TOPICS OF THE MONTH.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume 14, Issue 1118, 14 January 1870, Page 3

TOPICS OF THE MONTH.

f JTrom the Home Papers.] , . WSAmBS riay be thought of Dr. Temple'^ qualifications for a Bishopric, it is certain that the United Kingdom Alliance has gained i% him an accession of which it . Jme^^ra^ When they amongst their defenders, men Dr;. Temple's s_tamp, they may fairly ljGastfthaJ their principles* if not generally r; accepted, a,re cdnsideifed at least worthy sdf disoassrida by dliltivajfced and intelligent , liien. The fadt is significant, as indicating $ certain improvement in the status of the agitation. This is the less surprising . when wo hear of it , in connection with a ■ aaorf»^eneral<Jh^n^e of sentiment. We . ]^eaT-<m'&y.eiy iide eties for compulsory leisure, and comp^ory cleanliness ; why should we not 51&6 I|ayKa movenlent for compulsory tem- = ipdran&e? : '*l£is obvious that the, time has ipasaeiL Tflfc which, certain old party warthe nation. Aphorisms About Self government appeals io the palladiunto^ assertions that an .Englishman's house is his castle^ arid so J forufrl&v,6be<&me, r t6- a eertaiiK, degree, discredited. It iij;gao.. longer considered I fabe-Wo* Alpha' and Omega of political] -;\i^ite^ihat/gov^nitnent 1 ' should be rev 4yee<i;t6 the minimum of action compatible s>-#iik hhe' safety of our throats and .pockets. This was one of the chief- tenets of the j Manchester school and their organ, the j ';'- r 'SiU^iip; the decease of which we'- referred '■ '" --ißoißt^laistf; -£&3, . to a certain extent it niay Mfaai^l^jhaye become defunci along with themV J The chief danger is thai;, "perhaps, "^ph.'^.i.now.rgo^p'.fiir'in^hg 6p' D -„ posite direction, and conclude that every v - projebt^bf every -school of reformers should foe enforced by law. It is doubtful whether it would be possible to carry out a restrictive measure with regard to drink on a large scale. The .English Government may be very strong, though it can' never be so strong as it should be, so long as ; the amount of hopeless misery at ' "the-bottom of the social scale is not sensibly'reduced; "but no government oh earth can be strong enough to cut off the chief means of gratifying one of the most deeply rooted instincts of a large proportion of its subjects. , The permissive bill would probably produce results analogous, to those which, a. similar measure has produced' id Neiir^ It would make ' the irirtUQUs districts a little more vir- | tuous'than 'before, and leave the drunken districts to be drunken still. In Boston itself ifcis. as easy to get drunk as in London, attd the population are! nearly as i ready to use' their advantages ; but ten miles from Boston there are villages where I it is really difficult to get a glass of brandy for an invalid. The Alliance, will do their duty best by attempting to shew within what limits repression is possible, and what authority can be most satisfactorily entrusted with the task. Few Englishmen can have heard without regret of Lord Derby's death. If it cannot be said that he was, in the highest sense'of the wordj a great statesman, : he certainly was a most wonderful man. The earldom is one of the oldest in the peerage. The family have been for centuries, physically, of the very best breed in the country — firm of fibre, full of animal vigour, healthy and long-lived. The grandfather of the late earl— the old cockfighting nobleman, who founded the Derby and the Oaks-^-did not die till his grandson was in the prime of life, and at the zenith of his fame. Mentally, they have been strongwilled, high-mettled, lovers of the fray, generous, chivalrous, balancing their genial,instincts with plenty of pride. It fcar^jrbe^said that all these traits of : character were s.trilcingly manifested m the late earl. His chivalry and generosity need no comment: He loved the din of. battle; whether it sounded through the ringing lines of the, Iliad,; or the vaults of the House of Commons. He always yielded to the temptation of a telling phrase or. a startling antithesis, though they^ "might alienate friends, or irritate - opponents. As an instance of his recklessness in this way,, it. will be remembered that he threw. away twenty rotes, long and assiduously cultivated, by Mr. Disraeli, for the sake of comparing the Roman Catholic path to a muzzle. With . regard to his pride, it may be mentioned that his friends, and even his acquaintances, ; Were, almost without exception, mea of his own rank in life. Though himself seeking distinction as a poet, he never became intimate with any poet exs,ceptLord Ly tton. Notwithstanding his genial social faculty, he kept his followers - at,, a distance. Every firm adherent of Lord Palmerston's could boast of a friendly word, perhaps . a familiar conversation, with his chief ; while the rank and file of the tones could make no such boast of the privileges they . enjoyed in Lord Derby's company. Asa speaker, he is allowed, by" common consent, to have had few fCals, and only one or two superiors. c was, perhaps, the only brilliant eldest ' son produced by the British Peerage dur- ) ing the last hundred years. : ( The late Marquis of Westminster could V' not, indeed, pretend to such a position in V the eyes.of his countrymen, as the disfcin- % guished earl who has just preceded him to j the grave ; but the possessor of revenues / amounting to upwards of a quarter of a million a year could not be. otherwise than an important personage, and agreat power "in the country. He administered his vast with a combination of intelligence ? and generosity not often witnessed, and jbis life was illustrated by some noble acts. jßut he was, nevertheless, one of those . "men who, with unexceptionable charigter, find their, dispositions ill suited tigtheir station. With reserved habits and inexpensive tastes; it was a matter of duty father than of pleasure to him to support ilie display expected in his position ; and for this reason he never rose to the height of his opportunities. " , ■ „ It requires some remarkable qualities to rcreate a gigantic fortune, but more rejqaarkable qualities" still are. needed to know how to sperid it.' The two faculties are seldom found together. They were, however, combined in Mr. Peabody. He waa ; profuse in his charity, yet his charity has /pauperized no one. There was nothing /hard or narrow about his philanthropy. J _ He simply did whatever good came in his { ' way* Wherever an occasion presented \ itself fora generous and benevolent action, J there was he'found, purse in hand, eager j . to aid. When his adopted state of Maryland was in. sore pecuniary straits, ho re-paid-it. for haying afforded him a home by ! negotiating a loan for it free of cost. When \ ; the American department, at the Great H Exhibition, was in danger of appearing, on W;' the day of opening, a mere chaos of unK assorted goods, his contribution of £3,000 y was ready to save his countrymen from ; even a passing mortification. When a | faint hope awoke in America that survivors f - ■ of Sir John Franklin's expedition might be discovered, his subsidy consummated > the generous enterprise of Mr. Grinnell. - That to do good was his single aim and l desire, appears as well in many other | ways,' as, particularly/ in his modestly | 'delegating to strangers the choice of the P objects that should receive the charity he Had sefc apart for London. It marks a high grade in the scale of benevolence, to give up the pleasure of being benevolent after _ one's own taste. , operation which, has recently conS?;:%Tnlsed JXew ITork, and shaken American iS| credit throughout the world, was not in

Wi^«l'raßi)jiHfitf»ftm[liWmiiiftiiMiiimniiiinißiiimiw'iii uiiwwi— »»■» itself a very extraordinary one.'Amerjcau currency is paper, but all duties must be paid in gold, and a good many contracts must be fulfilled, in one way or another, by transfers of bullion ; gold, therefore, becomes an article of prime necessity to trade, and one especially liable to be monopolized. Most transactions of the kind are excessively dangerous, because, though the world must have the article, say for example, quinine, dr tallow, or quicksilver, in all of which monopolies have been attempted* still the world can wait; and appeal to science for aid ; but the gold was wanted immediately, every day, and conld not be superseded by anything else. ISobody could or would take anythiflg out of bond* till he knew what he would have to pay as duties, which he could not know till the price of gold had settled itself. A few rich men, therefore, thought that if they could get possession of all the available gold, they could get their own price, for it, and the gold in stock, being everywhere a very limited quantity, they fancied themselves rich enough to do it. By steady purchases they forced gold up from 133 to 160, that is, they raised the price by some twenty- five per cent., arid might, as they intended, have sent it up to fifty, but that the Treasury, after giving them time to exhaust themselves, poured gold from its vaults into the market. Their remaining strength did not suffice to buy that ; the bubble burst, and they stood with huge masses of contracts to receive gold at a price it did not fetch. All over the country business stopped, no man knowing at what price to sell, because he could not tell what import duty, he" might have to pay on taking his orders oufc of bond. The effect was, in fact, precisely as if Mr. Gladstone had announced in Parliament that he was about to increase all import duties indefinitely, without fixing either the time or the amount. The spasm was too short to create much ruin beyond speculating circles, but, had it lasted, as but for Mi" Boutwell's action it might have lasted, weeks, it is Dot too much to say that every dealer in the United States would have been more or less impoverished, and trade contracted 90 per cent. The American- press is already asking anxiously where the remedy for this state of affairs can be found, and it has reason for its anxiety. There is nothing whatever to prevent three or four speculators like Mr. Vanderbilt from mastering all the railways in the country, and reducing their shares to nominal values, or holding all the iron, or even making an attack on flour, or doing any other act which men possessed of immense resources and standing in sympathy apart from the community may be able to conceive. Congress has no power over them, the State legislatures can scarcely touch them, the judiciary is in their pay, and if they stepped beyond the law, which they need not do, juries could not be found to convict them. A Mr. Vanderbilfc in England, if he chose to work mere mischief, might reduce us all to a state of barter, and work more ruin than an invading ' army. Fortunately,- in England a man of that kind would in no long time provoke the com- i munity, and the community, through Parliament, is absolute ; but in America we see nothing to prevent the development of the millionaire into a virtual monarch, the state of whose digestion would be important to millions. We expect yet to see Mr. Urquhart's strange dream fulfilled, and a single millionaire gain possession of a State, make what laws he pleases, and live in a free Eepublie as much a sovereign as if he were an Asiatic king. Wo one who has carefully observed the state of affairs in France of late can doubt that they are approaching a crisis. The French see a failing statesman, never loved, and now disliked, governing all things, but settling nothing, leaning on a detested Minister just dismissed by the electors ; swayed, or seeming to be swayed, by a wife who is devout as a Spaniard ; surrounded by a court of wealthy favourites, few of whom are distinguished either for abilities or character. They see soldiers, sent for at the first movement to shoot down men who are asking only for more wages. They see a conscription which reaches everybody, yet produces no grandeur for France abroad. They may yet resolve to try conclusions with the Empire in the streets. It is all very well to say that the attempt would be a mad one ; that the soldiery would put dovvn any entente. The soldiers may win in half an hour — 'their power to win was never so complete — but the soldiers are conscripts ; they have breathed the air of Paris,; a doubt, ahesifcafcion, a cry "■ Fraternity," and all may be over with the Imperial throne. We shall await with anxiety the news of the opening of the session on the 29 th November. The first act of the House will be to dismiss the Ministers who sanctioned an unconstitutional prorogation. The Emperor must either accept that vote, in which case the Chamber will at once be sovereign ; or he must refuse, in which case the Chamber, instead of a mere party, might justifiably appeal to the people. Every symptom visible in France looks to us as if the hour of compromise had passed away, as if, whether in the streets or in the Chamber, the duel between the Empire and the people were to be fought out to the last. The thunder-cloud has been blackening once more over Spain, and the forked lightnings have been playing again in the shape of republican risings. Face to face with the republican party stand that dense mass of Spanish ignorance, apathy, and superstition, which knows virtually no leader but the priest. It is utterly impossible to calculate the strength of these two opposing elements. No census worthy of the name ever has been taken, or can yet be taken, of the Spanish people. Between the two parties stand the Government, and that portion of the upper and middle class which has most assimilated itself to the general type of ruling European bourgeois thought and feeling, and is monarchical, though not, strictly speaking, Royalist. Forming but a fraction of the nation, it can only maintain itself by leaning alternately on either of the two elements. Hence, it is almost absolutely certain that, if the true elemental strife — the struggle between republicans and royalists— should break out, the present government and governing class would be swept away by the first blast of the hurricane. If the above positions are correct, no mere act of Xingmaking can conjure the brooding storm. If, indeed, any strong united party could be discerned, who should be attached to one particular person as the symbol of their monarchy, the thing might be understood. But no. The Montpensier will not do P very well ; take Portuguese Don Luis. He refuses ? very good ; send to Harrow for an Italian school-boy. It is to this Spanish nation, above all others, — to the lace whose kinsmen, only the other day, were coolly shooting down an Austrian Archduke and crowned Emperor at Queretaro, — that this poor lad is to be sent to serve as a lightning-conductor to the whole fabric of Spanish society against the tempest. More cold-blooded cruelty was never devised than that of tossing this Harrow school-boy into the simmering, and, possibly, soon seething, cauldron oi Spanish politics. The Suea Canal, the most costly and

nia'gnifipenfc enterprise of vatoiet'ri tlxtteSj i 0 at! Msb completed.., „Tfr% history tff $tia company which' undejrjfcpolij<and, carried \i through is now pretty well known. 1 Itowes its existence to M. Fer'dirian'd de Lesseps. In 1859 the work was begun, and carried on till 1863, chiefly by means of the fellaheen, Egyptian peasants, who excavated the channel with tlie primitive tools common to the oriental laborer, viz.-, hands for grubbing up the soil, and baskets for carrying it away. On the accession of Ismail Pasha, the Work was suddenly stopped, as that prince refused to continue to supply the labourers. This, however, in the end turned out to be an advantage, as he agreed to pay, in compensation, a sura of nearly £4,000,000. The manual labor of the fellaheen was replaced by machinery, and the work progressed with greatly accelerated rapidity. The point at which they experienced the greatest difficulty was in cutting a channel through the liquid mud' of a morass called Lake Menzaleb. As fast as the mud was taken oufc by the dredges, and put on either side, to form banks, it sunk again by its own weight. The manner in which this difficulty was. overcome is worth rev cording. The engineers were in despair, and the work threatened to^ come $o a stand-still, when a Dalmatian peasant, employed on one of the drtfdging'machines, came forward and offered, if they would give him the use of all the materiel, to solve the difficulty. His offer was accepted, and a sort of contract for a few hundred . yards was given him. He set the dredging machines 1 again to work ; but, as soon as they had put out on the line of bank just as much mud as- would stay above the surface of the water, he stopped them, to allow this small nucleus to harden, which it quickly did under an Egyptian sun. He then put on a little more mud, and let it harden again ; and so on, bit by bit, till a good hard bank was made. The success of his simple expedient was complete, and the whole line of bank in this part was made in the same way. The practical object of the canal is to reduce the navigable distance between the West and East by nearly 8,000 miles. From England to India the distance by the Cape is 15,000 miles ; by the Suez canal it will be 7,500. It must be borne in mind, however, that it is only by steamers that the Suez route can be used. The difficult navigation of the Red Sea, and the continued prevalence in it of the same wind, preclude the possibility of sailing ships being employed in it with any punctuality. The success of the canal, if it does succeed, will aim a great blow at the monopoly which England has enjoyed of the trade between the East and the West ; consequently, she should be prepared for the struggle to come.