the parties interested. The extent of useful action on the part of any Government was limited to providing facilities so far as that might be possible for giving effect to any 'settlement' arrived at by those parties. . . . Any conference was a step in the right direction, if it brought the prospect of a settlement between the parties nearer, and in so far as it enlarged the prospect of the probable scope of operations under such a settlement." The movement advanced, supported on the popular side by the Lord Mayor of Dublin (Mr. T. C. Harrington), by Mr. Healy and by Mr. T. W. Russell; and on the landlords' side by an increasing number of adherents, not a few of them with well-known names. Thus Lord Monteagle wrote at the end of September that the non-possumus attitude of the Convention landlords, such as the Duke of Abercorn, Lord Barrymore, and Colonel Saunderson, did not, he was convinced, represent the feeling general among Munster landlords. And at a large meeting of the Landowners' Convention (Oct. 10) it was Lord Mayo who moved a resolution in favour of a conference. By 77 to 14 an amendment was carried declaring that, as the Convention had just set forth in a series of resolutions the nature of the settlement which, as they believed, the majority of landlords would accept, they could not see that any good would result from a conference. At the same time, in another resolution, passed almost unanimously, the Convention declared that they would welcome a statement on behalf of the tenants as to the solution of existing difficulties. Their own statement pronounced, among other things, that land purchase ought to be carried through, on the one hand, "without expense and additional loss" to the landlords, and on the other hand that "to make this possible, on terms acceptable to the tenants, the amount of the purchase instalment should be reduced from 4 per cent. to 34 per cent., or to such rate as would secure the maintenance of an annuity decreasing by fixed amounts at fixed periods.”

On November 12 a verdict was given in the Tallow conspiracy case, which opened up a prospect of successful resistance, under the ordinary law, to intimidating combinations such as had never before been realised. One O'Keeffe, a tradesman in the small town of Tallow, County Waterford, after more than one abortive action, obtained against ten defendants, from a County Dublin special jury, a verdict of 5,500l. damages for the ruin of his business through a boycotting conspiracy. The case was rendered the more impressive by two facts: first, that the jury were charged very strongly against the defendants by Chief Baron Palles, whose impartiality could not conceivably be impugned; and, secondly, that an article in the Freeman's Journal, complaining that that eminent judge made an "abstract fetish of the law, and that no great social or administrative reform could be achieved without injury to any individual or class, was condemned as "simply deplorable" by the Roman Catholic Archbishop (Walsh) of Dublin.

Without doubt this whole incident was a serious blow to the prospect of maintaining agitations largely dependent on intimidation, and may therefore be supposed to have exercised an influence on the minds of the Nationalist leaders in the direction of seeking a pacific settlement. Circulars issued by the landlord promoters of a conference afforded a distinct presumption that the preponderance of proprietorial opinion was in favour of that course. Out of 4,000 of the considerable landlords to whom circulars were sent, 1,704 replied, and of these 1,128 pronounced for the conference proposed. A committee formed to promote the conference had as its head Lord Dunraven, and included the Earls of Meath, Mayo and Donoughmore, Viscount Powerscourt, Lords Rossmore, Monteagle and Castletown of Upper Ossory, as well as a number of untitled landlords, and they proceeded to make the necessary arrangements in disregard of unfavourable criticism from the rigid executive of the Landlords' Convention. Voting papers were issued to the Irish landlords, with the result that the Earls of Dunraven and Mayo, Colonel Hutchinson Poe and Colonel Nugent Everard were nominated as their representatives. On the tenants' side the Nationalist members acquiesced in Mr. J. Redmond's proposal that he, Mr. W. O'Brien, the Lord Mayor (Mr. T. C. Harrington) of Dublin and Mr. T. W. Russell should act as representatives. The conference met for the first time on December 20, and elected Lord Dunraven as its chairman, and Captain Shawe-Taylor, one of its chief pioneers, as hon. secretary. The proceedings were private, and had not been completed by the end of the year; but it was understood that there had been a unanimous agreement on the principle of the total abolition of dual ownership in land. The steps proposed towards that object will form part of the next year's story.

From an economic point of view, the year was, on the whole, though with considerable exceptions, a good one for Ireland. The principal crops were all decidedly good except the potatoes, which were from 20 to 30 per cent. below the average, and unfortunately suffered from blight in some of the poor Western districts, with a certain amount of resulting distress. The exports of cattle, largely through a much improved demand for store cattle from Great Britain, rose from rather under 600,000 in the first eleven months of 1901 to little short of 900,000 in the same months of 1902, and the exports of sheep and swine rose by 206,057 and 37,933 respectively. Agricultural co-operation continued to make progress, so as in one way or another to include not far from all the farmers of Ireland, and the dairy, poultry farming and other industries thus aided had a successful year. On the other hand, the recent satisfactory progress in the acreage under flax was not maintained. The brown power-loom linen trade experienced a substantial increase in volume and some improvement in prices, and the year closed with a hopeful outlook for this branch of Belfast's old-established industry.

The white linen manufacture continued to exhibit dimensions sadly shrunken from its former estate, and, with a decline in its exports, showed no signs of revival, though there was some hope of an improved home demand. On the other hand, the shipbuilding industry of Belfast had a year of great activity, resulting in the very remarkable fact that not only was Messrs. Harland & Wolff's total output in tonnage again at the head of the shipbuilding of the world, but the second place was secured by the other Belfast firm, Messrs. Workman & Clark. At the other end of Ireland, the marked success of the Cork Exhibition gave most satisfactory evidence of the organising gifts of Irishmen when they can co-operate without party divisions, and illustrated the excellent results of the stimulus given in recent years by Mr. Horace Plunkett, and by the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction over which he presides, to the development of the various industrial capacities of the Irish people.

SUPPLEMENTARY CHAPTER.

FINANCE AND TRADE.

THE South African war has had so momentous an influence on the finances of the United Kingdom that the year in which that long struggle came to an end will always be memorable. A war which lasts for two years and a half and costs 223,000,000l., without counting the very large expenses of repairing its ravages, is a financial, as well as a political, event of the first magnitude. The United Kingdom has stood the strain upon its resources and credit better than was expected by many good judges, better than probably any other country in the world would have done, but it will not be in a position again to meet so exhausting a drain for many years to come. Even the richest country in the world cannot see 150,000,000l. added to its debt in the course of thirty-one months without misgivings as to what would happen if it were shortly called upon to raise as much more.

The price of the principal British security-the 2 per cent. Consols-is usually taken as a financial measure or barometer in any year, but this security has not been a trustworthy guide lately. The rate of interest will be automatically scaled down to 2 per cent. in April, 1903, and much of the fall which has taken place since 1899 must be set down to the realisation by investors that the income yielded by Consols was shortly to be reduced by about 9 per cent. In 1899 the highest price reached was 111 and the lowest point yet touched has been 91 in July, 1901. After making the most liberal allowance for the prospective decline in the rate of interest it will be seen that the war with its borrowings was responsible for a reduction of at least 10 per cent. in the value of Consols. At the beginning

of 1902 the price was 91 and though the quotation rose to 97 soon after the surrender of the Boers on May 31, yet the impetus was soon lost, and at the close of the year stock changed hands at 935. The steadiness of the price during the last half of the year was a striking feature and there was little movement either above or below an average of 93. Peace, from which so much was expected, brought in fact very little. So far from a in the Stock Exchange following the conclusion of war, there was, if anything, rather more stagnation after it than when it was going on. The British Government's borrowings and the heavy taxation had drawn so much money from the ordinary investment and speculative channels that they had run almost dry and we have still to wait for a flood. The latest addition to the Government's fixed borrowings was made in April, when 32,000,000l. of Consols were issued at 93. One half was allotted to large financial houses in England and America and the other half offered to the public. The loan was readily taken up. The price of issue was 11. lower than that at which the 60,000,0007. issue in 1901 was placed.

At

I have no space at my disposal to go through the features of all the Stock Markets, but as the war so materially affected the South African mines it is necessary to make some reference to them. The expectation that great activity would take place as soon as peace was signalled has been entirely falsified. the close of 1902 the prices of the principal shares were lower than at the beginning of the year and lower than at the time when peace was announced.. The reasons for this rather striking fact are simple. As soon as the mines recommenced crushing it became apparent that the difficulties of obtaining native labour in large quantities-always serious-was to become almost insuperable. The native labour supply in South Africa is limited and the new Governments in the conquered Colonies had so much need of labour themselves and paid such high prices for it that the Kaffirs were unwilling to go underground. Added to this was the extraordinary folly of the mine managers in reducing the rate of wages as compared with the scale paid before the war. It is alleged in many quarters that the wages were reduced in order that labour might not be forthcoming and that the mine owners might plead their inability to work the mines when called upon to pay something towards the cost of the war. It is true that they had reason to fear a strong demand from the British taxpayer, a demand which has since expressed itself in the concrete form of 30,000,000l., but they could hardly have supposed that anyone would have been deceived by such a childish ruse as the deliberate choking off of the labour supply. I venture to think that, as has often happened before, they miscalculated the extent to which other fields of labour would develop and really believed that after the war they would get the natives cheaply. It is already plain that the labour difficulty is a most serious one

and that the future of South Africa must depend largely on how it is solved. White unskilled labour has been tried and pronounced to be too expensive and a futile demand for Chinese coolies is being raised. Until the problem is solved the public in the United Kingdom will not put more money into South African mining shares.

The market in home railway stocks has been unusually interesting. The vitality of the internal trade of the country has been seen in large increases in the gross earnings of nearly all the principal railways. But the increase in expenditure has to some extent counteracted the growth in the receipts, so that the net earnings, though a good deal better than in 1901, were a disappointment to the majority of stockholders. The final results were not so unfavourable as was anticipated in the autumn, when a great deal of selling went on, and the management of the companies came in for much adverse criticism. There are already signs that this criticism has had good effects, and railway directors display a greater readiness to encourage co-operation between the companies, instead of blind competition, and to take the public more fully into their confidence. Since the year closed the goodwill of the investing classes has been. partially restored, and the market for railway stocks has much strengthened. American activity in this department is shown by the interest taken in underground lines in London. The Metropolitan District Company is now working in harmony with the projectors of a vast system of underground "tubes -controlled by Messrs. Speyer Brothers--and the same firm of financiers has acquired a controlling interest in the system of electric tramways which is spreading fast over Middlesex. The firm of Morgan, so prominent in other directions, has for the time been ousted by its rivals from a control of London's traffic, and though American control remains, British interests

more strongly represented in the Speyer-Yerkes system than they would have been had Messrs. Morgan obtained their way. There does not appear to be any objection to London obtaining the benefits of American experience, provided that it is not merely turned into a sort of cockpit for the fights of American financiers.

The foreign trade during 1902 has been much more prosperous than many people would have ventured to prophesy a year ago. In spite of three "Coronation" holidays and the disturbance to trade caused by the postponement of the ceremony in June, the total volume of foreign trade was 878,210,9481., as compared with 870,584,718/. in 1901 and 877,448,9177. in 1900. The total figures for 1902 establish a "record," a position which was previously held by the figures for 1900. The imports were 528,860,2841., or 1.3 per cent. higher than those for the previous year; and the exports of 283,539,9807. showed an increase of 1.2 per cent. The re-exports of colonial and foreign produce were rather lower, at 65,810,6847. against 67,846,8431. The average