TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Press, Volume LII, Issue 9162, 20 July 1895, Page 6

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Aa we have said, ever since Ungenerous the fall of the StambuJoff Treatment. Ministry, the . party in power have done all they could to injure them politically and socially. The writer puts the position in a sentence when-he says that the ex-Premier, and all supporting his-policy, were placed outside the law as far aa their rights and privileges went, but under it aa regards their duties and liabi'itie?. M a first step a Parliamentary Gomm«3iou —which was sitting up-to a few weeks ago—was appoiuted to inquire into the acts of the Stambulof? Cabinet, and report to the Chamber. This Commission, haviug 110 judicial powers, nevertheless, as a preliminary step, placed the whole of M. Stambuloffs property under sequestration. After months of work not the least irregularity could be found which could be charged against the ex-Premier. The Chamber, we are told, then voted a project for a new Pension Law abrogating the old one, abolishing entirely all pensions for ex-Ministers, and reducing by a third or a half the mass of the Civil pensions. By the terms of the Act Ministers were actually given the light of acting on it before it became law, and, as the result, exMinisters and retired civil servants have in many cases been reduced to penury. A crusade was then commoucsd against the State employees who had been appointed during M. SlambulofFs long term of office. It had always been the boast of that statesman that so long as these employees did their duty he did not care what their political opinions were, but his successor turned thousands of them out of their positions solely because chey had worked under the late Premier. 16 was, however, in their treatment of M. Stambuloff personally that Dr. Stoiloff, the present Premier, aud his colleagues, were moat culpable. Some two months ago it was announced that the ex-Premier was suffering .from a painful disease, and that it , was a tmtter of l\te and death with him to consult the highest medical authorities, and take the coarse of treatment; carried out at Carlsbad, in Austria. But instead of granting him leave to go abroad at once, the Government, through the Parliamentary Commission, asserted that they could not assume the responsibility of releasing him from surveillance. A passport was denied to him, and he was kept a prisoner in his house, while the police in every district in the country were told that if he did attempt to leave Bulgaria he was to be arrested, even if provided with a pissport. The Consuls of Austria and Great Britain protested in vain against this treatment of a statesman to whom Bulgaria owes its existence as an autonomous principality, and who, though fallen from power, still, in the eyes of Europe, represented his country far more than the present Government. The result of his detention—a result which weeks ago he Btated to friends he was afraid would take place—now appears in his foul murder, and however much they may protest, the civilised world will bard'y acquit Dr. Stoiloff andjhis Cabinet of blood-guiltiness.

The brutal murder of M. M. Stambuloff Stambuloff, ex-Premier of and , Bulgaria, which there can His Enemies, hardly be any doubt was connived at, if not actually instigated, by his political enemies, was after all only what might have been expected from those individuals, and what the victim himself feared would be hie fate. The history of the Stoiloff Ministry's treatment; of the late statesman, culminating in so atrocious a deed, is one of the blackest chapters of Bulgarian history. A Sofia correspondent of a London contemporary, in the first of a series of letters on the aotual situation in Bulgaria, throws much light on the events following on the resignation of M. Stambuloff, and bis statements are of considerable interest at the present time. He remarks that the world has always been accustomed to consider the rule oi M. Stambuloff as the unfettered absolutism of a tyrant who, however, need his power, on the whole, with a certain amount of discretion in repressing intrigues and conspiracies, whether against the persona of the Princo and himself, or against the independence oi the State. M. Sumbuloff himself was, it is stated, the first to admit that as Premier he made free use of the almost unlimited authority and prestige he possessed to go outside the bounds prescribed by the Constitution from time to tune, in his dealings with military and other conspirators. On the other band, hia purely political opponents were unmolested, probaSly from a sense of his own immeasurable superiority, and, as long as they refrained from any active move* meat jurainab him. he contented himself

with simply keeping them in mild mfc* tion. This is precisely the opposite vj* , policy of the present Government, who i fluenced probably by a knowledge of * • weakness, did everything possible to etam" out of existence the party opposed to then? After the fall of his Ministry only oue Da supported M. Stambuloff, and it is a ouY* faot that though Prince Ferdinand »nd ex-Premier were at daggers drawn th latter maintained his attitude of B tr opposition to Russia and the RussophjS? party. In consequence, whenever paper noted that the Russian party trying to profit by some mistake of tfceQ vernment and of the Prince, it struck back, thereby proving that j/ Stambuloff was sufficiently generous to nla what he thought were national interest* before those of party. ■

Canadian- pni.lic opinion fc Tapping considerably exercised j U| | the now over the action of the Great Lakes, city of Chicago, which it', engaged on the construe, tion of a drainage canal, the nominal dot, pose of which ia to carry away the eft? sewage into the Mississippi river by opening a passage into it from Like Michigan? Draining an aroa of 250,000 square miles, the waters of the four great lakes, Superior Michigan, Huron, and Erie, are held back from pouring over iuto the Mississippi watershed simply by a 2ft bed of gravel at) Chicago, and by only about, 4ft of rock &t other critical points. This barrier ia now being pierced by an open channel 160 ft wide and 18fo deep, and it ia alleged that the real design of Chicago is to make, undet the pretext of sanitary necessity, a abipway to the Mississippi river and the Gulf of Mexico, and thence through the Nicaragua Canal to the Pacific. The engineers promise that BUOh a way may be maintained bye flow of merely 10,000 cubic feot per second and that this will involve only a lowering of the lake levels by about five inches, Such an estimate, however, is believed by the Ottawa Government to be for short of the truth, and those who know the energy and " push " of Chicago fear that,' wil h the deliberate purpose of injuring her commercial rivals, the other great lake cities, she may widen and deepen the canal without regard to consequences, Chicago has already spent 10.000.000d01s ' upon the work in three years, and would, it is said, spend ten times the sum if it would help her in the struggle for business supremacy. The Mississippi States will, of course, eupport her in her aotion, as there will be a permanent rise in the level of the river by lft. Canada has, however, very great interests, and cannot afford to have the level of the lakes lowered and the flow of the River Lawrence lessened by any action of the United States without making a strong protest. This is an age of arbit»> lion, and the probability is that an Inter, national Commission will be set up to try to discover some method of getting over a difficulty which threatens to cause con* siderable friction between the two countries.