In the story of Civilization American civilization the year

1909 deserves a creditable chapter. What the year has done for our progress in art is recounted in this number of the REVIEW by Mr. Knaufft. That it has been a notable year in the history of musical culture in America can be attested by Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, and other centers, as well as by New York. President Butler's little article written for this magazine last month, under the title "How to Civilize New York," points to ideals that the past year has done some things to realize. Opportunities for for research and advancement in scientific and expert knowledge have been strikingly increased. New serums have been tested, new anasthet

changes in our laws relating to railroads and industrial corporations that are necessary in order that the Government may perform its proper functions with respect to the nation's economic life.

The

istration

than from western Europe. The most amaz- cier the year 1909 has been full of interest, ing fact in this greatest of all world-shift- although it remains for the present year and ings of population is the assimilative power its successor to deal with the reform of our of American life. Irish, Germans, and Scan- banking and currency system, and with those dinavians are now almost completely assimilated. The more recent comers not only learn our language and our ways so that they speak and dress and walk the streets like Americans, but they conform themselves with an almost magical and quite inexplicable rapidity to the physical types that are regarded as distinctively our own. These newcomers have massed themselves very largely in our great towns, adding, of course, to the immediate difficulties of civic progress. Yet in spite of tendencies toward overcrowding, we are making advances in our average conditions of health, comfort, and order in city life; and many things during the past year have illustrated this fact. The recent municipal election in New York, not less than things that have happened in Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, and elsewhere, point to better things in the government of our cities, and to more efficient application of means to ends for education, health, and safety in the ordering of life where population masses gather in great towns.

During this past year an observNew Admin- ing world has once more looked upon the spectacle of a change in the American national administration. These changes, every four years, come without any shock or tremor. Even those that have been caused by the assassination of three Presidents have shown how firm is the spirit of law and order in this country, and how adaptable are our trained citizens who pass with ease from private to public positions. Nine months of official responsibility has seemed to make the members of Mr. Taft's cabinet veteran statesmen, even those who have never held public office before. This period has witnessed the passage of a new tariff law which, though far from being a thoroughgoing revision, is accepted by business men as a fixed fact for some years to come. This period has also witnessed definite progress in the great policy of developing our internal waterways, as will be shown in articles appearing elsewhere in this number of the REVIEW. The new President has traveled much, spoken much, and familiarized himself with conditions and sentiment in all parts of the country.

Our Outward Relations

In our relations with the world turbulent little jurisdictions of Central beyond our borders the year that America that must, if faithfully pursued, has passed has some things worth lead to some such calming of those regions their record on the page of political history. as our influence has secured at Panama, in At the beginning of the year, for example, Cuba, in Porto Rico, and in the Philippines. we withdrew for the second time from the We have taken measures to show to all the republic of Cuba, justifying to the utmost a leading powers, both of Europe and of Asia, policy that has given that rich island prom- our interest in whatever concerns the comise of a tranquil and happy future. We have merce of the Pacific Ocean, the future of put all our outstanding differences with Can- China, and the evolution of the Far East. ada in the way of adjustment by arbitration. Mr. Calhoun, our new Minister to China, is We have entered upon a policy toward the a lawyer of valuable diplomatic experience.

The

Crisis in

For Great Britain and her ing of this new year 1910 brings a great spheres of political influence the struggle at the polls to see whether EnglishEngland year 1909 has also been mem- men at large are sufficiently emancipated to orable. For several centuries England has stand for themselves and their children, or witnessed the slow but sure crumbling of are even yet so greatly under the mental, feudal institutions, as the forces of modern moral, and social thraldom of the feudal and life and of an awakened democracy have caste system that they prefer to be governed made their successive demands. The recent House of Commons, with its great group of Labor members and its enormous Liberal and Radical majority, has been wholly unlike any previous House of Commons since Cromwellian days in its firm attitude of opposition to arbitrary discriminations in favor of the aristocratic and privileged classes. The demands of the famous Lloyd-George budget, in their proposal of a tax on lands and in other respects, would seem to an American or a Frenchman only a reasonable move in the direction of obvious justice. But England is a country whose institutions, while in many respects most admirable and generous in their attitude toward the nation at large, are in other respects monstrously unfair in the privileges they accord to the landed aristocracy as represented by the House of Lords, to the established Church, and to other favored interests. This fight of the centuries for freedom from feudalism has had many historic dates. One of them was the Reform act of 1832. Others came in Mr. Gladstone's time with suffrage extensions, the reform of the Irish Church, and so on. by the House of Lords rather than by their The Liberal budget of the past year, rejected own elected representatives in the Commons. by the House of Lords, seems destined to fix another of these important dates. The open

HON. DAVID LLOYD-GEORGE
From the Daily Chronicle (London)

Home Rule

May Come
This Year

If the Liberals come back from the appeal to the country with a working majority they will not only establish the right of the House of Commons to govern the country in essential matters without interference from the Lords, but they will also probably give Home Rule to Ireland at once. In return for this promise of Home Rule they will be able to count upon a working coalition with the Irish Nationalist party; and this ought to make it reasonably certain that the Conservative party, led by Mr. Balfour and Lord Lansdowne, will not be able to secure the strength in the new House necessary to carry on the government. Thus great things are likely to come from the budgetary crisis of 1909, not to mention such admirable social reforms as old age pensions. These problems of internal progress are the real ones for British study. The straining for naval and military predominance in the world is at the sacrifice. of England's true welfare.

A New

The year 1909 will constitute a Nation Has date of cardinal importance for Been Born South Africa, inasmuch as it has seen the federation of the British and Boer colonies into the United States of South Africa, with a constitution and a central government, thus following the examples of the Commonwealth of Australia and the Dominion of Canada. Mr. Herbert Gladstone is to go to South Africa as the governor-general representing the British Empire. On another page we review an expression of Dutch opinion regarding the future language of South Africa. Whether English or Boer-Dutch is to prevail, the Dutch stock will predominate in the new nationality.

Light Breaks

progress, and English opinion has had much to do with securing reform in the Congo State. The Portuguese possessions in Africa are badly ruled; and much attention has lately been called again through British organs of opinion to the outrages practiced under a disguised system of slavery in the production of cocoa on the coasts of Portuguese Africa. President Roosevelt's remarkable articles in Scribner's Magazine have engaged the attention of many thousands of readers, and are adding to the popular interest in African geography, population, and natural conditions. It does not seem so long since Stanley was searching for Livingstone, and Africa was mostly an unknown continent. The changes are very rapid since the heroic days of General Gordon, and even since the death of Cecil Rhodes.

French
Social

The people of France, for the first time in their history, subProgress mitted themselves last year to the political guidance of a Socialist prime minister, M. Briand, about whom we published an article last month. He is a schol

arly and gentle Socialist, of statesmanlike caliber and rare gifts of speech and style. The French government is ever more and more in touch with the needs of the people; and its great expenditures for purposes of administration and the general welfare are met out of the thrift of a populace whose ability to earn and to save is unsurpassed. While Germany is far outstripping France in population and magnitude of industrial development, France stands higher now than at any time in her history in the world's admiration and regard.

Germany

and Science

The growing power of Germany is, indeed, fortunate for France, because it so lessens the temptation to engage in a war that would probably destroy France unless all Europe became embroiled in the struggle. Germany continues to build ships, constantly protesting her good will toward England and all mankind. Meanwhile Germany also has a new ruler in its Chancellor von Bethmann Hollweg, who has come up from the ranks of the common people, while all his predecessors have been of the high nobility. Elsewhere

The adjustment of the affairs of in the Dark the Congo Free State (to which Continent allusion is made in another paragraph of this department of our REVIEW, and also in our article upon the late King Leopold of Belgium and his successor) in this number is an article on the growth forms another chapter of African history bearing the 1909 date. English influence in Egypt and the Sudan, as well as in East Africa, continues to be exerted for peace and

of Social Democracy in Germany; but the true key to German progress is the application of science to industry, to public administration, and to all the departments of life.