Allahabad, 1; Municipal Boards, 4; District and Municipal Boards, 8; landholders, 2; Mohammedan community, 4; Upper Indian Chamber of Commerce, 1.

Council of the Punjab. The elected members will be chosen, one by the University of the Punjab, three by the Municipal and Cantonment Committees and one by the Punjab Chamber of Commerce; total five. The maximum number of nominated members is fixed at nineteen, of whom not more than ten may be officials.

Council of Eastern Bengal.-There will be eighteen elected members and twenty-two nominated, of whom not more than seventeen may be officials and one must be a non-official from the Indian commercial community. The details of the eighteen elected members are: Port of Chittagong, 1; Municipal Commissioners, 3; District and Local Boards, 5; landholders, 2; Mohammedan community, 4; the tea interest, 2; the jute interest, 1.

Council of Burma.-One member will be elected by the Burma Chamber of Commerce and there will be fourteen nominated members, of whom not more than six may be officials. Of the remainder, who must be non-officials, not less than four must be selected from the Burmese population and one from the Indian and one from the Chinese community.

The so-called National Congress and the professional politicians generally have strongly denounced these Rules and Regulations as retrograde and opposed to the liberal spirit of Lord Morley's speeches; they had hoped to see all India divided into large popular constituencies in which the Hindus would almost always greatly outnumber the Mohammedans, and they themselves would be chosen as leaders of the people. But by the general body of Indians of intelligence and position they are regarded as a well-considered and liberal scheme for securing a fair representation of all classes and interests, and as such they have been received with gratitude. Unfortunately the Reform Scheme has had little or no effect on the "Extremists," as the Anarchists are euphemistically called. Besides minor outrages there have been three terrible tragedies in 1909. Early in February Asutosh Biswas, the Public Prosecutor of Bengal, was shot dead at Alipur by a Bengali student; on July 1, Sir Curzon Wyllie, the political aide-de-camp to the Secretary of State for India, and a Parsi doctor of Shanghai, who was with him and attempted to save him, were shot by one Madhar Lal Dhingra, a native of the Punjab, a son of a loyal and much respected Government servant, at the close of an evening entertainment given at the Imperial Institute in London for the express purpose of promoting friendly intercourse between Europeans and Indians (p. 155); and on December 21 Mr. Jackson, a Bombay civilian, was shot at a native theatre at Nassik by a young Marathi Brahmin, who said that his motive was revenge for a sentence of transportation passed on an accused person in

a sedition case. In all these cases the murderers declared that they had no accomplices, but even if this was literally true it is clear that they were prompted to commit the murders by reading the literature circulated by the agitators who openly advocate political assassination. In addition to these murders, an attempt was made on the life of the Viceroy as he was driving from the railway station at Ahmedabad in the course of his autumn tour. A bomb was thrown at his carriage by some unknown person, but fortunately it did no injury to any of the Viceregal party.

The great Anarchist conspiracy case (see ANNUAL REGISTER, 1908, p. 381) reached its last stage on November 23, when judgment was delivered by the Chief Justice on the appeal of the accused against their conviction by the Sessions Judge. Although the discovery of the arms and papers which was the basis of the charge of conspiracy was made on May, 1908, it was not until May 6, 1909, that the Sessions Judge delivered his judgment after 126 hearings. The appeal came before the High Court in the beginning of August and was not finally decided till November 23. The Court held that, although for technical reasons the charge of "waging war against the King" could not be sustained, the case in all its main features was a perfectly genuine one and disclosed the existence of a serious conspiracy of a most dangerous character. Of the eighteen accused only one was acquitted, the four ringleaders were sentenced to transportation for life, six others to lesser terms of transportation, and two to five years rigorous imprisonment. As the Judges forming the Bench were not agreed regarding the five other accused, their case had to be referred to a third Judge and it had not been decided before the close of the year.

There were numerous prosecutions for sedition in various parts of India; and, when they resulted in convictions, severe sentences were generally passed.

VI. NATIVE STATES.

The Indian agitators endeavoured to carry their propaganda into the Native States, but they met with prompt suppression. In Gwalior thirty-nine men were arrested and speedily brought to trial; only four of them were acquitted and the rest received substantial punishment. From papers found on them it was clear that their plans had been organised by men from Bengal and the Mahratta country. As in India, the conspirators were nearly all of the schoolmaster and student class.

In August the Viceroy addressed letters to most of the Ruling Chiefs on the subject of sedition and the replies of all of them were of the most cordial character.

VII. TIBET.

Little was heard of Tibet during 1909, but since the close of the year most important news has arrived. It was known that China had quietly but energetically continued her policy

of making her sovereignty over the country real. Small bodies of well-armed and well-disciplined soldiers had been sent into the country gradually and about 2,500 of them were collected in a cantonment three miles from Lhasa, nominally as a guard for the Amban. The Dalai Lama reached Lhasa towards the end of November with an Imperial letter authorising him to take over the Government from the Provisional Governors appointed on the retirement of the British in 1904. He was allowed to do so and to re-occupy his palace. Things apparently went fairly smoothly for about a month, but it was evident that the position of the Dalai Lama was very different from what it had been formerly. His influence over the Tibetans had been impaired, and the Chinese Amban had changed from a mere nonentity into a Viceroy of a Chinese Province. Friction soon arose between him and the Dalai Lama, but what produced the final rupture is not yet known. It appears, however, that the Amban informed the Dalai Lama that unless some demand was conceded the cantonment troops would enter Lhasa, and to this the reply was that if they attempted to do so they would be resisted. They did attempt it and the resistance they met with was almost ludicrous. A small number of Tibetans, almost unarmed and quite undisciplined, were enrolled under the high-sounding name of the "Golden Soldiers," only to be shot down in the market place when they attempted to oppose the Chinese troops. The Amban was master of Lhasa, and the Dalai Lama with only a few followers fled to India. It was at first supposed that he was merely seeking an asylum, but later reports said that his object was only to use India as the shortest road to Pekin, whither he intended to proceed at once in person to lay his grievances before the Emperor.

VIII. SIAM.

On March 10 the Treaty between the British and Siamese Governments was signed at Bangkok, the operative part of which is as follows:

Article 1.-Siam transfers to Great Britain all its rights in the States of Kelantan, Tringganu, Kedah, Perlis, and adjacent islands, the boundaries of which are defined in a Protocol annexed to the Treaty.

Article 2.-The transfer is to take place within thirty days from the ratification of the Treaty.

Article 3.-Within six months from the ratification a mixed Commission of Siamese and British officials is to be appointed for the delimitation of the new frontier; Siamese subjects residing in these territories who desire to preserve their nationality may do so on becoming domiciled in Siam; the British Government will recognise and respect all concessions granted by the Siamese Government, and recognised by it as in force at the time of the transfer.

Article 4.-The indebtedness of these territories to the

Siamese Government will be assumed by the Government of the Federated Malay States.

Article 5.-The jurisdiction of the International Courts established by the Treaty of September 3, 1883, shall come to an end and be transferred to the ordinary Siamese Courts after the promulgation and the coming into force of the Siamese codes, viz., the Penal Code, the Civil and Commercial Codes, the Codes of Procedure, and the Law for Organisation of Courts.

Article 6.-British subjects shall enjoy throughout the whole extent of Siam the rights and privileges enjoyed by the natives of the country, and shall be liable to the same taxes and services, but they shall be exempt from all military service, either in the Army or Navy and from all forced loans or military exactions or contributions.

Article 7.-The provisions of all Treaties, Agreements and Conventions not modified by the new Treaty remain in full force.

Article 8.-The new Treaty is to be ratified within four months from its date.

The transfer and ratifications were duly carried out.

CHARLES A. ROE.

CHAPTER VI.

THE FAR EAST.

I. JAPAN.

THE Budget for 1909-10 introduced by Marquis Katsura's Ministry was framed on the lines foreshadowed in 1908, and was adopted by the House of Representatives without any alteration, except that the House rejected the proposal to abolish taxes in textile fabrics and salt in transit. With this modification it passed the House of Peers.

The estimates of ordinary revenue, 471,000,000 yen, and extraordinary revenue, 45,000,000 yen, balanced with the totals of ordinary expenditure, 401,000,000 yen, and of extraordinary revenue 115,000,000 yen. A noticeable feature in the extraordinary revenue is that the surplus of receipts above the estimated revenue for 1907-8 placed a sum at the disposal of the Government which together with the amounts saved by the curtailment of public works in 1907-9 reached 70,000,000 yen. From this surplus fund 11,000,000 yen were allotted to extraordinary revenue for 1909-10, and the Government was able to take in hand some productive works, such as harbour improvements, ironworks and irrigation of lands, which had been postponed in 1909.

The amount to be transferred to the National Debt Consolidation Fund for 1909-10 was estimated at 183,000,000 yen,

of which 50,800,000 was to be applied to the redemption of the National Loan.

In framing the Estimate, the Government counted on the continuance of the annual increase in the revenue derived from

taxation in Japan. An improvement was also expected in the railway receipts, which now figured in a separate Budget. A rise in working expenses from 43 to 50 per cent. had taken place in the railroads after being taken over by the nation. This rise had been partly due to lack of experience and supervision on the part of the new managers, and partly to the condition into which the lines had been allowed to fall prior to their transfer. But improvements in the lines and the construction of new branches, the cost of which was to be met in large part out of revenue, formed part of the railway programme.

In Formosa the public works in course of development included the improvement of Takow harbour at a cost of 483,1607., large irrigation works with an electric power station at Chikushimon costing 93,000l., and aqueducts costing 146,000l. In Japan itself the cities of Osaka and Nagoya floated loans for 3,084,9401. and 800,000l. for municipal purposes, and so strong was the disposition in other places to follow their example that the Government issued a warning against the issue of debentures unless the means of early repayment were in sight.

Many industrial enterprises were in a very bad condition in the early part of the year and trade generally was in a depressed condition, but in June an improvement in the export trade set in, and to the great satisfaction of the Government the trade returns for the year showed totals of 412,000,000 yen for exports and 393,000,000 for imports, as compared with 377,000,000 and 436,000,000 in 1908. In September the satisfactory condition of Japan's finances enabled Marquis Katsura to announce that the Budget for 1910-11 would provide for the modification of war taxes and the increase of the Sinking Fund and of salaries of Government servants. And at the close of the year the revenue returns gave promise of a probable surplus on the year 1909-10 of 21,800,000 yen.

On July 31 Osaka suffered from a fire, which destroyed some 12,000 houses and a large number of public buildings in the North Ward. The Courts of Justice with their records were swept away, in spite of the fire-proof character of the buildings, and the firemen and troops who were called to their assistance found themselves powerless to stay the progress of the fire until all the buildings in an area two and a half miles in length by half a mile in width were ruined. A fortnight later an earthquake, which had its centre near Lake Biwa, did much damage throughout the Shiga and Gifu prefectures. Fortunately the number of lives lost in these two calamities was not great. Measures were at once taken to relieve the distress at Osaka, and also to reconstruct the portion of the city which had been devastated.