NEWS AND NOTES.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume 15, Issue 2012, 9 December 1870, Page 2

NEWS AND NOTES.

The American foreign policy afc^pjeMdlj^ contrasts very favourably withithe" Englislilif As soon as the French Republic vaa-p^ri^?; claimed, the Yankees made haste io recpgl|i^ nise it, by telegraph, as it was bbseryea,;fo?;;: fear it might collapse before the'arrij|ij pfr-i the ordiniir/ mail. This evoked; unlitoited". : jubilation at the sight of the Americanffla^j :i all over France; At the same tinleJafi|S^ - ", Prussians complained of the expor|^fcd9J vfrom America to France, steps were T imme- j dialely taken to put a stop to it/anJibTis created a general feeling of satisfaction throughout Prussia. England, on the other' hand, neither recognised the Republic, nor: stopped the export of arms, and brought down on her head, in consequence, the maledictions of both parties. . "

General Grant does not stop at indifference with regard to the result of thekcp^test. He gives it as his opinion that ithe war itself is far from an unmixed; evil. . The almost entire cessation of industry throughout France and Germany will, ho thinks, make a great many of the articles of general consumption rise to such an extent that American producers will be able . to compete with the European producers in the markets of the world. He does not take into account, at the same time, that the check given to the increase of population in Europe, by the slaughter of ;SO large a proportion of the youth of Germany, the very men who would," in a year Si*iw^fiS^ei.|{ -become fathers of families there,' mSyiilmosiu dry up, for awhile, the stream of emigration from Germany to America. " ■".

It will do something towards shewing England that there is considerable room, for improvement in her national character and social institutions, if she notices the efforts that even her own colonies are making to. attract foreigners rather than Englishmen to their shores. The glimpse that we get of Norse life in the Commissioners 1 letter is quite idyllic. We hear of the youth/rand maidens betrothed from boyhood and girlhood upwards, but hindered from attaining the fruition of their hopes, by the stern, but wise laws of their country. .In the middle of their struggles, when, perhaps, the heroine, yielding at last to the importunity of her parents, is about to marry the wealthy, but plain-looking and ill-con-ditioned rival, and the hero, in consequence, is about to make his quietus with a " bare bodkin," in stops the deux ex machind, in the shape of beneficent New Zealand Commissioner; and under hi 3 auspices, the young couple, happily united, set sail for the golden lands of the South. We have heard before this of quacks getting novels written, the plot of which is made to turn on the recovery of the principal characters in the story, when at death's door, by the use of the infallible pill or ointment. Might it not pay, with the view of giving an impetus to emigration, to get some one to write a novel, in the Norse language ; embodying the above notions, and have it circulated • in Norway, at the expense of the New .Zealand Government.

The meeting in Hyde Park which caused such a sensation by hissing the Queen, and groaning for the Prince of Wales, seems, after all, to have been just a handful of ragamuffins. The principal speaker . was Mr. Odger, who has stood for severalconstiluencies as working man candidate, and as such has been patronised by the philosophical radicals and their organ the Spectator, but has not as yet effected an entrance to Parliament. In his speech in Hyde Park this gentlemen informed the world that in 1848 freedom would have become universal had it not been for the tricks of the English statesmen of the period. Wishing to crush out the rising liberties of Europe, they looked about for an instrument. They found one in the Haymarket. By some unexplained process, they bamboozled the French into making him Emperor, and he carried out their, programme for them. If this doesn't give the philosophers a sickener of working men candidates, it will say something for the strength of their principles. =====