THE The New Zealand Herald. SPECTEMUR AGENO. MONDAY, DECEMBER 6, 1875.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XII, Issue 4388, 6 December 1875, Page 2

THE The New Zealand Herald. SPECTEMUR AGENO. MONDAY, DECEMBER 6, 1875.

The temporary break-down of the Australian 'cable has left us with.news ; by telegraph only to the 13th November, and the items .'sent to that date were very meagre. The papers brought by the Macgregor yesterday, were therefore . lopked for with more than ordinary.interest. They contain regular mews . by. cablegram to San Francisco to Bth November, and, though not so late, they of course supply many incidents not sent to Australian papers to that date.

The political news is not important beyond confirming as toHhe unsettled' condition of "\Europe and the peril lying dormant in trie insurrection in the Herzegovina. A St. Petersburg;- telegram -of ; 6th-«November says it is officially denied that Russia has sent any note'to the signers of the treaty of of the Herzegovina as reported; but'that a good understanding and a continued exchange of views between the Powers renders such communication unnecessary. The meaning of this is probably that jealousies among the Powers of Eastern Europe interfere -with, the designs -which. Russia has long avowedly cherished, and which the Czar Nicholas laid down clearly to the English Ambassador just before the Crimean war'. Russia is organising a vast army, but it will take ten years at least to complete the organisation. It is expected she will then have between two and three million of soldiers ready at command. Germany has her organisation already complete and "is able to put 1,700,000 men into service at very short notice if necessary. Austria has a powerful army but not able to cope alone with either of these nationalties, and her interests on the Danube, as well as her vulnerability in that quarter, make peace a paramount necessity at the present 'moment. France and Italy are the only other Continental Powers that can bring large armies into the field. France is helpless without allies and is being hemmed in by German fortresses, of the most powerful character, along the new German frontier. Alsace and Lorraine are being covered with these fortresses, on which Germany relies to save herself from sudden invasion from France. As Colonel Chesney points out, while the most vigilant care and the largest possible expenditure are being displayed in the erection of these frontier fortresses on the French side, Germany is taking not the least pains to cover the frontier between herself and Eussia in the same way. The neglect must arise (says Colonel Chesney) from either, contemptuous indifference—which is impossible—or from a deliberate policy based on the opinion that any alliance between France and Russia ia quite possible. In that case the fortresses would keep France in check while a German army marched boldly into Russia and dictated terms of peace in Moscow as it did in Paris. Colonel Chesney thinks the scheme quite feasible considering the relative preparedness of the German and Russian armies, while all our political news indicates the increasing ill feeling springing up between Russians of the old Russian school and the Germans whose dominance they long to dispute. The life of the Czar is supposed to be the only impediment to an outbreak of this feeling. His sympathies are German and his policy is in harmony with the designs of that Power. The Heir to the throne has, on the contrary, attached himself to the old Russian party, who look to an alliance with France as the true policy of the Empire. Thus, great armies are watching each other and great nations are ground to the dust with fiscal exactions, and the Continent is only saved from the horrors of a great war by tho will of one man. It is a precarious tenure for peace and not likely to be enduring. Austria's alliance will be valuable, and her sympathies and interests must incline her more and more to Germany. Italy has been offended by the readiness of the French Government to sympathise with Roman Catholic clergy in the Italian struggle with the temporal power of the Pope. Prince Bismarck is not blind to the opportunity nor slow in using it, as a late telegram announces that he will soon visit the King at Rome. In France, the Due d'Audittret Pasquier has been elected President of the Assembly. The election was carried by a combination of the Left (Republican) witli a portion of the Right (Royalist), and it is regarded as a demonstration against the Bonapartists, who are equally dreaded by both parties.

Singular to say, great distress is prevailing in both Russia and. Germany. In Russia, short crops cause fears of famine over enormous tracts of country. In Germany, distress is felt among the commercial and working classes. This result, despite the expenditure of the 200 millions of pounds sterling levied from France, is extraordinary. We see no attempt at explanation—nothing beyond the bare telegrams. The high cost of living caused by the expenditure of this French money and the great temporary impulse to trade, with the necessary reaction from temporary inflation, are the probable causes. From Canada wo have further accounts of the- now well-known " Guibord" case. It will be in the recollection of our readers that Guibord was a Roman Catholic who, with others, had subscribed to a literary institute containing books prohibited by the Roman Catholic Church authorities. For refusing to leave this institute his body was denied Christian burial, and for six years his friends have moved various Courts of law in vain. Carried at last to the Privy Council, an. order was issued for the interment of Guibord's bones, but was threatened with violent resistance. It was decided at last to bury the remains with a torpedo attached, to prevent any one disturbing the coffin. Armed men kept guard over the remains night and day to prevent their destruction before burial, .and finally the police have been furnished with 100 breech-loading rifles to be used at the funeral if necessary. This was the state of affairs on oth Nov. The next day's telegram states that a pastoral letter had beenissued by Bishopßourgest, exhorting good Catholics not to interfere with the burial, informing them that, to preserve the sanctity of the cemetery, Guibord's burial lot in it will be forever cursed—a proceeding likely to lead to new and more bitter litigation. The only other American item of Now Zealand interest is a New York telegram in the Chronicle of Nov. 6, stating that Ruf us Hatch, late managing director of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, has sent a letter to Sidney Dillon, its present president, containing a history of the company during the time he was managing director. He declares that the company is worked in the interests of the Overland Railroad and not of its own general shareholders. Also that the Panama Company is endeavouring to secure steamers of its own and has given notice of the termination of its contract with the Pacific Company at the end of 90 days. A row is very likely between the directors and shareholders if Mr. Rufus Hatch's statements are substantiated. We may be thankful that our mail contract is not dependent on the company, but that they are united in it with men of high character and atanding in Great Britain.

Amono members who yoted for the Abolition Act, and who hare since met their constituents, none have spoken with greater effect and none aro worthier an attentive hearing than Mr. Curtis, the Superintendent i of Nelson. Mr. Curtis began his address with some very just and complimentary allusions to Sir George Grey and the motives that had induced him to abandon ease and enter political life at what he considered a crisis in the colony. " It was a memorable event," said Mr. Curtis, "when a man of that rank and position in the Empire threw wide his

personal ease and "comfort in ; order to endeavour to impress his earnest and sincere convictions on the people of his adopted country." It was therefore in no spirit of captious opposition that Mr. Curtis expressed his' difference" from' Sir George' -Grey as to the future Government of the colony. This"' does not, nevertheless, prevent Mr. Curtis resorting to the usual'tricks of. debate by understating or mis-stating his adversary's position and viewß, in order that *they might be more easily attacked and refuted. According to Mr. Curtis, "Sir George Grey's whole argument is this—that the rights, privileges, and liberties of the people were being trampled upon by a tyrannical majority." He could not see how this was the case, considering that the people of the colony acted through their own representatives, and that abolition was no new thinw but had been before the colony for the last fifteen years, and had been considered in all parts of the colony at almost every election which had taken place during that time." Now we have here a very great understatement of Sir George Grey's position and a very great suppression of many facts which it is desirable in the public interest should not be suppressed. The position taken by Sir George was not wholly that the rights, privileges, and liberties of the people were being trampled upon by a majority in the Assembly as insolent in their pretension to dictate to the people outside, as thev were servile to the Government within. It was not on this ground wholly that the Opposition acted. They pointed to the admitted and I grievous deterioration of the Assembly as a Legislative body during the last few years. They pointed to the unfairness of the representation, to the insidious manner in which it had undermined Provincial Institutions for its own purposes, to the proved corruptions which rendered requisite the now notorious Indemnity Act of 1875, to the mismanagement, reckless waste, and extravagance of its whole career. They maintained that these evils were produced only by the Assembly having too much power of patronage at command—that the more it had the greater must the corruption become,— and that the only way was to maintain in some form or other a diffusion of power by which alone these acknowledged evils could be avoided. No sane man can doubt the existence of much corruption and the persistent efforts of a certain set of people to monopolise power and rule the colony. The records of the Assembly during the last session afford ample and undeniable proof of this corruption, but the Indemnity Act we have referred to is of itself an open admission, rendering all further discussion unnecessary. It was in opposition to this and to nip it in the bud that Sir George Grey strove. It may be argued that these wrongs are no proof of the unwisdom of a central system of Government but only of the necessity of a change of Ministry. Sir George Grey holds, on the other hand, that they are ineradicable from the system, and can only be cured by bringing the Government more directly under the control of the people, and under the vigilant eye that would then be kept upon them. So, also, Sir George Grey holds that the tendency of confining power to an Assembly sitting several months in Wellington will be to deprive all but wealthy men or political adventurers from taking part in the government of the country. The people will thus lose the political aptitude they now possess, become callous and indifferent to political affairs, meet only once in five years to be bamboozled at the hustings, and occasionally for other purposes, and thus forfeit the free tone and perfect self-government which now mark New Zealand. He tells us that class supremacies and class feelings must then arise and many of the worst defects of English life be reproduced without the advantages that to some extent counterbalance those defects in the old country. These are some of the points Sir George Grey lays down and which Mr. Curtis finds it convenient to forget. Nor will the last of Mr. Curfcis's assertions stand the test of an investigation. The Assembly does not in any sense fairly represent the people. Of the Governor we saj' nothing. Of the Upper House as little need be said. Of the Lower House we need only say that the unfairness of the representation and the five years' tenure of membership are fatal obstacles to its being either representative of the people or properly under their control. Proof of this is scarcely needed beyond pointing to the arrogance with which the Abolition Act was forced through last session. It is the taint of this arrogance and of the insolent disregard of their wishes that clings to the Act and makes it become daily more distasteful to the people. As we said of Mr. Reynolds, so of Mr. Curtis. These gentlemen appear to lose sight of the fact that very damaging statements have been made, not only with reference to the Government, but with reference to the Assembly in both its branches. These statements have been stamped upon the public mind by the mere existence of the so-called amendment of the Disqualification Act. It is to these and to reforming the evils in the Assembly itself that Ministers and Ministerial supj>orters should address their efforts, or they will assuredly seo popular sympathies more strongly than ever on the side of the Opposition and of the leader whose services and self-denial Mr. Curtis has so honourably acknowledged. The statement that the Abolition measuro was not a surprise, but had been for fifteen years before the colony, we can only characterise as an unworthy quibble, made to gloze over the unquestioned fact that numbers of those who voted for the Act were returned by their constituents as Provincialists and strong opponents lof Abolition. Among them we may mention Sir Julius Vogel, the Hon. Mr. Reynolds, aud Mrr Curtis himself.