RITISH JUSTICE has moved with its usual celerity in the case of the Indian student who assassinated Sir William Wyllie at a reception in London recently. The jury, instructed by Lord Alverstone to entirely disregard the murderer's plea that the crime was of a political nature, returned a verdict of guilty in less than five minutes. The prisoner, a short, thick-set Hindu, received the decision with a sneer. He volunteered the statement that only in the case of Sir William had he committed wilful murder, the other victim, Dr. Lalaca, being killed because of his attempt to detain him. Lord Alverstone imposed the death sentence, and before these lines reach the reader's eye the murderer will have suffered the extreme penalty of the law.

A survey of the London papers shows that the Indian officials have at last become cognizant of the fact-long known to residents of India-that they are confronted by a terrorist organization, financed by wealthy Hindus, and having ramifications and connections in the most remote parts of the Asiatic dependency. Henceforth it is safe to predict that the severest repressive measures will be enforced. What effect such measures will have in deterring others from following in Dhingra's footsteps remains to be seen. More assassinations are openly threatened by the leaders of the movement, one Krishnarvarma, a millionaire Asiatic, whose headquarters are in Paris. This individual freely gives interviews, and in prominent London daily is quoted as saying that he has many sincere and close friends among the English officials, but that "It is our duty to remove any man

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who stands in the way of India's emancipation." In the current issue of the Indian Sociologist, a periodical printed in London and devoted to the emancipation of the Indians, Krishnarvarma justifies "political assassination" in the following language. He says:

"At the risk of alienating the sympathies and good opinion of almost all of our old friends and acquaintances in England, and of some of our past helpmates in India, we repeat that political assassination is not murder, and that the rightful employment of physical force connotes 'force used defensively against force used aggressively,' as aptly expressed by the late Hon. Auberon Herbert, in his Herbert Spencer Lecture, at Oxford, in 1906."

Again he remarks: "In our contention. that political assassination is not murder we have the support of international law, according to which political offenders have not sinned against the morality of the universe, but against the absurd laws of an antiquated political system,.like the one now prevailing in India." One more quotation will suffice to show the earnestness with which this Asiatic intellectual propagates his theories. The closing plea of his remarkable effusion reads as follows: "The chief object we have in view is to point out that all unprejudiced men treat political assassinators not as criminals in any way, but often regard them as benefactors of the human race." Notwithstanding this extraordinary justification, with quotations from Spencer's works subtly applied as bolsters, British law can discern no merit in it, and the prospects are that many an Indian "patriot" will mount the scaffold in the next few years.

These results are incontestably the effects of the English policy of the past half century. During that period, schools have been established, the native press has

attained great influence, and the sons and daughters of the Indian nabobs have been encouraged to finish their education in English schools and universities. As a consequence of these influences a ferment has been started in the heretofore unaspiring populace, which daily attains greater power. At the psychological moment the Russo-Japanese war eventuated, and the despised coolie of the Orient became aware that the Caucasian conqueror was by no means infallible or irresistible. The lesson of the Indian mutiny, with its splendid record of the English soldier conquering outnumbering hordes of rebels has been forgotten in the humiliation of the Muscovite by the Mongol. The stubborn stand made by a handful of Boers against the united strength of the British Empire has also weakened the respect of the Hindu for his English master. It is forgotten that the Russian is practically an Asiatic and that the Boer heroes were Caucasians.

There is a certain quality altogether admirable in the impurturbability with which the British in India behave in these troublous days. Another agitator, Arabindo Ghose, was recently acquitted in a conspiracy case in Bengal. Fully aware that he is guaranteed under British sovereignty the right of free speech, he is to-day campaigning throughout India trying to rouse the spirit of his country

men.

The "Bengalee," a newspaper published in Simla, contains in a recent issue a speech, made by him since his acquittal, which fairly teems with appeals to the natives to throw off the British yoke. The orator closes his peroration by saying that "The fiat of God has gone forth to the Indian nation-unite, unite, be free, be great." Mr. Arabindo, however, has nothing but condemnation for the murder. of Sir William Wyllie, and says that he "has been steeped and poisoned in Anarchical literature." Other Indian patriots are equally emphatic, and even disclaim any desire to be separated from the Empire. They point to South Africa and demand that they be allowed a similar measure of self-government and the opportunity to develop under the protec

tion insured by the naval and military power of Great Britain.

Another powerful factor in promoting the agitation is to be found in the methods adopted by the United States Government in the adjacent Philippines. There is an Oriental population fully as heterogenous as the medley of races inhabiting India, has in a decade been granted a measure of assistance and freedom the Hindu has not received after a hundred and fifty years of English control.

The sneers and gibes of foreign critics are silenced to-day, and, with the possible exception of Java, the Philippines are farther advanced on the road of Caucasian civilization than any other colonial dependency.

A strange feature of the situation is to be found in the continued publication in the very heart of the Empire, of a magazine openly advising the assassination of Indian officials. The London Express, in a scathing editorial, denounces the authorities for permitting such a periodical as the Indian Sociologist to be printed in the world's metropolis. As a consequence, an English firm, Messrs. Horsley & Co., whose name appears as the printers, have felt it incumbent to announce in the dailies that no more issues of the objectionable magazine will be gotten up in their establishment. Krishnarvarma acknowledges that he is the financial backer of the publication, and boasts that he will be allowed to remain in Paris and continue his infamous work. It is entirely probable, however, that the French Government, upon the request of the English authorities, will take action and compel this man, the real assassin, to leave the country.

Meanwhile, Lord Kitchener is strengthening military control in the dependency. A vast secret service gathers suspects in the net daily, the judiciary is administering justice with unsparing severity, and even the home officials seem to be awakening to the fact that there may be abuses to be corrected in the treatment of the natives. The record of momentous happenings in Britain's Indian Empire bids fair to occupy much space during the coming years.

OR THE PAST six years the Bureau of plant industry of the Department of Agriculture has been conducting experiments with Egyptian cotton in the neighborhood of Yuma. After several years of selection and acclimatization, these cottons, which during the first few years did not seem quite adapted to the conditions, have shown that they can be grown profitably in the Colorado Valley. Last year a yield of 990 pounds per acre was obtained, and was favorably commented on by New England buyers and manufacturers. who estimated its value at 2012 cents per pound at a time when American middling upland cotton was selling at 122 cents per pound. T. H. Kearney, the physiologist in charge of the experiments, suggests that farmers should try some of the acclimatized Arizona cotton seed in comparison with freshly-imported seed. Though he believes that Egyptian cotton will prove a valuable crop in the Southwest, he recommends farmers to begin in a small way and learn how to grow and market the cotton before expending considerable time and money on it. Cotton must be picked by hand, and so requires a large amount of labor; it must be ginned and baled before it can be sent to market, and both these processes require expensive machinery. But Egyptian cotton, when cultivated properly, yields profitable returns and not only requires a small amount of water, but is also rather more resistent to alkali than other field crops

Many years ago James Fisher, of the firm of Haggin, Tevis & Fisher, planted 640 acres of cotton in Kern County. The cotton flourished and yielded an excellent crop, but, on account of the exactions of the men engaged to pick it, was never gathered. Labor, however, is by no means so scarce in California now as it was then, and there is no probability that a cotton crop would perish nowadays for lack of men to pick it.

CALIFORNIA WINE-GROWERS AND THE TARIFF.

California wine-growers complain that they are at a serious disadvantage in competition with foreign growers, the cost of production in California being 25 to 30 per cent higher than in France and Italy, the great wine-producing countries of Europe, and the freight rate to New York being six cents per gallon. They complain further that bottles containing wine imported from abroad are not taxed, whereas empty bottles, which must be obtained because suitable ones cannot be made in California, pay an import tax. A committee appointed by the Governor of California recently presented these and other facts to the Ways and Means Committee of Congress at Washington, D. C., and received so kindly and attentive a hearing that they confidently expect the revocation of the reciprocity agreements now existing with foreign countries and the enactment of measures more beneficial to the Californian grower.

Under the Dingley tariff law the duty was 40 cents a gallon on dry and 50 cents a gallon on fortified foreign wines. Reciprocity agreements with foreign nations

changed these rates to a uniform one of 35 cents per gallon on all wines, whether dry or sweet, though dry wines contain less than 14 per cent of alcohol, and sweet wines from 14 to 24 per cent. This has caused a great increase in the quantity of foreign wine imported into the United States, and a corresponding reduction in the consumption of native wines. These agreements also render it possible for foreign producers to get alcohol into the United States at a rate of 73 cents per gallon of proof spirit, while domestic alcohol is subject to an internal revenue duty of $1.10 per gallon. The winegrowers of California are anxious for a readjustment of the tariff on case wines and for a differentiation between wines containing only the natural alcohol and

those containing added alcohol. Grapes would in rare instances only produce a wine containing 24 per cent of alcohol, yet wines of much higher strength than this, fortified with distilled grain spirit, are imported into the United States and are weakened afterwards to suit the taste of the consumer. The Pure Food Law does not permit the Californian grower to fortify his wines by adding distilled spirits. The growers' committee obtained an important concession from the Bureau of Internal Revenue, permitting fortified sweet wines to be used in medicinal preparations. This measure will prove of benefit. This will cause the sale of 2 to 22 million gallons of sweet wine that otherwise would have remained on the hands of the growers.

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EARLY JUNE, 1909, a trip to the Northwest and the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition was undertaken by about one hundred of the most active and publicspirited citizens of California, mostly of San Francisco, under the auspices of the California Promotion Committee, the Chamber of Commerce of San Francisco, and other organizations of California.

The train was composed of about fourteen Pullman cars, with two diners and one dynamo car for the electric service. The train was equipped with complete telephone service, working between the cars, so that a person in any part of the train could telephone to one in another part, and so arranged that upon the arrival at any city immediate connection was made with the telephone service of that city. The train was also equipped with wireless telegraphy, in order that messages could be constantly received and sent at all times and places during the trip. The further comforts of barber, baths, valet service, clerks, stenographers and buffet cars were at the disposal of the travelers. The expedition was conducted in true club fashion, all tipping being barred, so that all should receive equal service.

The personnel included either the proprietor or recognized head of the enterprise or institution represented. Every financial, manufacturing and trade interest of a great metropolitan city and State had a representative.

Northward a stop was made at the at the beautiful Shasta Springs, near Mount Shasta, giving an opportunity to the party to visit this attractive California mountain resort.

On the arrival of the train at Seattle, it was parked, and during the time there

was used as a hotel. During three days at Seattle the party was received and entertained by the civic bodies of that city, and the commissioners of the AlaskaYukon-Pacific Exposition in a most hospitable and lavish style. The first day was "California Promotion Day," the delegation was escorted to the Fair, shown. the principal features and tendered an elaborate luncheon in the New York building, as guests of the Seattle Chamber of Commerce and Trustees of the AlaskaYukon-Pacific Exposition, succeeded by speeches made by the members of the entertaining party, as well as members of the California delegation. Subsequently a reception was held in the California Building at the Fair, the party being received by Governor Gillett of the State of California.

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The day following was spent mostly in sight-seeing, and was concluded by State banquet in the evening in the New York building, given by the same hosts. Likewise, speeches were made by various representative citizens of Seattle and of the delegation, including Governor Gillett. The key note of the speeches throughout the trip at all places was friendship, appreciation, co-operation and a general work-together spirit by the people of the Pacific States and the communities composing them; the setting aside of all petty jealousies, envies and animosities and the understanding that concerted action outside of purely local matters was and is for the best interests of the people of the coast. The furtherance of friendly and neighborly relations, the co-operation of the various Congressional delegations in Washington on matters pertaining to the good of the people of the Pacific Coast. The demand, support and maintenance of a larger and more permanent Naval Fleet on the Pacific waters and further national support and subsidy to American shipping in order to make it possible to compete