LONDON GOSSIP.

Evening Star, Issue 9831, 21 October 1895, Page 4

LONDON GOSSIP.

[From Odr Special Correspondent.]

London, September 7.

The frantic efforts of the dear ’old ‘ Daily Snooze ’ to try and persuade itself and the scattered remnants of what was once “ the Great Liberal party ” that the enthusiasm of every right-minded Radical for the cause of Home Rule remains undimtned would be

ludicrous if they were not so exasperating. Why, even as the sages of Bouverie street are repeating their time-worn platitudes anent the righteous demands of the sister isle for self-government, etc., the men who would—were the request granted—become its rulers are busy exhibiting to the satisfaction of even , the hardiest sceptics their absolute unfitness for such a task. Far the ablest parliamentarian on the Irish benches is Tim Healy, who last week played the parts of both Sir William Harcourt and Mr Justin M'Oarbhy, to the amusement of a handful of the Opposition and the almost

frantic distraction of the Government. Mr Arthur Balfour had at last to make terms with the Irish guerrilla warrior or worrier. Unfortunately, these arrangements were upset two hours later by Mr Chamberlain. What he did is not very clear. Some say a contemptuous snort was 1 he extent of the provocation. Anyhow, it roused Mr Healy’s worst passions, and he provided the House with an all-night sitting by way of reward. The ‘Daily News’ talks as though the sole differences in the Irish camp were between Dillon and Healy, and pooh-poohs the quarrel as “a domestic matter” of no special import. As a matter of fact, all three sections of the party are riddled with petty differences and disunion, not to mention treachery. , With regard to the latter, Justin M‘Carthy sheds tears of rage and chagrin in a manifesto issued only this week. For three years, he maintains, there has been an incessant campaign against the unity of the party. The methods have varied, but the objects have remained always the same—the bankruptcy and destruction of the Irish campaign. “ Any topic, any misrepresentation, any calumny has been gpoid enough to start a public and scandalous discussion ” and to injure the cause. The effect of the calumnies, the dissensions, and evil rumors was, Mr M'Carthy goes on to explain, remonstrances from America, with an intimation that whilst “ructions” continued supplies from that

'W#»SBM§ap affile; Hom>’Rqlers la’ -your patb-of tmb v 'ijfll.- iH : Aup*" tralit,|’Vsayt ‘ AnthParnnlllte leader, 1 V' us-ciio ibgs'weW Bumerfeshlt—in ekoflQh..ofvthek viuraariptiona from %;iA^M.^WlrelaP d the Jun;jmijL W aa-nnaoru-puliJM v-A caih'paigtt'-'. b| bAlwlcp 1 bab bapa < waged not bmyagwoat the.ipblitical conduct, but the personal. pharaolep of every member of the party who has fought for unity and against disruption. Personal 4 and pecuniary dishonesty has been constantly charged against mep • who enjoy the respect of even their political opponents. The grossest misuse of the. parly funds has been alleged, and the party has been held up.' to the contempt of the world as-consisting, of corrupt paymasters who buy and a corrupt majority yriio-sell their votes. In short, every loyal supporter of party, unity has been assailed by charges as foul and heinous os have appeared in the columns of ‘The Times’ when.it was under thejhspiration of Figott. Finally the campaign reached its climax when, in the middle-of the general election Mr Healy uttered at' Omagh the baseless falsehood that I and the Committeeof the piarty had sold Nationalist seats for English gold. This is a state of things which cannot go on. It would be impossible for any man or body of qmn successfully to carry on a moVethefat if siich disloyalty were tolerated, ahd unless the Irish people declare in unmUtakeable language their resolve to put down this new faction an united party cannot be maintained.”

Of course the long and the short of this manifesto is “Tim Healy must be suppressed.” He .at present supports the rebellious candidature of Mr W. Murphy against the party’s Mr T. G. Farrell for South Kerry, therefore Mr M'Carthy adjures the loyal voters of that county to return- the latter by an overwhelming majority. Mr Healy on being shown the M'Carthyite manifesto smiled viciously. The signature, he remarked, might be the signature of his dear friend Justin, but with.the body of the docuthent that blameless veteran had, he was sure, naught*to dp. It >yas obviously the wicked work of Dillon and “Tay Pay.” Altogether I should say the Irish-barometer was just now fixed at “ set stormy.” THE LAUREATE. The office of Poet Laureate having remained vacant throughout the GladstoneRosebery Administration, is now, we are informed, to be revived, and at the time of writing a fearsome rumor prevails that Her Majesty means to, confer it on Sir Edwin Arnold. Next to Sir Lewis. Morris this would be the very worst and most unpopular selection that could be made. On dil Swinburne has been less erratic lately, and that the Government are inclined to run all risks and give it to . him as the only living poet really fit to follow Tennyson. But the Queen’s not unnatural prejudices block the way.

IN DARKEST AFRICA. The truth of the time-worn .proverb “ Murder willout ” has received confirmation once again. Eight months or more ago Mr Stokes, an ex-missionary, an African trader of wide repute, and an Englishman above all things, was hanged at daybreak somewhere in the recesses of the Congo Free State at the behest of a Belgian military officer. Not till about a fortnight ago were Mr Stokes’s friends at Home aware that his earthly career had ended, and then only vague rumors were abroad. Now, however, they know for certain that he is dead ; that he was tried, sentenced, found'guilty, and hanged upon a tree on January 14 at Lindi, because Major Lothaire thought fit to believe him guilty of having supplied implements of war to a savage Native chief with whom the Free State were most unfriendly. The full facts of this occurrence, which is now occupying the Foreign Office, are not ascertainable, but there seems to be no doubt that, whatever was proved against the unfortunate trader at the court-martial held upon him by Lothaire, the latter acted illegally when he killed the trader. In the decree of the Sovereign of the Congo State, which prescribes the rules for the administration of military justice in the State, there is a very clear and precise paragraph, which gives the right to persons convicted, wno are not Natives and not military men, of appeal to the tribunal at Borns, whore an Englishman would, of course, have the benefit of being defended by his own vice-consul, Lothaire was well aware of this provision, but, in spite of Stokes’s own appeal and the protests of Dr Merceaux (who accompanied Lothaire’s expedition), he carried out the sentence of death with a promptitude which has been interpreted to mean that ho had decided upon Stokes’s death, and did not intend to give anyone a chance of balking bis desire. The proceedings of the young officer throughout seem indeed to favor the allegation that ho was jealous of Stokes, who was not only, a most successful trader, but a very popular man with the Natives with whom he came into contact. Whatever the whole truth of the case is we shall know before, Ipng, and we may rest assured that Major Lothaire will be balled upon to pay dearly if he exceeded his powers one little bit. Lord Salisbury has the reputation of being very stiffnecked when the question of the treatment of an Englishman by a foreign State cornea up, and if murder was done at Lindi (and ah illegal execution is murder or nothing) he will certainly demand therighteous punishment of the murderer Meanwhile, a brief outline of the dead trader’s career may not be out of place. Charles Stokes was born in Dublin in 1852, where his father, a civil engineer, wad iu temporary residence. Later on Stokes, senior, was appointed to a billet on the Irish North - western Railway, and went to live at Enniskillen, where Charles was educated at Portora Royal School. In 1872 he entered a, merchant’s office in Liverpool, and becoming impressed with religious views offered himself, in .1876, to the Church Missionary Society, ahd was sent to the training college at Reading. Learning of the deaths of the famous missionaries Smith and O’Neil, Stokes volunteered for the Victoria Nyanza mission, leaving for Africa early in 1878; In 1883 he married Miss Sherratt, of the Universities Mission, and in the summer of that year came Home, returning to Africa in October. 1 His first child, a little girl, was born in the March following, but her mother only survived the birth a few days. In 1886 Mr Stokes married the daughter of a Native chief, giving as a reason to his relatives that he could not think of bringing another white woman to Africa. This marriage caused him to sever his connection with the C.M.S., which organisation objected to their missionaries contracting alliances with Natives. Stokes had now a double responsibility. He had to make provision for his daughter and to maintain bis mother. On leaving the mission, therefore, he entered into trading, and soon became one of the foremost ivory men on the Upper Congo. His relatives refuse, of course, to believe that he had ever any dealings with the Arab slave raiders, for, setting aside their knowledge of his character, he denounced slavery in almost all his letters Home, and spoke very bitterly at times of the wrongs done to the Natives. In one of his last letters he said; “ When can the slavery system cease, so long as the Europeans are a party to the transaction ? Our Government protects slave holders, anjl also all the. European Governments, ,under the head of household slavery. I assure you, from what Lknow, slavery is brisker now than ever it was, though, ol course, you very seldom meet slave gangpin chains.”

HEATON’S “ POSTAL MAGNA GHASTA.”

With the advert of a new Minify Mr Henniker Heaton is once again on thfe warpath. In a : letter addressed to'‘The Times/ which saw light on Saturday, and which is “ incidentally ” intended “ to serve as an aide memoire for the newP.M.O.,” he seta-.out a truly portentous catalogue of necessary post office reforms. A decade ago the member for Canterbury submitted to the M Thunderer ” “ sixty postal refer ms ” which he desired to see carried intoieffect, and in the interim,'“ a large majority have been happily,carried. ” Qn the present occasion Mr Heaton formulated a list of sx-and-forty 'proposals (not all modest orts, you may. be sure) under the title “AJ Postal Magna Charta.” The .first of pis list of demands is “That Imperial penny

36 & c we nekt snd hhn as treedejpdf j commuMwtitm by win, is “one of ~the. t toost ylkl toletests op thp Umpire, it is, % i the highest degree' expedient to encourage', cheapen, and h^tistly Ctoveirfg^ciiot3 dh<^t^^j^quu i e the rights and property,©! the cable companies at a valu*: tipp, and work the cables at the Ipwest remunerative rates,' a view tosthe utmost possible emplojtiient of the wires by day and night, for "the benefit of all Her Majesty’s subjects.” Next, he demands that an Imperial and, if. possible, also an international postage stamp be brought into use. Until this is done he insists ■that a room should be set apart inall the principal post offices for the sale of foreign and colonial stamps, in order to enable'commercial men to send stamps for replies, etc. Mr Heaton’s fifteenth demand is that the weight of a letter carried to India,. Australia, and the colonies generally should be increased to loz for the minimum stamp in order to assimilate it with the inland rate. His twenty-nilith proposition is that “the repeated applications of the Australasian and other colonies for an exchanged postal orders between Great Britain and her dependencies ” be forthwith satisfied, and his thirty-fourth that the parcels rates to the -colonies should be made uniform and greatly reduced. Mr Heaton pointsout that there are thirty-eight different rates to the seventy-four countries in our parcels post service list, based on no common principle, the charges being in most cases higher to our colonies than to foreign Countries. The final item in the list having a bearing upon the colonies is the thirty-fifth, which demands that the commission on foreign and colonial money orders should be reduced. * Commenting on the “Postal Magna Gharta ” as a whole the ‘ Globe ’ “ cannot help thinking” that Mr Heaton’s real strength “lies in the suggestion of small practical reforms rather than in the elaboration of costly and complex changes.” That Imperial penny postage would be a great boon to the community scarcely admits of question, the oldest evening journal remarks, “and it would undoubtedly tend to draw more closely the ties of sentiment which bind the colonies to the Mother Country, but as yet colonial opinion does not seem ripe for the change.” The reform of the telegraphic communication by purchasing and consolidating into a single system the cables of the world is a “superb project,” but the ‘Globe’ wants to know where the money for it is to come from. Apart from the bigger scheme formulated by Mr Heaton, his “ Charta” is full of useful and practical suggestions, many of which will undoubtedly find favor at St. Martin’s-le-Grand when the public have had tima to forget that the member for Canterbury put them forward, and the Treasury is satisfied that these small reforms can he carried into effect without prejudicing the revenue derived from the Post Office to any great extent. Meanwhile Mr Heaton has a personal grievance. The Duke of Norfolk, being in the Upper House, is not available for heckling, and out of Mr Hanbury (the PostmasteriGeneral’s “ whipping hoy ” in the Commons) the Anglo-Australian can get very little change, ■ A copy of the contracts entered into with the P. and C. and Oriental Companies for the conveyance of mails to and from Australia is among the parliamentary papers issued this week. The agreements extend the existing contracts until January 13, 1898, each company receiving a yearly subsidy of £85,000. The companies undertake that their vessels shall, after January 31 next, call at Colombo on every outward and homeward voyage, thus securing regular weekly connection between Australia, India, and the Straits Settlements and China. The companies agree also to relinquish the special payment of 2d per lb which they now receive for the conveyance of parcels to and from Australia. This concession means a considerable gain to the Post Office on every ton of parcels shipped, and it is to be hoped that the authorities will allow the public to share the gain by reducing the existing parcels rate 50 per cent. Passengers by the P. and 0. steamer Rome, which arrived at Plymouth on Sunday last, had a rather unpleasant exemplification of the dangers of charcoal insulation en voyage,. When the ship was about 300 miles on her homeward voyage it was discovered that the charcoal of the refrigerating chamber was burning furiously. For several hours water was poured upon the burning mass without apparent effect, and it was not until about 900 carcasses of sheep had been thrown overboard that the sailors were able to get at the seat of the fire and subdue it. During the progress of operations there was naturally some anxiety among the passengers, but the calmness of the captain and officers of the Rome prevented anything in the nature of a panic.