the Socialist vote, and if it proved satisfactory it was to be introduced in Prussia and elsewhere. The plural system hits hardest at the Socialist vote, because it gives an additional vote to every person with a taxable income of 1600 marks, more votes for more property, and another vote for a high school or university education. As Socialism draws its chief strength from factory workmen and general laborers there were few Socialist voters who could cast three or four votes for their party. In view of this fact it is extremely remarkable that the Conservatives and National Liberals who chiefly profit by this system lost so heavily to the Socialists. From a party who with their forty-six members controlled an absolute majority in the Saxony Landtag, they were reduced to a minority party with but twenty-eight representatives. At the regular election they won only twelve seats, and it was due to the assistance which the Liberals and in some instances even the Freisinnige gave to the Conservatives in the by-election that they succeeded in obtaining sixteen more. The Landtags of Saxony and Baden are now constituted as follows: Numerically the Socialist party in Saxony leads with its 489,427 votes as against the 338,043 of the National Liberals, who follow second in rank. What that would have meant under a system of equal suffrage is explained by Hermann Fleissner in an article in Die Neue Zeit: With one vote for each man all the opposing parties combined would scarcely have elected more than twelve of their candidates. This may be seen by taking one of the cities as an example. In the seven election districts of Leipzig the Socialists had 62,856 votes, and all the other parties combined 85,121. The number of Social Democratic voters, however, was 38,726, while that of all the other parties was only 28.314. Applying this ratio to the entire kingdom of Saxony there were 305,892 Socialist voters to 260,897 of all the other parties together. It is very probable, therefore, that the Social Democracy would have received an absolute majority of all the votes. Discussing the probable effect of the election results on the politics of Saxony, Fleiss ner says: The Liberal and Socialist representatives in the Landtag form a two-thirds majority. They are, therefore, able to pass legislation without the aid of the Conservatives. That they will do so in some instances is by no means unlikely. For example, they both favor a redivision of the election districts. If this is done properly in conformity with the required changes, the position of the Conservatives will be still further weakened. In any event, the Social Democracy will for the first time constitute an important factor in the Saxony Parliament. From a mere personal point of view the new Landtag will have quite a different complexion. Many of the most prominent members of the Saxony chamber have dropped out. Dr. Meinert, for many years its president and leading intellect of the agrarians, the so-called uncrowned King of Saxony, has been called to the upper chamber. IS SANE AND HONEST JOURNALISM JOURNALISM POSSIBLE? independent newspaper which treats its reader not as a child nor a sage, neither as a hero nor a fool, but as a person to be taught tactfully to stand upon his own feet,-a paper which gives the Senator and the shopgirl what they both want to read and are the better for reading." IT T is, we think, one of the most hopeful signs of the times in regard to the newspaper press that editors and journalists are found willing to admit that there is much to be desired in the way of reform in the daily sheets that bring into our homes the records of the world's doings. From time to time, and at no great intervals either, such queries One of the most useful contributions to are propounded as "Is an honest newspaper the literature of the subject appeared in the possible?" "What does the public want in November issue of the American Journal of its daily press?" and in every case the reply Sociology, from the pen of "An Independent is given that not only is an honest journal Journalist," the question discussed being "Is possible but that the public would welcome an honest and sane newspaper press posit, and that what the country is waiting for sible?" This writer takes the position that is, in the words of a New York editor, an "the American newspaper of to-day has se rious vices, faults, and shortcomings, as well as great virtues; that it has gained in some directions, improved some of its work, and lost in other directions." He says: The same newspaper arouses your enthusiasm at one time so that you write, or are tempted to write, to the editor warmly thanking him for his noble efforts, and provokes your anger and disgust at another time, so that you are ready to denounce it at the breakfast-table as a poisoner of the public mind and an enemy of decency and truth." Citing the statement that "only generous endowment could enable a great newspaper to be true to its highest ideals, to be honest in all things, to tell the truth boldly, to eschew sensationalism and vulgarity, and alluding to the fact that wealthy philanthropists have been urged to establish an "exemplary," a "model news paper," ""An Independent Journalist" (for brevity's sake, hereafter referred to in this article as A. I. J.) asks "Cannot, then, the ordinary commercial newspaper rise to and maintain itself on the highest plane?" He then proceeds to discover "what ails the average 'big' commercial newspaper," purposely using the word big" for the following reason: No one who is familiar with the American daily press will deny that we have a number of local or small newspapers that are as excellent as human institutions can be. That is, there are newspapers that publish only news fit to print; that never deliberately falsify or misrepresent; that have convictions and the courage to apply them to the events, issues, and personali ties of the day; that employ competent and self-respecting reporters and correspondents and, consequently, are well written from first page to last and that are read by educated persons with pleasure and profit. its opinions and to its own interpretation of facts; but the public is, above all, entitled to the facts,-to the truth." And however true it may be that there is no juster court than enlightened public opinion, it is self-evident that "public opinion cannot become enlightened, and discussion cannot be profitable where the press perverts, distorts, suppresses, juggles with the facts." The influence of the powerful advertisers on the press is, says A. I. J., “thoroughly pernicious.' demand either silence or positive championship There are advertisers who do not hesitate to of their side of a question. There are theatrical managers who will not tolerate adverse criticisms of their productions, and who actually brewers who drop newspapers for what they dictate dismissals of writers. There are consider excessive devotion to prohibition or law and decency. There are corporations that will not give any business" to papers that are fair and impartial in their treatment of labor unions, of strikes, of injunctions. There are dairy interests that will promptly visit their displeasure on editors who can see no justice in a high tax on oleomargarine that is honestly . . The fundamental trouble is that too many newspapers are actually at the mercy of advertisers. The advertisers, too, often feel that they are not getting the full worth of their money in resubsidizing certain newspapers, that they are turns, and, of course, subsidizers have rights. of the case, it remains true that newspapers are Making, however, full allowance for this aspect not as independent, as consistent, as courageous as they might be. labeled and sold for what it is. As to sanity and efficiency in the handling of matter generally, A. I. J. observes: “The yellow newspapers have had a terribly demoralizing effect on the presentation of news and its display. Everything is sacri This being the case, cannot the big news- ficed to liveliness." Crazy, silly, and gropapers be equally clean, sensible, and up- tesque headlines are employed; and reporters, right?" A. I. J. frankly states that one of special writers, and critics become addicted the vices of the big newspapers is what is to what has been called the "catastrophic' called "faking." Faking assumes many style, straining after bold, picturesque, imforms, some of which are base and profoundly pressive language. Then, again, the adverimmoral, while all of them are "offensive tising columns of many newspapers call and inexcusable." A little honesty and intelligence on the part of the reporters and special writers would render it totally unnecessary; for while "the public does prefer the dramatic, the romantic, the extraordinary," it does want the truth. loudly for an overhauling and a cleansing. Newspapers, like builders of tenements, like money-lenders, must manage to live without fostering or breeding immorality and dishonesty." A. I. J. believes that in a policy of honesty and sanity for our newspapers there Another and a more serious newspaper would be no permanent loss. Temporary loss vice, one of which public-spirited men and women complain most bitterly, is the dishonest treatment in the news columns of political, industrial, social, and other "contentious subjects." Now, a newspaper "is entitled to there might be; but in the end independence, intelligence, reasonable courage, integrity, and efficiency would bring their reward in journalism as in everything else. The newspapers' motto should be "Trust the public." WILL DUTCH OR ENGLISH BE THE LANGUAGE OF SOUTH AFRICA ? "What is to be the fate of our race and tongue in the face of mighty England and the English world language?" And he answers: "What has happened within our knowledge to other peoples may perhaps intimate what the future will bring about also there." Races and languages imagined dead have risen Lazaruslike, and have demanded and secured a place of their own under the sun. Disintegrated Germany and Italy have each been unified and become powerful. The great Turkish Empire has fallen asunder, and from its severed parts have been formed the independent states of Greece, Servia, Bulgaria, Roumania, and Montenegro. In Hungary, Bohemia, and Flemish Belgium the half-dead races and languages have sprung into vigorous life, the smaller no less than the greater. Why should not a similar movement among the Boers be successful? But it may be argued: The situation of the Boers, with their less than one million inhabitants and their African dialect, is far different from that of the European races and language once threatened with extinction. In South Africa a small isolated people is confronted by the greatest colonial power of our age. And the Boer dialect stands over against the most widely spread of world-languages. Is not such a struggle too unequal, nay hopeless? And yet in Europe also two feeble races can be cited which at the opening of the nineteenth century were in as desperate a case as the Boers, each opposed by a mighty race and an all-absorbing language, and which yet did not perish, -the Czechs of Bohemia and the Flemings of Belgium. The former, with their decaying Slavonic tongue, stood over against mighty Germany and the rich, vigorous German language. Till 1820 everything in Bohemia was German. German was the language of the aristocracy, the church, the university, of politics, of the school, of the theater. Only at the hearthstones of the humbler classes, of laborers and peasants, was heard the despised native tongue. And yet in less than a century the Slavonic has come to the throne again. In the capital, Prague, by the side of hundred students, there stands to-day a Czech the moribund German university, with a few institution of learning with attendants numbering a couple of thousands. The Flemish movement in Belgium offers another example. Beginning with the expatriation of the Protestant, industrious and against Spain, from the southern provinces enterprising Flemings, during the revolt. of the Netherlands to those of the north, and culminating in the revolution of 1830 which resulted in the establishment of the kingdoms of Holland and Belgium, the Flemish race and tongue were more and more suppressed until they seemed almost completely blotted out. At the latter period French became the language of the country. The Flemish was banished from all official circles and soon was to be heard only here and there among the lower classes. Every attempt to start a Flemish paper met with utter failure in the face of the multitude of French dailies and weeklies. Who would not have prophesied during the ten years from 1830 to 1840 that the Flemish race and tongue in Belgium would utterly disappear before the victorious language and the mighty intellectual force of the French? And yet the very contrary happened. In 1840 came the awakening brought about by the Flemish movement under the leadership of Willems and his associates. And to-day Flemish is put on an almost equal footing with the French in the courts and even in the Chambers; its literature has a recognized place in the world of letters, and its 300,000 copies of penny newspapers are fast crowding out the French journals in the Flemish provinces. Now, continues this Dutch writer, to one who knows the conditions in South Africa, the Boers, in spite of the still bleeding wounds left by their military defeat, are in far better shape than were the Flemings at the time of the Belgian revolution in 1830. For the moral qualities which the Flemings lacked at that time are found in the highest degree among the Boers,-a conscious sense of worth and a heroism ready to sacrifice everything for liberty and independence. And the Boers have begun the struggle under far better conditions than did their kinsmen, the Flemings. These had to wait more than forty years for the law authorizing the use of Flemish in the courts, while the first speech in the native tongue in the Belgium Parliament dates only from 1888. The Boers, on the other hand, have used their native tongue in the parliaments of Capetown, Pretoria, and Bloemfontein from the first day, almost after their final defeat on the battle-field. OZONE FOR EVERYONE WHEN Van Marvin first noted ozone in 1783, while making experiments, he was impressed with the idea that it was a distinct body, but was not able to bring it before the world. Science knew nothing of it, therefore, until 1840, when Schoenbein, the German chemist, fully recognized and named it and established it as a distinct individual body. A recent issue of the Journal (Paris) contains an article on the practical possibilities of ozone as demonstrated by recent experiments of an eminent French in 46 It is not a new body, but a peculiar condition of an old body, an intense form of oxygen at its best. It is oxygen that has multiplied itself to acquire by that multiplication strange and peculiar superiority. It is stronger in the power to burn with intense fire than any known gas or chemical. Man has never produced or obtained a flame equal to it. It is a changing, very restless gas which frees itself from its normal form instantly when placed in the presence of any organic matter; and as soon as free it falls upon that matter and deluges it with torrents of triple-strength oxygen. The chemical expressions cession of oxygen" and "sudden oxidation" mean, in plain words, ardent combustion. When ozone is freed from oxygen it flames so fiercely that no microbe or microbe's toxin can resist it. It destroys the poison of the residues of putrefaction as well as every impurity in the air or in the water. Yet while it does all this, it acts beneficently upon the higher organisms. By it the human blood is stimulated and regenerated. That is why the air of the mountains, like the air of the ocean (both rich in ozone), tones and strengthens the sick. But it must be remembered that ozone is a flaming fire, and that to play with fire is dangerous. The known fact that the ozone in the air is good for men and animals and that it is a powerful annihilator of microbes, suggests to the writer of this article the feasibility of manufacturing it to sterilize the drinking water in general use, to purify the air of dwellings, and to use in the treatment of disease. In troubles due to poverty of the blood, in blood poisoning, and in diseases induced by microbes, ozone may be said to be a specific. Ozone is used in various industries in the preparation of certain chemical products, in metallurgy, in manufacturing perfumes, in brewing beer, and in the making of sugar. It is used easily and simply in breweries to sterilize water, and the same method could be used in families. To sterilize the water used for the household would be to shorten the list of victims of and expensive machines have been the only ones typhoid. Hitherto very large and cumbersome used,-machines hard to run and demanding great care and expense. But late discoveries and new methods have made it clear that the ozanator it will be as easy to use as a water filter, or as can be made so practical and at so little cost that any of the necessary instruments of hygiene. Professor Paton, the inventor of numerous electrical innovations, recently exhibited in Paris an ozonating apparatus for which the power is furnished either by a pair of generators or by a pile-battery with an induction bobbin. Such an apparatus sterilizes from 25 quarts to 35 quarts per hour, the cost of running the machine being less than two mills per quart. This French machine is so arranged as to do its work immediately by turning a faucet, which opens and closes the access to the water and to the current of ozone simultaneously. Neither current can pass without the other. Driven by the pressure of the current through a pulverizertube, under a retort, the water pays out in a thin layer and in dew, along the sides of the conduit, where it receives the full force of the current of ozone. It cannot pay out one drop except as the vacuum is produced by its running out. As it runs out every drop,-and every atom of a drop,-is forced to take in ozoned air in rigorously exact proportion to its output. As fast as the current of water escapes it is thoroughly mingled with the current of ozone. When the water with its excess of ozone runs into the jar placed to receive it, it is so sterilized that a severe chemical examination made by Professor Miquel, of the Municipal Laboratory of Montsouris (Paris), revealed no impurity, although the water came from rivers known to be polluted. Water contaminated for the test was, when ozonated, purer than spring water and more healthfui than spring water, because it was more agreeable to the taste and more aerated. This French writer maintains that when our electricians seize the meaning of the work done by this very simple method, their productions will go far toward diminishing our death rate. A practical electrician can, he claims, so modify the French machine as to bring it within the general reach and insure the majority against diseases due to microbes. With little trouble the machine shown in Paris could be made for easy use in the most inaccessible logging-camp, backwoods tavern, isolated convent, boardingschool, or military post. It could be used in hospitals and in factories. No great power house or electric plant would be required. BY LORD ROSEBERY, FORMER PREMIER OF ENGLAND BARON CURZON, OF KEDLESTON, FORMERLY VICEROY OF INDIA EMINENT MEMBERS OF THE BRITISH HOUSE OF LORDS WHO TOOK PART IN THE BUDGET DEBATE THE LORDS' ATTACK ON THE BRITISH CONSTITUTION Y a majority of 215 (349 ayes to 134 noes) the lower House of the British parliament on the second of last month declared that the action of the House of Lords in refusing to pass into law the financial provisions made by this chamber for the expenses of the year was a breach of the Constitution and a usurpation of the rights of the House of Commons." In moving this resolution Premier Asquith asserted, amid the wildest demonstrations of enthusiasm on the part of his hearers, that the circumstances under which the Commons were meeting that afternoon were "without example in the history of the British Parliament." It is somewhat difficult for citizens of a republic like ourselves to realize the state of feeling produced in the minds of the English people by the unprecedented act of the House of Lords in rejecting the Budget. That the Upper House should ruthlessly trample in the dust the most cherished traditions of centuries, should brazenly rob the Commons of what they had always held to be their one unassailable right, has evoked a sentiment nearly akin to horror in the hearts of our stolid British cousins, and has caused them to realize that a certain phrase of Dickens', often used in jest, accurately describes a grim reality, that the country is going to the demnition bow-wows." It is no new thing for the House of Lords to reject bills that have come up to it from the Lower House; but, as Prof. L. T. Hobhouse points out in the Contemporary Review for December, 'however much the Lords might cripple Liberal legislation, there remained always, it was supposed, one department in which the House of Commons was omnipotent." The raising and expenditure of public money was in the hands of the Commons alone. As to its time, amount, method, form, the provision of the national revenue was in the sole control gift of the Commons to the King, and its approof the representative House. It was the free priation to the King's service was at the un |