HOME SUMMARY.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume 13, Issue 1083, 14 September 1869, Page 3

HOME SUMMARY.

(Prom the "Home News," July 16.) Oub last Summary left the Irish Church Bill waiting for its fate on second reading in the House of Lords. 'The bill was read a second iime by a'majority of 179 to 146, and since .that time £he Peers have been extensively altering the measure in committee. They have read and passed it in its greatly varied form, and it has been returned to the Commons.. Mr. Gladstone's announcement of the intentions of the 'Government will be found, in our parliamentary report: though made toolate for insertion here, there is no doubt as to its character, and, we stated that-the Ministry had! resolved not to concede any principle or any detail of importance. We shall advert very briefly indeed to the debates which have occupied the House of Peers, but it is right to say that they have often been marked by great oratorical skilly and on one clause, as we shall see, the Lords have, no matter for what reasons, shown themselves in advance of their counttrymen in what is termed ''toleration. Lord jDerbyj on the second reading, made an energetic speech against the bill, andtouchangly referred to his years, and rthe probable^ early 'close of his career, •declaring. that 'if that were the last time he addressed them, he should rejoice that he had been allowed to raise his voice against legislation as impolitic as it was iniquitous. That evening was also marked by an attack upon the Cabinet, made by Lord Cairns in reference to Mr. Blight's letter mentioned at the end of our last despatch, and in which the Peers were described as not very wise, and a sort of menace was made to the effect that if they refected the bill they might force other questions before the nation. Lord Cairns has not justified the expectations which were raised by hi 3 success in the House of Commons, and he has really been nothing as the leader of the Conservatives in the Upper House, the real leadership having passed to Lord Salisbury, who in his turn, though displaying singular ability, has not been able to control his party on some important occasions. Lord Cairns 1 attack in respect .to Mr. Bright's letter was poorly conducted, and Lord Granville's easy tact enabled him to get the affair out of the way with no great fuss —Mr. Bright was too " John Bullish," but had meant to offend nobody. Among the speakers of this night Lord Salisbury was facile princeps. He ridiculed the menaces that had been directed against the Peers, but warned them not to behave like a faction. The fourth and last night was opened by Earl Russell, who has all his life been a determined foe to the Irish Church, and now in old age sees the Tvork accomplished by other hands. His speech was very interesting, not only for iitself but from the personal considerations which, were brought to mind by the veteran's history of the question. He does not approve of the manner in which the disestablishment has been effected, but he gave counsel to the peers to read the bill and amend it. The Bishop of New Zealand, now of Lichfield, delivered a very frank and pleasam address, which will be read with interest where these lines are vend. He came, he said, very impartial to the discussion, 1 for he had laboured where there was no State Church. He could not see that a case had been made out against the Irish Establishment, and he should cast in nis lot with his brethren. He hoped to see the dove of peace build her nest in the tiara of a disestablished Pope. The three great lawyers, Lords Westbury, Hatherley, and Cairns, then did their respective best, the first making a speech as remarkable for its acridity as for its abundance of scriptural quotation, the second being calm and argumentative, and rather rising above his ordinary level, while the third spoke at vast length, with elaborated argument, and finished with an energy that actually caused the Irish clergymen, with whom the gallery was crowded, to break out into applause, against which appeal was made, but which Lord Grahville good naturedly said might be tolerated, as it would not be repeated. At dawn of morning the division which we have mentioned was taken. The House of Lords affirmed by 33 the principle of the disestablishment of the Irish Church. Battle has siuce raged on the details of the disendowment, and the Lords have done their utmost, without regard to the symmetry of the bill, to repair what the Conservatives have called its want of generosity. They have taken everything which under any pretence they could lay hands on, and they have endeavoured to prevent tte disposal of the surplus in the way enacted by the Commons, or in any way at atl for the present. It would be wearisome and unprofitable to follow them step by step, and we will therefore only indicate the greater changes which they have made in the bill. They have, with the assent of (government, fixed the date of the disestablishment at the Ist May, 1871. They accepteii an offer pf half a million for all the private endowments of the Church, an offer made by Lord.Granville when the Archbishop of Canterbury was endeavouring 10 get the date whence such endowments were to be preserved set back from 1660 to i#6o. But this handsome proposal was made before the archbishop proceeded' to demand all the Ulster glebes, given by James 1., and worth a million, and Lord Granville declared that his bargain was not to stand—it was, however, r inserted in the bill, and the Ulster glebes were taken. They have given all the glebe houses in Ireland to the Church free of charge, and have made much better terms for it in the matter of commutation of life interests. They did carry a clause fotf letting the present Irish bishops continue to sit in the House of Lords, in rotation, for life, but the absurdity of keeping seats for Jbiarons whose baronies were done away •w,as/elt to be. top great, and at last this £&mkion° was expunged. But the grand quarrel was over " concurrent endowment," as.it.w.as called. It was felt that the only sorfcof excuse that could be made for such vety free handling of the money was to be pMvidedby showing readiness to do something for other creeds. Moreover, many of,the 4 best men in the Lords are cpnscientipjisiy, of opinion tbafc to raise the standard of the i^ Catholic priesthood by giving the priests comfortable homes is a wise thing. So Lord Salisbury, backed by a retnarkabl^pilowing: of peers of an intellectual sort, : :^rhpl joined withojlt reference to party, exJ.;i^£^Jii^!^ old/^higa, -and bishops

to carry a clause enabling houses to be given t6 the Catholic and Presbyterian ministers., The Government, of course, were bound to oppose this, and on the firs( trial of strength a large majority .rejected the proposition. But the more the mighty amount '.hat had been taken for the Episcopal Church was looked at the more it was seen that something must be done in the " concurrent" direction, and on the penultimate stage of the bill Lord Stanhope carried by 121 to 114—majority seven only— the clause giving the other clergy the same advantages in respect to residences as had been claimed for the Episcopalians. In addition to all this Lord Cairns carried a motion opposed to the preamble of the bill, which expressly stated that the surplus should be applied in favor of no Church or clergy. He got the Lords to agree that there should be no present application of the surplus, but that it should be left to the discretion of • Parliament, and out of the preamble he struck the words of limitation. With these, and various minor alterations of no great importance, the Irish Church Bill is handed back to its author, and it has not unfairly been depicted by . the satiric artist of the day as a changeling child which its alleged parent repudiates. . Ministerial declarations that the alterations cannot be accepted by the Commons have been so repeatedly made during the debates that it hardly needed a letter which has been sent by Mr. Gladstone to the Orange Association of Ulster in reply to a memorial against the bill, to indicate what will be the next step in the history. Mr. Gladstone will " give no countenance to a direct proposal of concurrent endowment, or to any plan for the postponement of the appropriation of the residue." I^Eere defined issue is joined, and upon other points the Cabinet will be equally resolute, though it is possible that some modifications may be made in order to sweeten the pill for those who must ultimately swallow it. Mr. Lowe rather went out of his way, at a Trinity House dinner, to describe the discomfort with which he and his colleagues witnessed the proceedings of the House of Lords, and his hope to have the bill back again soon, in order to restore it, if not exactly to its original form, to one which will give general satisfaction. Meetings are being held in various places in support of the bill, but these are neither influential nor called for. The House of Commons knows its business, and requires no aid from mobs. On the other hand the Irish Orangemen have been meeting in large numbers to denounce the measure, and in defiance of law have celebrated the 12th of July with processions, banners, and badges. These demonstrations might have ' produced mischief, but Government, in accordance with an. undertaking to that effect, poured such a mass of soldiery into the Orange districts that the peace was kept, and save an. affray last week between the police and a mob over a bonfire, in which case the former fired, and life was lost, there has been no casualty arising from the disloyalty of these avowed loyalists. Their speeches, of course, are like the atmosphere of the planets, too fierce to be described in ordinary language. [ Practical legislation of another kind has not been forgotten^ and the Commons have been working steadily and well, but there is not much in ttie- .result of their efforts that needs record here. The PostmasterGeneral has brought in and explained his telegraph scheme, and next year the nation is expected to transmit upwards of eight millions of messages, the lowest price being fixed at a shilling. They are to be received at all post-offices. The Bankruptcy and Imprisonment for Debt Bills have been sent to the Lords, and the Commons have again enacted the cessation of University tests. The site for the new law courts remains unfixed. The miscellaneous estimates have engaged the superfluous energies of the Lower House. But the great " situation " of the day is to be looked for in France. We explained, with some elaboration, as the importance of the theme deserved, the result of the elections, and the position in which the Emperor was thereby placed, with the intellectual portion of the nation in opposition to him. Nothing succeeds like success, and since we wrote, large accessions have been made to the Opposition ranks. At length they mustered so strongly that upon an " interpellation " being prepared by which Ministerial responsibility and other anti-dynastic claims were made, the j signatures nearly amounted to a majority of the Deputies, and the votes which were certain to be given for it in addition would j have placed the Emperor's Ministry in a minority — it was said of 22, but probably new disaffection would have been manifested. However, for the hour, the battle has been stayed by the submission of the Emperor Napoleon 111. Being, of course, ; fully cognisant of the state of affairs, he has considered his course, and on Monday last, July 12, a new era in French history may be said to have been inaugurated. M. Rouher, the late Minister (his resignation, and that of some of his followers were inevitable) delivered to the Chamber his Majesty's Message. The Emperor reminds the Legislation body that it had been promised information as to the projects of Government, at the opening of the next ordinary session. But as the Corps appears to be anxious to have this at once, the Emperor anticipates its aspirations. The Senate will be convoked as soon as possible (August 2 has since been appointed) to examine the following questions : — 1. llighfc of the Corps Legislatif to make i its own rales and elect its committees. ; 2. Simplification of the mode of proposing and examining amendments. 3. That the Government be obliged to i submit. to legislative approval the tariff modifications which in future may be stipulated in international treaties. 4. Voting of the budget by headings, in order to render the control of the Chamber more effective. 6. Abrogation of. the constitutional enactment which, at present disqualifies a deputy from becoming a minister of tlie crown, and fulfilling certain other public functions. 6. Extension of the right of interpellation. Now, observing first that the Opposition has not' thought it necessary, after this message, to make its interpellation, and that the session is suspended, it may be worth while to say that it is clear tkat the Emperor means to stand, if he can, on the principle of personal government. In the iutroduction to the message he lays stress upon the fundamental basis of the Constitution, and of his own ''determination."; ; ; Without going into this argument at inconvenient '. V,: : .; ' . i '•■•'«

length, we may state that though the Opposition has gained a great deal, it can regard these advances, only as means to an end, and that the judgment on the Emperor's tactics will be favorable or not according to the result. It may be' that, as usual, he will temporise as long as he can, and then startle his antagonists by a surprise. But one thing is clear, he has gone too far not to be obliged to go much farther — the direction , is , now the problem for Europe. 'We are without news of interest from Spain. Serrano, having been duly constituted Regent, proclaims sternly that he will have order, at any price, and hitherto order, except in the Cortes, has been preserved. There have been some sensation debates, and one of them was really interesting, a. minister named Blanc having, on the occasion of a discussion as to the treatment of Clonde de Cheste, an intriguing royalist who bad been arrested, given a fearful narrative of his own personal sufferings at the hands of the Conde, when in power, and how he had been dragged through the streets, manacled, and brutally beaten in the Government house,and Senor Blanc dwelt upon the tears of his poor young wife at the gate of his prison, and greatly excited the Cortes. This has been the principal incident since we wrote, but it is thought that another Ministerial displacement is at hand. We have nothing new from Cuba. From the United States we have little, save details of the monster Peace Jubilee which has been held in Boston, and which is described by the correspondents in talk which is of the tallest, but which seems to have been inspired by the favourite American idea that whatever is big must be great, and that a thousand fiddles make ten times as grand music as a hundred. Art shrugs her shoulders at these affairs : yet they have their good side, and produce a certain good feeling which, in a sense, may be as respectable as art. More victories over the fifty-times conquered Paraguayans are reported, to the confusion of those who do not understand that the war is but. part of a political game, and that the commander of the Brazilians always contrived to be wonderfully successful when his friends were in power, and singularly unable to do anything when they were in the shade. India awaits the Duke of Edinburgh, when he shall have ended his very prosperous progress in Australia, and he is to hold a more wonderful durbar than, j history has yet recorded. Ismail Pacha, Viceroy of Egypt (" Khediveh" is the now fashionable title, but scholars declare it to be a hybrid word, and differ even as to the spelling) has ,been our guest, and is gone. We seem to have ! managed reasonably well for his amusement, j with the aid of the Crystal Palace, at which he and the Prince of Wales were exhibited to all who choose to pay, and, their names , were thirty three thousand. The fete was . declared to be magnificent, so we will say nothing of the dignity. The Pacha is understood to be involving himself in trouble ; with the Sultan, who has just made Ismail's hated brother a minister, but it is thought that in the end the Egyptian will make all right, by means of help to Daoud Pacha for the lloumalian railway, or by contribution in some other form. We have had few domestic incidents of importance. London has been partly amused, partly scandalised, by a scene in ! one of the police-courts. A Mr. Grenville Murray, who has been for some years unfavourably.regarded by the Foreign-office, is supposed to be connected with a scurrilous newspaper in which sundry of the officials there have been constantly and insolently abused.' A young lord, Carington, whose amusement is driving a coach, found in the paper an offensive reference to his late father. So he went to the Conservative Club and assaulted Mr. Murray, who is at present a member thereof. Whether he merely struck him, formally, or cleft his beaver with a downright blow, |is a matter which Murray and the club-porter are disagreed, the former alleging that he was weakly smitten, and that his enemy was scared, and ran away. Any way, Murray summoned Lord Carington, who is now on bail to stand his trial. But after the hearing, his lordship's solicitor, who had a black box of papers, was suddenly set upon by persons who desired to seize this box, whereon some of the more respectable part of the spectators rushed to his defence, a free fight ensued, and the magistrate left the court. The box was, however, retained by the solicitor. , Until contradictory evidence shall be produced, the public will remain in the belief that the box contained papers which were given up, in terror of law, by somebody connected with, the scurrilous paper, and that they would throw light upon authorship the proof whereof would be disagreeable to Murray and others. The assaulted Murray is very persistent in his selfvindication. A pleasahter topic is the Wimbledon Volunteer Camp, now in full work under a blazing sun. The shooters have gathered from all quarters, and the skill displayed has been greater than ever. Two very curious things have happened. One of the best shots in England, Corporal Peake, won ! the Queen's Prize last year, but ,was disI qualified, by reason of some irregularity i about ammunition. This year he was shooting admirably, had won a £100 prize, and was looking forward to the great struggle, when his rifle accidentally went off in his tent, and the ball passed through several tents, missing one man almost by miracle. The ' Corporal was disqualified again by this casualty. Then, the Queen's Prize this year has fallen to the winner in 1866, Angua Cameron, a quiet little mild teetotaller of Inverness, who has shot better than any man has ever done before, and whom not even the intoxication of triumph, and the being carried on big men's shoulders from one end of the camp to the other, could induce to celebrate his victory by a single libation of aught but tea. England won the International Prize, against Scotland and Ireland, but in the struggle for the Elcho Challenge Shield Scotland was first and Ireland second. The volunteer camp is the pleasantesfc of places when the business is over, and Spiers and Pond have maintained their reputation by a commissariat of the most splendid character, administered with' the utmost skill. The obituary of the month would have contained no name of distinction, but that Lord Taunton, better known as Mr. Labouchere, suddenly died on Tuesday last. He had spoken effectively, on the Irish Church Bill in the preceding week. He was an upright and amiable man of high business talents,, but his oratory, though notiui-

pleasing, was somewhat too rotund for the taste of the day. Mr. Jerdan^ who seized Bellingham, the, murderer of Mi. Percival (this takes us back to May, 1812), and who was for years the good-natured editor of the Literary Gazette^ has died at a very advanced age.