NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 10085, 21 March 1896, Page 4

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

It is very widely believed here (writes our I.on Jon correspondent) that Sir Westby Perceval was been invited to fill Sir Patrick Buckley's place in the Seddon Ministry, and to accept a seat in tho Legislative Council, but that Sir Westby has positively declined the offer. I need hardly say that Sir Westby himself is absolutely mute on the subject, and is not to be "drawn" into either affirmative or negative. Bat certain rumours have reached London from New Zealand, and are freely discussed in the City. On all hands it is held that Mr. Seddon and his Ministry would bo extremely lucky if they could secure the accession of the Agent-General to their ranks, but the opinion is freely uttered that Sir Weßtby would make a great mistake if lie allowed himself to be drawn into an Administration whoso tide is on the ebb. Those who know him and his works here are convinced that should he decide to re-enter Now Zealand politics, he has a much better career before him than that of one joint in the Seddon tail. Personally I liavo the strongest reason to bolieve that the offer was definitely made to Sir Westby, and was as definitely declined by him. At present ho has not made up his mind whether or when he will roturn to New Zealand. Should hot determine to go, it will not be earlier than next autumn. And if I were in the mood to prophesy I should predict that whatever may be his future course in politics, ho will not be found in either of the two parties into which the present House of Representatives is divided.

Tho statement in the Now York Herald that the American Commission had pronounced the British claim as regards the Venezuelan frontier untenablo is authoritatively iloniod. As an indication of the feeling of the better class of Americans on this matter the words of Dr. Lyman Abbott, the successor of the famous Henry Ward Beecher in the Brooklyn Plymouth Church pulpit, are instructive. He ridicules the Commission. He points out that if two persons havo a dispute concerning a piece of property over five thousand dollars in value they may take their case from one judge to a bonch of three, and thence do a Court of Appeal, and even to the Supreme Court of the United States, before the dispute is finally settled. And they have their share in determining who those judges shall be ; and yet," The President proposes that we shall ourselves constitute a Court— a Court without any appeal whatever; and in an issue involving not thousands of dollars hut millions, not interests of two men, but the lives and property and wall being of hundreds of thousands of men and the pros* perity of two great nations—all is to depend on ono Court, appointed by one man, and from its judgment no appeal whatever, and the parties in the controversy are to {. jivo no word whatever in selecting the tribunal. Ido not know what you think," Dr. Lyman Abbott proceeds, " bub I say frankly that the tribunal that undertook to determine what the facts were in Hawaii did not so satisfy me that I am ready to appoint another by the same process, and then go to war to maintain it." These words were uttered when the excitement was at its highest, and will therefore be far more gonerally endorsed now that reason and calmness have returned.

Br. Abbotb was one of those suggested as representatives of America on the pro* posed permanent tribunal to arbitrate on all disputes between England and the United States, and if the other representatives should prove to be of like spirit, England need have little fear as to not receiving a fair hearing, He says American prejudice against the mother land is not wholly without reason. She wronged America in the colonial days, and threatened her with wrong, if she did not porpe-

fcrate it, in the Civil War; and Americans have lately been impatient with her inaction regarding Armenia. " Bub," Dr. Abbott goes on, " Great Britain is not all sinner, and she certainly is not all saint. Neither are we." Brusque, and bold, and defiant, she has put her hand on India and on Egypt on the arsenals and depots of the Mediterranean, and on the American Continent, and it has been a hand, sometimes, of selfish violence. But wherever she has gone, she has carried a higher life with her; no nation has boen tho worse for her presence; Egypt is immeasurably the better under English domination; and the American colonies, which have stood the test of time, are not the French colonies or the Spanish colonies, but the English colonies. England is two nations, and you can trace the double current in her history. She is the England of William the Conqueror, the freebooter, and of the martyred King Harold ; the England of Henry 111., the would be oppressor, and of Simon de Montfort, the founder of the House of Commons and father of the American House of Representatives; she is the England of George HI., who sought to ovorride the colonies, and no less t ho England of Edmund Burke and the Earl of Chatham, who with % courageous statesmanship—would God such might also be seen to day in the American Congressdared stand for the rights of the people outside their land against popular prejudice. Is America, Dr. Abbott asks, to say to this better England, who that Sunday night were praying for peace and brotherhood, "Get up and do us battle?"

Tho expedition to tho Soudan which the British Government has resolved upon is not, as was to bo expected, regarded favourably by France. M. Berthelot declares that) lb involves serious financial and political objections. Germany and America are, judging from their press opinions, in favour of Britain's action. But whatever other Powers many think, England evidently means to carry out the policy she has deliberately adopted. The position of the Italian garrison ab Kftssala is not as perilous as was reported yesterday. Lord Salisbury, in a statement in tho House of Lords, said that there was no reason to believe that the garrison was in immediate danger. In the House of Commons, Mr. Cuizon, while asserting that there was no alliance or agreement, between Italy and England, aimitted that it was necessary that they should co-operate in their mutual interests. The statement published in tho hew York Herald, to tho effect that the American Commission on tho Venezuelan question regarded the British caseas weak and untenable, is authoritatively contradicted. The German Government have decided to hold a stringent inquiry into the charges against Dr. Peters. The German Emperor and the King of Italy are to meet in Venice. The Conservative electioneering agent in England, Mr. Middleton, has been presented with a purse of ten thousand sovereigns by the party in recognition of his services at the last general election.