position which they occupy. A great newspaper, every newspaper in fact, is something more than a private business enterprise. It is a quasi-public institution. The interests of the public are so connected with it and so affected by its conduct that that portion of the public on whom rests the responsibility of social and political order has a right to say something of the manner in which it shall be managed. If every man is under moral obligation to conduct his vocation with a view to the ultimate good of the public, the newspaper man is under double obligation to do so.

Report of the Maine Court of Inquiry. The report of the court of inquiry appointed to investigate the causes of the destruction of the battleship Maine has been awaited with anxiety. The report, which is now in, makes it certain, if it was not already certain, that this great calamity is not to lead to the still greater calamity of war. The court's findings are different from what many had supposed they would be. The accident theory, put forth at first by the government and held by many to the last, has been set aside by the report. There is, however, in the court's findings nothing of the sensational character which newspaper rumors right

at the last predicted there would be. Spain and the Spaniards are not even mentioned in connection with the question of responsibility. The document is a short, cool, business-like one, and is allowed to speak for itself.

After describing the condition of the ship on the evening of the disaster, the nature of the two explosions which are found to have occurred, and the condition and position of the wreck as determined by the divers-which latter is set forth with great carefulness of detail - the court sums up its conclusions in three short statements:

The court finds that the loss of the Maine, on the occasion named, was not in any respect due to the fault or negligence on the part of any of the officers or members of the crew of said vessel.

"In the opinion of the court the Maine was destroyed by the explosion of a submarine mine, which caused the partial explosion of two or more of her forward magazines.

The court has been unable to obtain evidence

fixing the responsibility for the destruction of the Maine upon any person or persons."

While the report does not locate the responsibility,

there are parts of it which raise a strong suspicion of a Spanish origin of the disaster. Very few thinking people have ever believed that the Spanish government or the officials at Havana were directly guilty of blowing up the ship. guilty of blowing up the ship. Many have believed, from the general circumstances of the disaster, that it was caused by individual Spaniards acting of their own motion. This belief will not be at all lessened but rather much increased by the report.

The President, in a short, admirable message, has communicated the report to Congress. It has been referred to the Committees on Foreign Affairs, and is not likely to be acted on in any way until the President gets word from the government at Madrid. In reference to what the Spanish government may be expected to do, the President says to Congress: "I have directed that the finding of the court of inquiry and the views of this government thereon be communicated to the government of her majesty, the Queen regent, and I do not permit myself to doubt that the sense of justice of the Spanish nation will dictate a course of action suggested by honor and the friendly relations of the two governments."

Such utterances as this, supposing as we do that the President has used as wise, kindly and trustful

language in his communication to the Spanish government, will go a long way toward securing an immediate response answering the President's expectations. The court of inquiry and the President have certainly shown a most wise and magnanimous spirit in treating the subject. There is not a syllable in their utterances to arouse Spanish irritation. It is possible that the Spanish government may place the report of its own court of inquiry over against that of ours and ask that the whole subject port holds that the ship was destroyed wholly from

be reviewed by an international tribunal. This re

within. If this course should be taken by Spain, the question of responsibility will certainly go at last to a court of arbitration. If the Spanish government should take this course and ask for arbitration, our government could not in justice, and certainly would not, refuse. It is a matter eminently suitable in every way for arbitration. Spain has a right to clear herself of all responsibility for the dreadful catastrophe, if she can do it. There is reason to hope that the Spanish government will be induced by our govern

ment's self-restraint and kindliness to either acknowledge responsibility in a general way, or to offer, in

a spirit of friendship and conciliation, to make reparation without acknowledging responsibility, as our government did in the case of the Italians killed at New Orleans. After this report of the court of inquiry all talk of war over the destruction of the Maine is un-American and ought to cease.

The Struggle for Peace.

It is not the Maine disaster in itself which threatens to lead to war, though the peril of the general situation has been greatly intensified thereby. For three weeks past it has seemed as if the country were driving straight into the yawning abyss. The feeling in favor of armed intervention, ostensibly to stop the inhumanities in Cuba, was blown into a white heat by the destruction of the Maine. It has been restless and aggressive in Congress and out of it. This feeling has been further intensified by the speeches of the Senators who have visited Cuba and seen the desolations there. The voting of the fifty millions emergency fund, which it was thought would quiet the aggressive men, has had the opposite effect. The extensive war preparations which have followed have deepened the determination of these men to accomplish their purpose of immediate armed intervention for the independence of Cuba.

The problem which the President has set for himself is, therefore, under the circumstances, an extremely difficult one. He has undertaken to secure the cessation of the Cuban war, the permanent relief of the sufferers, self-government for Cuba, and to accomplish this without involving the country in war with Spain. He has, up to this writing, pursued this aim with unfaltering faith and devotion. He has not been moved by the sensational papers. He has kept in hand, with admirable tact, the aggressive men in Congress. His diplomatic methods have shown the highest order of Christian statesmanship. He has had the support of the Cabinet, and of the strongest and best men in both the Senate and the House. He has had the increasing sympathy and support of all the best elements of the nation. Even that class of our best citizens who, while deploring war, believe that the United States ought to intervene by force to stop the dreadful inhumanities in Cuba, have supported the President and been willing to leave him a free hand and plenty of time to demonstrate what his policy can do.

There is now strong hope that he will succeed in

this brave struggle to keep the peace while doing what he believes to be his duty towards Cuba. As we go to press, the reports from Spain are favorable. The Spanish ministry, sustained in the recent elections by a large majority, is reported to be ready to make proposals to our government of such a liberal nature as will entirely satisfy our government and be acceptable to the Cubans. We hope the President. may be able to restrain Congress from declaring war, and continue his wise pacific policy. If tried long enough, it will certainly succeed. There is power in pacific methods of which men have little dreamed.

The efforts of the violent men in Congress, who are bent on war at all hazards, who have gone mad at the very wisdom of the President's message on the Maine disaster, ought signally to fail. There is certainly good sense and conservatism enough still in the Senate to kill their war resolutions. No greater national madness could be conceived of than a declaration of war against Spain, after these months of patient negotiation, contrary to the President's wishes and at the very moment when his policy seems about to be crowned with victory. In such a case, we should deserve the just judgments of Almighty God and the contempt of all the civilized world for our weakness and childish loss of selfcontrol.

If the President's policy fails, and we involve ourselves in hostilities with Spain, it will be difficult enough, from any point of view, to justify armed intervention either for Cuban independence or the arrest of Spanish inhumanities. We shall have abandoned our historic policy of non-interference in the internal affairs of other nations. We shall have discarded all the rules of international law which govern the relations of civilized nations. We shall have supported against their home-government a body of insurgents about whose character there is no agreement among ourselves. We shall have substituted for inhumanities which we do not approve others awful to contemplate, of possibly much greater proportions and duration, which will have been brought on by our own voluntary act. We shall have deranged our whole commercial and industrial systems and brought on thereby an amount of suffering and distress impossible to estimate. We shall have taken a step leading straight to a policy of meddlesomeness, whose mischievous consequences can only be conjectured from the dire results of such

a course in the case of the European nations which have ventured thereon. We shall have increased tenfold in strength the clamorous jingo element of our population. We shall have strengthened in the nation's blood the warlike instincts which are already imperiling our institutions, and threatening constantly to lead us into the enslaving curse of militarism. We shall have deliberately thrown away our unique and commanding position among the nations, as the leader of the world in the paths of international friendship, goodwill and peace. We shall have become an object of hatred and distrust.

If a war is entered upon in behalf of humanity or Cuban independence, it will have to justify itself, twenty years hence, when the heat of passion is gone, to the cool judgment and conscience of the nation, in face of these tremendous considerations, to which many minds are to-day so little open.

Great Britain's Peril.

There seems to be not the least inclination among responsible British statesmen to call a halt in the development of the navy. The disposition to go on enlarging it, at no matter what exhaustion of the nation is stronger than ever before. The naval demonstration at the Queen's jubilee seems to have put the last blinding touch on British eyes. The whole nation, with the exception of a handful of people who are trying bravely to stem the tide, appears to have surrendered and ceased active opposition to the further enlargement of this "glorious" instrument of power. The naval leaders and managers, with one voice, cry: "Great is the British navy! Greater must be the British navy!" and the people are either dumb with a confused sense of wonder and half-conscious pride or shouting with enthusiasm, "Great is the British navy!" like the Ephesians of old before the stupid piece of stone supposed to have come to them from Jupiter.

The naval estimates presented to the House of Commons on March 10th by the first lord of the admiralty amounted, with the outlay on naval works, to the prodigious sum of more than one hundred and twenty-five millions of dollars. Mr. Goschen, in presenting the estimates, said that even this sum was considered by some inadequate. The navy was in a transitional state. The government was introducing a series of improvements. He declared that the naval display at the time of the jubilee had been imposing but that it had not reached the ideal standard. The squadron now in the channel was the most powerful ever gathered together. It was intended not only to parade the channel and act as an instrument of defense, but also to take the offen

sive if war should come. He spoke with evident. satisfaction and pride of the quiet way in which the British fleet had been recently increased in Chinese waters. The government's plans could not be openly stated, but he assured the House of Commons that in the distribution of cruisers careful consideration had been given to the protection of every trade route and every food-supply route. He hoped that the House would have confidence that "if times darkened" the admiralty would be found doing its duty. He could not give particulars concerning the proposed new war ships, because foreigners must be kept in the dark regarding their plans. They would be adapted to the special circumstances existing in different parts of the world.

And the House took this materialistic boasting all down, with prolonged cheering! One member moved that even greater effort be made for manning the fleet. A rear-admiral, seconding the amendment, suggested that Great Britain should buy all the war vessels now building in England for other countries. Many members urged an increase in the naval reserve. One Radical declared that the present large estimates ought to have been made long ago; that the English navy, as compared with the navies of other countries, was worse than it had been two years before. One of the most disheartening statements made by Mr. Goschen was that there was no lack of recruits; that there was such a rush of "boys" to enter the service that only one in eight of those who offered themselves could be accepted, that every vessel was fully manned, and that seven out of every eight of those desiring to enter the service had to be rejected simply for lack of room! In the lobbies during the evening, when the Russian imperial ukase ordering the disbursement of ninety million roubles for the construction of new Russian warships became known, it was reported that the British government would make a considerable increase in its already colossal estimates.

We do not remember any other example in recent years where a nation has more coolly, deliberately and doggedly devoted itself, heart and soul, through its public representatives, to what is really militarism à outrance. No charge can now be brought against Continental militarism that cannot be brought with equal weight against British militarism. It is the navy instead of the army; that is all the difference. What the Continent accomplishes in militarizing its populations by its conscriptive system, Great Britain is accomplishing by the magnification of her naval power and glory and by the insidious work of the military organizations for boys in her churches, Sunday schools and post-office department. The navies of the world are already putting into the background the great armies. The mad rivalry has put to sea. Russia is pushing forward in it with all her restless energy. France is in the race. The German parlia

ment seems about to yield to the imperious demands of the Emperor who has already forced his country into the contest. Japan is in the midst of them. But Great Britain has just declared, or will have declared if the admiralty's demands are complied with, more emphatically than ever before, that she proposes to lead in the race, if it costs the last pound in her exchequer. The navy must be kept equal to any other two navies of the world, if every other depart ment of the public service is robbed and the people bled white through excessive taxation.

At thought of this, one cannot help trembling for the future of Anglo-Saxon civilization. The British ministers and people wholly overlook ultimate results. They forget that every move they make in naval extension will be matched by the other powers, as in the past. Where and when and by what means do they suppose the rivalry will stop? Are they so blind as not to see that on sea as on land, force, of all things, is just the one thing in which the other nations, when thoroughly aroused, can compete with Great Britain most successfully? It is the height of absurdity in British statesmen not to see that an ultimate combination of powers (and not a very large combination) is possible, which could crush any possible British fleet, and that without any combination the fleets of other powers will soon be in position to neutralize all the advantages which the British navy has been supposed to possess. It is painful to have to confess that Great Britain, because of the wide sphere she now occupies in the world's affairs, has, by her continued naval extension, and the declared purpose of her government to lead at all hazards, become the guiltiest of all those powers which are seeking to maintain brutal force as the ultimate standard of judgment in international affairs.

Anglo-Saxon civilization may stand the strain of this iniquity for a long time. It has tremendously vital elements in it, which may stave off the day of ruin for many a generation. But it cannot stand the strain always, if it continues and increases. The children will reap what the fathers are sowing. Militarism of whatever form, on land or sea, if allowed to dominate, will eat the vitals out of any nation and ultimately destroy it. The selfishness and pride, the corruption and debasement of character and morals attending it will overthrow liberty, undermine justice and its administration, weaken the nation's intellectual capacity, pervert its religious ideals, and introduce the deadliest form of social disintegration. From this degeneration under the domain of force Great Britain can no more escape than Rome escaped. Her mightiest fleet cannot save her from it, nor can her shrewdest prime ministers, her lords of the admiralty, nor her longestheaded colonial secretaries.

Englishmen themselves, some of them, realize deeply the peril of the situation. The Dean of Dur

ham recently wrote: "One notes with great regret the rapid growth of militarism in England, and the corresponding deflection from the gospel of Jesus Christ. . . I am very hopeless and feel that our attempts to create a more wholesome state of public opinion are likely to be very ineffectual against the blare of modern and vulgar jingoism. The future of Europe is very dark, and we may be drawing near to a great punishment for our unfaithfulness."

England is dear to us all, and our devoutest wish for her is that her statesmen and her people may open their eyes quickly to the dangers of the course on which they have deliberately entered, before it is too late. We wish this for our own country's sake as well as hers, for America will find it difficult, if not impossible, to resist the influence of her example. The whole of Anglo-Saxon civilization is likely to go up or down together.

Editorial Notes.

The Annual Business Meeting of the American Peace Society will be held in Pilgrim Hall, Congregational House, 1 Somerset St., Boston, on Monday, May 9th, at 2.30 P.M. The annual reports of the Board of Directors and of the Treasurer will be read, officers for the coming year will be chosen, and such other business transacted as may be brought forward. It is hoped that the importance of the cause of peace at the present time may cause a large attendance of the members. Contributions for extending the work of the Society are earnestly solicited.

The regular bi-monthly meeting of the Board of Directors of the American Peace Society was held at the rooms of the Society, 3 Somerset St., Boston, on March 28th. The meeting was given up to an earnest discussion of the strained relations between this country and Spain, and the following message was ordered to be signed by the President and Secretary of the Society and sent to President McKinley:

"To the President of the United States:

The American Peace Society, speaking through its board of directors, is impelled with unanimity to express to the President the profound satisfaction with which they observe, commend and support his policy in dealing with the relations of the United States with Spain and Cuba.

Humane men throughout the world, and nowhere so strongly as in the United States, deplore the distress and suffering of the Cuban population. Every influence possible to the United States should be exerted to extermi

nate these horrible conditions every influence short of

war.

We ask for no policy of cowardice, but of stern selfcontrol. Sentiment and sympathy must yield to the strong behests of conscience. The Christian conscience of our people insists that peace is a nobler and more humane policy than war.

May God give to you, our honored President, to your

trusted Cabinet and to the Congress of the country, continued strength, courage and wisdom to adhere to a policy of peace, even if it needs great patience. We believe that such a course as you have so far pursued will, if continued a little longer, lead to a pacific solution of all the difficulties now pending a solution which will be true to the noblest ideals and hopes of our powerful Christian nation, and at the same time in no way false to the claims of justice and humanity."

It has been frequently asserted that the citizens of the inland states are practically all jingoistic, and in the present crisis in favor of armed intervention for the liberation of Cuba. Being acquainted with the people in the interior, we do not believe that they are even as much for war as those in the Atlantic states. The sentiment in the nation is everywhere divided and the inland has its full share of pacific feeling. Here is a memorial, which was telegraphed to the President on the 24th of March, signed by fifty prominent citizens of Colorado Springs, Col. It could have been duplicated in every part of the inland states. The author of the memorial is Gen. W. J. Palmer, who went through our civil war and knows the meaning of war as the younger men, many of whom are clamoring for immediate armed intervention, do not know it:

To the President of the United States:

We earnestly hope that, in behalf of justice, humanity and of our own permanent national welfare, the United States will continue to refrain from hostile intervention in Cuba. A false step at this time may bring war, and it is possible for victory, by begetting a willingness to interfere in the affairs of other nations, to produce results that might be worse even than defeat.

We deplore the unfortunate suffering in Cuba, but would not have our country invite the risk of calamities much more shocking to human sympathy, or assume any responsibility for the doubtful future of a Spanish-American republic.

It is not peace at any price' that we advocate, but what we consider the truest patriotism, and the best interests of humanity."

After strong speeches in favor of peace, the Boston Chamber of Commerce, at its meeting on the 25th of March, passed the following resolutions:

"When great issues are at stake and hideous war with all its barbarities and atrocities threatens the happiness and prosperity of the people, it behooves the citizens engaged in peaceful pursuits, through their organized

bodies, to declare their convictions, to the end that wise counsels may prevail in the nation and an honorable peace be maintained.

Whereas, it is the high mission and duty of commerce to cultivate peace and goodwill among men, and to promote the progress and well being of nations and peoples, it is especially fitting that the Boston Chamber of Commerce should exert its influence and speak for peace in a voice of no uncertain sound. Therefore, be it

Resolved, that we admire and heartily commend the calm and dignified attitude and conduct of the President of the United States throughout the present crisis, and we pledge him our hearty support in his purpose and endeavor to avert from our beloved country the horrors and disasters of war.

Resolved, that we also contemplate with feelings of pride the ability and moderation displayed by a worthy son of our grand old commonwealth, the honorable Secretary of the Navy, and we express our entire confidence in his wisdom and sense of right and justice.

Resolved, that we deplore and condemn, as utterly unworthy the confidence and respect of the people, the publication by the so-called sensational press of false and exaggerated statements intended to inflame the passions of the people and to bring upon them all the calamities and distress of war.

Resolved, that it is in accord with the spirit of the age and the principles and precepts of Christianity for civilized nations to submit disputed questions and differences respecting policies of administration and government to the judgment of an impartial tribunal, and we heartily favor the application of the principle of arbitration to the settlement of all international questions.

Resolved, that the sentiments and principles as expressed by Washington in his immortal farewell address, to observe good faith and justice to all nations,' and 'to cultivate peace and harmony with all,' are especially applicable at this time, and should ever remain to the people of the whole country their guide and inspiration.

Resolved, that we extend to the suffering people of Cuba our sympathy in their distress and recommend most earnestly the collection of money and supplies for their relief and sustenance."

Two other short resolutions were passed, the substance of which was that the Business men of Boston would stand by the President, if war should come, after every possible means of peace had been tried and failed.

The Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs has admitted that the treaty for the annexation of Hawaii is dead, by introducing into the Senate a joint resolution to take its place. Chairman Davis, on introducing the resolution, submitted an extended report of the Committee, discussing at length the arguments in favor of annexation. There is nothing new in the Committee's presentation of the case. It is simply a rehearsal of the arguments which all along have been brought forward in support of the project. The Senate was asked to give immediate consideration to the resolution, but the opponents of annexation at once began dilatory tactics. But there is little prospect that the resolution can be put through both Houses at this session. Certainly it cannot be gotten hurriedly through the House of Representatives, and we do not believe it can be gotten through that body at all. The manner in which the speech of Mr. Johnson of Indiana, on February 22, was received by the House makes it doubtful if a majority of the Representatives can ever be secured in favor of the resolution. Some other speeches, both for and against