strata along a "fault" might occur where the other requisites to an igneous demonstration were lacking. A readjustment of the position of the rocks would be accomplished only by overcoming friction and other resisting agencies, and more or less vigorous vibration would be excited.

Professor Stevenson, a high geological authority, suggests that there may have been a renewal of subterranean activity among the extinct craters of the Sierras. The old outlets there being sealed, the mechanical energy which was suddenly developed might possibly (he thinks) have caused the disturbance on the coast. This is certainly an interesting conjecture, and is not to be rejected hastily, but the distance

between the mountains and the scene of the observed disturbance warrants a little hesitation in accepting the notion. Indeed, it is to be observed that Professor Stevenson mentions it with caution and as only one of several possible explanations. Several curious theories have been advanced to account for the strains to which earthquakes give relief. It was once suspected that the moon excited a tide in the fluid interior of the earth. A limited number of observations encouraged the view that there were more shocks when the earth's satellite was in a favorable position to operate in that manner than at other times. According to Major Dutton, perhaps the best American authority in such matters, the statistical preponderance disappears when a larger number of earth

quakes is considered. The supposition that the earth is composed of a shell whose contents shell whose contents are liquid is now less generally held than it was once. Major Dutton also discredits the belief that the shrinkage of the interior from the radiation of heat has been sufficient to set up stresses in the crust serious enough to explain the phenomena in question.

Mr. Milne, an Englishman, who has accumulated much data in regard to earthquakes, suspects that there may be some relation between them and the wabbling of the earth on its axis. The latter eccentricity has long been known to astronomers, though its cause is not fully understood. Mr. Milne thinks that it may be climatic, differences in the load of ice and snow at the poles from year to year making the axis tilt more at one time than another. Mr. Milne holds the maximum stage of solar activity, as indicated by sunspots, responsible for the temperature changes here represented; and Sir Norman Lockyer, a prominent astronomer, evinces confidence in the possibility. There are several weak points in the chain of reasoning of Mr. Milne and Sir Norman, but the weakest is the supposition that the wabbling motion of the earth's axis could produce the effect which they impute to it. If they fancy that the swing could cause variations in the intensity of the attraction exerted by other celestial bodies on the earth's interior, their belief would seem to have no more justification than the

now discarded theory of lunar influence.

There are much simpler ways to explain the strains which, it is generally conceded, give rise to shocks like those which have just caused desolation on the Pacific Coast. Inland there are enormous mountain ranges. The ocean bottom slopes downward rapidly off shore. Thus incalculable differences of pressure exist on the earth's interior. These are permanent in character, though they act intermittently. Then from the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys there is a steady transfer of solid material to the sea by fluvial action. The effect of this agency is gradual and cumulative, but many geologists consider it adequate to cause "dislocation" earthquakes.

CANADA PAYS FOR IMMIGRANTS.

The Canadian commissioner of emigration in London, Mr. W. T. R. Preston, talking on the successful efforts of the Canadian government to induce emigration to that country from Great Britain, said:

"Five years ago Canada was receiving 12 1-2 per cent of the total of from 60,000 to 70,000 emigrants from these shores to North America. Now she receives over 50 per cent. In these five years the immigrants into Canada from Great Britain have increased from 8,000 annually to 65,000. Canada wants population. A net bonus of $1.75 per head is given by the government to every emigration agent in Great Britain sending out emigrants to settle the land. To the continental agent a gross bonus of $5 is paid. As a matter of fact each British agricultural emigrant averages a total cost of $13 to the Canadian government, and each continental emigrant

costs the sum of $5. Consequently the Canadian government is paying $8 per head more for British than for continental emigrants.

"The Colonizer of London publishes an interview with a firm in that city which makes it its business to send children to Canada. The head of the firm stated that for $125 they would take a boy, pay his fare, and take care of him until he has settled with some farmer. The boy is paid from $5 to $12 per month by the farmer.

"The payments by the Canadian government to the emigration agents in Europe for each emigrant sent to Canada accounts for the large increase of emigration to that country in recent years."

A Democratic club over in New Jersey was broken into the other day by officers and thoroughly searched. No eligible candidate for the Presidency was discovered.-New York Commercial.

The Massachusetts Republican Congressmen are doing a still hunt stunt on tariff revision. They will not ask for signatures to a call for a caucus until they are satisfied that the necessary number will sign. Of this there is no assurance. Even those who favored it have little hope that a caucus would act as they desire. The sentiment on the matter, so far as it is expressed at all, is that the Massachusetts demand does not go far enough. If there is to be revision other schedules besides those relating to hides and leather must be considered. Some of the Wisconsin members want lower duties on lumber, glass, steel and other products and they are inclined to deride the wishes of their colleagues from this state. While there crops out here and there an expression favorable to tariff changes, it cannot be said that the majority of Republican Congressmen at this time favor revision. They may do so at the short session, or provide for its consideration between sessions, but their present platform is that of some Kansas Republicans: "Let well enough alone."-Lowell Citizen.

FREE TRADE AND WAGEEARNERS.

[From the Buffalo News.]

R. Henry M. Whitney, leading

MR

tariff smasher in Massachusetts, has an article in the "InterNation" arguing for tariff revision. He repeats with childlike candor and credence some points that the free trader clings to in the face of facts that overwhelm adult minds of the ordinary quality.

Mr. Whitney says that not over four hundred thousand workers in

agriculture could be affected by foreign competition if all duties were removed. That would leave over twenty-six million wage-earners, three-fourths of all in the United

States, "whose condition, everybody must admit, would be improved by being able to supply their several wants in the cheapest market."

This threadbare assertion is not

meant by Mr. Whitney to be funny. He is as serious as ever in his life when he assumes the continuance of current American wages in the face of free trade with countries whose

labor is producing everything that Americans use and yet is paid on a scale of from a quarter to a half of the rate paid in the United States. He expressly says that his figures "show that ninety-one out of every one hundred people would be able to buy more and better things if there were no tariff at all.”

All this is on the assumption that free trade would not affect wages. But if it did affect them, and nobody

was ever so brave as to maintain that it would not, Mr. Whitney does not tell how the money to buy things is to be earned on the scale he imagines. And if manufacturing industries went to the wall, with the cutting in half of the buying power of the industrial part of the country, what would be the gain in cheap foreign prices after domestic savings had been spent?

Germany has just had an exhibition in Berlin in which things of beautiful workmanship were shown. But when the Empress of Germany saw them and was told that the wages

paid to make them were one cent an hour she went away with tears in her eyes, and no wonder. That is the kind of market Mr. Whitney would send Americans into to buy. This is the kind of market he would reduce Americans to at home. For the wages paid in Germany are the highest in Europe except in the British Isles, and even England is filled with the starving poor out of employment.

That is what comes from no tariff at all and from nations swarming with labor eager to work at a wage scale that barely keeps workers alive. Buying in the cheapest market is folly beyond words when it means the ruin of the home market.

DEMOCRATS AND THE COURTS.

[Boston Advertiser.]

Whatever construction Senator Bailey or any other advocate of the restriction of the courts may make, the intent of the framers of the Constitution is plain enough. The system which they established has kept a high stand

ard of justice and stability and national honesty, which are in themselves a source of pride to all loyal Americans. It is now seriously proposed by the Democrats of the Senate to upset the plan under which this republic has grown great, stable, a refuge for the oppressed and a land of peace, prosperity and plenty. The Democrats want to substitute for it a new system of government, by which the rights of justice shall be made subject to the whims of an admittedly partisan body. Entirely apart from any question of the constitutionality or the unconstitutionality of such a plan, it seems to us that there is a higher question, still. The supreme court is confessedly the conscience of the whole nation. It is the last national resort against a dictator or a mob. It is the supreme test of a national honesty, and national morals and national uprightness. To limit the power of the supreme court only to such questions as Congress chooses to let it pass upon, is to put up a new ideal of a republic; a republic without a conscience; a republic without due regard for right and wrong; a republic whose creed is the plunder of the rich to satisfy the prejudices of the socialist and the demagogue. It is more than a constitutional question. It is a question rather of national existence; for the nation without a conscience is a nation without the stamina to last.

[San Francisco Chronicle.] Impartial trade with all nations is an American tradition, which our state department has occasionally induced us to violate, but to which, now that we understand things better, it is to be hoped that we shall hereafter adhere. Almost the entire active demand for reciprocity with Canada has come from New England and other border states, which have imagined that Canada would let down the tariff bars for our manufactures-which she will never do -in return for free admission of Canadian food products and raw materials.

The Seattle Times of a recent date prints an editorial based on the statements of two Japanese travelers to the effect that the stories about the famine in Japan are greatly exaggerated, and that the conditions are not so bad as to make it necessary for the people of that country to call for outside assistance. The informants of the Times say that the famine is confined to three small districts, and they are quite convinced that a great many of the appeals made on behalf of the sufferers are wholly unsolicited.

In a recent tariff debate Rucker (D.) of Missouri made the statement that the steel rail makers were selling their product at a profit beyond the borders of the United States at $8 per ton less than they are sold for at home. He was challenged to produce the proof of his assertion, but failed to respond. The steel rail makers pay no attention to such charges, because they are too busy filling domestic orders of prosperous American railroads to spare the time to do so. San Francisco Chronicle.