NOTES OF THE MONTH.

Press, Volume XXIII, Issue 3037, 17 May 1875, Page 3

NOTES OF THE MONTH.

(Fram the Spectator.)

The Republic was legally established in France on February 25th, when a Bill defining the President's functions was finally passed by 436 to 262, a majority of 174 in a House of 698 members—that is, nearly as many as can possibly be "collected. The Assembly has now, therefore, passed the Bill organising the Senate and the Bill defining the President's powers, and France is legally a Republic, governed by a President with all the powers exercised by that officer in the United States, but unrestricted by the joint power of the Senate over patronage; by a Senate of 225 members elected by double election and seventy-five life members nominated by this Assembly : and by a chamber of deputies, comprising 750 members, elected by universal suffrage and tbe scrutin de Hste —that is, by all electors in a department voting for all its representatives. This legal Constitution does not, however, come into force until the Senate has been elected, and as a dissolution is to follow within one month of such election, there may be some delay. The President, however, wants his Senate, as he has no veto himself ; his new Ministry, with M. Buffet at its head, is said to be ready ; and the dissolution cannot be long postponed. The President declares he will be as Conservative as ever, but the Republic is established.

The Legitimists are very sad, and the Bonapartists very irritated their defeat. They have endeavoured throughout the debates to defeat both the Senate Bill and the Bill on Powers by incessant amendments, most of them intended to attract the Left. The Orleanists and the Left had, however, arranged the Constitution outside, and they adhered to M. Wallon's clauses with a silent tenacity rarely witnessed in „ Legislative Body, and explicable only by the fact that they knew something of Bonapartist tactics which the world does not know. This something m:iy prove to be the extent to which Imperialism has won over military officers. M. Savary on Thursday brought before the Assembly evidence that the Bonapartist Committee, absolutely controlled by M. Rouher from 1871, first in the name of the Emperor, and then in that of the Prince Imperial, had organised an occult Government, secured eighty newspapers, with 500,000 subscribers, obtained great support in the Army, controlled many elections, and even effected an alliance with the Socialists by promising a general tax on property. They appear to be aware that Marshal MacMahon is not with them, but direct that his name should be used with the peasantry as if he were. The extent to which the propagandism has succeeded in the army is not stated, but M. Leon Renault. Prefect of Police, says the organisation covers nearly the whole of France.

The second reading of the Army Exchr.ngos Bill was carried on the 22nd by a majority of 97—282 to 185—some Liberals of military proclivities voting with the Government. Mr Hardy, in explaining his measure, stated that it had been forced on him by the recommendations of a quasi-judicial commission appointed by Lord Card well; that he should consider himself dishonest if he made any approach towards purchase; that he only wished to benefit the army by allowing officers to exchange whenever such exchange was approved by the Commander in Chief; that the prohibition to pay for exchanges inflicted private hardship without securing any public good ; and that the new system, while it ignored payments, and so made Parliament irresponsible for money, would benefit ambitious officers now hampered by their circumstances. The speakers who followed, like Lord Elcho and General Shute, merely argued that the army held the existing system to be a grievance, but Captain Stanley showed that it had actually reduced exchanges from 159 in tbe two years preceding the abolition of purchase to ninety-seven in the two years succeeding them. All argued that exchanges were in themselves good things, and were permitted in every army in the world.

The first speech in reply was Mr Trevelyan's, which was brimful of knowledge and illustration, but the most telling one was that of Mr Lowe, who has been UnderSecretary for War. He affirmed that the sole object of the Bill—exchanges being already allowed—was to give an unlimited license of paying and receiving money for them. Whether exchanges were in themselves good things or not was altogether beside the subject, which waa the propriety of allowing those good things to be bought and sold. To say exchange for money was not a sale was nonsense. A man gave a commission and money in exchange for a commission, and that was a purchase. Sale introduced brokerage, and reduced a noble profession to the level of the lowest practices of the Stock Exchange. The House was asked to consider 6ale for money disgraceful, but sale for money and something else perfectly innocuous, and the two principles could not go on together. If the Bill were passed, everything would return to its old state, except the seven millions expended in abolishing purchase. As to the opinion of the army, the Prastorians thought it a fine thing that the Empire should be saleable, but history had not endorsed their verdict. The practical result of the Bill would be that the rich would exempt themselves from disagreeable service; but he was not influenced only by the fear of results. The sale of posts in civil life was considered infamous, and a Minister of State would consider an offer of money to exchange with another Minister an insult; and why was the army alone to be placed on a lower moral level ? People might think it ridiculous to say anything was too good to be a subject of trade, but "there were three things that ought never to be bought or sold,—the virtue of a woman, the integrity of a statesman,and the honor of a soldier."

The great case of " Charlton v the Canadian Oil Wells Corporation," in which Sir John Hay, Sir Seymour Blanc, Mr Eastwick, Mr M'Cullagh Torrens, and Mr Francis were sued for moneys obtained on prospectuses alleged to be false, ended on February 25th in a most unsatisfactory manner. It was shown that the oil wells purchased were worth nothing compared with the price— £480.000, of which £169.000 was cash—paid for them; that the vendors, Messrs Prince and Longbottom. had previously offered them to the Credit Foncier for £25,000 and some paper; that the directors were warned by the chairman of the Credit Foncier aud Sir George Balfour in the strongest language ; and that they paid

much money on the faith of telegrams from agents whom they sent out with Longboitotn, and who were palpably imcompeu:nt. The theory of plaintiff's conncil was that the directors were rogues, and the theory of defendant's council was that they were dnpes, and the case, therefore, involvemore even than the large suns at stake. The Lord Chief Justice, however, declared that no extent of folly or rashness would justify an adverse verdict, unless there was ntala fides, the evidence showed that some of the directors might have been duped and the jury, after being locked up for six h->urs wore equally divided, and were discharged The expenses have been £12,000. the plaintiff having spent £50<X, the time of the Queen's Bench has been occupied for seventeen days, and the total result is a definite decrease in the legal obligation on other directors to tell the truth. It is suggested that proceedings in equity may be taken, but it is scarcely in human nature to incur all that trouble and expense twice over merely to obtain a chance of inadequate-compensation.

The Exeter Reredos case has been decided by the Privy Council with its usual good sense. Lord Hatherley delivered judgment, reversing the decision of the Dean of Arches as regards the Bishop's jurisdiction and visitatorial right over the fabric of the Cathedral—which the judgment of the Dean of Arches had contested—but in all other respects sustaining his judgmtnt. The general drift of the decision was that the law disallowed images in Edward Vl.'s reigu only as causes of superstition, and because it was then not possible to distinguish between images which were made the occasions of superstitious worship and images which were not. Now it is possible to draw this distinction, indeed it is hardly possible to suppose that images in Protestant churches are made occasions for superstitious acts at all. Accordingly there is to be no legal idolatry in having » carved screen or reredos in our churches, as, of course, there is no spiritual idolatry in anybody's feeling about such ornaments. That is one. good cobweb cleared away at all events. One of the most popular types of modern superstition is the superstitious fear of ancient forms of superstition, dead for good, and entirely unrevivable. We might possibly find an Englishman or two capable ol worshipping a steam-engine or a telegraph with a superstitious worship, but not one anywhere capable of feeling the like sentiment towards a statue.

Lord Lyttelton moved in the House of Lords the secoud reading of his Bill for legalising the increase of the Episcopate, by the subdivision of dioceses now too large for effective supervision by a single Bishop, and read testimony to prove that though Suffragan Bishops are useful in the way of helping their superiors to get through the work more throughly, they do not take the place of the Diocesan, since almost any district, if given its choice between waiting some time for the Diocesan, and receiving at once a visit from the Suffragan, will prefer the former alternative. And indeed there are many dioceses in which those who prefer that alternative have a good long time to wait. Dr Temple, in making a very generous proposal that, if his see be divided, the sum by which its income exceeds the minimum salary at present allowed for any Bishop (£4200) should be made over to the new Bishop,—a proposal which, as his See brings in £5000 a year, would secure £800 a year at" once for the new Bishopric,—represented very strongly the leufeth of the journeys which he had to undertake in order to reach the more distant parts of his diocese. It was impossible, he said, to go much to his distant clergy, and still more so for them to come to him. The Bill provides, at present, that only voluntary generosity and effort shall be permitted to endow the new Bishoprics, and that no more Bishops shall take their seats i_ the House of Lords than sit there now, —the junior Bishops coming on by rotation, as their seniors die off. The Bi 1 was read a second time without a division, and it was intimated that the Government intend to give it their support.

Sir Stafford Northcote is not gaining ground as a statesman. His Friendly Societies' Bill is not merely a compromise, but a see-saw, —an embodiment of inconsistent ideas. The Bill is approved both by the societies which are afraid of being too closely inquired into, and by those who wish to have some security that those societies shall be closely inquired into. In other words, it is approved by those who see that it will give the appearance of doing much, and will actually do little. It provides for a periodical audit of accounts in the case of registered societies, but not necessarily by Government officers; the societies may choose their own auditors, if they please. In other words, the society will win confidence by registering itself as if it had some sort of Government sanction, which confidence it may abuse by appointing unfit persons as auditors who will not audit efficiently. In Mr Lowe's words, the Bill " sets the cat to look after the cream." Nor does the Bill give these societies the power to sue and be sued, a provision on which Mr Lowe very justly insisted, on Thursday night, as one of the most important securities consistent with leaving the societies to manage their own affairs which the poor contributors to them could have. On the whole, the Bill really seems to have gained popularity by appearing to do so much that the poor will have confidence in it, and actually doing so little that the societies themselves will not be afraid of its provisions. The Bill was read a second time without a division.

There was a short discussion on some proposals, made by Mr Newdegate, in the view of restricting the time given to public Bills introduced by private members of the House of Commons, aud so killing off at an earlier stage Bills which, in Mr Newdegate's estimation, only block the broad road of Parliamentary business, without having any chance of passing. According to the statement, there are about 120 Government Bills introduced into the Commons, of which about 100 get passed into law, and twenty fail, while aboui the same number are introduced by private members, of which about twenty get passed into law while 100 fail. Mr Newdegate's object was so to hamper with conditions the introduction of the measures of private members which are doomed to early death, as to diminish greatly the 1 ime given to them, and thereby to increase, the time at the disposal of the House for Government measures. Mr Disraeli recognised at once the generosity of Mr Newdegate's attitude towards the Government, but deprecated his proposals. He did not wish, he said, to extinguish altogether the merely tentative legislation of the House. He did not wish to increase greatly the amount of actually finished legislation; and after this expression of opinion, Mr Newdegate's proposals were, of course, promptly negatived. Evidently Mr Disraeli believes in the beneficent influence of natural selection on Parliamentary work no less than on organic structures. He does not wish to diminish the number of competitive Bills, lest he should by chance lower the calibre of the measures which come to completion. The present conflict for legislative existence is, he thinks, by no means too keen.

The Bishop of Peterborough moved on February 24th, the second reading of his Church Patronage Bill. Its chief idea is to put it into the Bishop's power to veto unfit presentations. A Bishop may refuse a presentee who has not been three years in deacon's orders, or who is over seventy years of age, or who cannot produce a testimonial from three beneficed clergymen, countersigned by their Bishop,— and the Bishop in question may state his reasons for refusing to countersign. The Bishop may also veto a presentation on the ground of the presentee's physical incapacity to discharge the Rdnties of the cure. The Bill also gives to three or more parishioners the right to bring any moral objections to the appointment, in which case the Bishop may hear the objection; ox if the Bishop's decision be objected to, the Judge appointed by the Public Worship Act must hear it, The Bill was read a second time, and referred to a Select Committee. We rather agree with the Bishop of Exeter that it will da some good, till the lawyers find out haw its provisions may best be evaded, and after that it will be inopti-tive.

The Stroud election resulted in the return of tbe Liberal candidate, Mr Marling, a local magnate, who represented West GloucesterShire in the Parliament of 1868—73, but did not come forward at the general election ol last year. He obtained 2783 votes against 2577 given for the Conservative candidate, Lord Bury. At the general election of last year Mr Stanton, the highest Liberal candidate, polled 279S votes, while the highest Conservative, Mr Dorington, polled 2762. Either, therefore, the Conservative strength is not adequately represented by Lord Bury _ poll, or t-Ise it has considerably fallen off, while the Liberal strength is within fifteen votes of what it then was. We suspect the first to be the true explanation. The Conservative who had no local claims could not command anything like the support of the Conservative who. like Mr Dorrington, had local claims. We fear that household snfErage will show itself to be more and more favorable to local magnates— that we shall have fewer notable men in Parliament at every election.

• _* %* Busßia °s are in a very bad temper with England just now. Their semi-official journals say that the English dislike to the plans of the Brussels Conference for limiting the horrors of war—that is, for punishing peop.es for rising to resist an invader—is mere 'hypocrisy," and that its motive is the desire to keep up the present practices of maritime warfare. Aa France and all the minor States agree with as, and most of the latter have no fleets, the charge is a mere explosion of bitter feeling, as is also the charge that we have cent agents to sell rifles to the Turcomans on the Attrek. British rifles may be there, for what we know, for the Britishjrifle goes everywhere, to St Petersburg included, but Lord Northbrook is certainly not expending either British money or British officers in any such work. It is difficult to imagine that the journals whick circulate such charges believe them, or that they are printed for any purpose except to excite a prejudice against Great Britain. If so, the effort would seem superfluous. All men on the Continent believe that England ia utterly selfish, and that belief being rooted, there is no need of proving the charge in detail.

Information has been received by Mr Otto Beiliner, of the private inquiry office, Elizabeth street (says the Argus) regarding the proceedings of two persons who have teen swindling merchants in New South Wales, South Australia, Queensland, and New Zealand. The last place they operated in was Dunedin, and it is thought that they may pay a visit to Melbourne. Their system ia stated to be to open an account at a Bank by paying in £500 or £600, and working upon the credit thus gained to obtain posda to the value of several thousand pounds, for which payment is chiefly given in bills. The goods are profitably disposed of, and when the bills become due, the two partners are not to be found.

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