CURRENT TOPICS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCVI, Issue 11052, 2 September 1896, Page 5

CURRENT TOPICS.

The English commander in Zanzibar waters has made short work of the usurper Khaled, who seized the sultanate on the death

wvgland AND ZANZIBAR.

of the former ruler, Hamed bin Thwain bin Said. The bombardment of the palace and the placing of an approved successor on the throne were actions taken by virtue of a protectorate which England has established over Zanzibar. This protectorate dates from 1890, in which year, by international agreement, Germany and England took possession of the territory on the mainland of Africa over which the Sultans of Zanzibar formerly exercised sway, and at the same time England assumed a protectorate over Zanzibar proper, which is a large, fertile and salubrious island just off the eastern coast of Africa. The late Sultan was chosen by England, and iqid only reigned three years. His power was extremely limited, as the British Consul-General supervises all public expenditure, paying a fixed salary to the Sultan. There is an English general in command of the Zanzibari standing army, and an English fleet is stationed in the harbour, which is, by-the-way, the only decent port on the East African coast, in addition to Delagoa Bay. The annexation of Zanzibar by England has been advocated as the outcome of the recent trouble; but events are obviously not ripe for that change. To establish British rule would bo to abolish the institution of domestic slavery which is the basis of civil life there, and at the same time to destroy a great through traffic in slaves for the Arabian and Egyptian markets. It is certainly a blot on England’s fair fame that she should in Egypt and Zanzibar be protectinjg a system which has been fitly described as “ the sum of all villainies,” and which she formerly made great sacrifices to abolish <n her American possessions. Interagreements would interfere with.

the annexation of Zanzibar by England. Germany would require a quid pro quo for her consent, and the English Government has therefore adopted a waiting • policy. The fact that the usurper, Khaled, has received asylum at the German Embassy at Zanzibar raises the suspicion that German intrigue was at work in inducing him to seize the throne in defiance of English rights. If, as seems probable, this Khaled is identical with the gentleman of the same name who made an attempt to establish himself as Sultan in .1883, it would be well if he were deported or otherwise dealt with, so as to prevent him causing further trouble.

The really great critic no longer exists. Such is the conclusion arrived at by Madame Thenard, and propounded in a very able

CRITIC AND AUTHOR.

address recently delivered in the ‘Westminster Town Hall. Readers of Mr Frederic Harrison, Mr Trail and Mr Sydney Colvin may demur, but the dictum may be taken to be ■’ at least as correct as any such generalisation can be. In regard to art, Madame Thenard says bluntly that the public know nothing about it, while in the domain of literature, “private sympathies or antipathies, and even the state of the critic’s digestion ” play a great part in determining the verdict. In music the expert critic is “ bitter and cruel,” and although in poetry the case is slightly different poets, according to Madame Thenard, are generous in their appreciation of each others’ work—the lesson inculcated is that a critical age has been unable to produce any great critics. A comparison between the present age and the one immediately preceding it goes a long way to bear out this contention. Hazlitt has won for himself a lasting name by his interpretation of other men’s thoughts. Charles Lamb has not been superseded by any of those who have gone over the same ground since. St Beuve, writing at a slightly later date, has distanced all competitors ; in his case Eclipse is first, at least as far as the Continent is concerned. Writers like these have, in fact, set up a standard that modern criticism, necessarily struck off at tremendous haste to keep pace with the literary output, has apparently no prospect of reaching. At the same time it is interesting to note how the great critical age of Lamb and Hazlitt occasionally blundered in its verdicts. The Edinburgh Review dismissed Coleridge’s Christabel with the remark that there were only four lines in the whole volume that would have seemed respectable in the poet’s corner of a country newspaper. Wilson wrote of Wordsworth as being, in fact, little better than a straw-crowned idiot. Examples like these may, however, be taken as illustrative of party zeal rather than of lack of judgment. Coleridge was at that* time a Tory, and the Edinburgh Review only applauded anything that smacked of Radicalism. Wilson is supposed to have quarrelled violently with Wordsworth over a political question. For the rest the fact seems to he, as Madame Thenard states, that criticism as a fine art has declined with the times. It has fallen largely into the hands of the magazine writer and publisher’s reader, and neither of these has the time, even if he has the ability, to write as the “ introspective" critic wrote a hundred years ago.

Hitherto, the English and colonial public have taken but a languid interest in the operations now being

THE SOUDAN CAMPAIGN.

conducted in the Soudan with the object of establishing English influence as far south as Dongola, with Khartoum as the ultimate objective point; but recent cable messages are indicative of a development of the campaign that is likely to stimulate interest. The cable messages dealing with the war are not quite so explicit as could be desired, but the latest point to a concentration of forces and to the likelihood of a decisive battle being fought at an early date in the neighbourhood of Dongola. The dervishes are reported to have erected a strongly-fortified camp about two miles from that place, and it is stated that the English General has ordered up a reinforcement of 14,000 men from Omdurman to Dongola. It is just possible that the coming battle may be a sanguinary and stubbornly-contested one. The “ big, black, bounding beggars who broke a British square” in the last Soudan campaign are splendid fighters, and are stated to have obtained superior arms since then, and to have fairly . mastered the use of them. According to a correspondent of the Army and Navy Gazette, the dervishes can. now deliver a deadly rifle fire which will enable them to combine European tactics with formidable onsets of cavalry and spearmen in the old style. He adds that the British tactics of forming squares and awaiting the shock of battle will not longer answer against the Mahdists, and, if persisted in, will result in rout and ruin. It was prophesied some years ago that if the Arabs ever attained skill as marksmen, so that their rifle fire would match the excellence of their spear work, the British would have to give up the idea of fighting in squares and face the charges of the tribesmen in open order. If, as the correspondent of the Army and Navy Gazette asserts, the dervishes are now able to combine firearms effectively with the cold steel, the Anglo-Egyptian troops have a far more formidable task before them than Sir Gerald Graham and Sir Herbert Stewart had in the expedition of 1884 and 1885. As far as the present campaign has proceeded there has been no heavy fighting—the dervishes apparently pursuing the policy of retiring upon a strong position, there to await attack. The great bulk of the troops under General Kitchener are Egyptian and Indian, whose stamina and prestige are not superior to those of the Arabs and Soudanese opposed to them, so that the invading force has a difficult task, and will probably only succeed by dint of superior generalship and arms.