THE PARLIAMENTARY SITUATION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XX, Issue 6814, 19 September 1883, Page 6

THE PARLIAMENTARY SITUATION.

[FROM OUR LONDON CORRESPONDENT.] London, August 9. Toe close of the session is in view. Already scores of members have hurried away from London to the moars, or to their yachts, and the most important subjects fail to draw a full House. Yet it was only two days ago that the Houae of Lords received the tirst of the important measures which have occupied the Commons for months past. The Bankruptcy Bill, the Criminal Bill, and other leading measures, are not yet before them, but they have received and wisely read a second time the Tenants' Compensation Bill. Neither landlords nor tenants appear to be at all excited about this measure, though some political prophets predict that it will prove the ruin of the one and the salvation of the other. The debate on the Suez Canal proposals of the Government proved a very tame encounter. The Government practically accepted the conclusions of the Opposition, though they preforred that they should be expressed in the language of one of their own rank and file to that of Sir Stafford Northcote. It is now understood that England in no sense stands committed to the indiscreet admissions made by Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Childers in their auxiety to justify the remarkable agreement M. Lesseps had induced them to aign. It is unlikely that negotiations will be resumed with M. Lesseps for some time at least. An impression prevails that, notwithstanding his apparently resolute attitude, the President of the Sutz Cannl Company will prove reasonable if properly approached by the representatives of his great commercial constituents in -England. Failing this, the commercial and shipping classes will certainly take steps to secure an independent route to the Red Sea, either through Egypt or the Dead Sea and the Valley of the Jordan. The latter scheme attracts muoh attention and its feasibility is being tested by engineers. The foreign policy of the Government has been reviewed in two I debates, which might have proved dangerous had they occurred six weeks earlier. But when the first week in August comes a Ministerial crisis is well nigh impossible. The failure of the Government policy in South Africa is candidly admitted even by its authors. Practically no defence was offered to the reproaches of the Opposition, I that Cetewayo's death (if he is dead) and the fate of thousands of his slaughtered subjects, must be attributed to the Cabinet which bad sanctioned the sentimental policy of the Earl of Kimberley. Mr. Gladstone admitted that a " touching " letter he had received from Cetewayo had greatly influenced him in adopting a policy of restoration. Possibly Tawhiao may interpret this naive admission as an encouragement for. him to launch a similar enterprise. To the dismay of the* "philanthropists," who are the cause of more than half of the British difficulties in South Africa and the Pacific, the Undersecretary for the Colonies boldly asserted that Ueebipu was right in defendiug himself, and that Cetewayo brought his fate upon bimself by disregarding the conditions on which he had been restored. People naturally ask what else the Colonial Office expected him to do. On the subject ef the Transvaal Convention Mr. Gladstone delivered one of his curious sophistical speeches. He had no desire, he said, to claim a "complete success" for the convention —a remark which caused a hearty laugh —and in the approaohiug negotiations with the President of the Boers he would t!>ke care not to be influenced by any affection uf parentage in reepect of the convention. The discussion which Mr. John Morley evoked by an indiscreet attempt to compel the Premier to pledge himaelf to an early withdrawal from Egypt, has given satisfaction to both parties in the House. The Conservatives are content with Mr. Gladstone's remark that "It was the hope and intention of the Government that their work should be of an enduring character, and that it should secure Egypt against perturbating influences in the future ; but the arrival of the cho'era bad led to delay in the work of reorganisation, which prevented him anticipating any very early day for the withdrawal of the troops," while the Radicals take comfort from the emphasis with which the Premier re-asserted that the Ministry still held to the pledges they had given when the occupation of Egypt was directed. Subsequently, Mr Gladstone read a communication which "he has received from Lord Dufferin as to the progress of the reorganization of Egypt. The army arrangements are nearly complete; the constabulary and the police arrangements are not so forward; a fair body of Judges has been selected, though some delay has occurred in consequence of the necessary translation of the Code into Arabic ; arrangements have been made for the elective portion of the Legislative body; and plana have been prepared for irrigation and for the taxation of foreigners. This state of things thus decribed may have existed prior to the outbreak of cholera, but that dread epidemic has completely dissolved any shadowy administrative native control that may have existed. After nearly 20,000 lives have been sacrificed through the gross neglect and incapacity of the native rulers, and after England has lost more soldiers than she did in any battle in the Egyptian war, the Britieh officials in Egypt have undertaken the administration of affairs, and though they have- not stayed the plague, yet the sanitary precautions they have enforced have been so effectual that instead of 1000 or 1200 deaths per day, the mortality has shrank to ender 200.