The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, June 30, 1895, Page 1

— b S A CHARACTERISTIC SCE 9,77 [From a pen sketch by Fisher.] TO HOCK THE SEALS An Explanation of Lord Salisbury’s Great Haste. BACKED BY THE QUEEN. One Peculiar Way of Keeping Up the Credit of the Government. WAR FUNDS RUN VERY LOW. When Publicly Criticized the New Premier Apologizes to Camp-~ bell-Bannerman. [Copyright by the New York Sun, 1895.] LONDON, Exc., June 29.—Americans who happen to be in the city this week have been marveling among themselves over the apparent indifference of the Eng- lish people to the change of government, which has taken place with even less dis- turbance to metropolitan life than is caused by a day’s meteorological vicissitudes. The contrast with the public excitement on the eve of a National election in the United States is so striking that most ob- servers are gaining the impression that English democratic institutions are threatened by a greater danger from povular disregard of the duties of the suf- rage than exists in America. It iscer- tainly true that public interest in the political crisis in this country is at a lower ebb than has preceded any great election in Great Britain during the past century. The only sentiment on the subject which I have heard expressed this week by busi- ness men and other ordinary citizens is the general grumble that the polling is to take place just when everybody is going to the country for their annual holiday. Lord Salisbury’s acceptance and the per- sonnel of the Cabinet appointments have been received with an absence of all com- ment outside of the newspapers and politi- cal clubs. Evervbody takes it for granted that the Unionists will secure a comforta- ble working majority in the new Parlia- ment, and that the legislative life of the country will zo on without any disturb- ance for months. If the polling for the new Parliament took place -everywhere on the same day there would be a good chance for some surprising results, due to the overconfidence of the Unionist party, But if such a danger appears during the first day or two of the polling there will be am- ple opportunity to guard against it. There bave already been notices from an aston- will be no contest. It is only in districts where thereis a fair fighting chance to i change the present representftion that | there will be any real campaign. | The event of the week, which aroused | far greater public interest than Lord Salis- | bury’s accession, was the strange incident regarding the seals of the War Department. The cable has already made some mention | of the extraordinary fact, but the mystery | connected with it makes the matter worth | recording in more detail. When Camp- | bell-Bannerman, who is still acting as | Secretary of War, went to his house, after | leaving the Commons on Tuesday morn- | ing, he found a man on his doorstep who politely requested him to aand over his seals of offic. The astonished Cabinet officer asked the stranger who he - was, and the young man replied that he was Mr. McDonnell, the private secretary of Lord Salisbury, who by the way had not then kissed hands on his acceptance of the premiership, and | was, therefore, only a private citizen. The War Secretary suggested that the young man had better explain his mission in- doors instead of in the street. Mr. Mec- Donnell, on reaching Mr. Bannerman’s study, renewed the demand, saying that he had been sent by Lord Salisbury with only a verbal message and without written authority. The reply of the retiring Secretary for War was emphatic: “I | received the seals of the Secretary of State for War from her Majesty. I shall sur- render them to her when she commands me to do so and to no one else.” The custom in such cases with all Eng- lishmen is one of the strictest unwritten laws of this custom-governed country. When a new Cabinet has been completed the incoming and outgoing Ministers go down to Windsor by different trains in the same day. Those who have resigned office deliver the official symbols to the Queen and those who have accepted office receive them from her Majesty’s hand. It is only when a Minister has been dismissed for misconduct and when his behavior has disqualified him for admission to the pres- ence of the sovereign that such a course as Lord Salisbury took on Tuesday is adopted. Campbell-Bannerman was naturally much incensed, and Lord Rosebery called the matter to the attention of the House of Lords on Thursday in language which made even that thick-skinned Tory pretty uncomsortable. The retiring Prime Minis- ter said: *In former times sovereigns of arbitrary character have sent for the seals of their Ministers without receiving them them- selves, but thata new Minister who had not been in the office twelve hours should send his private secretary to the Secretary of State for War for the seals without any written authority s to my mind a proceed- ing so unparalleled as coming from the head of a constitutional party that I think it in the interest of constitutional history and constitutional tradition, as well as the relations we are accustomed to cultivate between political parties themselves, although antagonistic, that a full and clear explanation of the nature and motive of this proceeding should be exceptionally welcome.”’ Lord Selisbury tamely replied that he of War from the inconvenience of going to Windsor, and he really thought his mes- sage merited a more courteous reception, This moved the Earl of Kimberly to ex- claim warmly: “Talk of courteous receptions! Has it not occurred ‘'to the noble Marquis that there might also have been a more courte- ous message? Can any one conceive of a more extraordinary proceeding than that after a vote of censure had been passed on a Minister of the Crown, he should be asked to hand over the seals of office in a manner that isneither courteous to himself nor in accordance with practice? Itis ex- traordinary that the Secretary of State for ‘War should be asked by the head of a party to give up his seals very much in the same way as he would send his footman to ask a right honorable gentleman to hand over his seals.”” There were hearty demonstrations of ap- provalat Lord Kimberly’s outburst on both sides of the House and Lord Salisbury changed his tone, saying that if Campbell- Bennerman felt hurt, he desired to express his extreme regret if his action had been discourteous. The Premier did not, however, disclose the real reason for his extraordinary action, and the English public is still in ignorance of it. The truth is said to be that the Prime Minister of England wished to get immediate possession of the seals of the British War Office in order to put them in ‘‘hock” to raise money to garry on the Government. The War Department was in dire need of cash to meet imperative payments. The passage of the supply bills had been blocked by the adverse vote on Friday night. It seemed necessary to secure a temporary advance from the Bank of England. The custom in such emergencies is to deposit the seals of the needy department at a bank as security for the loan. It was rumored to-day that the Queen herself was responsible for Lord Salisbury’s strange action. It is said that her Majesty feared thai Campbell-Bannerman might signalize his departure from office by com- mitting the War Office to the appointment of General Lord Wolseley or General Lord Roberts as commander-in-chief of the army in place of the Duke of Cambridge. The Queen is quite determined to keep this appointment in the royal family, and there is no doubt that the Balisbury Govern- ment will confer it upon the Duke of Con- naught. The present London season, which is now drawing to a close, has been in point of numbers at least the most successful on record. The metropolis has been thronged with Englishmen and foreigners since early May. Never before have so many Ameri- cans congregated in London. Many of these, who came here without notice, under the impression that there is always plenty of room in this big town have been put to serious inconvenience. Hundreds have spent an entire day driving with a load of baggage from hotel to hotel before finding even second-class quarters. The theaters and music halls have been so thronged that it has been necessary to secure seats days in advance,while the West End shop- keepers have never been so happy 1n all their lives. Americans have never been so Ssbing number of constituencies that there |merely intended to relieve the Secretary | prominent in furnishing enjertsinment l during the London season, especially in music lines. It isa credit to British dis- cernment to record that English hearts have been taken by storm by one Ameri- can young woman, who came here at the beginning of the season without any royal or aristocratic patronage. Miss Fay Davis, a Massachusetts girl who possesses re- markable histrionic talent, has become the brightest star of the West End drawing- room and semi-public entertainments. Society has not failed to indulge in a few new fads, without which the season would haye been' dull, in spite of its thronged functions. The bicycle craze has been one feature. In the last few days, however, the burial and mourning reform has been the absorbing drawing-room topic. Dis- cussions upon “earth to earth’’ interment, the material of which coffins should be made and the amount of crepe which widows. should wear serve to kill time pleasantly. Even the Prince of Wales succumbed to the fascination of this fad, and a letter from him was read at ia meeting held the other day -at the Duke of Sutherland’s house in which his Royal Highness sent a cordial expression of his approval of the burial reform so- cieties, the main principle of which as formulated by Lord Grimthorpe sets forth thatthe earth is the proper and providen- tial purifier of corruption. It seems that other members of the royal family, includ- ing the Duchess of Albany, Princess Chris- tian and the Duke of Teck, favor “earth to earth” burial, although all of them are des- tined, unless their wills order otherwise, to be put into massive triple cased caskets. Polite society had, of course, no option but to follow the lead set by royalty and just now there is great demand for the lugubrious literature circulated by this so- ciety in order that dukes and duchesses and earls and countesses and the like may be enabled to read up on the subject and talk with authority thereon. 8ir Walter Besant, the so-called literary knight, was entertained at a public dinner on Wednesday night in celebration of the honor conferred upon him by the Queen, and there was much large talk by the small men assembled around the festive board. Sir Walter Besant made himself ridiculous, as he has been doing almost daily since his equilibrium was upset by receiving the privilege of putting a handle to hisname. He modestly claimed to per- sonify the dignity of English literature, and praised the Queen and Lord Rosebery for their perspicacity in being the first people in history to recognize that there is any dignity in literature, forgetting that Sir Walter Scott and Lord Tennyson ever existed. The Queen read Sir Walter's speeches in the newspapers. She is not likely to receive him very effusively when he goes to Windsor Castle to be touched by the sword of honor, for it was she, of course, who ennobled plain Mister Tenny- son and sought, in the face of actual rude rebuffs, upon more than one occasion to confer a titular distinction upon Carlyle. The English oarsmen no longer sneer at the Cornell crew at Henley, but openly de- clare their performances to be a great puz- zle and a mystery. They do not hesitate to say that if Cornell wins rowing must be sevolutionized. The river i3 now vers| NE AT A CALIFORNIA SEASIDE RESORT. lively with the practicing crews. The Can- adians are exciting great admiration among the spectators. The Cornell boys have not been doing so much hard work within the last few days as the English crews. They take shorter bursts at racing speed and they are rowing at somewhat longer stroke, rarely striking above forty to the minute. They are taking occasional full courses to-day, for instance they cov- ered the course under adverse conditions in 7 min. 18 sec. All the men are in the finest condition. It is doubtful if money was ever loaned at lower rates than during the current week. It is necessary that the British Government should renew treasury bills amounting to $6,000,000. The tenders amounted to $60,000,000 and the lowest price, which was accepted, fixed the inter- est at a trifie under eleven-sixteenths of 1 per cent. The Valkyrie's performance in her first race to-day was governed chiefly by flukes and luck, but she raised extraordinary hopes in all who saw her. Her Pbehavior, unless entirely misleading, indicated that she is the fastest English boat ever built, and the elation on the Clyde is something beyond the power of the cable to convey an adequate idea of. The appointment of 8ir Matthew White Ridley to the home secretaryship must have gladdened the heart of 8peaker Gully, for it was almost universally assumed that it presages the latter's re-election without opposition when the new Parliament meets. This, however, is assuming too much, as so many Tory place-hunters have been disappointed, owing to the necessity of finding room for the Liberal-Unionist allies, that Lord Salisbury may very well have promised the speakership as a solatium to one of them. The Prince of Wales has been induced to perform the inaugural ceremony at the new graving-docks at Southampton, and there is much local rejoicing. Liverpool, however, has been doing some really smart work this week, and everything there is so much improved that any danger of the Cunarders migrating to the southern port may now be considered as past. The Pavonia disembarked her passengers alongside the landing stage and got them off to London in remarkably quick time, but a record was made with the Teutonic train from London, which arrived with 120 passengers and 600 packages of baggage at 8:23 . M., and in Jess than half an hour everything was aboard, and by 4 o'clock the big liner was on her way to New York. The first performance was given at Covent Garden to-day of one act of the opera ‘‘Petruccio,” by Alick McLean, a Scotch composer of only 23 years. Itisthe winner of d prize offered to British com- posers, and its production has been awaited with considerable curiosity. It is a light, pleasing composition of genuine mausical merit. It contains crudities, and some portions were poorly presented, but it introduces a comvoser from whom striking work will probably come later, and the audience received it with much enthusiasm, and greatly enjoyed the con- fusion of the youthful composer when he received the prize from Mme. Patti and congratulations from Augustus Harris. Hzxat R, CHAMBERLAIN, L TURNING OF THE TIDE. the matter, taken in conjunction with the steady gains which the Chicago Associated Press made for some time in the East and | South, left a large part of the newspaper Now The United Pressls| Winning the Great | War. | ITS CHIEF RIVALDOWNED The True Prophecy Made bfl General Manager Phillips. MANY PAPERS ARE BENEFITED Superlor News Facliitles of the | Assoclation Whose Headquar- ters Is New York. NEW YORK, N.Y., June 29.—General Manager Phillips of The United Press said in an interview recently that the tide had | turned in the long fight between his or- ganization and the Chicago Associated Press, and he predicted that the latter would go to pieces within twelve months. Events since then have gone far to show that Mr. Phillips was not talking without mature deliberation, and that his prophecy | was made in the knowledge of new forces ‘ and conditions, which have already begun | to operate in favor of The United Press. | Attention is attracted to the fact that | within the short time that has elapsed | since the publication of his interview in the Louisville Courier-Journal The United Press has captured three of the principal | papers on the Pacific Coast—namely, the | San Francisco Cary, San Jose Mercury and Bacramento Record-Union—and in addi- tion to them, the Council Bluffs Nonpareil and a number of other papers. All of these | papers had previously been receiving the report of the Chicago Associated Press. Charles M. Shortridge, the proprietor of the San Francisco CALy, isthe president of the Pacific Associated Press. The fight between the two associations has reached a stage of the greatest inter- est to newspaper publishers and proprie- tors. The recent gains made by The United Press have been somewhat in the nature of a surprise to publishers who have hitherto regarded only the superficial aspects of the press associations’ war. The readiness of The United Press to consider fully and fairly the propositions for a set- tlement advanced by its Chicago rival and its evidently sincere desire to reach an agreement for the common good of the newspapers in the various sections of the country was taken in some quarters as an indication that the association controlled by the great New York journals was ready to give up the fight and turn its business emwfl‘focnimom ‘This view of vorld unprepared for the sudden spurt on he part of The United Press, which began almost simultaneously with the failure of the negotiations. ¥ )1t was with a view to getting at the phil- osophical reasons for this change thata reporter asked Mr. Phillips yesterday to explain in some measure the new forces at work. He was questioned first as to why, in view of the strength now shown by The United Press, it was willing, a few weeks ago, to treat with its enemy for settle- ment. “The willingness of The United Press,” he said, “to go into conference with the Chicago Associated Press was not due to any weakness in, our position. We have | always been ready to settle the fighton | territorial lines, provided it could be done on a fair and equitable basis: That has been our policy because many of our clients desire such a setilement. The rea- son is obvious. The presence of two rival press associations in. the same territory stimulates the starting of newspapers. There is no desire on anybody’s part to stifle bona fide enterprises for which there is a field, but' when news is” being offered for less than the cost of collecting it, papers are oftenstarted by irresponsible parties who succeed in ruining the business of established papers through cutting adver- tising rates, etc., and then after a short career go out of existence. This sort of thing is a greatinjury to established papers in small places and it benefits nobody. “The Chicago Associated Press recently made one of its 90-year contracts with a new paper in Binghamton and at the end of three months the paper died, the 90-year contract and all. In view of this consfiier- ation it is natural that our clients in the smaller towns should desire that a terri- LEVI STRAUSS &CO's COPPER RIVETED OVERALLS "~ AND SPRING BOTTOM PANTS. EVERY PAIR GUARANTEED 4D SALE EVERVWHERE,