nwhile our occupation of Egypt is compelling us to use armed force
against the wild, threatening dervishes in the Soudan, and
well-grounded uneasiness is felt as to the position and action of our
countrymen in Southeastern Africa in connexion with the Boer republic
of the Transvaal. The British South Africa Chartered Company, formed
in 1889, adventurous and ambitious, loomed large in men's eyes during
1896, when the historic and disastrous raid of Dr. Jameson and his
followers startled the civilised world. The whole story of that
enterprise is yet to unfold; but it has added considerably to the
embarrassments of the British government. Hopes were entertained in
1890 that the British East Africa Company, by the pressure it could
put on the Sultan of Zanzibar, had secured the cessation of the slave
trade on the East African shore; these hopes are not yet fulfilled,
but it may be trusted that a step has been taken towards the
mitigation of the evil--the "open sore of the world."

If we turn to India, we see it in 1896-7 still in the grip of a cruel
famine, aggravated by an outbreak of the bubonic plague too well
known to our fathers, which, appearing three years ago at Hong-Kong,
has committed new ravages at Bombay. Government is making giant
efforts to meet both evils, and is aided by large free-will offerings
of money, sent not only from this country, but also from Canada. "Ten
years ago such a manifestation would have been unlikely. The sense of
kinship is stronger, the imperial sentiment has grown deeper, the
feeling of responsibility has broadened." Kinship with a starving
race is felt and shown by the Empress on her throne, and her subjects
learn to follow her example.

But the sense of brotherhood seems somewhat deficient when we look at
the continual labour wars that mark the period in our own land. From
the Hyde Park riots of socialists and unemployed, in the end of 1887,
to the railway strikes of 1897, the story is one of strikes among all
sorts and conditions of workers, paralysing trade, and witnessing to
strained relations between labour and capital; the great London
strike of dock labourers, lasting five weeks, and keeping 2,500 men
out of work, may yet be keenly remembered. There seems an imperative
need for the wide diffusion of a true, practical Christianity among
employers and employed; some signs point to the growth of that
healing spirit: and we may note with delight that while never was
there so much