National.

The Panama Canal Treaty was signed January 22 by Secretary Hay for the United States and Dr. Herran for Colombia, conveying to the United States for ten million dollars cash and an annuity of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars for one-half the period of lease and one hundred thousand thereafter, the long-desired canal concession across the Isthmus of Panama. By this instrument, when ratified by the Senate and the Colombian government, the United States, by a series of long leases, with the option of perpetuity, will practically gain absolute control of a tract six miles wide, with the option of extending laterals in any direction fifteen miles to utilize adjacent watersheds; it will have the sanitary and police control of the tract and of the cities of Colon and Panama; it will regulate the tolls, be exempt from taxation in every form, and receive the revenues of the two ports of entry; it secures the unequivocal transfer of the rights, privileges, and concessions of the Panama Canal Company; it assures the neutrality of the canal and the freedom of the ports of entry to the commerce of the world, and provides for the erection of tribunals on the strip to protect and adjudicate American interests. The price to be paid for the rights of the Panama Canal Company is forty million dollars.

The chairman of the Judiciary Committee of the House introduced the following resolution January 14: "Resolved, That the Committee on the Judiciary be, and is hereby, directed to investigate and report to this House, with all convenient speed, the opinion of that committee as to the power of Congress to declare that a necessity has arisen for taking possession of all coal, coal beds, and coal mines in the United States, and all lines of transportation, agencies, Instruments, and vehicles of commerce, necessary for the transportation of coal, and that if, in the opinion of that committee, the power exists, and a necessity for the exercise of such power has arisen, that that committee forthwith report to this House a bill declaring the necessity, providing fully and in detail the occasions, modes, conditions, and agencies for said appropriation that will fully and completely exhaust the power of Congress in that regard." It went to the Committee on Rules.

The administration plan of a gold standard for the Philippines with a special silver coinage, recommended by Governor Taft, was defeated last week, and the minority proposition for the introduction of the American coinage system complete was carried. The substitute passed provides that the lawful money of the United States shall be legal tender on the islands, that the Mexican and Spanish coins shall be redeemed at their bullion value, and after six months no coin shall be legal tender except American money.

Mr. Bowen, United States minister to Venezuela, and now envoy of Venezuela to the conference of the representatives of the Powers, who are to consider at Washington the terms of a protocol for arbitrating the Venezuelan affair, arrived at Washington last week. The report that Venezuela would pledge her customs revenues to guarantee the claims of the Powers has not been confirmed. The blockade will probably not be raised or modified until the promise to pay has been guaranteed in some way.

The Cuban treaty, which is awaiting ratification, is said to be calling out protests from the British Chambers of Commerce of the United Kingdom on the ground that it discriminates against their West Indian trade.

Foreign.

An interesting application of international arbitration on the American continent has been inaugurated by the republics of Argentine and Chile, which recently signed a convention providing for the sale of all ironclads now being constructed for the two republics in European ship-yards. In addition, Argentine and Chile respectively agree to a partial disarmament of their fleets. The convention is intended to carry out the provisions of the treaty between the two republics which was signed last July, and provided for the limitation of armaments and the submission of all questions that may arise in the future to arbitration. While Argentine and Chile are applying their plan of arbitration and disarmament, there is pending before the United States Senate the general international arbitration treaty recommended by the Pan-American Congress held in the city of Mexico last winter. That treaty follows very closely the lines of the international agreement of The Hague, but applies only to the republics of the Western hemisphere.

In the course of a debate on the budget in the French Chamber of Deputies recently, Baron de Constant declared that the burden of armed peace causes the deficits that appear throughout Europe; that everybody knows it, but nobody ventures to admit it; that armed peace consumes fifty-four percent of the French revenues; and that no successful policy—financial, social, or colonial—is possible under that burden.

According to official statements of the Canadian Department of the Interior, the total area disposed of during the past year under homestead entry, sale, and redemption of half-breed scrip, and by the railway companies was 4,954,847 acres.

It is reported from Constantinople that the Porte has communicated to the British embassy an irade granting British schools and religious institutions privileges identical with those allowed Russia and other orthodox establishments.

The Cuban House of Representatives has appropriated three hundred thousand dollars for the construction of a capitol building. At present the House and Senate are located inconveniently and a long distance apart.

Another Russian torpedo-boat destroyer has passed through the Dardanelles bound for Sebastopol.

The municipality of Venice has voted to spend $200,000 in the restoration of historic buildings.

Industrial and Commercial.

There are twenty-five ports on the Great Lakes having a registered tonnage ranging from one million to over five million tons. Cleveland leads the list with 5,037,282 tons, and five other ports, Duluth, West Superior, Milwaukee, Chicago, and Buffalo recorded over four million tons of arrivals. The enormous amount of this tonnage may be appreciated when compared with the tonnage of ports on the ocean frontage. New York in 1902 is credited with 8,982,767 tons of arrivals; London in 1901 reported 9,992,753, and Hong Kong in 1900 registered 8,626,614 tons.

The export trade of the United States for December, 1902, was eleven million dollars in excess of that for 1901, and three millions in excess of that for the banner year of 1900. The import trade was greater than that of any December trade in the history of the trade, $94,307,204, and was only exceeded by that of April, 1897, when they were abnormally large in anticipation of the approaching change in tariff.

The official report of the Southern Iron Committee for the six districts, Anniston, Birmingham, Chattanooga, Nashville, Sheffield, and Middlesboro, which is now being made up, will show approximately the following figures for the production in 1902: Pig iron and steel, 7,801,800 tons; cast-iron pipe, 167,466 tons.

The Gilchrist Transportation Company is soon to be incorporated in Ohio with a capital stock of ten million dollars. Next to the Pittsburg Steamship Company it will operate the largest fleet of vessels on fresh water.

The United Lead Company, capitalized at fifteen million dollars, has been chartered in New Jersey. It will consolidate, it is said, some twenty-five of the largest sheet, shot, and pipe concerns in the country.

The steel rail mills at Pittsburg, it is reported, are not taking orders now except for delivery in and after next November. They already have on their books orders for two million two hundred thousand tons.

General.

In a paper read before the Frankfort congress of German naturalists and doctors, Mr. A. Gradenwitz makes an estimate of the water-power now utilized in various countries for the generation of electricity. About one hundred and eighty thousand horse-power is thus utilized, he states, in Germany and Austria, in Switzerland about one hundred and sixty thousand horse-power, in Sweden two hundred thousand horse-power. The total power available in Sweden is reckoned at about two millions, in France ten million horse-power may be utilized, while the resources of the mountainous districts in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Italy may be placed at about the same figure. In the United States Niagara alone could furnish ten million horse-power.

A new 16-inch rifle built by the Government at the Watervliet arsenal, New York, was tested recently at the Sandy Hook proving grounds. The powder charge was six hundred and forty pounds, the weight of the projectile over a ton, twenty-four hundred pounds. This shot can be thrown a distance of twenty miles. The pressure per square inch is calculated at thirty-eight thousand pounds. The rifle cost two hundred thousand dollars and a pair of them with their mountings on a battle ship would cost a million and a quarter of dollars!

Plans to raise $425,000 to be devoted to educational endowments as memorials to the late Alice Freeman Palmer, formerly president of Wellesley College, have been perfected by the committee having the matter in charge. It is suggested that any amount received in excess of the sum named would be appropriately used in the erection of a memorial building at Wellesley.