In his recent speech at the dinner of the Skinners Company Lord Cromer reffered to an aspect of the understanding between Britain and France which has attracted less attention than it deserves. Englishmen have derived so much pleasure from the establish- ment of good relations betwen France and their own country, they are so sincerely glad to number the people of France among their friends as well as among their neighbours, that they have almost overlooked the solid advantage which the understanding has brought with it. So long as our position in Egypt lacked international sanction there was always a possibility that France, as the European Power most interested next to our- selves in Egyptian affairs, might take exception to our occupation. Length of time and success had gone far to conceal the weakness of our original title, but the confirmation thus obtained was naturally of more value in our own eyes than in those of others. By a combina- tion of good management and good fortune we had avoided the questions,-When are you going to withdraw from Egypt? or, in the event of your remaining there, what steps do you mean to take to legitimise your presence? But they remained questions that might have veen asked if at any time circumstances had become favorable, and if asked it would have been difficult to give them a reply in which no weak place can be detected. Moreover, short of openly challenging our right to be in Egypt at all, it was possible to subject those of our countrymen who were engaged in Egyptian administration to what Lord Cromer calls the constant friction and annoyance which were inevitable before the signing of the Anglo- French Agreement. We are in Egypt now, however, with the consent and by the good- will of the French nation. That is not a matter to be lost sight of when we are reckoning up the gains of the Anglo-French Agreement.

It is to this cause, perhaps, that we owe the unusual frankness of Lord Cromer's remarks. There is an appreciable difference between a position which is practically secure and a position which has been placed beyond the reach of challenge, and the difference between our hold upon Egypt to-day and our hold upon Egypt a short time back is of this kind. Lord Cromer speaks now as though in estimating the obstacles to the progress of Egyptian administration the difficulties to be avoided were only those of our own making. Egypt will continue to prosper, and to prosper uniformly and steadily, if we are careful to observe four conditions. We must not be in a hurry. We must keep Egypt out of "the swirl of British party politics." We must be very careful not to urge Western ideas on the country before the people are ripe to assimilate them. And we must go on governing Egypt in the inte- rests of the Egyptians themselves. The third of these conditions is really only a particular example of the first. We begin well. We recog- nise the importance of educating an Oriental people into the adoption of English ideas of honesty and good government. We realise that until they have made these ideas their own by living with them and under them there is no certainty that they will allow them to govern their action. And yet we grow impatient because the process is a slow one. We inter- rupt it for that very reason, and so make what has been done useless, with the result that the attempt is either abandoned altogether or has to be begun all over again. In spite of our good resolutions, we have allowed ourselves to be in a hurry. It is quite right to take every reasonable occasion of developing and profiting by any real aptitude the Egyptians may show in the direction of self-government. But we must not be surprised if, in the first instance, this aptitude stops far short of any recognised Western standard. If the essentials of good administration are there, we shall do well to put up with much that is Oriental in the forms they assume.

Lord Cromer's other warnings have derived additional force from our South African expe- rience. In that country they have been greatly neglected. THe administration of the Transvaal has been a conspicuous example of one of the mistakes in question. We have assumed that what ministered to the enrichment of English speculators must necessarily minister to the prosperity of the perma- nent residents. This error has been the cause of the worst features in our Transvaal policy. Whenwe conquered the country we were confronted by a community of mine-owners,- some of them holding really valuable properties which would prosper and pay good dividends in any circumstances and with any kind of labour; others holding properties which can never pay except by methods and kinds of labour wich will help the mine-owners to invest their undertakings with a misleading semblance of prosperity, under cover of which they may hope to get out schateless. It is into the hands of the latter class that we have chosen to play. There are not the same tempta- tions in Egypt as there are in the Transvaal; but every year the company promoter becomes more ubiquitous and more mischievous, and in view of this it is necessary to be on our guard against his appearance in unexpected places. Lord Cromer evidently sees danger of this kind ahead. Capital, he says, is largely flowing into Egypt. Provided it is devoted to sound commercial and industrial enterprises, he is prepared to give it a warm welcome. HE is keenly interested in commercial matters, and strongly impressed with the shortcomings of English traders in regard to them. He has seen, he tells us, a good deal of trade pass out of British hands for no other reason than carelessness in the choice of agents. "IF I were going," he told his hosts, "to trade in skins in Egypt, the first thing I should do would be to send out an agent who had good manners, who knew some language besides his own, and who would find out what kind of skins his Egyptian customers wished to buy." The first two of these requisites will, we may hope, grow more common as education improves and becomes more general. The third points to a deeply ingrained error of English traders and manufac- turers. They cannot in many cases get rid of the idea-at least it takes a long time to disabuse them of it-that their business is to supply their customers withwhat it suits the cus- tomers to buy. This theory lies, we believe, at the bottom of much of that falling off in par- ticular branches of trade which furnishes Mr. Chamberlain with so much of his argument as rests upon facts, and it is plain that Lord Cromer has found it prevalent in Egypt.

But supposing that this error were corrected, and that British manufacturers had set them- selves to consult the wishes of their Egyptian customers, the need for Lord Cromer's warning would remain the same. The prosperity of Egypt depends upon its not being exploited for English interests, and this can only be prevented in keeping out the promoter. Sound commercial undertakings do good all round. They supply work for the Egyptian labourer as well as profit for the English employer; and as they are carried on with caution as well as skill, they do not bring sudden prosperity, to be followed by equally sudden disaster. There is a class of company with which we in England are but too familiar to which this description is wholly applicable,-the company which is founded with a single eye to promotion money, which finds its chance in the employment of financial expedients that are more than ques- tionable, and which ends by ruining its ulti- mate shareholders, whatever it may do for its founders. This is the type of enterprise which does nothing but harm to the unfortunate country that is chosen for its application. Unfortunately no Government can do very much to resist the invasion of this class of trader. Lord Cromer promises his help, but it is the public themselves who must do the larger part. IT is for them to master the ele- mentary-but, as it would seem, the little known-truth that the directors of a joint- stock company in process of formation are not the best witnesses as to the amount of profits likely to be divisible among the shareholders. The "confidence trick" still lingers in railway refreshment rooms and the back parlours of taverns, but for the general public its place has been taken by those glowing documents in which directors invite the simple-minded investor to buy their wares on the faith of their own testi- mony to their value. IT is when this warning is disregarded, and the short-lived undertaking is safely launched, that the other danger foreseen by Lord Cromer comes into being. As companies multiply, and the position of private Bills becomes critical, the promoter begins to haunt the lobbies of the House of Commons. When the prospects of particular undertakings are seen to depend upon the continuance in, or accession to, office of this or that party, the interests of the country in which the com- pany proposes to start working stand a good chance of going to the wall. We wish that Lord Cromer's words would find a permanent resting- place in teh sense and the conscience of the British investor.

Scientists in Spain are making earnest efforts to secure that the country shall cut a worthy figure before the scientists of all nations who will assemble in the country for the eclipse of August next. A deputation which recently waited upon the MInister of Public Instruc- tion represented the discredit which would at- tach to Spain should measures not be taken compatible with the nation's dignity. It has now been ecided that the State will make all necessary expenditure for the proper observance of the eclipse by Spanish astronomers. King Alfonso will visit Burgos while the foreign scientists are there.

All over the Russian Empire the nations which have been crushed into subjection by former Tsars are stirring uneasily at the news of the break-up of the autocracy in Manchuria. It is generally forgotten that Russia is not one nation, but many, and that there are numbers of races which would gladly see their oppres- sors beaten and humiliated. In the "Contem- porary Review," Mr. Alexander Ular writes of the revival of Georgia, a nation which, like so many others, was treacherously annexed by Rus- sia in the day swhen Europe did not pay so much attention to the principles of nationalities as it does nowadays. The Georgians are a great fighting race, and they know that a general rising is the sole means of success. THey have autonomist tendencies, but they have declared their solidarity with the Russian peasant movement. THose who have a clear insight into the complexity of the problem want Russia to be dissolved into a federation of autonomous national States, and the Georgians have made arrangements to be joined when they rise by the Circassians. Georgia may quite possibly give the signal for the Revolution, and if the Tsar avoids this by granting her national rights, she will have reconquered her national life by her own valour, and have contributed to the liberation of Russia by her splendid example. Georgia alone has a well-defined territory, and enjoys a stable organisation, and in a future Caucasian federation, as part of the Russian federal STate, she is bound to take the predominant place. Her attitude is one = of the greatest danger for Tsarism, even in Russia.