THE most remarkable fact in the European situation is the prominence of Russia in insisting that Europe has bound itself to see that Greece obtains her just demands as to the extension of her territory, and the extreme readiness of France to rid herself of all such obligations. This is a situation more favorable to Greece than we could have expected, for there is a decided jealousy of the Hellenes among the Slavic peoples of the Balkan peninsula, who are Russia's especial clients. It indicates that if Mr. Gladstone can manage to settle his Irish difficulties, Greece will have a strong and united support from two great Empires in her demands for Epirus and Thessaly. It is true that the support of Russia is rendered less valuable by the prospect that she may soon have an Asiatic war on her hands. The Kuldja matter is still unsettled, and the Mantchu war party grows in power in the imperial councils at Pekin. As Col. Gordon pointed out, a Chinese army is a very formidable thing through its numbers, its recklessness of life, and its freedom of movement. And at present the Russian forces in that quarter are busily occupied with police measures for the restraint of the Tekke Turkomans, the wild nomads who roam the deserts between Khiva and Merv, the next point in the Russian advance towards India.

ALTHOUGH this session of Congress is not marked by so many partisan outbreaks as the last, the general incompetence of the body is displayed at every point of its proceedings. It will probably go down to history as the most honest and the most incapable of all the Congresses of our first century. Hardly anything has been done or undertaken by it, which has not either proved a blunder, or at least open to very serious objection even from those who care little for partisan successes. From this condemnation we may except the Education Bill, proposed in the Senate by Mr. Burnside, and regarded as certain of an easy passage through the House. Our only objection to this measure is the smallness of the appropriation it makes for the assistance of schools in districts where illiteracy is greatest. The government revenue from land sales is now about a million and a half a year. This sum is to be capitalized as a fund, whose interest is to be expended on schools. This will give $45,000 the first year, and, if the receipts of the Land Office continue, an additional sum of that amount every subsequent

year, until by the end of twenty-one years there will be a million dollars a year available. We think it would have been better to have given the million dollars a year at once, and to have charged it to the general revenue. We fail to see what special connection there is between land sales and education, beyond the fact that in early times, there being little money to give the schools, land was given them. A country with our revenue should think a million dollars a year a good investment if spent in diminishing the number of voters whose ignorance leaves them at the mercy of demagogues. And a Congress which has wasted hundreds of millions in paying fraudulent claims for arrears of pensions, might have been ambitious of being remembered for putting the smaller sum where it would do the country most good.

It is feared that the bill will excite opposition among the Southern members-whose States are entitled to eighty per cent. of the amount because they regard it as involving national inspection of their educational system. We see no such legislation in the bill. It merely requires that the States accepting the money shall maintain for three months of each year "a system of free schools open to all children between six and sixteen years." It does not insist on the conjoint education of white and colored children in the same school, nor give the government any right of interference with the schools. It does not create governmental inspectorships, and it leaves the Department of Education to ascertain in the simplest way which States have complied with these scanty conditions, and which have not.

It is evident that the Democratic majority in this Congress does not mean to make any provision for Mr. Grant. In this we think they show a singular unwisdom. Even as Democrats, it is their interest to show the country that they are capable of magnanimity towards the man for whom three out of every four Americans feel a high regard and a sincere gratitude. And a provision which would take his name out of the mouths of those who are using it for factional purposes, would be a gain to the whole country. Mr. Grant is not credited with friendly feelings toward Mr. Blaine, but Mr. Blaine put the matter both truly and forcibly when he said that the call of his country took Mr. Grant from his permanent and well earned position as General of the Army and put him into the preca

rious office of President; and that the country owes it to him to give him as good a place as that from which it removed him. We think this reasoning should be final with every one who voted for Mr. Grant in 1868, and that includes a good many Democrats outside Congress and some who are members of that body.

THE Funding Bill which the Honse has passed is an experiment upon the public credit. Its provision that the new bonds shall bear but three per cent. interest, although redeemable after twenty years, has the sanction of a few of our financiers, but not of the majority. Should the measure succeed it will show that the credit of the United States is better than even that of Great Britain, for that country's three per cents have not sold at par for twenty-seven years. But if we enjoy such credit anywhere, it must be in the money-gorged bourses and exchanges of Europe, and this new Funding Bill will force the export of all the bonds sold under it, which are not retained by favored investment in America. For a time. this will serve to keep the balance of trade with Europe in our favor; but in the long run it will operate to turn the tide of gold in the other direction and will impose a heavier burden than would be the payment of five or six per cent. interest to American hold

This is, therefore, the last and worst of the funding bills, and will either fail to effect any conversion of the outstanding bonds, or will intensify the tendency to make our national debt a debt owed to foreigners. The only good feature of the measure is that it contemplates the early and rapid reduction of the national debt. The bonds and treasury-notes it provides for will be within the government's reach, and before this generation passes away we may see our country as free from debt as are Iowa and Illinois.

THE general demand for the regulation of railroad traffic by a national law is represented by Mr. Reagan's bill for that purpose, but we see little prospect at present for the passage of such a law. These corporations are too well represented by their lawyers and employés in Congress, to leave any opening for such action, until the people at large, following the example set by the Western Grangers, make it a test matter in elections, and insist upon their interests being put before those of the great transportation companies. Equally improbable is the passage of the proposed law for

the establishment of a postal telegraph. Just at present there is some pressure in this direction, as Mr. Jay Gould's successful consolidation of the great lines is raising a popular apprehension that the monopoly thus created will prove oppressive. But the experiment of purchasing the existing lines, or establishing a rival system at the cost of the national treasury, would involve an outlay of public money too great to be lightly undertaken. Telegraphy is a business where a private company's success gives no certainty that the Government would not sustain a severe loss. The companies open offices only where there is a reasonable expectation of a remunerative business. But if the business were in the hands of the Government, telegraph offices would have to be opened as freely as post-offices, and run, as many of the post-offices are, at a loss. But could not Congress legislate to regulate the charges made for the use of the lines, as a part of the "commerce between the several States "?

Judge Lowell's plan for a national bankrupt law seems more likely to become a law than any other measure of its class. In this case there are great interests demanding the law, but none resisting its passage. The debtor and the creditor alike are suffering from the confusion and imperfection of local enactments on this subject, and no one will suffer from its passage, except local politicians who made receiverships a matter of political patronage. This evil has been confined to new York City, so far as we have been able to learn. The fear that it may spread to other localities should make business men more urgent to have this delicate class of cases brought under the control of judges who have nothing to dread and nothing to hope from the political managers. Even in our own city we should fear the consequences of such a temptation being offered. Already our elective judges show, by the choice they make of men for our Board of Education and our Board of Trusts, that the influence of the bosses is not unfelt in their action.

WE see no urgency in either party in the House to press to a vote Senator Eaton's bill for a commission to revise the Tariff. This is the more reprehensible as the passage of such a bill is demanded by both sides to this great controversy. It is demanded by the Free Traders in their complaints of the inequalities and anomalies which are found in the present law; and most of them,

we believe, have given up hope of securing the removal of these grievances by such steps as they used in getting the duty taken off quinine. It is demanded formally and distinctly by the protectionists, who refuse to have that policy any longer identified with the maintenance of the defective law now in force. They made this demand through their Industrial League, the Iron and Steel Association, and the Wool Manufacturers' and Growers' Association, before the recent election brought to view the dominance of Tariff sentiment throughout our country. They have repeated the demand since the election, with an emphasis which admits of no doubt as to their sincerity. They know that the Tariff can be so modified as to deprive the current criticisms of it of much of their force, They even hope to secure such a measure as will make a second revision needless for sixty years to come, and will take this question out of our political discussions. And they will not regard as real friends of the Protective policy those who offer in Congress or elsewhere any resistance to the measure proposed by Mr. Eaton and adopted by the Senate. Mr. Garfield, we believe, shares fully in this view. He will suffer no bill to pass his veto which involves an attack upon the protective system; but he will urge the duty of Tariff revision upon Congress until the work is undertaken in

earnest.

THE new Treaties with China for the regulation of immigration. and of commerce, have reached the public, through some trickery, in advance of their consideration by the Senate. At first reading they certainly seem all that could be desired, and yet past experience with these wily diplomats suggests that they should be looked into very closely. They allow our Government to regulate or suspend the immigration of Chinese laborers into the country, but secure liberty of immigration to all other classes, and pledge the United States to give protection to all Chinese residents in America. The first objection that has been made is that the ambiguous term laborers, is capable of being construed as applying only to unskilled, manual labor, while skilled artisans and the like might not be reached by our regulative legislation. This we think a weak objection, as the evident intent of the Treaty is to admit freely those who do not come to compete for employment, and to enable the Government to exclude all others. Of much greater force is