respectful and favourable consideration. It outlines a very comprehensive and far-reaching scheme for planting the wastes of this country. The systematic operation which the Commission recommend is a gigantic one, and, before the Government can commit themselves to it in all its details, it will require very careful consideration by a body of experts skilled in forestry. I am informed by men whom I have consulted, and whose opinion on this subject I highly value, that there is a good deal of preliminary work which ought to be undertaken in this country before the Government could safely begin planting on the large scale indicated in that report. … I am also told that we cannot command the services in this country of a sufficient number of skilled foresters to direct planting. …
"I doubt whether there is a great industrial country in the world which spends less money directly on work connected with the development of its resources than we do. Take the case of agriculture alone. Examine the Budgets of foreign countries—I have done it with great advantage in other directions—examine them from this particular point of view, and honourable members, I think, will be rather ashamed at the contrast between the wise and lavish generosity of countries much poorer than ours and the short-sighted and niggardly parsimony with which we dole out small sums of money for the encouragement of agriculture in our country. …
"I will tell the House what we propose. There is a certain amount of money, not very much, spent in this country in a spasmodic kind of way on what I will call the work of national development—in light railways, in harbours, in indirect but very meagre assistance to agriculture. {145} I propose to gather all these grants together into one grant that I propose to call a development grant, and this year to add a sum of £200,000 to that grant for these purposes. … The grant will be utilized in the promotion of schemes which have for their purpose the development of the resources of the country, and will include such objects as the institution of schools of forestry, the purchase and preparation of land for afforestation, the setting up of a number of experimental forests on a large scale, expenditure upon scientific research in the interests of agriculture, experimental farms, the improvement of stock—in respect of which I have had a good many representations from the agricultural community—the equipment of agencies for disseminating agricultural instruction, the encouragement and promotion of co-operation, the improvement of rural transport so as to make markets more accessible, the facilitation of all well-considered schemes and measures for attracting labour back to the land by small holdings or reclamation of wastes."
In realization of this programme an important "Development and Road Improvement Funds Act" was introduced by Mr. Lloyd-George in August, and passed, after considerable amendment of its administrative details in Committee of the Commons and in the House of Lords. It is divided into two parts, the first dealing with development, or the aiding and encouraging of agriculture and other rural industries, inclusive of forestry, reclamation and drainage of land, improvement of rural transport, construction and improvement of inland navigation and harbors, and the development and improvement of fisheries. The Act enables the Treasury to make free grants and loans, from a Development Fund fed by an annual Parliamentary vote and by a charge on the Consolidated Fund. An independent Development Commission is to be appointed by the Treasury, consisting of five members appointed for ten years, whose recommendation for the rejection of applications shall be final, though not that for their acceptance. The second part of the Act sets up a Road Board to carry out schemes of road improvement, either under its own direct control or through the existing highway authorities.
CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES: North America: International Conference of Delegates from Canada, Mexico, and the United States.
The movement instituted in the United States for a better conservation of the natural resources of the country was broadened, early in 1909, into a continental and international movement, by an invitation from President Roosevelt to the Governments of Canada and Mexico to send delegates to a general conference on the subject at Washington, for the purpose of arranging some cooperative and harmonious plans of action in the three countries. The invitation was cordially accepted in both of the neighboring countries, and the delegates sent were met, on the 18th of February, by many of the leaders of the conservation movement in the United States, including the National Conservation Commission. After being received and addressed by the President at the White House, a two days session of the Conference was held in the diplomatic room of the State Department, with good results.
CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES: Turkey: A. D. 1909. Reclamation projects in the Tigris-Euphrates Delta.
See (in this Volume) TURKEY: A. D. 1909 (OCTOBER).
CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES: United States: The Great Movement for an Arresting of Waste. An organized National care-taking of Forests, Waters, Lands, and Minerals. Forest Service, Irrigation, Development of Waterways.
It is more than possible that the administration of Government in the United States under President Roosevelt will be distinguished, in the judgment of coming generations, most highly by the impulse and the organization it gave to measures for conserving the natural resources of the country, in woods, water sources, mineral deposits and fertile or fertilizable soils,—rescuing them from a hitherto unrestrained recklessness of waste. The key-note of a new determination in governmental policy, pointed to this end, was sounded by the President in his first Message to Congress, on the 3d of December, 1901, when he opened the subject largely and earnestly, saying, among other things, this:
"The preservation of our forests is an imperative business necessity. We have come to see clearly that whatever destroys the forest, except to make way for agriculture, threatens our well-being. At present the protection of the forest reserves rests with the General Land Office, the mapping and description of their timber with the United States Geological Survey, and the preparation of plans for their conservative use with the Bureau of Forestry, which is also charged with the general advancement of practical forestry in the United States. These various functions should be united in the Bureau of Forestry, to which they properly belong. The present diffusion of responsibility is bad from every standpoint. It prevents that effective cooperation between the Government and the men who utilize the resources of the reserves, without which the interests of both must suffer. The scientific bureaus generally should be put under the Department of Agriculture. The President should have by law the power of transferring lands for use as forest reserves to the Department of Agriculture. He already has such power in the case of lands needed by the Departments of War and the Navy. …
"The wise administration of the forest reserves will be not less helpful to the interests which depend on water than to those which depend on wood and grass. The water supply itself depends upon the forest. In the arid region it is water, not land, which measures production. The western half of the United States would sustain a population greater than that of our whole country to-day if the waters that now run to waste were saved and used for irrigation. The forest and water problems are perhaps the most vital internal questions of the United States. …
"The forests alone cannot, however, fully regulate and conserve the waters of the arid region. Great storage works are necessary to equalize the flow of streams and to save the flood waters. Their construction has been conclusively shown to be an undertaking too vast for private effort. Nor can it be best accomplished by the individual States acting alone. Far-reaching interstate problems are involved; and the resources of single States would often be inadequate. It is properly a national function. at least in some of its features. …
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"The reclamation of the unsettled arid public lands presents a different problem. Here it is not enough to regulate the flow of streams. The object of the Government is to dispose of the land to settlers who will build homes upon it. To accomplish this object water must be brought within their reach. … Whatever the Nation does for the extension of irrigation should harmonize with, and tend to improve, the condition of those now living on irrigated land. We are not at the starting-point of this development. Over two hundred millions of private capital have already been expended in the construction of irrigation works, and many million acres of arid land reclaimed. A high degree of enterprise and ability has been shown in the work itself; but as much cannot be said in reference to the laws relating thereto. The security and value of the homes created depend largely on the stability of titles to water; but the majority of these rest on the uncertain foundation of court decisions rendered in ordinary suits at law. With a few creditable exceptions, the arid States have failed to provide for the certain and just division of streams in times of scarcity. Lax and uncertain laws have made it possible to establish rights to water in excess of actual uses or necessities, and many streams have already passed into private ownership, or a control equivalent to ownership."
_President's Message to Congress, December 3, 1901._
CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES: The Nationalizing of Irrigation Works.
The highest quality of statesmanship is represented by such recommendations as these. So far as concerned the proposed nationalization of irrigation works, to reclaim the arid lands of the West, they bore fruit within a year, in the passage by Congress of the Reclamation Act of June 17, 1902. It devoted most of the proceeds of the sale of public lauds, in Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, North and South Dakota, Oklahoma, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming, to a special Reclamation Fund in the Treasury, for the creation and maintenance of irrigation works. This was a measure for which the late Major John W. Powell, Director of the United States Geological Survey, had labored incessantly for many years. In his book on "The Lands of the Arid Regions" he was the first to show the possibility of redemption for most of the wide spaces of land then supposed to be hopeless desert, and he pleaded with Congress, session after session, for some national undertaking to store and distribute the waters from the mountains that would give life to their soil. In 1888 he succeeded so far as to win authority and means for investigating the water supply for the region, and from that time he had kept an efficient small corps of engineers at work in the survey and measurement of streams, accumulating information that was ready for immediate use when actual constructive work was taken in hand. At once, on the passage of the Reclamation Act, the Director of the Geological Survey, acting under the Secretary of the Interior, began the execution of plans already well matured, for irrigation in Arizona and Nevada; and was able three years later to report similar undertakings in progress within three of the ten Territories and thirteen States.
In May, 1908, the following statement of the reclamation work then in progress appeared in The Outlook: "The work as a whole rivals the Panama Canal in the labor and expense involved. The employment of 16,000 men and the expenditure of $1,250,000 every month are but incidents in the service. Already the canals completed reach a total of 1,815 miles—as far as from New York to Denver. Homes have been made for ten thousand families where before was desert. In the past five years $33,000,000 has been spent, and the enterprises already planned will add more than a hundred millions to this sum. Nor is this money spent in one locality. In New Mexico one of the largest dams in the world is being constructed. In California and Nevada great reservoirs and irrigation plants are being built. In western Kansas the beet-sugar raisers are to have a $250,000 plant for pumping the ‘underflow,’ or the sheet water found a few feet beneath the top-soil, of the Arkansas River Valley to the surface, that ditches may be filled and crops made certain. On seven great projects, involving the expenditure of $51,000,000 and the reclamation of over a million acres, the benefit is directly to the Northwest. These projects lie in North and South Dakota, Montana, and Washington. In these States lands that have been considered as worthless except for the coarsest kind of grazing are being transformed into productive farms. In South Dakota the largest earth dam in the world is being constructed, that ninety thousand acres of land may be made fertile; while just east of the Yellowstone Park is being built a solid wall of masonry 310 feet high to hold back the waters of the Shoshone River until a reservoir of ten square miles, capable of irrigating a hundred thousand acres, is formed. The production of these irrigated lands is marvelous."
The latest official statistics that are available represent the total of acres irrigated at the end of the year 1907 as being 11,000,000, in 167,200 farms, at an average cost (of constructive work) of $13.46 per acre.
CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES: A National Forest Policy.
Less promptitude of action followed the President's urging of measures for forest preservation, and his warnings to Congress and the country, against the consequences of this inaction, were repeated from year to year. His Message of December, 1904, carried a specially urgent plea for legislation to unify the national forest work.
"I have repeatedly," he said, "called attention to the confusion which exists in Government forest matters because the work is scattered among three independent organizations. The United States is the only one of the great nations in which the forest work of the Government is not concentrated under one department, in consonance with the plainest dictates of good administration and common sense. The present arrangement is bad from every point of view. Merely to mention it is to prove that it should be terminated at once. As I have repeatedly recommended, all the forest work of the Government should be concentrated in the Department of Agriculture, where the larger part of that work is already done, where practically all of the trained foresters of the Government are employed, where chiefly in Washington there is comprehensive first-hand knowledge of the problems of the reserves acquired on the ground, where all problems relating to growth from the soil are already gathered, and where all the sciences auxiliary to forestry are at hand for prompt and effective coöperation."
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During its following session Congress took the desired action, and the whole forest service was transferred to the Department of Agriculture in February, 1905.
Early in June of that year the efforts of the President to waken attention to the seriousness of the forest destruction in the country were greatly helped by a notable convention at Washington of about twelve hundred men, having both interest and knowledge in the matter, who came together to discuss the problems involved. They were mostly practical foresters, intelligent lumbermen, railway men, ranch-owners, engineers and miners, and their urgency of a systematic conservative treatment of the surviving forest wealth of the country carried great weight. The convention was under the direction of the Secretary of Agriculture, and was addressed by the President.
During a journey through parts of the Southern States, in October, 1905, the President took occasion, in some of his speeches, to urge that a large part, at least, of the rapidly disappearing forests on the Atlantic side of the country should be nationalized, for preservation in the manner of the forest reserves of the Far West. In his Message of 1906 he submitted this to Congress, as a specific recommendation, saying that the forests of the White Mountains and the Southern Appalachian regions need to be preserved, and "cannot be unless the people of the States in which they lie, through their representatives in the Congress, secure vigorous action by the National Government." This proposal encountered strong opposition from selfish interests, and Congress was prevailed upon with difficulty to authorize a survey of the forests of the White Mountains and the Southern Appalachians, which resulted in a recommendation by the Secretary of Agriculture that 600,000 acres in the former region and 5,000,000 in the latter be purchased for a National Reserve. A bill responsive to this recommendation was passed by the Senate, but rejected by the House, which appointed a commission, instead, to make further investigations in the matter. Meantime, in the White Mountains alone, busy slaughterers of the forests were said to be stripping three hundred acres per day.
On the eve of the adjournment of Congress in March, 1907, the President issued a proclamation adding some seventeen millions of acres of forest lands to the National Forest Reserves already established. This was just before he signed an Act of Congress which abridged his authority to create reserves in Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. It was a characteristic proceeding, for which the President had ample power under a statute of 1891, and it simply held the forests designated in safety from destruction until the question of their treatment was more carefully considered. The next Congress, or the next President, could give them up to private ownership, in whole or in part, if the one or the other found reason for doing so. Meantime they were sheltered from the axeman, while undergoing study. As a matter of fact, Mr. Roosevelt’s successor, President Taft, did conclude that some of the lands reserved should be released for sale, and so ordered soon after he entered the executive office.
CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES: The Inland Waterways Commission.
In his annual Message of December, 1907, the President enlarged the range of considerations that connect themselves with the question of economic forestry, by directing attention to the importance of the waterways of the country and their claim to a more systematic development. "For the last few years," he said, "through several agencies, the Government has been endeavoring to get our people to look ahead, and to substitute a planned and orderly development of our resources in place of a haphazard striving for immediate profit. Our great river systems should be developed as National water highways; the Mississippi, with its tributaries, standing first in importance, and the Columbia second, although there are many others of importance on the Pacific, the Atlantic and the Gulf slopes. The National Government should undertake this work, and I hope a beginning will be made in the present Congress; and the greatest of all our rivers, the Mississippi, should receive especial attention. From the Great Lakes to the mouth of the Mississippi there should be a deep waterway, with deep waterways leading from it to the East and the West. Such a waterway would practically mean the extension of our coast line into the very heart of our country. It would be of incalculable benefit to our people. If begun at once it can be carried through in time appreciably to relieve the congestion of our great freight-carrying lines of railroads. …
"The inland waterways which lie just back of the whole eastern and southern coasts should likewise be developed. Moreover, the development of our waterways involves many other important water problems, all of which should be considered as part of the same general scheme. The Government dams should be used to produce hundreds of thousands of horsepower as an incident to improving navigation; for the annual value of the unused water-power of the United States perhaps exceeds the annual value of the products of all our mines. As an incident to creating the deep waterway down the Mississippi, the Government should build along its whole lower length levees which taken together with the control of the headwaters, will at once and forever put a complete stop to all threat of floods in the immensely fertile Delta region. The territory lying adjacent to the Mississippi along its lower course will thereby become one of the most prosperous and populous, as it already is one of the most fertile, farming regions in all the world. I have appointed an Inland Waterways Commission to study and outline a comprehensive scheme of development along all the lines indicated. Later I shall lay its report before the Congress."
The Inland Waterways Commission thus appointed by the President in March, 1907, gave its attention first to the project of a "Lakes-to-the-Gulf Deep Water Way," which had been commanding wide interest in the Mississippi Valley for some years. What the project, in its full magnitude, contemplated, was stated as follows in the resolutions of a great convention, of 4000 delegates, from 44 States, assembled at Chicago in October, 1908:
"Any plan for the inland waterway development so imperatively necessary to the material welfare of the valley should comprise a main trunk line in the form of a strait connecting Lake Michigan with the Gulf of Mexico by way of the Illinois and Mississippi rivers. {148} The development of this trunk line should begin at once. The improvement of the branches of this main line, such as the upper Mississippi, with its tributaries; the Ohio, with its leading tributaries, including the Tennessee and Cumberland; the Missouri, the Arkansas, the Red, the White, and other rivers, and the interstate inland waterway of Louisiana and Texas, should proceed simultaneously with the development of the principal line.
"The deep waterway is practically complete from Chicago to Joliet through the courage and enterprise of the single city of Chicago, which has by the expenditure of $55,000,000 created a deep waterway across the main divide between the waters of Lake Michigan and those of the Mississippi. A special board of survey, composed of United States engineers, reported to Congress in 1905 that the continuation of the deep waterway from Joliet to St. Louis was feasible and would cost only $31,000,000. The State of Illinois, assuming that the Federal Government will take the responsibility of completing the waterway to the Gulf, is about to cooperate to the extent of $20,000,000."
The waterway here mentioned as being "practically complete from Chicago to Joliet" is that known as the Chicago Drainage Canal. The $20,000,000 with which the State of Illinois would cooperate in carrying out the whole project was voted by that State in November, 1908, for building an extension of the Drainage Canal from Joliet to Utica, Illinois, sixty-one miles, for a development of water power. The depth of these channels is and is to be twenty-four feet, and the project of the Lakes-to-the-Gulf Deep Waterway contemplated that depth throughout. The Board of Engineers to which the project was referred reported, however, in June, 1909, against the desirability of a waterway of such depth. Its cost from St. Louis to the Gulf is estimated to be $128,000,000 for construction, and $6,000,000 yearly for maintenance. In the judgment of the board, the present demands of commerce between St. Louis and the Gulf will be adequately met by an eight-foot channel from St. Louis to the mouth of the Ohio and a channel of not less than nine feet in depth below the mouth of the Ohio. The board’s belief is that an eight-foot channel from Chicago to St. Louis corresponding with the eight-foot project from St. Louis to Cairo is the least that would adequately meet the demands of commerce. It adds that such a waterway would be desirable, provided its cost is reasonable. Present and prospective demands of commerce between Chicago and the Gulf would be adequately served, the board reports, by a through nine-foot channel to the Gulf.
In the States bordering on the Atlantic a "Deeper Waterways Association" is pressing long-mooted plans for uniting the bays, sounds, and navigable rivers along the Atlantic coast by canals, thus affording safe deep-water communication from Boston on the east to Florida at the far south.
CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES: Conference of Governors at Washington.
In all his endeavors to establish a national policy directed, systematically and scientifically, to the arresting of waste in the use and treatment of the natural resources of the country, President Roosevelt was assisted very greatly by the knowledge and the energetic public spirit of the chief of the National Forest Service, Mr. Gifford Pinchot. It is understood to have been on the initiative of Mr. Pinchot that the crowning expedient for stirring and determining public feeling on the subject was planned, early in the winter of 1908, when the President invited the Governors of all the States and Territories to a Conference in Washington, for considering the whole question of an economic conservation of natural resources and concerting measures to that end. It was said, indeed, by the President, in addressing the meeting of Governors, that if it had not been for Mr. Pinchot "this convention neither would nor could have been called." The invitation went to others than Governors,—to men of national prominence in public life, in scientific pursuits, in business experience, and to heads of great associations. The resulting assembly at the White House, on the 13th, 14th, and 15th of May, 1908, marked an epoch in American history. There were Governors from forty of the forty-six States of the Union, with the President and members of his Cabinet, the Justices of the Supreme Court, many Senators and Representatives from the Congress, and a distinguished gathering of such citizens as William Jennings Bryan, Seth Low, James J. Hill, Andrew Carnegie, John Mitchell and Samuel Gompers. All sides of the national thriftlessness that needed correction were discussed by men who could best describe the evils produced and best indicate the methods of remedy. Before adjourning their meeting the Governors present adopted with unanimity a declaration in which they say:
"We agree that our country’s future is involved in this: that the great natural resources supply the material basis upon which our civilization must continue to depend, and upon which the perpetuity of the nation itself rests. We agree, in the light of the facts brought to our knowledge and from the information received from sources which we cannot doubt, that this material basis is threatened with exhaustion. …
"We declare our firm conviction that this conservation of our natural resources is a subject of transcendent importance which should engage unremittingly the attention of the nation, the States, and the people in earnest cooperation. These natural resources include the land on which we live and which yields our food; the living waters which fertilize the soil, supply power, and form great avenues of commerce; the forests which yield the materials for our homes, prevent erosion of the soil, and conserve the navigation and other uses of the streams; and the minerals which form the basis of our industrial life, and supply us with heat, light, and power. …
"We commend the wise forethought of the President in sounding the note of warning as to the waste and exhaustion of the natural resources of the country, and signify our high appreciation of his action in calling this Conference to consider the same and to seek remedies therefor through cooperation of the nation and the States. …
"We agree in the wisdom of future conferences between the President, Members of Congress, and the governors of States on the conservation of our natural resources with a view of continued coöperation and action on the lines suggested; and to this end we advise that from time to time, as in his judgment may seem wise, the President call the governors of States and Members of Congress and others into conference.
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"We agree that further action is advisable to ascertain the present condition of our natural resources and to promote the conservation of the same; and to that end we recommend the appointment by each State of a commission on the conservation of natural resources, to coöperate with each other and with any similar commission of the Federal Government."
CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES: The National Conservation Commission and its Report.
The President acted with promptitude on the suggestion of a National Commission on the Conservation of Natural Resources, to coöperate with kindred State Commissions. Within a month he announced the appointment of such a Commission, composed of nearly fifty men of special qualification for the inquiries to be pursued, the recommendations to be made, and the action to be taken. All sections of the country are represented on the Commission, including such authorities on waters as Professor Swain, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; on forests, as Professor Graves, of the Yale Forestry School, and Mr. Charles Lathrop Pack, of New Jersey; on lands, as Ex-Governor Pardee, of California, and Mr. James J. Hill, the eminent railway president; on minerals, as Messrs. Andrew Carnegie, of New York, John Hays Hammond, of Massachusetts, and John Mitchell, of Illinois.
The Commission is divided into four sections, one to consider forests, another waters, a third minerals, and the fourth lands. Over these divisions is an executive committee, of which Mr. Gifford Pinchot is chairman. In each section there are representatives from the Senate and House of Representatives, and officials of Government from the Department which has to do with the subject referred to it.
State action on the lines commended by the Conference of Governors had already been instituted in a number of States, and in many others it was promptly set on foot; so that the desired coöperative organization of effort was soon well under way, and contributing to the first undertaking planned by the Executive Committee of the National Commission, which was the making of an inventory of the natural resources of the United States. So effective was the work done in the summer and fall of 1908 that a Second Conference of State Governors, jointly with the State and National Commissions, was found desirable, for consideration of the mass of facts collected as a basis for definite plans. The Second Conference, like the First, was in Washington, and it was opened on the 8th of December, under the chairmanship of the then President-elect of the United States, the Honorable William H. Taft. The draft of a report prepared to be made by the National Conservation Commission to the President of the United States was submitted confidentially to this Conference, and was sent to Congress a little later with its approval, as well as with that of the President. The Conference adopted, furthermore, two important resolutions, as follows:
"Resolved, That a joint committee be appointed by the chairman, to consist of six members of state conservation commissions and three members of the National Conservation Commission, whose duty it shall be to prepare and present to the state and national commissions, and through them to the governors and the President, a plan for united action by all organizations concerned with the conservation of natural resources. (On motion of Governor Noel, of Mississippi, the chairman and secretary of the conference were added to and constituted a part of this committee.) "
"We also especially urge on the Congress of the United States the high desirability of maintaining a National Commission on the Conservation of the Resources of the Country, empowered to coöperate with State Commissions, to the end that every sovereign commonwealth and every section of the country may attain the high degree of prosperity and the sureness of perpetuity naturally arising in the abundant resources and the vigor, intelligence and patriotism of our people."
In subsequently communicating to Congress, on the 22d of January, 1909, the report of the National Conservation Commission, the President said:
"With the statements and conclusions of this report I heartily concur, and I commend it to the thoughtful consideration both of the Congress and of our people generally. It is one of the most fundamentally important documents ever laid before the American people. It contains the first inventory of its natural resources ever made by any nation."
The report of the Commission was prefaced by a brief explanatory statement from the Chairman of its Executive Committee, partly as follows:
"The executive committee designated in your letter creating the commission organized on June 19 and outlined a plan for making an inventory of the natural resources of the United States. On July 1 work was undertaken, accordingly, with the coöperation of the bureaus of the federal departments, authorities of the different States, and representative bodies of the national industries. The results of this coöperative work are herewith submitted as appendices of the commission’s report. … In its coöperation ‘with other bodies created for similar purposes by States,’ the National Conservation Commission has had most valuable assistance. Within the first month after the creation of the commission, the governors of 5 States had appointed conservation commissions, and an equal number of organizations of national scope had named conservation committees. At the time of the recent joint conservation conference 33 States and Territories had formed conservation commissions. The number has now increased to 36, with indications that nearly all of the remaining States will soon take similar action. The number of national organizations which have appointed conservation committees is 41."
CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES: An Inventory of Natural Resources.
From the report itself it is only possible, in this place, to glean a few of its most impressive and significant disclosures of fact. For example:
CONCERNING FORESTS.
"Forests privately owned cover three-fourths of the total forest area and contain four-fifths of the standing timber. The timber privately owned is not only four times that publicly owned, but is generally more valuable. Forestry is now practiced on 70 per cent. of the forests publicly owned, and on less than 1 per cent. of the forests privately owned, or on only 18 per cent. of the total area of forests.
"The yearly growth of wood in our forests does not average more than 12 cubic feet per acre. This gives a total yearly growth of less than 7,000,000,000 cubic feet.
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"We have 200,000,000 acres of mature forests, in which yearly growth is balanced by decay; 250,000,000 acres partly cut over or burned over, but restocking naturally with enough young growth to produce a merchantable crop, and 100,000,000 acres cut over and burned over, upon which young growth is lacking or too scanty to make merchantable timber.
"We take from our forests yearly, including waste in logging and in manufacture, 23,000,000,000 cubic feet of wood. We use each year 100,000,000 cords of firewood; 40,000,000,000 feet of lumber; more than 1,000,000,000 posts, poles, and fence rails; 118,000,000 hewn ties; 1,500,000,000 staves; over 133,000,000 sets of heading; nearly 500,000,000 barrel hoops; 3,000,000 cords of native pulp wood; 165,000,000 cubic feet of round mine timbers, and 1,250,000 cords of wood for distillation.
"Since 1870 forest fires have destroyed a yearly average of 50 lives and $50,000,000 worth of timber. Not less than 50,000,000 acres of forest is burned over yearly. The young growth destroyed by fire is worth far more than the merchantable timber burned.
"One-fourth of the standing timber is lost in logging. The boxing of long-leaf pine for turpentine has destroyed one-fifth of the forests worked. The loss in the mill is from one-third to two-thirds of the timber sawed. The loss of mill product in seasoning and fitting for use is from one-seventh to one fourth. Of each 1000 feet, which stood in the forest, an average of only 320 feet of lumber is used.
"We take from our forests each year, not counting the loss by fire, three and a half times their yearly growth. We take 40 cubic feet per acre for each 12 cubic feet grown; we take 260 cubic feet per capita, while Germany uses 37 and France 25 cubic feet.
"We tax our forests under the general property tax, a method abandoned long ago by every other great nation. Present tax laws prevent reforestation of cut-over land and the perpetuation of existing forests by use.
"Great damage is done to standing timber by injurious forest insects. Much of this damage can be prevented at small expense.
"To protect our farms from wind and to reforest land best suited for forest growth will require tree planting on an area larger than Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia combined. Lands so far successfully planted make a total area smaller than Rhode Island; and year by year, through careless cutting and fires, we lower the capacity of existing forests to produce their like again, or else totally destroy them. …
"By reasonable thrift we can produce a constant timber supply beyond our present need, and with it conserve the usefulness of our streams for irrigation, water supply, navigation and power. Under right management, our forests will yield over four times as much as now. We can reduce waste in the woods and in the mill at least one third, with present as well as future profit. … We can practically stop forest fires at a cost yearly of one fifth of the value of the merchantable timber burned.
"We shall suffer for timber to meet our needs until our forests have had time to grow again. But if we act vigorously and at once, we shall escape permanent timber scarcity." The report adds much of interest on this subject.
CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES: CONCERNING WATERS.
"Our mean annual rainfall is about 30 inches; the quantity about 215,000,000,000,000 cubic feet per year, equivalent to ten Mississippi rivers. Of the total rainfall over half is evaporated; about a third flows into the sea, the remaining sixth is either consumed or absorbed. These portions are sometimes called, respectively, the fly-off, the run-off and the cut-off. They are partly interchangeable. About a third of the run-off, or a tenth of the entire rainfall, passes through the Mississippi. The run-off is increasing with deforestation and cultivation.
"Of the 70,000,000,000,000 cubic feet annually flowing into the sea, less than 1 per cent. is restrained and utilized for municipal and community supply; less than 2 per cent. (or some 10 per cent. of that in the arid and semi-arid regions) is used for irrigation; perhaps 5 per cent, is used for navigation, and less than 5 per cent, for power. …
"For irrigation it is estimated that there are $200,000,000 invested in dams, ditches, reservoirs, and other works for the partial control of the waters; and that 1,500,000,000,000 cubic feet are annually diverted to irrigable lands, aggregating some 20,000 square miles. Except in some cases through forestry, few catchment areas are controlled, and few reservoirs are large enough to hold the storm waters. The waste in the public and private projects exceeds 60 per cent. while no more than 25 per cent. of the water actually available for irrigation of the arid lands is restrained and diverted.
"There are in continental United States 282 streams navigated for an aggregate of 26,115 miles, and as much more navigable if improved. There are 45 canals, aggregating 2,189 miles, besides numerous abandoned canals. Except through forestry in recent years, together with a few reservoirs and canal locks and movable dams, there has been little effort to control headwaters or catchment areas in the interests of navigation, and none of our rivers are navigated to more than a small fraction even of their effective low-water capacity.
"The water power now in use is 5,250,000 horse power; the amount running over government dams and not used is about 1,400,000 horse-power; the amount reasonably available equals or exceeds the entire mechanical power now in use, or enough to operate every mill, drive every spindle, propel every train and boat, and light every city, town, and village in the country. … Nearly all the freshet and flood water runs to waste, and the low waters which limit the efficiency of power plants are increasing in frequency and duration with the increasing flood run-off. … The direct yearly damage by floods since 1900 has increased steadily from $45,000,000 to over $238,000,000. …
"A large part of that half of the annual rainfall not evaporated lodges temporarily in the soil and earth. It is estimated that the ground water to the depth of 100 feet averages 16 2/3 percent, of the earth-Volume, or over 1,400,000,000,000,000 cubic feet, equivalent to seven years' rainfall or twenty years’ run-off. This subsurface reservoir is the essential basis of agriculture and other industries and is the chief natural resource of the country. It sustains forests and all other crops and supplies the perennial springs and streams and wells used by four-fifths of our population and nearly all our domestic animals. Its quantity is diminished by the increased run-off due to deforestation and injudicious farming."
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CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES: CONCERNING LANDS.
"The total land area of continental United States is 1,900,000,000 acres. Of this but little more than two-fifths is in farms, and less than one-half of the farm area is improved and made a source of crop production. We have nearly 6,000,000 farms; they average 146 acres each. The value of the farms is nearly one-fourth the wealth of the United States. There are more than 300,000,000 acres of public grazing land. The number of persons engaged in agricultural pursuits is more than 10,000,000. …
"There has been a slight increase in the average yield of our great staple farm products, but neither the increase in acreage nor the yield per acre has kept pace with our increase in population. Within a century we shall probably have to feed three times as many people as now; and the main bulk of our food supply must be grown on our own soil.
"The area of cultivated land may possibly be doubled. In addition to the land awaiting the plow, 75,000,000 acres of swamp land can be reclaimed, 40,000,000 acres of desert land irrigated, and millions of acres of brush and wooded land cleared. Our population will increase continuously, but there is a definite limit to the increase of our cultivated acreage. Hence we must greatly increase the yield per acre. The average yield of wheat in the United States is less than 14 bushels per acre, in Germany 28 bushels, and in England 32 bushels. We get 30 bushels of oats per acre, England nearly 45, and Germany more than 47. Our soils are fertile, but our mode of farming neither conserves the soil nor secures full crop returns. The greatest unnecessary loss of our soil is preventable erosion. Second only to this is the waste, nonuse, and misuse of fertilizer derived from animals and men."
CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES: CONCERNING MINERALS.
"The available and easily accessible supplies of coal in the United States aggregate approximately 1,400,000,000,000 tons. At the present increasing rate of production this supply will be so depleted as to approach exhaustion before the middle of the next century.
"The known supply of high-grade iron ores in the United States approximates 3,840,000,000 tons, which at the present increasing rate of consumption can not be expected to last beyond the middle of the present century. In addition to this, there are assumed to be 59,000,000,000 tons of lower grade iron ores which are not available for use under existing conditions.
"The supply of stone, clay, cement, lime, sand, and salt is ample, while the stock of the precious metals and of copper, lead, zinc, sulphur, asphalt, graphite, quicksilver, mica, and the rare metals can not well be estimated, but is clearly exhaustible within one to three centuries unless unexpected deposits be found.
"The known supply of petroleum is estimated at 15,000,000,000 to 20,000,000,000 barrels, distributed through six separate fields having an aggregate area of 8,900 square miles. The production is rapidly increasing, while the wastes and the loss through misuse are enormous. The supply can not be expected to last beyond the middle of the present century.
"The known natural-gas fields aggregate an area of 9,000 square miles, distributed through 22 States. Of the total yield from these fields during 1907, 400,000,000,000 cubic feet, valued at $62,000,000, were utilized, while an equal quantity was allowed to escape into the air. The daily waste of natural gas—the most perfect known fuel—is over 1,000,000,000 cubic feet, or enough to supply every city in the United States of over 100,000 population.
"Phosphate rock, used for fertilizer, represents the slow accumulation of organic matter during past ages. In most countries it is scrupulously preserved; in this country it is extensively exported, and largely for this reason its production is increasing rapidly. The original supply can not long withstand the increasing demand. …
"The National Government should exercise such control of the mineral fuels and phosphate rocks now in its possession as to check waste and prolong our supply."
CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES: CONCERNING LIFE AND HEALTH
"Since the greatest of our national assets is the health and vigor of the American people, our efficiency must depend on national vitality even more than on the resources of the minerals, lands, forests, and waters. …
"Our annual mortality from tuberculosis is about 150,000. Stopping three-fourths of the loss of life from this cause, and from typhoid and other prevalent and preventable diseases, would increase our average length of life over fifteen years. There are constantly about 3,000,000 persons seriously ill in the United States, of whom 500,000 are consumptives. More than half this illness is preventable. …
"The National Government has now several agencies exercising health functions which only need to be concentrated to become coordinated parts of a greater health service worthy of the nation."
CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES: FINAL WORDS.
"The inventory of our natural resources made by your commission, with the vigorous aid of all federal agencies concerned, of many States, and of a great number of associated and individual cooperators, furnishes a safe basis for general conclusions as to what we have, what we use and waste, and what may be the possible saving. But for none of the great resources of the farm, the mine, the forest, and the stream do we yet possess knowledge definite or wide enough to insure methods of use which will best conserve them. … The pressing need is for a general plan under which citizens, States and Nation may unite in an effort to achieve this great end. The lack of cooperation between the States and the Nation, and between the agencies of the National Government, is a potent cause of the neglect of conservation among the people. An organization through which all agencies, state, national, municipal, associate, and individual, may unite in a common effort to conserve the foundations of our prosperity is indispensable to the welfare and progress of the nation. To that end the immediate creation of a national agency is essential."
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CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES: Beginnings of a General Organization of all Conservation Agencies.
The Joint Committee which the Chairman of the Second Conference of Governors was instructed to appoint, for the preparation of "a plan for united action by all organizations concerned with the conservation of natural resources," met at Washington on the 5th of March, 1909, for its first consultation. The Committee, of eleven members, consists of six chairmen of State Conservation Commissions, and five who are members of the National Conservation Commission. In preparation for the meeting the various conservation bodies which have been actively at work for several months are sending in suggestions based on their own experience.
Action for the preservation and increase of forests has been stimulated in many if not all of the States of the Union by the national agitation of the subject in these late years. Nowhere has the influence been more effective than in New York, which has not only greatly enlarged its control and improved its care and treatment of the extensive forest tracts in the Adirondack region, but has done even more important reforesting work in other parts of its territory. "James S. Whipple, forest, fish and game commissioner, has not only planted more trees in this State than have been planted in any other State, or even by the national government, but this year he has made another great advance in the reforesting movement. The commission has sold to private land owners at cost 1,034,050 pine and spruce trees for reforesting land within the State."
_New York Evening Post, April 24, 1909._
These trees went to every county of the State, in numbers ranging from 50 to 200,000.
CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES: Threatened Monopoly of Water Power.
See (in this Volume) Combinations, Industrial, &c.: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1909.
CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES: Withdrawal of Water Power Sites from Land Office Entry.
What is said to be the largest number of acres of land withdrawn for temporary water power sites in the history of the Interior Department was made August 13, 1909, when Acting Secretary Wilson withdrew 87,360 acres along the Colorado River, in Utah. The land in question was withdrawn to prevent "monopolies," and with a view to procure legislation from Congress to preserve them to the Government.
CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES: The National Conservation Association.
"Great significance," said a Press despatch from Washington, September 16, 1906, "is attached here to-day to the announcement from Chicago of the formation of the National Conservation Association, with Charles W. Eliot, ex-president of Harvard University, as president. Friends of conservation interpret the launching of the new organization to mean that a national organization of the widest possible membership and the greatest possible scope is to supplant the American Forestry Association in administration favor as the educational branch of the conservation movement."
Not long after its formation the Association issued an earnest appeal to the country to bring the pressure of its opinion on Congress for needed legislation. The special subject of this appeal was the vast coal field in Alaska, which can only be saved from monopoly by speedy amendment of existing laws. "We, therefore," said the Association, "appeal to the American people to bring the urgent needs of the situation to the attention of their representatives in Congress, in order that comprehensive legislation upon this vital matter may be enacted at the next session of Congress. To this end, every individual citizen is urged to do his part, and to act at once."
On the request of Dr. Eliot, Mr. Gifford Pinchot, after the withdrawal of the latter from the office of Chief Forester of the United States, was made President of the Association, in January, 1910, but Dr. Eliot was named Honorary President.
CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES: Legislation recommended by President Taft.
Earnestly upholding the Conservation policy instituted by his predecessor, President Taft, in a Special Message to Congress, January 14, 1910, recommended several measures of legislation, for which suggested bills had been drafted by the Secretary of the Interior.
"One of the most pressing needs," said the Message, "in the matter of public-land reform is that lands should be classified according to their principal value or use. …
"It is now proposed to dispose of agricultural lands as such, and at the same time to reserve for other disposition the treasure of coal, oil, asphaltum, natural gas, and phosphate contained therein. This may be best accomplished by separating the right to mine from the title to the surface, giving the necessary use of so much of the latter as may be required for the extraction of the deposits. The surface might be disposed of as agricultural land under the general agricultural statutes, while the coal or other mineral could be disposed of by lease on a royalty basis."
The importance of an enlargement of the undertakings of the Government in the line of irrigation works, for reclaiming arid lands, is urged by the President with great force, and he recommends "that authority be given to issue not exceeding $30,000,000 of bonds from time to time, as the secretary of the interior shall find it necessary, the proceeds to be applied to the completion of the projects already begun and their proper extension, and the bonds running ten years or more to be taken up by the proceeds of returns to the reclamation fund, which returns, as the years go on, will increase rapidly in amount."
The Message gives approval to a Bill which passed the lower House of the late Congress, directing that "the national government appropriate a certain amount each year out of the receipts from the forestry business of the government to institute reforestation at the sources of certain navigable streams to be selected by the Geological Survey with a view to determining the practicability of thus improving and protecting the streams for Federal purposes."
Finally, on the subject of waterway improvement, the Message recommends the project of dams in the Ohio River from Pittsburg to Cairo, and in the Upper Mississippi from St. Paul to St. Louis.
CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES: A. D. 1910. Removal from office of Chief Forester Pinchot. Investigation of charges against Secretary Ballinger.
Unfortunate differences between the Secretary of the Interior, Mr. Ballinger, and the head of the Bureau of Forestry, Mr. Pinchot, led to the removal of the latter from office early in January, 1910. As a further result, formal charges of unfaithfulness to public interests, in conducting national measures of conservation, were brought against Secretary Ballinger, and are undergoing investigation by a Congressional Committee at the time of the passing of this matter to the printers (March, 1910).
----------CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES: End--------
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CONSERVATIVE-UNIONIST PARTY: Surrender of the Government in Great Britain. Defeat in the Elections.
See (in this Volume) ENGLAND: A. D. 1905-1906.
CONSPIRACY LAW, British, as affecting Trades Unions.
See (in this Volume) LABOR ORGANIZATION: ENGLAND A. D. 1906 (MARCH).
CONSTABULARY, The Philippine.
See (in this Volume) PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: A. D. 1901-1902.
CONSTANTINOPLE: A. D. 1901. Loss of political importance.
See (in this Volume) RUSSIA: THE ASIATIC FUTURE.
CONSTANTINOPLE: A. D. 1908-1909. The Turkish Revolution.
See (in this Volume) TURKEY: A. D. 1908 (JULY-DECEMBER), and after.
CONSTITUTION OF AUSTRALIA: Proposed Amendments.
See (in this Volume) AUSTRALIA: A. D. 1909 and 1910.
CONSTITUTION OF BRITISH INDIAN GOVERNMENT: The Indian Councils Act.
See (in this Volume ) INDIA: A. D. 1908-1909.
CONSTITUTION FOR CHINA: Nine years of approach to it. Promised for 1907.
See (in this Volume) CHINA: A. D. 1905-1908, 1908 (December), and 1909 (OCTOBER-NOVEMBER).
CONSTITUTION OF ENGLAND: Resolution of the Commons contemplating a change affecting the Legislative Power of the House of Lords.
See (in this Volume) ENGLAND: A. D. 1906 (APRIL-DECEMBER), and 1910.
CONSTITUTION OF GEORGIA: Suffrage Amendment.
See (in this Volume) GEORGIA: A. D. 1908.
CONSTITUTION OF MONTENEGRO.
See (in this Volume) BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES.
CONSTITUTION OF OKLAHOMA.
Some of the more radical features of the Constitution under which Oklahoma was admitted to the American Union are summarized in the following:
"Legislative authority is vested in a legislature, but the people reserve to themselves the power to propose laws and amendments to the constitution and to enact or reject the same at the polls independent of the legislature, and also reserve power at their own option to approve or reject at the polls any act of the legislature.
"Eight per cent of the legal voters have the right to propose any legislative measure and 15 percent of the legal voters have the right to propose amendments to the constitution by petition. A referendum may be ordered, except as to laws necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health or safety, either by petition signed by 5 per cent of the legal voters or by the legislature as other bills are enacted. The veto power of the governor does not extend to measures voted on by the people. The powers of the initiative and referendum are also reserved to the legal voters of every county and district as to local legislation or action.
"Every railroad, car or express company is required to receive and transport without delay or discrimination each other’s cars, loaded or empty, and passengers under such regulations as shall be prescribed by law or any commission created for that purpose. All oil-pipe companies are made subject to the reasonable control and regulation of the corporation commission, to which telephone and telegraph lines are also subject in the same manner. No public-service corporation may consolidate with any other like corporation having under its control a parallel or competing line except by enactment of the legislature upon the recommendation of the corporation commission. The legislature, however, shall never enact any law permitting any public-service corporation to consolidate with any other public-service corporation organized under the laws of any other state or of the United States owning or controlling a parallel or competing line in the state. The giving of passes by railroad or transportation companies is forbidden except in the case of employés and other specified persons.
"A corporation commission is created, to be composed of three persons, elected by the people for terms of six years. The commission shall have power to supervise and control all transportation and transmission companies in the state in all matters relating to the performance of their public duties and their charges therefor and of correcting abuses and preventing unjust discrimination and extortion by such companies; and to that end the commission shall from time to time prescribe and enforce such rates, charges, classification of charges and rules and regulations and shall require the companies to establish and maintain until amended all such public service, facilities and conveniences as may be reasonable and just.
"Railroads, other than street or electric roads, are forbidden to charge more than 2 cents a mile for the transportation of passengers. The corporation commission may, however exempt those roads which submit proof that they cannot earn a just compensation for the services rendered by them to the public if not permitted to charge more than 2 cents a mile.
"No corporation may issue stock except for money, labor done or property actually received to the amount of the par value thereof and all fictitious increase of stock or indebtedness shall be void.
"No corporation doing business in the state may be permitted to influence elections or official duty by contributions of money or anything of value.
"Every license issued or charter granted to a mining or public service corporation, foreign or domestic, must contain a stipulation that such corporation will submit any difference it may have with employés in reference to labor to arbitration.
"The selling by firms or corporations of commodities at a lower rate in one locality than in another for the purpose of creating a monopoly or for destroying competition is prohibited.
"Municipal corporations may not be created by special but by general laws, and every corporation now existing shall continue with its present rights and powers until otherwise provided by law. The powers of the initiative and referendum are reserved to the people of every municipal corporation. No municipal corporation may ever grant, extend or renew a franchise without the approval of a majority of the qualified electors residing within its limits, and no franchise may be granted, extended or renewed for more than twenty-five years.
Women are qualified to vote at school-district elections only.
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----------CONSTITUTION OF PERSIA: Start--------
A Constitution for Persia was signed by the Shah, Muzaffer-ed-Deen, December 30, 1906, of which the following is, in part, the text:
In the name of God the all Merciful! Whereas by our Firman of the 5th August, 1906, we commanded the constitution of a National Assembly [Medjliss] for the progress and welfare of the State and nation, the strengthening of the foundations of the kingdom, and the carrying out of the laws of Islam; and whereas, in accordance with the clause by which it is provided that, as each individual member of the State has a right to take part in the superintendence and decision of public affairs, we therefore have permitted the election and appointment of Deputies on behalf of the nation; and whereas the National Assembly has been opened through our gracious benevolence, we have decreed the following Articles of constitutional Regulations for the National Assembly, including the duties and business of the Assembly and its limitations and relations toward Government Departments:
THE INSTITUTION OF THE ASSEMBLY.
[Articles 1-14 declare the National Assembly to be "composed of members elected at Tehran and in the provinces"; their place of meeting to be at Tehran; their number 160, but may if necessary be increased to 200; their term of service two years: they are "representative of the whole Persian nation"; the Tehran deputies to have "the option of instituting the Assembly and starting discussion and debates," and "their decisions by majority during the absence of the provincial deputies will be valid and are to be carried out." The Assembly itself is given the right to fix the time of its recess and its sitting; its members cannot be proceeded against by any person; its proceedings must be public and open to newspaper reporting, but false reporting shall be punished.]
THE DUTIES OF THE ASSEMBLY, ITS LIMITATIONS AND RIGHTS.
Article 15. The National Assembly has the right to discuss truthfully and sincerely all matters it considers to be desirable in the interests of the State and nation to investigate; and, subject to the approval of a majority, to submit them, in the enjoyment of the utmost safety and confidence, with the approval of the Senate, to His Imperial Majesty the Shah, through the first person of the Government, for His Majesty’s signature, and to be then put into execution.
Article 16. In general, all laws necessary for the strengthening of the Government and kingdom, and the regulation of State affairs, and for the Constitution of Ministries, must receive the sanction of the National Assembly.
Article 17. The necessary Bills for making new laws, or for the alteration, amplification, or cancellation of existing laws, will, when desirable, be prepared by the National Assembly to be submitted to His Imperial Majesty the Shah for signature with the approval of the Senate, and to be then put into execution.
Article 18. The regulation of financial matters, the modification of the Budget, the alteration of the arrangement of taxation, the refusal or acceptance of impositions, as well as the inspections which will be undertaken by the Government, will be done with the approval of the Assembly.
Article 19. The Assembly will have the right, for the purpose of reforming financial matters and facilitating the relations of the Governors and the apportioning of the provinces of Persia, and the reappointment of Governors, after the Senate has given its approval, to demand from the Government authorities that the decision arrived at should be carried out.
Article 20. The Budget of each Ministry must be finished for the succeeding year in the last half of each year, and must be ready fifteen days before the 20th March.
Article 21. Should it be necessary with regard to the constitutional laws of the Ministries to make a new law, or to alter or cancel existing laws, it will be done with the consent of the National Assembly, whether its necessity be first pointed out by the Assembly or by the responsible Minister.
Article 22. Whenever a part of the revenue or property of the Government or State is to be sold, or a change of frontier or border becomes necessary, it will be done with the approval of the National Assembly.
Article 23. Without the approval of the National Assembly no concession whatever for the formation of Companies or Associations shall be granted by the Government.
Article 24. Treaties, Conventions, the granting of concessions, monopolies, either commercial, industrial, or agricultural, whether the other party be a native or a foreigner, can only be done with the approval of the National Assembly. Treaties which it may be in the interests of the Government or nation to keep secret are excepted.
Article 25. All Government loans of any nature whatsoever, whether internal or foreign, will be made with the knowledge and approval of the National Assembly.
Article 26. The construction of railways or roads, whether the cost be defrayed by the Government, by Associations or Companies, whether native or foreign, can only be undertaken with the approval of the National Assembly.
Article 27. Should the Assembly find in any place a fault, in the laws or an irregularity in their fulfilment, it will draw the attention of the responsible Minister to the same, and he will have to give the necessary explanations.
Article 28. Should a Minister, in contravention of one of the laws which have received the Imperial sanction, by misrepresentations obtain the issue of a written or verbal order from His Imperial Majesty the Shah, and excuse himself thereby for his delay and negligence, he will by law be responsible to His Imperial Majesty the Shah.
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Article 29. Whichever Minister who in a matter or matters should not be able to answer for his actions in accordance with the laws approved by His Imperial Majesty, and if it should be apparent that he has broken the law and transgressed the stipulated limitations, the Assembly will petition His Imperial Majesty for his dismissal, and when his fault has been determined by the Courts of Justice he will not again be allowed to serve the Government.
Article 30. The National Assembly has the right whenever it considers it desirable to make petitions direct to His Imperial Majesty by the means of a body composed of the President and six Members elected by the six classes. The time for the audience must be arranged for through the Minister of Court.
Article 81. The Ministers have the right to be present at the sittings of the National Assembly, and to sit in the place set apart for them, and to hear the debates of the Assembly; and should they think it necessary, they may ask the President for permission to speak and give the necessary explanations for the discussion and investigation of affairs.
Article 32. Any individual member of the public may make a statement of his case, or complaints or criticisms, to the office of the Assembly, and, if the matter concerns the Assembly itself, a satisfying answer will be given to him; but should the matter concern one of the Ministries, it will be sent to that Ministry for investigation, and in order that a satisfying answer be given.
Article 33. New laws which are necessary will be prepared at the responsible Ministries, and will be given to the National Assembly by the responsible Minister or by the Sadr Azam, and after receiving the approval of the Assembly will receive His Imperial Majesty’s sign-manual and be put into execution.
Article 34. The President of the Assembly can, if necessary, of his own initiative or by the desire of ten Members of the Assembly or of a Minister, form a Secret Committee, without the presence of newspaper reporters or spectators, composed of a number of persons chosen from among the Members of the Assembly, at which the other Members of the Assembly will not have the right to attend. The result of the deliberations of the Secret Committee can, however, only be put into execution when the Secret Committee in the presence of three quarters of the persons elected accept the point at issue by a majority of votes, and if the matter be not passed by the Secret Committee, it will not be stated in the Assembly and will remain secret.
Article 35. Should the Secret Committee be instituted by the President of the Assembly, he has the right to inform the public of any part of it he thinks fit; but if the Secret Committee is instituted by a Minister, the publication of the debate can only be subject to that Minister’s permission.
[Articles 36-42 are regulative of the transaction of business between the Assembly and the Ministries of the Government in matters of debate, inquiry, action on bills, etc.]
THE INSTITUTION OF THE SENATE.
Article 43. Another Assembly, called the Senate, will be constituted, composed of sixty Members, whose sittings will coincide, after its constitution, with those of the National Assembly.
Article 44. The Regulations of the Senate must receive the approval of the National Assembly.
Article 45. The Members of the Assembly will be chosen from among the enlightened, intelligent, orthodox, and respectable persons of the State, thirty persons on behalf of His Imperial Majesty, of whom fifteen from among the inhabitants of Tehran and fifteen from the inhabitants of the provinces, and thirty persons on behalf of the nation, of whom fifteen persons elected by the people of Tehran and fifteen persons elected by the people of the provinces.
Article 46. After the constitution of the Senate all affairs must receive the approval of both Assemblies. If those affairs are initiated by the Senate or by the body of Ministers, they must first be determined in the Senate and passed by a majority, and then be sent to the National Assembly for approval; but affairs initiated in the National Assembly will, on the contrary, pass from that Assembly to the Senate, with the exception of financial matters, which will be the prerogative of the National Assembly, and the Senate will be informed of the arrangements made by the Assembly regarding these affairs in order that the Senate should make its observations on the same to the National Assembly, which is, however, at liberty, after the necessary investigations, either to accept or to refuse the proposals of the Senate.
Article 47. So long as the Senate is not constituted affairs will require only the approval of the National Assembly and the sign-manual of His Imperial Majesty to be put into execution.
[Article 48 provides for the constituting of a "third assembly," composed of an equal number of members from the National Assembly and the Senate, to deal with cases in which those two bodies are in disagreement, and for the ultimate dissolution of the National Assembly, preparatory to the election of a new one, in case no settlement of the disagreement is reached.
Article 49 allows the new Tehran deputies then elected to begin their labors, outside of the points at issue, as soon as they are ready.]
The conclusion of the Constitution is as follows:
Article 50. During each term of election—that is to say, during two years—a general election will not be called more than once.
Article 51. It is decreed that the Sovereign who succeeds us should protect these limitations and Articles, which aim at the strengthening of the State and of the foundations of the kingdom, and the protection of justice and contentment of the nation, which we have decreed and put into execution, and which they must look upon as their duty to fulfil.
In the month of Zilkade the Unclean, 1324. O God the Almighty!
The Constitutional Laws of the National Assembly and the Senate, containing fifty one Articles, are correct.
14th of the month of Zilkade, 1324 (30th December, 1906).
In the handwriting of Muzaffer-ed-Deen Shah;
It is correct.
(Sealed) Valiahd (Mohammed Ali Shah). (Sealed) Mushir-ed-Dowleh (the Grand Vizier).
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CONSTITUTION OF PERSIA: The Constitutional Law, as passed by the National Assembly and signed by the Shah on October 8, 1907.
One hundred and seven articles "to complete the fundamental laws of the Constitution of Persia" were "added to the Constitutional law "by the signature of the Shah on the 30th of December, 1906. The first two are as follows:
Article 1. The official religion of Persia is the branch of the Twelve Imams of the Shia Sect of Islam. The Sovereign of Persia must be of, and contribute to the spread of, this religion.
Article 2. The National Assembly has been founded by the help of the Twelfth Imam, the bounty of His Islamic Majesty, the watchfulness of the Mujteheds and the common people. The laws passed by it must never to all ages be contrary to the sacred precepts of Islam, and the laws laid down by the Prophet. It is obvious that the decision as to whether the laws passed by the Assembly are in opposition to the precepts of Islam rests with the Ulema. It is therefore officially decreed that for all ages a Committee composed of five persons, who shall be Mujteheds and religious doctors, and who also must be acquainted with the requirements of the times, shall be elected in the following manner: The Ulema and doctors of Islam who are recognized by the Shias as the centre of imitation shall make known to the National Assembly the names of twenty of the Ulema possessing the above-mentioned qualities. The National Assembly shall, by agreement on casting of lots, elect five of them or more, according to the requirements of the age, and admit them as members. This Committee shall discuss and thoroughly investigate the Bills brought in by the National Assembly, and reject every one of these Bills which is contrary to the sacred precepts of Islam, in order that it may not become law. The decision of this Committee is final. This Article will not be liable to change until the advent of the Twelfth Imam.
[Articles 3-7 relate to boundaries of the Kingdom, its capital, its flag, protection of the lives and property of foreigners, and the integrity of the Constitution.
Articles 8-25 are in the nature of a "bill of rights," affirming equality of rights to all; immunity from arbitrary arrest, punishment, exile or sequestration of property; freedom of "the study of teaching of arts, letters and sciences" "except in so far as they are forbidden by the Sheri"; freedom of publication for all "except heretical works"; freedom of "societies and associations which do not provoke religious or civil strife"; inviolability of postal and telegraphic communications, except under authority of law. All primary and secondary schools are placed under the direction and surveillance of the Ministry of Education.
Articles 26-29 define, as follows:
THE POWERS OF THE REALM.
Article 26. The powers of the realm spring from the people. The Constitutional Law defines the method of using those powers.
Article 27. The powers of the realm are divided into three parts:—
Firstly, legislative power, whose province it is to make and amend laws. This power emanates from His Imperial Majesty the Shah, the National Assembly, and the Senate. Each one of these three sources possesses the right of originating laws; but their passing is conditional to their not being contrary to the laws of the Sheri, and to the approval of the two Assemblies, and to their receiving the Imperial signature. But the making and approval of laws relating to the revenue and expenditure of the realm belong to the National Assembly alone. The interpretation and commentary of laws is the peculiar duty of the National Assembly.
Secondly, the judicial power, which consists in the distinguishing of rights. This power belongs to the Sheri Tribunals in matters appertaining to the Sheri, and to the Courts of Justice in matters appertaining to the civil law ("urf").
Thirdly, the executive power, which rests with the Sovereign. That is to say, the Laws and Decrees will be executed by the Ministers and Government officials in the name of His Imperial Majesty in the manner defined by law.
Article 28. The three above-mentioned powers shall always be differentiated and separated from one another.
Article 29. The particular revenues of each province, department, and commune shall be regulated by the Provincial and Departmental Assemblies in accordance with their own particular laws.
[Articles 30-34 define the status of the members of the National Assembly.]
RIGHTS AND POWERS OF THE CROWN.
[Articles 35-57 set forth the rights and powers of the Crown. The sovereignty of Persia is declared to be "a trust which, by the grace of God, has been conferred on the person of the Sovereign by the people." The succession is vested in Muhammed Ali Shah Kajar and his descendants; the Crown Prince to be "the eldest son of the Sovereign whose mother is a Persian and a princess." Provision is made for the election by a joint committee of the Senate and the National Assembly on the succession of a minor, who cannot govern personally till his age is eighteen. The powers of the sovereign are thus defined:]
Article 43. The Sovereign cannot, without the approval and sanction of the National Assembly and the Senate, interfere in the affairs of another country.
Article 44. The Sovereign is absolved from all responsibility. The Ministers of State are responsible in all matters.
Article 45. All the Decrees and Rescripts of the Sovereign shall only be put into execution when they have been signed by the responsible Minister, who is responsible for the accuracy of the contents of that Firman or Rescript.
Article 46. The dismissal and appointment of Ministers are by order of the Sovereign.
Article 47. The conferring of commissions in the army and orders and honorary distinctions, with due observance of law, is vested in the person of the Sovereign.
Article 48. The Sovereign has the right, with the approval of the responsible Minister, to choose the important officials of the Government Departments, either at home or abroad, except in cases excepted by law. But the appointment of the other officials does not concern the Sovereign, except in cases defined by law.
Article 49. The issuing of Firmans for the execution of laws is one of the rights of the Sovereign, but he may not delay or suspend the execution of those laws.
Article 50. The supreme command of the military and naval forces is vested in the person of the Sovereign.
Article 51. The declaration of war and the conclusion of peace rest with the Sovereign.
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Article 52. Treaties which, in accordance with Article 24 of the Constitutional Law of the 14th Zilaadeh, 1325 (30th December, 1906), must be kept secret, must, on the removal of this necessity, and provided that the interests and security of the country demand it, be communicated by the Sovereign to the National Assembly and the Senate, with the necessary explanations.
Article 58. The secret clauses of any Treaty cannot annul the public clauses of that Treaty.
Article 54. The Sovereign can summon the National Assembly and the Senate to an extraordinary Session.
Article 55. Coins shall be struck, according to law, in the name of the Sovereign.
Article 56. The expenses of the Imperial household must be defined by law.
Article 57. The powers and prerogatives of the Sovereign are only such as have been defined by the existing constitutional laws.
[Articles 58-70 relate to the Ministers, who must be Mussulmans and native Persian subjects, princes of the first rank not eligible. They are severally and jointly responsible to both Assemblies. Commands of the sovereign cannot divest them of responsibility, which is to be defined by law. The Assembly or the Senate can accuse and prosecute them for offenses before the High Court of Appeal.]
JUDICIAL TRIBUNALS.
[The Judicial Tribunals of the Kingdom are the subject of Articles 71-89. "The Supreme Court of Justice and the subsidiary Courts" are declared to be "the official centres to which all suits must be referred, and judgment in matters appertaining to the Sheri rests with the fully qualified Mujteheds." Suits relating to political rights concern the Courts of Justice, excepting those which are excepted by law. No Court of Law can be instituted except by law. One Court of Appeal for the whole Kingdom is to be instituted at the Capital. The sittings of all tribunals shall be public, except in cases when the tribunal judges that this would be prejudicial to order or decency. "The Presidents and the members of the Courts of Justice will be chosen in the manner decreed by the law of the Ministry of Justice, and will be appointed by virtue of a royal Firman." No judge may be suspended, temporarily, or permanently, without a trial or proof of offence. Military tribunals will be instituted according to a special law.]
MISCELLANEOUS.
[Provincial Assemblies of elected representatives are provided for in Articles 90-93.
Articles 94-103 have relation to finances. They declare that no taxes may be levied or exemptions from them allowed except by law; that no favor to individuals shall be shown in taxation; that nothing shall, on any pretext, be demanded from the people, otherwise than by law; and provision is made for the creation of a State Accounts Department, to be chosen by the National Assembly.
The last four articles relate to the Army, which is required to be in all particulars under regulation of law. "The army vote must pass the National Assembly every year."]
----------CONSTITUTION OF PERSIA: End--------
CONSTITUTION OF RUSSIA, The so-called.
See (in this Volume) RUSSIA, A. D. 1904-1905.
----------CONSTITUTION OF SOUTH AFRICA: Start--------
Omitting the preamble, which sets forth the desirability and expediency, "for the welfare and future progress of South Africa, that the several British Colonies therein shall be united under one Government in a legislative union under the Crown of Great Britain and Ireland," the provisions of the enactment for that purpose by the Parliament of the United Kingdom, approved September 20, 1909, are as follows:
I.—PRELIMINARY.
1. This Act may be cited as the South Africa Act, 1909.
2. In this Act, unless it is otherwise expressed or implied, the words "the Union" shall be taken to mean the Union of South Africa as constituted under this Act, and the words "Houses of Parliament," "House of Parliament," or "Parliament," shall be taken to mean the Parliament of the Union.
3. The provisions of this Act referring to the King shall extend to His Majesty’s heirs and successors in the sovereignty of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
II.—THE UNION.
4. It shall be lawful for the King, with the advice of the Privy Council, to declare by proclamation that, on and after a day therein appointed, not being later than one year after the passing of this Act, the Colonies of the Cape of Good Hope, Natal, the Transvaal, and the Orange River Colony, hereinafter called the Colonies shall be united in a Legislative Union under one Government under the name of the Union of South Africa. On and after the day appointed by such proclamation the Government and Parliament of the Union shall have full power and authority within the limits of the Colonies, but the King may at any time after the proclamation appoint a governor-general for the Union.
5. The provisions of this Act shall, unless it is otherwise expressed or implied, take effect on and after the day so appointed.
6. The colonies mentioned in section four shall become original provinces of the Union under the names of Cape of Good Hope, Natal, Transvaal, and Orange Free State, as the case maybe. The original provinces shall have the same limits as the respective colonies at the establishment of the Union.
7. Upon any colony entering the Union, the Colonial Boundaries Act, 1895, and every other Act applying to any of the Colonies as being self-governing colonies or colonies with responsible government, shall cease to apply to that colony, but as from the date when this Act takes effect every such Act of Parliament shall apply to the Union.
III.—EXECUTIVE GOVERNMENT.
8. The Executive Government of the Union is vested in the King, and shall be administered by His Majesty in person or by a governor-general as His representative.
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9. The Governor-General shall be appointed by the King, and shall have and may exercise in the Union during the King’s pleasure, but subject to this Act, such powers and functions of the King as His Majesty may be pleased to assign to him.
10. There shall be payable to the King out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the Union for the salary of the Governor-General an annual sum of ten thousand pounds. The salary of the Governor-General shall not be altered during his continuance in office.
11. The provisions of this Act relating to the Governor-General extend and apply to the Governor-General for the time being or such person as the King may appoint to administer the government of the Union. The King may authorise the Governor-General to appoint any person to be his deputy within the Union during his temporary absence, and in that capacity to exercise for and on behalf of the Governor-General during such absence all such powers and authorities vested in the Governor-General as the Governor-General may assign to him, subject to any limitations expressed or directions given by the King; but the appointment of such deputy shall not affect the exercise by the Governor-General himself of any power or function.
12. There shall be an Executive Council to advise the Governor-General in the government of the Union, and the members of the council shall be chosen and summoned by the Governor-General and sworn as executive councillors, and shall hold office during his pleasure.
13. The provisions of this Act referring to the Governor-General in Council shall be construed as referring to the Governor-General acting with the advice of the Executive Council.
14. The Governor-General may appoint officers not exceeding ten in number to administer such departments of State of the Union as the Governor-General in Council may establish; such officers shall hold office during the pleasure of the Governor-General. They shall be members of the Executive Council and shall be the King’s ministers of State for the Union. After the first general election of members of the House of Assembly, as hereinafter provided, no minister shall hold office for a longer period than three months unless he is or becomes a member of either House of Parliament.
15. The appointment and removal of all officers of the public service of the Union shall be vested in the Governor-General in Council, unless the appointment is delegated by the Governor-General in Council or by this Act or by a law of Parliament to some other authority.
16. All powers, authorities, and functions which at the establishment of the Union are in any of the Colonies vested in the Governor or in the Governor in Council, or in any authority of the Colony, shall, as far as the same continue in existence and are capable of being exercised after the establishment of the Union, be vested in the Governor-General or in the Governor-General in Council, or in the authority exercising similar powers under the Union, as the case may be, except such powers and functions as are by this Act or may by a law of Parliament be vested in some other authority.
17. The command in chief of the naval and military forces within the Union is vested in the King or in the Governor-General as His representative.
18. Save as in section twenty-three excepted, Pretoria shall be the seat of Government of the Union.
IV.—PARLIAMENT.
19. The legislative power of the Union shall be vested in the Parliament of the Union, herein called Parliament, which shall consist of the King, a Senate, and a House of Assembly.
20. The Governor-General may appoint such times for holding the sessions of Parliament as he thinks fit, and may also from time to time, by proclamation or otherwise, prorogue Parliament, and may in like manner dissolve the Senate and the House of Assembly simultaneously, or the House of Assembly alone: provided that the Senate shall not be dissolved within a period of ten years after the establishment of the Union, and provided further that the dissolution of the Senate shall not affect any senators nominated by the Governor-General in Council.
21. Parliament shall be summoned to meet not later than six months after the establishment of the Union.
22. There shall be a session of Parliament once at least in every year, so that a period of twelve months shall not intervene between the last sitting of Parliament in one session and its first sitting in the next session.
23. Cape Town shall be the seat of the Legislature of the Union.
SENATE.
24. For ten years after the establishment of the Union the constitution of the Senate shall, in respect of the original provinces, be as follows:
(i) Eight senators shall be nominated by the Governor-General in Council, and for each original province eight senators shall be elected in the manner hereinafter provided:
(ii) The senators to be nominated by the Governor-General in Council shall hold their seats for ten years. One-half of their number shall be selected on the ground mainly of their thorough acquaintance, by reason of their official experience or otherwise, with the reasonable wants and wishes of the coloured races in South Africa. If the seat of a senator so nominated shall become vacant, the Governor-General in Council shall nominate another person to be a senator, who shall hold his seat for ten years:
(iii) After the passing of this Act, and before the day appointed for the establishment of the Union, the Governor of each of the Colonies shall summon a special sitting of both Houses of the Legislature, and the two Houses sitting together as one body and presided over by the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly shall elect eight persons to be senators for the province. Such senators shall hold their seats for ten years. If the seat of a senator so elected shall become vacant, the provincial council of the province for which such senator has been elected shall choose a person to hold the seat until the completion of the period for which the person in whose stead he is elected would have held his seat.
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25. Parliament may provide for the manner in which the Senate shall be constituted after the expiration of ten years, and unless and until such provision shall have been made—
(i) the provisions of the last preceding section with regard to nominated senators shall continue to have effect;
(ii) eight senators for each province shall be elected by the members of the provincial council of such province together with the members of the House of Assembly elected for such province. Such senators shall hold their seats for ten years unless the Senate be sooner dissolved. If the seat of an elected senator shall become vacant, the members of the provincial council of the province, together with the members of the House of Assembly elected for such province, shall choose a person to hold the seat until the completion of the period for which the person in whose stead he is elected would have held his seat. The Governor-General in Council shall make regulations for the joint election of senators prescribed in this section.
26. The qualifications of a senator shall be as follows: —He must— (a) be not less than thirty years of age; (b) be qualified to be registered as a voter for the election of members of the House of Assembly in one of the provinces; (c) have resided for five years within the limits of the Union as existing at the time when he is elected or nominated, as the case may be; (d) be a British subject of European descent; (e) in the case of an elected senator, be the registered owner of immovable property within the Union of the value of not less than five hundred pounds over and above any special mortgages thereon. For the purposes of this section, residence in, and property situated within, a colony before its incorporation in the Union shall be treated as residence in and property situated within the Union.
27. The Senate shall, before proceeding to the dispatch of any other business, choose a senator to be the President of the Senate, and as often as the office of President becomes vacant the Senate shall again choose a senator to be the President. The President shall cease to hold office if he ceases to be a senator. He may be removed from office by a vote of the Senate, or he may resign his office by writing under his hand addressed to the Governor-General.
28. Prior to or during any absence of the President the Senate may choose a senator to perform his duties in his absence.
29. A senator may, by writing under his hand addressed to the Governor-General, resign his seat, which thereupon shall become vacant. The Governor-General shall as soon as practicable cause steps to be taken to have the vacancy filled.
30. The presence of at least twelve senators shall be necessary to constitute a meeting of the Senate for the exercise of its powers.
31. All questions in the Senate shall be determined by a majority of votes of senators present other than the President or the presiding senator, who shall, however, have and exercise a casting vote in the case of an equality of votes.
HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY.
32. The House of Assembly shall be composed of members directly chosen by the voters of the Union in electoral divisions delimited as hereinafter provided.
33. The number of members to be elected in the original provinces at the first election and until the number is altered in accordance with the provisions of this Act shall be as follows: Cape of Good Hope, fifty-one; Natal, seventeen; Transvaal, thirty-six; Orange Free State, seventeen. These numbers may be increased as provided in the next succeeding section, but shall not, in the case of any original province, be diminished until the total number of members of the House of Assembly in respect of the provinces herein provided for reaches one hundred and fifty, or until a period of ten years has elapsed after the establishment of the Union, whichever is the longer period.
34. The number of members to be elected in each province, as provided in section thirty-three, shall be increased from time to time as may be necessary in accordance with the following provisions:
(i) The quota of the Union shall be obtained by dividing the total number of European male adults in the Union, as ascertained at the census of nineteen hundred and four, by the total number of members of the House of Assembly as constituted at the establishment of the Union:
(ii) In nineteen hundred and eleven, and every five years thereafter, a census of the European population of the Union shall be taken for the purposes of this Act:
(iii) After any such census the number of European male adults in each province shall be compared with the number of European male adults as ascertained at the census of nineteen hundred and four, and, in the case of any province where an increase is shown, as compared with the census of nineteen hundred and four, equal to the quota of the Union or any multiple thereof, the number of members allotted to such province in the last preceding section shall be increased by an additional member or an additional number of members equal to such multiple, as the case may be:
(iv) Notwithstanding anything herein contained, no additional member shall be allotted to any province until the total number of European male adults in such province exceeds the quota of the Union multiplied by the number of members allotted to such province for the time being, and thereupon additional members shall be allotted to such province in respect only of such excess:
(v) As soon as the number of members of the House of Assembly to be elected in the original provinces in accordance with the preceding subsections reaches the total of one hundred and fifty, such total shall not be further increased unless and until Parliament otherwise provides; and subject to the provisions of the last preceding section the distribution of members among the provinces shall be such that the proportion between the number of members to be elected at any time in each province and the number of European male adults in such province, as ascertained at the last preceding census, shall as far as possible be identical throughout the Union:
(vi) "Male adults" in this Act shall be taken to mean males of twenty-one years of age or upwards not being members of His Majesty’s regular forces on full pay:
(vii) For the purposes of this Act the number of European male adults, as ascertained at the census of nineteen hundred and four, shall be taken to be—
For the Cape of Good Hope, 167,546; for Natal, 34,784; for the Transvaal, 106,493; For the Orange Free State, 41,014.
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35. (1) Parliament may by law prescribe the qualifications which shall be necessary to entitle persons to vote at the election of members of the House of Assembly, but no such law shall disqualify any person in the province of the Cape of Good Hope who, under the laws existing in the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope at the establishment of the Union, is or may become capable of being registered as a voter from being so registered in the province of the Cape of Good Hope by reason of his race or colour only, unless the Bill be passed by both Houses of Parliament sitting together, and at the third reading be agreed to by not less than two-thirds of the total number of members of both Houses. A Bill so passed at such joint sitting shall be taken to have been duly passed by both Houses of Parliament.
(2) No person who at the passing of any such law is registered as a voter in any province shall be removed from the register by reason only of any disqualification based on race or colour.
36. Subject to the provisions of the last preceding section, the qualifications of parliamentary voters, as existing in the several Colonies at the establishment of the Union, shall be the qualifications necessary to entitle persons in the corresponding provinces to vote for the election of members of the House of Assembly: Provided that no member of His Majesty’s regular forces on full pay shall be entitled to be registered as a voter.
[Section 37 of the Act applies to the elections of members of the House of Assembly all existing election laws in the respective provinces relating to the elections for their more numerous Houses of Parliament, excepting that it requires all polls to be taken on one and the same day throughout the Union.
Sections 38 to 43 inclusive provide for the creation of a joint commission to determine the first division of the provinces into equalized electoral divisions, and for subsequent commissions of three judges of the Supreme Court of South Africa for re-divisions, as they may become necessary.]
44. The qualifications of a member of the House of Assembly shall be as follows:—He must— (a) be qualified to be registered as a voter for the election of members of the House of Assembly in one of the provinces; (b) have resided for five years within the limits of the Union as existing at the time when he is elected; (c) be a British subject of European descent.
For the purposes of this section, residence in a colony before its incorporation in the Union shall be treated as residence in the Union.
45. Every House of Assembly shall continue for five years from the first meeting thereof, and no longer, but may be sooner dissolved by the Governor-General.
46. The House of Assembly shall, before proceeding to the despatch of any other business, choose a member to be the Speaker of the House, and, as often as the office of Speaker becomes vacant, the House shall again choose a member to be the Speaker. The Speaker shall cease to hold his office if he ceases to be a member. He may be removed from office by a vote of the House, or he may resign his office or his seat by writing under his hand addressed to the Governor-General.
47. Prior to or during the absence of the Speaker, the House of Assembly may choose a member to perform his duties in his absence.
48. A member may, by writing under his hand addressed to the Speaker, or, if there is no Speaker, or if the Speaker is absent from the Union, to the Governor-General, resign his seat, which shall thereupon become vacant.
49. The presence of at least thirty members of the House of Assembly shall be necessary to constitute a meeting of the House for the exercise of its powers.
50. All questions in the House of Assembly shall be determined by a majority of votes of members present other than the Speaker or the presiding member, who shall, however, have and exercise a casting vote in the case of an equality of votes.
BOTH HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT.
[Section 51 prescribes the oath or affirmation of allegiance to the British Sovereign which each senator and member of the House of Assembly must subscribe to before taking his seat.]
52. A member of either House of Parliament shall be incapable of being chosen or of sitting as a member of the other House: Provided that every minister of State who is a member of either House of Parliament shall have the right to sit and speak in the Senate and the House of Assembly, but shall vote only in the House of which he is a member.
53. No person shall be capable of being chosen or of sitting as a senator or as a member of the House of Assembly who—
(a) has been at any time convicted of any crime or offence for which he shall have been sentenced to imprisonment without the option of a fine for a term of not less than twelve months, unless he shall have received a grant of amnesty or a free pardon, or unless such imprisonment shall have expired at least five years before the date of his election; or
(b) is an unrehabilitated insolvent; or
(c) is of unsound mind, and has been so declared by a competent court; or
(d) holds any office of profit under the Crown within the Union:
Provided that the following persons shall not be deemed to hold an office of profit under the Crown for the purposes of this subsection:
(1) a minister of State for the Union;
(2) a person in receipt of a pension from the Crown;
(3) an officer or member of His Majesty’s naval or military forces on retired or half pay, or an officer or member of the naval or military forces of the Union whose services are not wholly employed by the Union.
54. If a senator or member of the House of Assembly—
(a) becomes subject to any of the disabilities mentioned in the last preceding section; or
(b) ceases to be qualified as required by law; or
(c) fails for a whole ordinary session to attend without the special leave of the Senate or the House of Assembly, as the case may be; his seat shall thereupon become vacant.
[Section 55 imposes a penalty of £100 for each day on which any disqualified person may knowingly sit in Parliament.]
56. Each senator and each member of the House of Assembly shall, under such rules as shall be framed by Parliament, receive an allowance of four hundred pounds a year, to be reckoned from the date on which he takes his seat: Provided that for every day of the session on which he is absent there shall be deducted from such allowance the sum of three pounds: Provided further that no such allowance shall be paid to a Minister receiving a salary under the Crown or to the President of the Senate or the Speaker of the House of Assembly. A day of the session shall mean in respect of a member any day during a session on which the House of which he is a member or any committee of which he is a member meets.
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[Sections 57-58 relate to the privileges of each House of Parliament and its right to make rules and orders of procedure for the conduct of its business.]
POWERS OF PARLIAMENT.
59. Parliament shall have full power to make laws for the peace, order, and good government of the Union.
60.— (1) Bills appropriating revenue or moneys or imposing taxation shall originate only in the House of Assembly. But a Bill shall not be taken to appropriate revenue or moneys or to impose taxation by reason only of its containing provisions for the imposition or appropriation of fines or other pecuniary penalties.
(2) The Senate may not amend any Bills so far as they impose taxation or appropriate revenue or moneys for the services of the Government.
(3) The Senate may not amend any Bill so as to increase any proposed charges or burden on the people.
61. Any Bill which appropriates revenue or moneys for the ordinary annual services of the Government shall deal only with such appropriation.
62. The House of Assembly shall not originate or pass any vote, resolution, address, or Bill for the appropriation of any part of the public revenue or of any tax or impost to any purpose unless such appropriation has been recommended by message from the Governor-General during the Session in which such vote, resolution, address, or Bill is proposed.
63. If the House of Assembly passes any Bill and the Senate rejects or fails to pass it or passes it with amendments to which the House of Assembly will not agree, and if the House of Assembly in the next session again passes the Bill with or without any amendments which have been made or agreed to by the Senate and the Senate rejects or fails to pass it or passes it with amendments to which the House of Assembly will not agree, the Governor-General may during that session convene a joint sitting of the members of the Senate and House of Assembly. The members present at any such joint sitting may deliberate and shall vote together upon the Bill as last proposed by the House of Assembly and upon amendments, if any, which have been made therein by one House of Parliament and not agreed to by the other; and any such amendments which are affirmed by a majority of the total number of members of the Senate and House of Assembly present at such sitting shall be taken to have been carried, and if the Bill with the amendments, if any, is affirmed by a majority of the members of the Senate and House of Assembly present at such sitting, it shall be taken to have been duly passed by both Houses of Parliament: Provided that, if the Senate shall reject or fail to pass any Bill dealing with the appropriation of revenue or moneys for the public service, such joint sitting may be convened during the same session in which the Senate so rejects or fails to pass such Bill.
64. When a Bill is presented to the Governor-General for the King’s Assent, he shall declare according to his discretion, but subject to the provisions of this Act, and to such instructions as may from time to time be given in that behalf by the King, that he assents in the King’s name, or that he withholds assent, or that he reserves the Bill for the signification of the King’s pleasure. All Bills repealing or amending this section or any of the provisions of Chapter IV. under the heading "House of Assembly," and all Bills abolishing provincial councils or abridging the powers conferred on provincial councils under section eighty-five, otherwise than in accordance with the provisions of that section, shall be so reserved. The Governor-General may return to the House in which it originated any Bill so presented to him, and may transmit therewith any amendments which he may recommend, and the House may deal with the recommendation.
65. The King may disallow any law within one year after it has been assented to by the Governor General, and such disallowance, on being made known by the Governor-General by speech or message to each of the Houses of Parliament or by proclamation, shall annul the law from the day when the disallowance is so made known.
66. A Bill reserved for the King’s pleasure shall not have any force unless and until, within one year from the day on which it was presented to the Governor-General for the King’s Assent, the Governor-General makes known by speech or message to each of the Houses of Parliament or by proclamation that it has received the King’s Assent.
67. As soon as may be after any law shall have been assented to in the King’s name by the Governor-General, or having been reserved for the King’s pleasure shall have received his assent, the Clerk of the House of Assembly shall cause two fair copies of such law, one being in the English and the other in the Dutch language (one of which copies shall be signed by the Governor-General), to be enrolled of record in the office of the Registrar of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of South Africa; and such copies shall be conclusive evidence as to the provisions of every such law, and in case of conflict between the two copies thus deposited that signed by the Governor-General shall prevail.
V.—THE PROVINCES.
ADMINISTRATORS.
68.— (1) In each province there shall be a chief executive officer appointed by the Governor-General in Council, who shall be styled the administrator of the province, and in whose name all executive acts relating to provincial affairs therein shall be done.
(2) In the appointment of the administrator of any province, the Governor-General in Council shall, as far as practicable, give preference to persons resident in such province.
(3) Such administrator shall hold office for a term of five years and shall not be removed before the expiration thereof except by the Governor-General in Council for cause assigned, which shall be communicated by message to both Houses of Parliament within one week after the removal, if Parliament be then sitting, or, if Parliament be not sitting, then within one week after the commencement of the next ensuing session.
(4) The Governor-General in Council may from time to time appoint a deputy administrator to execute the office and functions of the administrator during his absence, illness, or other inability.
69. The salaries of the administrators shall be fixed and provided by Parliament, and shall not be reduced during their respective terms of office.
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PROVINCIAL COUNCILS.
70.— (1) There shall be a provincial council in each province consisting of the same number of members as are elected in the province for the House of Assembly: Provided that, in any province whose representatives in the House of Assembly shall be less than twenty-five in number, the provincial council shall consist of twenty-five members.
(2) Any person qualified to vote for the election of members of the provincial council shall be qualified to be a member of such council.
[Sections 71-77 are regulative of the elections, the terms (three years), and the sittings of the Provincial Councils.
Sections 78-84 are creative of Executive Committees, for which each Provincial Council shall elect "from among its members, or otherwise," four persons, to be joined with the administrator of the Province, the latter being chairman of the Executive Committee thus constituted. This Committee, "on behalf of the Provincial Council," being appointed to "carry on the administration of provincial affairs," and, "subject to the provisions of this Act," to be invested with "all powers, authorities, and functions which at the establishment of the Union are vested in or exercised by the Governor in Council, or any minister of the Colony."]
POWERS OF PROVINCIAL COUNCILS.
85. Subject to the provisions of this Act and the assent of the Governor-General in Council as hereinafter provided, the provincial council may make ordinances in relation to matters coming within the following classes of subjects (that is to say):—
(i) Direct taxation within the province in order to raise a revenue for provincial purposes:
(ii) The borrowing of money on the sole credit of the province with the consent of the Governor-General in Council and in accordance with regulations to be framed by Parliament:
(iii) Education, other than higher education, for a period of five years and thereafter until Parliament otherwise provides:
(iv) Agriculture to the extent and subject to the conditions to be defined by Parliament:
(v) The establishment, maintenance, and management of hospitals and charitable institutions:
(vi) Municipal institutions, divisional councils, and other local institutions of a similar nature:
(vii) Local works and undertakings within the province, other than railways and harbours and other than such works as extend beyond the borders of the province, and subject to the power of Parliament to declare any work a national work and to provide for its construction by arrangement with the provincial council or otherwise:
(viii) Roads, outspans, ponts, and bridges, other than bridges connecting two provinces:
(ix) Markets and pounds:
(x) Fish and game preservation:
(xi) The imposition of punishment by fine, penalty, or imprisonment for enforcing any law or any ordinance of the province made in relation to any matter coming within any of the classes of subjects enumerated in this section:
(xii) Generally all matters which, in the opinion of the Governor-General in Council, are of a merely local or private nature in the province:
(xiii) All other subjects in respect of which Parliament shall by any law delegate the power of making ordinances to the provincial council.
[Sections 86-93 are regulative of the exercise of the powers thus conferred.]
94. The seats of provincial government shall be— For the Cape of Good Hope, Cape Town; for Natal, Pietermaritzburg; for the Transvaal, Pretoria; for the Orange Free State, Bloemfontein.
VI.—THE SUPREME COURT OF SOUTH AFRICA.
95. There shall be a Supreme Court of South Africa consisting of a Chief Justice of South Africa, the ordinary judges of appeal, and the other judges of the several divisions of the Supreme Court of South Africa in the provinces.
96. There shall be an Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of South Africa, consisting of the Chief Justice of South Africa, two ordinary judges of appeal, and two additional judges of appeal. Such additional judges of appeal shall be assigned by the Governor-General in Council to the Appellate Division from any of the provincial or local divisions of the Supreme Court of South Africa, but shall continue to perform their duties as judges of their respective divisions when their attendance is not required in the Appellate Division.
97. The Governor-General in Council may, during the absence, illness, or other incapacity of the Chief Justice of South Africa, or of any ordinary or additional judge of appeal, appoint another judge of the Supreme Court of South Africa to act temporarily as such chief justice, ordinary judge of appeal, or additional judge of appeal, as the case may be.
98.— (1) The several supreme courts of the Cape of Good Hope, Natal, and the Transvaal, and the High Court of the Orange River Colony shall, on the establishment of the Union, become provincial divisions of the Supreme Court of South Africa within their respective provinces, and shall each be presided over by a judge-president.
[Further prescriptions on the same subject are contained in this and the next section of the Act.]
100. The Chief Justice of South Africa, the ordinary judges of appeal, and all other judges of the Supreme Court of South Africa to be appointed after the establishment of the Union shall be appointed by the Governor-General in Council, and shall receive such remuneration as Parliament shall prescribe, and their remuneration shall not be diminished during their continuance in office.
101. The Chief Justice of South Africa and other judges of the Supreme Court of South Africa shall not be removed from office except by the Governor-General in Council on an address from both Houses of Parliament in the same session praying for such removal on the ground of misbehaviour or incapacity.
102. Upon any vacancy occurring in any division of the Supreme Court of South Africa, other than the Appellate Division, the Governor-General in Council may, in case he shall consider that the number of judges of such court may with advantage to the public interest be reduced, postpone filling the vacancy until Parliament shall have determined whether such reduction shall take place.
[Rules concerning the cases, civil and criminal, which may be appealed from inferior courts to the Appellate Division, and not to the Supreme Court, are laid down in sections 103-105.]
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106. There shall be no appeal from the Supreme Court of South Africa or from any division thereof to the King in Council, but nothing herein contained shall be construed to impair any right which the King in Council may be pleased to exercise to grant special leave to appeal from the Appellate Division to the King in Council. Parliament may make laws limiting the matters in respect of which such special leave may be asked, but Bills containing any such limitation shall be reserved by the Governor-General for the signification of His Majesty’s pleasure: Provided that nothing in this section shall affect any right of appeal to His Majesty in Council from any judgment given by the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court under or in virtue of the Colonial Courts of Admiralty Act, 1890.
107. The Chief Justice of South Africa and the ordinary judges of appeal may, subject to the approval of the Governor-General in Council, make rules for the conduct of the proceedings of the Appellate Division and prescribing the time and manner of making appeals thereto. Until such rules shall have been promulgated, the rules in force in the Supreme Court of the Cape of Good Hope at the establishment of the Union shall mutatis mutandis apply.
[Other details concerning the rules and the sessions of the several provincial and local divisions of the Supreme Court, the execution of their writs and other processes, etc., are set forth in sections 108-116.]
VII.—FINANCE AND RAILWAYS.
117. All revenues, from whatever source arising, over which the several Colonies have at the establishment of the Union power of appropriation, shall vest in the Governor-General in Council. There shall be formed a Railway and Harbour Fund, into which shall be paid all revenues raised or received by the Governor-General in Council from the administration of the railways, ports, and harbours, and such fund shall be appropriated by Parliament to the purposes of the railways, ports, and harbours in the manner prescribed by this Act. There shall also be formed a Consolidated Revenue Fund, into which shall be paid all other revenues raised or received by the Governor-General in Council, and such fund shall be appropriated by Parliament for the purposes of the Union in the manner prescribed by this Act, and subject to the charges imposed thereby.
[Sections 118-123 provide for a commission "to institute an inquiry into the financial relations which should exist between the Union and the provinces"; prescribe the division to be made meantime of the Consolidated Revenue Fund; make the interest of the public debts a first charge on that fund; transfer to the Union all stocks, moneys, and securities, all crown lands, public works, etc., and all rights in mines and minerals that belonged to each of the colonies at the establishment of the Union.]
124. The Union shall assume all debts and liabilities of the Colonies existing at its establishment, subject, notwithstanding any other provision contained in this Act, to the conditions imposed by any law under which such debts or liabilities were raised or incurred, and without prejudice to any rights of security or priority in respect of the payment of principal, interest, sinking fund, and other charges conferred on the creditors of any of the Colonies, and may, subject to such conditions and rights, convert, renew, or consolidate such debts.
125. All ports, harbours, and railways belonging to the several Colonies at the establishment of the Union shall from the date thereof vest in the Governor-General in Council. No railway for the conveyance of public traffic, and no port, harbour, or similar work, shall be constructed without the sanction of Parliament.
126. Subject to the authority of the Governor-General in Council, the control and management of the railways, ports, and harbours of the Union shall be exercised through a board consisting of not more than three commissioners, who shall be appointed by the Governor-General in Council, and a minister of State, who shall be chairman. …
[Of the remaining sections of the Act (127-152) the following are the more important or the more significant.]
133. In order to compensate Pietermaritzburg and Bloemfontein for any loss sustained by them in the form of diminution of prosperity or decreased rateable value by reason of their ceasing to be the seats of government of their respective colonies, there shall be paid from the Consolidated Revenue Fund for a period not exceeding twenty-five years to the municipal councils of such towns a grant of two per centum per annum on their municipal debts, as existing on the thirty-first day of January nineteen hundred and nine, and as ascertained by the Controller and Auditor-General. The Commission appointed under section one hundred and eighteen shall, after due inquiry, report to the Governor-General in Council what compensation should be paid to the municipal councils of Cape Town and Pretoria for the losses, if any, similarly sustained by them. Such compensation shall be paid out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund for a period not exceeding twenty-five years, and shall not exceed one per centum per annum on the respective municipal debts of such towns as existing on the thirty-first January nineteen hundred and nine, and as ascertained by the Controller and Auditor-General.
134. The election of senators and of members of the executive committees of the provincial councils as provided in this Act shall, whenever such election is contested, be according to the principle of proportional representation, each voter having one transferable vote. The Governor-General in Council, or, in the case of the first election of the Senate, the Governor in Council of each of the Colonies, shall frame regulations prescribing the method of voting and of transferring and counting votes and the duties of returning officers in connection therewith, and such regulations or any amendments thereof after being duly promulgated shall have full force and effect unless and until Parliament shall otherwise provide.
136. There shall be free trade throughout the Union, but until Parliament otherwise provides the duties of custom and of excise leviable under the laws existing in any of the Colonies at the establishment of the Union shall remain in force.
137. Both the English and Dutch languages shall be official languages of the Union, and shall be treated on a footing of equality, and possess and enjoy equal freedom, rights, and privileges; all records, journals, and proceedings of Parliament shall be kept in both languages, and all Bills, Acts, and notices of general public importance or interest issued by the Government of the Union shall be in both languages.
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138. All persons who have been naturalised in any of the Colonies shall be deemed to be naturalised throughout the Union.
140. Subject to the provisions of the next succeeding section, all officers of the public service of the Colonies shall at the establishment of the Union become officers of the Union.
141. (1) As soon as possible after the establishment of the Union, the Governor-General in Council shall appoint a public service commission to make recommendations for such reorganisation and readjustment of the departments of the public service as may be necessary. The commission shall also make recommendations in regard to the assignment of officers to the several provinces. …
142. After the establishment of the Union the Governor-General in Council shall appoint a permanent public service commission with such powers and duties relating to the appointment, discipline, retirement, and superannuation of public officers as Parliament shall determine.
143. Any officer of the public service of any of the Colonies at the establishment of the Union who is not retained in the service of the Union or assigned to that of a province shall be entitled to receive such pension, gratuity, or other compensation as he would have received in like circumstances if the Union had not been established.
147. The control and administration of native affairs and of matters specially or differentially affecting Asiastics throughout the Union shall vest in the Governor-General in Council, who shall exercise all special powers in regard to native administration hitherto vested in the Governors of the Colonies or exercised by them as supreme chiefs, and any lands vested in the Governor or Governor and Executive Council of any colony for the purpose of reserves for native locations shall vest in the Governor-General in Council, who shall exercise all special powers in relation to such reserves as may hitherto have been exercisable by any such Governor or Governor and Executive Council, and no lands set aside for the occupation of natives which cannot at the establishment of the Union be alienated except by an Act of the Colonial Legislature shall be alienated or in any way diverted from the purposes for which they are set apart except under the authority of an Act of Parliament.
148.— (1) All rights and obligations under any conventions or agreements which are binding on any of the Colonies shall devolve upon the Union at its establishment.
(2) The provisions of the railway agreement between the Governments of the Transvaal, the Cape of Good Hope, and Natal, dated the second of February, nineteen hundred and nine, shall, as far as practicable, be given effect to by the Government of the Union.
IX.—NEW PROVINCES AND TERRITORIES.
149. Parliament may alter the boundaries of any province, divide a province into two or more provinces, or form a new province out of provinces within the Union, on the petition of the provincial council of every province whose boundaries are affected thereby.
150. The King, with the advice of the Privy Council, may on addresses from the Houses of Parliament of the Union admit into the Union the territories administered by the British South Africa Company on such terms and conditions as to representation and otherwise in each case as are expressed in the addresses and approved by the King, and the provisions of any Order in Council in that behalf shall have effect as if they had been enacted by the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
151. The King, with the advice of the Privy Council, may, on addresses from the Houses of Parliament of the Union, transfer to the Union the government of any territories, other than the territories administered by the British South Africa Company, belonging to or under the protection of His Majesty, and inhabited wholly or in part by natives, and upon such transfer the Governor-General in Council may undertake the government of such territory upon the terms and conditions embodied in the Schedule to this Act.
X.—AMENDMENT OF ACT.
152. Parliament may by law repeal or alter any of the provisions of this Act: Provided that no provision thereof, for the operation of which a definite period of time is prescribed, shall during such period be repealed or altered: And provided further that no repeal or alteration of the provisions contained in this section, or in sections thirty-three and thirty-four (until the number of members of the House of Assembly has reached the limit therein prescribed, or until a period of ten years has elapsed after the establishment of the Union, whichever is the longer period), or in sections thirty-five and one hundred and thirty-seven, shall be valid unless the Bill embodying such repeal or alteration shall be passed by both Houses of Parliament sitting together, and at the third reading be agreed to by not less than two-thirds of the total number of members of both Houses. A Bill so passed at such joint sitting shall be taken to have been duly passed by both Houses of Parliament.
SCHEDULE.
1. After the transfer of the government of any territory belonging to or under the protection of His Majesty, the Governor-General in Council shall be the legislative authority, and may by proclamation make laws for the peace, order, and good government of such territory: Provided that all such laws shall be laid before both Houses of Parliament within seven days after the issue of the proclamation or, if Parliament be not then sitting, within seven days after the beginning of the next session, and shall be effectual unless and until both Houses of Parliament shall by resolutions passed in the same session request the Governor-General in Council to repeal the same, in which case they shall be repealed by proclamation.
2. The Prime Minister shall be charged with the administration of any territory thus transferred, and he shall be advised in the general conduct of such administration by a commission consisting of not fewer than three members with a secretary, to be appointed by the Governor-General in Council, who shall take the instructions of the Prime Minister in conducting all correspondence relating to the territories, and shall also under the like control have custody of all official papers relating to the territories.
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3. The members of the commission shall be appointed by the Governor-General in Council, and shall be entitled to hold office for a period of ten years, but such period may be extended to successive further terms of five years. …
14. It shall not be lawful to alienate any land in Basutoland or any land forming part of the native reserves in the Bechuanaland protectorate and Swaziland from the native tribes inhabiting those territories.
15. The sale of intoxicating liquor to natives shall be prohibited in the territories, and no provision giving facilities for introducing, obtaining, or possessing such liquor in any part of the territories less stringent than those existing at the time of transfer shall be allowed.
16. The custom, where it exists, of holding pitsos or other recognised forms of native assembly shall be maintained in the territories.
17. No differential duties or imposts on the produce of the territories shall be levied. The laws of the Union relating to customs and excise shall be made to apply to the territories.
18. There shall be free intercourse for the inhabitants of the territories with the rest of South Africa subject to the laws, including the pass laws, of the Union.
19. Subject to the provisions of this Schedule, all revenues derived from any territory shall be expended for and on behalf of such territory. …
----------CONSTITUTION OF SOUTH AFRICA: End--------
----------CONSTITUTION OF TURKEY: Start--------
CONSTITUTION OF TURKEY.
The following is a synopsis of the Constitution promulgated December 23, 1876, the first year of the reign of Abd-ul Hamid, then soon withdrawn, and practically forgotten for thirty-two years, but brought to light by the revolution of 1908 and promulgated anew, on the 24th of July in that memorable year;
See, in this Volume, TURKEY: A. D. 1908 (JULY-DECEMBER):
THE INDIVISIBILITY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE.
The Sultan, the supreme Caliph of the Mussulmans and sovereign of all Ottoman subjects, is irresponsible and inviolable. His prerogatives are those of the constitutional sovereigns of the West. The subjects of the empire are called, without distinction, Ottomans. Individual liberty is inviolable, and is guaranteed by the laws.
Islamism is the religion of the state, but the free exercise of all recognized creeds is guaranteed, and the religious privileges of the communities are maintained. No provision investing the institutions of the state with a theocratic character exists in the constitution.
The constitution establishes liberty of the press, the right of petition to both chambers for all Ottomans, liberty of education, and the equality of all Ottomans before the law. They all enjoy the same rights, and have the same duties toward the country. Ottoman subjects, without distinction of religion, are admitted to the service of the state. Taxation will be equally distributed; property is guaranteed, and the domicile is declared inviolable. No person can be taken from the jurisdiction of his natural judges.
The Council of Ministers will deliberate under the presidency of the Grand-Vizier. Each minister is responsible for the conduct of the affairs of his department. The Chamber of Deputies may demand the impeachment of the ministers, and a high court is instituted to try them. In the event of the Chamber adopting a vote hostile to the ministry on any important question, the Sultan will change the ministers or dissolve the Chamber. The ministers are entitled to be present at the sittings of both Chambers, and to take part in the debates. Interpellations may be addressed to the ministers. Public functionaries will be appointed in conformity with the conditions fixed by law, and cannot be dismissed without legal and sufficient cause. They are not discharged from responsibility by any orders contrary to law which they may receive from a superior.
The General Assembly of the Ottomans is composed of two Chambers, the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies, who will meet on the 1st of November in each year, the session lasting four months. A message from the Sultan will be sent to both Chambers at the opening of each session. The members of both Chambers are free with regard to their vote and in the expression of their opinions. Electors are prohibited from imposing binding engagements upon their representatives. The initiative in proposing laws belongs in the first place to the ministry, and next to the Chambers, in the form of propositions. Laws must be first submitted to the Chamber of Deputies, then to the Senate, and finally to the imperial sanction. The Senate is composed of members nominated by the Sultan and chosen from among the most eminent personages in the country. The Senate votes the laws already passed by the Chamber of Deputies, and returns to the latter, or rejects, any provisions contrary to the constitution or to the integrity or safety of the state. In the event of a dissolution of the Chamber of Deputies, the general election shall be held and the new Chamber meet within six months from the date of dissolution. The sittings of the Chamber of Deputies are public. The deputies may not be arrested or prosecuted during the session without authority from the Chamber. The Chamber votes the laws article by article, and the budget by chapters. There is to be one deputy for every fifty thousand inhabitants, and the elections will be made by secret ballot. A special law will determine the mode of election. The mandate of a deputy will render him ineligible for any public office, except for a ministry. Each legislature will continue for a period of four years. The deputies will receive 4,600 francs for every session, which will last from November to March. The senators are appointed for life by the Sultan, and will receive 2,300 francs monthly. Judges are irremovable.
The sittings of the tribunals are public. The advocates appearing for defendants are free. Sentences may be published. No interference can be permitted in the administration of justice. The jurisdiction of the tribunals will be exactly defined. Any exceptional tribunals or commissions are prohibited. The office of Public Prosecutor is created. The High Court, which will try ministers, members of the Court of Cassation, and other persons charged with the crime of lese Majeste, or of conspiracy against the state, will be composed of the most eminent judicial and administrative functionaries.
No tax can be established or levied except by virtue of a law. The budget will be voted at the commencement of each session, and for a period of one year only. The final settlement of the budget for the preceding year will be submitted to the Chamber of Deputies in the form of a bill. The Court of Accounts will send every year to the Chamber of Deputies a report upon the state of public accounts, and will present to the Sultan, quarterly, a statement showing the financial condition of the country. The members of the Court of Accounts are irremovable. No dismissal can take place except in consequence of a resolution adopted by the Chamber of Deputies.
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The provincial administration is based upon the broadest system of decentralization. The Councils-General, which are elective, will deliberate upon and control the affairs of the province. Every canton will have a council, elected by each of the different communities, for the management of its own affairs. The communes will be administered by elective municipal councils. Primary education is obligatory.
The interpretation of the laws belongs, according to their nature, to the Court of Cassation, the Council of State, and the Senate.
The constitution can only be modified on the initiative of the ministry, or of either of the two Chambers, and by a vote of both Chambers, passed by a majority of two-thirds. Such modification must also be sanctioned by the Sultan.
Appletons' Annual Cyclopaedia, 1876, pages 773-774.
See amendments, in this Volume, under TURKEY: A. D. 1909 (APRIL-DECEMBER).
----------CONSTITUTION OF TURKEY: End--------
CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES: Proposed Income Tax Amendment.
See (in this Volume) UNITED STATES: A. D. 1909 (JULY).
CONSTITUTION OF VENEZUELA, New.
See (in this Volume) VENEZUELA: A. D. 1904.
CONSTITUTION, A World: The Making of it in Process.
See (in this Volume) WORLD MOVEMENTS.
CONSTITUTION ISLAND.
"In the Hudson River opposite West Point lies Constitution Island. It is a wood-covered tract of nearly three hundred acres, and for many years it has been coveted by the authorities of the Military Academy and the War Department. Its owner, Miss Anna Bartlett Warner, was always willing to sell to the Government, but Congress could never be induced to make the necessary appropriation for its purchase. Now Mrs. Russell Sage has joined with Miss Warner in making a gift of the island to the Nation, to be used as a part of the military reservation at West Point."
_The Outlook, September 19, 1908._
CONSTITUTION-MAKING, and Unmaking, in Servia.
See (in this Volume) BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES: SERVIA.
CONSTITUTIONAL DEMOCRATS.
See (in this Volume) RUSSIA: A. D. 1905-1907, and 1906 and 1907.
CONSULAR SERVICE, The Reform of the American.
See (in this Volume) CIVIL SERVICE REFORM: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1906-1909.
CONSUMPTION.
See (in this Volume) PUBLIC HEALTH: TUBERCULOSIS.
CONVICT LEASE SYSTEM: Its abolition in Georgia.
See (in this Volume) CRIME AND CRIMINOLOGY.
COOK, Frederick A.: Claimant of North Pole discovery.
See (in this Volume) POLAR EXPLORATION.
COOLEY, Dr. Harris R.: Director of Charities and Corrections, Cleveland, Ohio.
See (in this Volume) CRIME AND CRIMINOLOGY.
COÖPERATION, Industrial and Commercial.
See (in this Volume) LABOR REMUNERATION.
COPENHAGEN: A. D. 1906. Conference of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance.
See (in this Volume) ELECTIVE FRANCHISE: WOMAN SUFFRAGE.
COPYRIGHT: The new Law in the United States.
"To the general surprise, the new copyright bill slipped through both houses of Congress yesterday [March 3, 1909]. It consists of one complete and consistent copyright statute, in sixty four sections. The term of copyright is lengthened. The bill leaves the present first term of twenty-eight years unchanged, but provides for a renewal term of twenty-eight years instead of fourteen, thus making possible a period of protection of fifty-six years from the publication of the work. The bill also provides for the extension of subsisting copyrights upon the same basis.
"Copyright may now be secured for all the ‘writings’ of an author, using the constitutional expression. In enumerating and classifying works protected by copyright, the bill is more explicit than the present statutes, and adds the following new designations: ‘Lectures, sermons, and addresses, prepared for oral delivery’; ‘dramatico-musical compositions’; ‘plastic works of a scientific or technical character’; ‘reproductions of a work of art,’ and ‘ prints and pictorial illustrations,’ in lieu of ‘engravings,’ ‘cuts,’ and ‘chromos,’ and ‘works of art’ instead of the present specific designations, ‘painting,’ ‘drawings,’ ‘statue,’ and ‘statuary.’ Express provision is made that compilations, abridgments, adaptations, arrangements, dramatizations, or translations and works republished with new matter shall be considered new works subject to copyright.
"As regards a musical work, the bill provides, as does the present law, that the author shall have the sole right to perform the work publicly for profit, but adds the sole right ‘to make any arrangement or setting of it or of the melody of it in any system of notation or any form of record from which it may be read or reproduced.’ The composer’s control of the reproduction of his music by mechanical instruments is qualified as follows:
(a) to cover only music published and copyrighted after the act goes into effect;
(b) not to include music by a foreign author or composer unless the foreign state or nation of which he is a subject grants to citizens of the United States similar rights;
(c) whenever the owner of a musical copyright has used or permitted or acquiesced in the use of his work upon parts of instruments serving to reproduce mechanically the musical work, any other person may make similar use of the work upon the payment of a royalty of two cents on each part manufactured, notice to be filed in the copyright office of such use or license to use by the copyright proprietor.
"American manufacture is required in the case of a book, not only as regards type-setting in the United States, but ‘if the text be produced by lithographic or photo-engraving process, then by a process wholly performed within the limits of the United States.’ The provision is also extended to illustrations within a book, and to separate lithographs and photo engravings, ‘except where in either case the subjects represented are located in a foreign country.’ The printing and binding of the book must also be performed within the United States. {167} Photographs are released from the present requirement that they ‘shall be printed from negatives made within the United States or from transfers made therefrom.’ The ‘original text of a book of foreign origin in a language or languages other than English ’ is also excepted from the requirements of type-setting in the United States. A new ad interim protection is given books printed abroad in the English language. If one complete copy of such book is deposited in the copyright office not later than thirty days after publication abroad, copyright is granted for a period of thirty days from the date of receipt of the copy. If an authorized edition of the book is produced from type set in the United States during this second thirty days, the full term of copyright is secured.
"The much discussed provisions prohibiting the importation of copyrighted books are considerably modified. The importation of piratical copies of any work copyrighted is prohibited, and the importation of any books, 'although authorized by the author or proprietor,’ which have not been produced in accordance with the manufacturing provisions, is prohibited. The Act of 1891 permits importation of books in 'the case of persons purchasing for use and not for sale, who import, subject to the duty thereon, not more than two copies of such book at any one time.’ The new law permits importation, ‘not more than one copy at one time, for individual use, and not for sale,’ and adds the proviso that ‘such privilege of importation shall not extend to a foreign reprint of a book by an American author copyrighted in the United States.’ The Act of 1891 allows importation in good faith for the use of societies incorporated or established for educational, philosophical, literary, or religious purposes, or for the encouragement of the fine arts, or for any college, academy, school, or seminary of learning. The new law confines the privilege to incorporated societies or institutions, but adds scientific societies and ‘any State, school, college, university, or free public library’; but while the Act of 1891 permits ‘two copies in any one invoice’ to be so imported, the new law provides for ‘not more than one copy of any such book in one invoice’ when ‘for use and not for sale.’
"In the case of infringement, an injunction may issue, as now, and damages be recovered as well as all the profits due to the infringement."
_New York Evening Post, March 4, 1909._
COPYRIGHT: Pan-American Convention.
See (in this Volume) AMERICAN REPUBLICS.
CORINTO, Treaty of.
See (in this Volume) WAR, THE REVOLT AGAINST: A. D. 1902: CENTRAL AMERICA.
CORPORATE WRONGDOING: Summary of recent Governmental Action against it in the United States.
See (in this Volume) COMBINATIONS, INDUSTRIAL: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1901-1906.
CORPORATION TAX, United States.
See (in this Volume) TARIFFS: UNITED STATES.
CORPORATIONS: Forbidden to contribute to Political Elections.
See (in this Volume) UNITED STATES: A. D. 1907 (JANUARY).
CORPORATIONS AND THE PUBLIC.
See (in this Volume) Combinations, Industrial, &c., and Railways.
CORPORATIONS, The Bureau of. Its establishment in the Federal Administration of the United States.
See (in this Volume) UNITED STATES: A. D. 1903 (FEBRUARY).
CORRAL, Ramon: Vice-President of Mexico.
See (in this Volume) MEXICO A. D. 1904-1905.
CORREGAN, Charles Hunter: Nominated for President of the United States.
See (in this Volume) UNITED STATES: A. D. 1904 (MARCH-NOVEMBER).
CORTELYOU, George B.: Secretary of Commerce and Labor and Secretary of the Treasury.
See (in this Volume) UNITED STATES: A D. 1901-1905, and 1905-1909.
COST OF LIVING.
See (in this Volume) LABOR REMUNERATION: WAGES, &c.
COSTA RICA.
See (in this Volume) CENTRAL AMERICA.
COUNTRY LIFE COMMISSION, Report of the.
See (in this Volume) UNITED STATES: A. D. 1908-1909 (AUGUST-FEBRUARY).
COURTS, Industrial, German.
See (in this Volume) LABOR ORGANIZATION: GERMANY: A. D. 1905-1906.
COURTS OF LAW.
See (in this Volume) LAW AND ITS COURTS.
COWPER-TEMPLEISM.
See (in this Volume) EDUCATION: ENGLAND: A. D. 1906.
CREEK NATION, Alleged frauds on the.
See (in this Volume) INDIANS, AMERICAN.
CREMER, William Randal: Originator of the Inter-parliamentary Union.
See (in this Volume) WAR, THE REVOLT AGAINST: A. D. 1904-1909; also NOBEL PRIZES.
CRETE: A. D. 1905-1906. Insurgent demand of Union with Greece. Investigation of discontent by the Protecting Powers. Resignation of the High Commissionership by Prince George. Appointment of Zaimis.
A determined revolutionary movement to secure union with Greece was set on foot in March, 1905. Remonstrance against it by Prince George was unavailing, and the National Assembly, newly elected on the 2d of April, gave support to the insurgents, proclaiming the desired union of Crete with "her mother Greece," and ordering the Greek flag to be raised over the public buildings of the island. The government of Greece, while declaring its sympathy with the feeling which the movement expressed, could not give countenance to it, and urged the insurgents to lav down their arms. The latter, however, continued to hold the interior of the island and to make attacks on the Mohammedan population, until the approach of winter, when, on the 19th of November, they gave up their arms. The four protecting Powers then appointed a commission to investigate the grounds of discontent in the island, and its report made in the following spring justified a good deal of the Cretan complaint of arbitrary rule. In May a new Assembly was elected, in which the Government won 78 seats, the Opposition 36, and the Moslems were represented by 16. In July a resolution in favor of annexation to Greece was voted by acclamation in the Assembly, and its sittings were suspended to await the decision of the Powers. The latter announced a little later the intention to organize a gendarmerie to take the place of foreign troops in the island; and also to extend the operations of the Greek Finance Commission to Crete. Prince George now expressed his unwillingness to continue in the office of High Commissioner, and, on the request of the Powers, the King of Greece nominated M. Zaimis to succeed him. The nomination was accepted, and Prince George withdrew from the island, after issuing a farewell proclamation, September 25th. M. Zaimis arrived and assumed office on the 14th of October, being warmly received. He was understood to have the powers of a Greek Viceroy, with a mission to prepare the island for annexation to Greece.
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"I should not like," said a writer in the summer of 1905, "to speak too positively of Prince George’s mistakes; but I have met no European who has lived in the island who had a good word to say for his administration. On the one hand, he played the despot. The local independent newspapers were destroyed, and the right of public meeting withdrawn. Worst of all, the mayors and prefects, who had originally been elected by the inhabitants of their districts, were degraded to the position of mere officials nominated by the Prince. At the same time, he aspired to be a sort of party leader. Quite early in his term of office he contrived to alienate the best men among the leaders who had conducted the insurrection with so much patience and wisdom. The President of the Provisional Government, Dr. Sphakianakis, an extremely able and, what is rarer, a wise and disinterested man, went into retirement when the Prince arrived. …
"By the summer of last year, [1904] when the Prince cast Professor Jannaris, a philologist of European reputation, into Canea gaol, the rift between himself and his people had become desperate. … It was now quite clear that no solution remained save union with Greece. To Prince George it provided an honorable and graceful path of retreat. He could retire and bring with him in his withdrawal a great gift to the Greek nation, and confer, at the same time, contentment on Crete. … Prince George, accordingly, devoted the closing months of 1904 to a tour among the European courts. The Powers had never intended to make him the permanent sovereign of Crete. His mandate was only for three years, and it had already been prolonged for a second term. He urged that the time had at length arrived for a definite solution, which could only be a union with Greece. But either his pleading was half-hearted or the Powers were deaf. His term was once more extended, and he was weak enough, or vain enough, to accept the dangerous mission. He returned to Crete and reported his failure.
"What followed is recent history. For a month or two the Cretans were passive, and then suddenly they rose in arms. A sort of provisional government was established at Therisso, a stronghold in the mountains, near enough to Canea to threaten the Prince’s administration, far enough from the sea to be out of range of the European war-ships. Dr. Sphakianakis and MM. Venizelos and Foumis are at its head, and it soon received the allegiance of the whole interior. Simultaneously, under very strained conditions, a general election was held; and, though the members were probably drawn for the most part from the Prince’s party, the Chamber adopted the programme of the insurgents and solemnly proclaimed the annexation of the island to Greece. The Prince threatened, but he had no force behind him; and he too could only reiterate his prayer that Europe should assent to union. It is a whimsical display of unanimity. In other lands, subjects rebel to emphasize some difference of opinion with their rulers. The Cretans have taken up arms to prove how violently they all agree."
_H. N. Brailsford, The Future of Crete (North American Review, August, 1905)._
CRETE: A. D. 1907-1909. How and why the Cretans have been restrained by the Four Protecting Powers.
In February, 1907, the Cretans framed and adopted a new Constitution, providing for an Assembly of sixty-four Deputies, elected every two years, and continuing the executive office of High Commissioner, with a Council of three. They were fully exercising all the rights of independent self-government, under the protection of the four Powers which still maintained the old "Concert," namely, Great Britain, France, Russia, and Italy. The Turkish Government touched them in no other way than through the theoretical, intangible suzerainty which the Sultan claimed. But that claim, acknowledged by their potent protectors, barred them from annexation to the kingdom of their fellow Greeks, which was their heart’s desire. If Turkey had continued in the condition to which it had sunk when the Powers set them free from all but a fiction of feudal law (see in Volume VI. of this work, TURKEY: A. D. 1897-1899) there seems little doubt that they would have won their wish in no long time, with the help of those Powers; but the great change in Turkish conditions which came about in 1908 was not favorable to Cretan hopes.
To the Cretans, in October, 1908, the Turkish Revolution appeared to have brought them the best of opportunities for breaking the irksome thread of an unexercised Ottoman sovereignty. Bulgaria snapped the thread; why should not they? But Bulgaria had no responsible guardians to look after her conduct; while Crete was, unfortunately at this juncture, the ward of an international trust company, whose responsibilities for her were made immeasurably more serious by the very circumstances which invited her to an escapade. The revolutionary undertaking of the Young Turks, to reform their own nation, claimed the sympathy and good will of every right-feeling government in the world. Great Britain, France, and Italy, at least, could not afford to lay, or consent to the laying, of a straw of difficulty in its way. A declaration of Cretan independence and annexation to Greece, countenanced by the Powers, would have raised excitements in Turkey more than likely to wreck the reform movement in a catastrophe of war, which might involve much larger fields than those that lie between Turkey and Greece. The action of Bulgaria and that of Austria in annexing Bosnia and Herzegovina had put a dangerous strain on the situation; but neither of these had tried Turkish feeling as it would have been tried if Crete and Greece had been suffered to follow their example by the four protecting Powers.