Current Mention

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Nov 30, 1905

—Rigorous measures are being taken by the Russian government to suppress revolution in Poland, orders having been issued to the military governors of the ten Polish provinces to shoot down all agitators and rioters. Agrarian disturbances are increasing in that country.

—By the terms of a protocol arranged between Korean and Japanese representatives at Seoul, November 18, it appears that the Korean government is to maintain a nominal existence, being itself governed by Japan. Japan takes charge of the diplomatic service, and no treaty can be entered into by Korea without Japan’s permission.

—Relations between the United States and Germany have become seriously strained, owing, it is affirmed, to an aggressive commercial policy on the part of Germany. A tariff war has long existed between this country and Germany, and Germany’s latest tariff law, which will go into effect next spring, contains retaliatory prohibitory tariffs against certain American imports, which, when carried into effect, are certain to cause serious friction. Germany is also bent on securing the trade of Latin America, and is establishing virtual colonies in Brazil. The tone of recent utterances

by the kaiser and leading German papers is distinctly warlike.

—Prince Charles of Denmark, who was chosen king of Norway by popular vote, is to be known as King Haakon VII.

—A $4,000,000 fire, due to the burning of 810,000 gallons of whisky, occurred at Connellsville, Pa., November 19.

—Another bitter contest between structural iron workers and their employees in New York City is announced as being only a few days off. A dispatch from that city says: “All efforts at arbitration having failed, the Employers’ Association yesterday named a special committee to take the matter in hand, and it is expected that a general lockout order will be issued Saturday [November 25]. Leaders of the union say that as soon as a lockout is ordered, their national officers will retaliate by ordering a general strike against the Iron League in every city in the country.”

—The unexpected defiance of Europe by the sultan of Turkey has suddenly created a situation which overshadows in interest and importance every other question in international politics. The fleet of the European powers has sailed from Piraeus on the Grecian coast to carry out the proposed demonstration against Turkey, which it is said will be directed against the island of Mitylene, where a force will be landed and the customs seized. The sultan’s last reply to the powers contains a plain intimation that an attempt at coercion on their part will result in a massacre of the Christian population of European Turkey. In explanation of the sultan’s attitude it is stated that there is a power behind the throne which directs the policy of the Ottoman empire, a secret confederacy which takes its orders not from the sultan, but from the chief of the Senoussiya Brotherhood, at Djarboul, and the sultan himself does not dare resist the mandates emanating from this source. The force of Moslem public opinion, of which Europe takes little or no account, makes itself felt through this channel, and is a power which the sultan dare not ignore. Moslem leaders, it is stated, are greatly incensed at the action of the powers regarding Macedonia, while ignoring the barbarities being committed in Russia, this being in their view evidence that the powers are insincere in their reasons for interference with Turkey, and that the scheme of Macedonian reforms is a sham veiling a purpose on the part of the Christian powers to drive Islam out of Europe. A dispatch dated November 25 states that “information from Constantinople and other Islam sources . . . indicates that the time has at last arrived when the Moslem world is prepared to resist with all its resources the encroachment of the Christian world.” An opinion which is felt in some quarters is expressed in the statement that “Europe has made a grave mistake in forcing this unnecessary crisis upon the world at this moment.” Germany is holding aloof from the naval demonstration against Turkey, for reasons not set forth, and which are the ground of much speculation. Austria, it is intimated, would be glad to withdraw from the movement if the way were open for her to do so.