LONDON CHAT.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 11937, 10 January 1901, Page 8

LONDON CHAT.

(From Our Own Corresponded.) LONDON, December 1. Everybody must be thankful that the month just passed away is the last November wo shall have in the present century. We do not want any more of the same type. True, the month has been Etrangely and absolutely fogless. But it has also been almost wholly sunless, and quite wholly comfortless and miserable, dark, damp, clank, drizzly,. gloomy, and squalid, At the same time it has been curiously mild. But it has been indeed a period of doleful " dumps." Let us hope December will at least be decent! To-day is the fifty-sixth birthday of that truly wonderful woman the Princess of Wales. I call, her truly wonderful because, if you pointed her out to anybody who did hot know her by sight and stated that this was her twenty-sixth birthday, instead of her fiftysixth, that" person would implicitly believe you; whereas if you told the truth you would risk being set down as an unprincipled and shameless romancer. "Of course she must ' make up,'" remarks a feminine friend of mine. But, if so, it is dono with such almost miraculous cleverness as to defy detection even by the most censorious women critics. I suppose it must lie the ease in some degree, but I prefer to ignore the possibility. The resuli. is so exceedingly charming that I do not choose to bother myself about the means by which such an artistic triumph is achieved.

Happily for the peace of the world the Czar's typhoid attack seems to have'proved a very mild one, and if we may trust the /official bulletins lie is making a thoroughly satisfactory recovery. It unquestionably has been all in his favour that ho has been nursed most assiduously and devotedly by his pretty young wife, although she herself i 3 not in the best of health just now. One cannot help feeling a good deal of quite personal interest in that nice young couple, who are perhaps not strikingly different in themselves from the average of modern young people, but who bear on their shoulders- so tremendous a load of responsibility, Not merely the fortunes of one of the world's vastest and mightiest empires rest on their fiat, but so indeed docs the peace and welfare of the entire universe, including the British Empire. Were Nicholas II such another ruler as Nicholas I, and were his wife another Eugenie—as the beautiful French Empres3 was in the sixties—any day might see an ad: vance on Constantinople or Afghanistan, and then all the world would be ablaze in a moment. Or such a move might be mado in China, or against Austria or Germany as would bring about the same consequence in the twinkling of an eye. Do you remember with what graphic and dramatic vividness Kinglako tells how, when the issue of peace or war was trembling in tho balance, Nicholas I, as he sat in his study, suddenly rang his hell and ordered the occupation of the Danubian provinces! So simple! And yet that mere ringing of his bell by Nicholas I was the ppark which started a conflagration that ultimatclv involved England, France, Italy, and Turkey in flames, and only by the narrowest shave missed embracing Austria and Germany as well! Fortunately Nicholas II is not as Nicholas I, nor is his wife as Eugenie of France, save in personal beauty and charm. Fortunately, too, she is the grand-daughter, and the German Emperor is the grand-son, of our Queen. Never believe for a moment that the personal element can bo eliminated from the world's politics. That is' tho one thing which may safely be pronounced impossible. So both parties in our British politics are now fiehting. The Conservatives are enraged and disgusted at the flagrant muddling on the part of the War Office, which every day brings more and more strongly .into relief. Yet if Lord Salisbury insists on the policy of " letting bygones be bygones," as it is feared will be the case, I entertain no doubt that his fiat will be submitted to, albeit with much reluctance. For his retirement at the present crisis would be a disaster not merely to his party but to the whole country, and everybody feels that most keenly. It is by no means certain that the Duke of Devonshire's Premiership would be popular, or that the Duke himself could command the unqualified support of the whole Unionist party. Yet, as matters now stand, he would be the only possible successor to Lord Salisbury. Neither Mr Chamberlain nor Mr Balfour would do just yet. Each is far better where he is. Mr Chamberlain is distinctly the most successful Colonial Minister England has ever had, but he is like a too-strong spirit which needs dilution for the sake of safety. Mr Balfour does dilute him a good deal, but it requires a strong and masterful mixer to ensure the best combination. Mr Goschen at one time might have been the coming man, but his day is passed, and he shares the fate of Sir Stafford Northedte, who once seemed so near to the Premiership, but who passed on to the shelf of the earldom of Iddesleigh and into the House of Lords. Thither Jar Goschen is about to follow him, also with an earldom, expected to be that of Etchingham, in Sussex. Sir Matthew WhiteRidley retires to the same haven of rest; and so may Mr Chaplin, if he have not spoiled his chance by his very outspoken resentment of his subjection to the shelving process. I hope it is not rude or , ill-natured to.reflect that all may be found on that " little list" upon which Mr Gilbert lays so much stress in "The Mikado."

On the Radical side the "one-man" problem is just as paramount. Everybody now is saying, as I have said all along, that Lord Rosebery is the only possible leader under whom the Radical party can have the faintest hope of marching to victory now that Imperialiem is so omnipotent a factor in British politics. You will remember that months before the idea had been even hinted at by any English paper I warned you distinctly that Lord Rosebery would be Mr Gladstone's successor in the Premiership. ' I knew then that my source of information was unimpeachable, and I know it now. The Liberals are imploring Lord Rosebery to come forward and offer to lead them. Lord Rosebery was not horn yesterday, and he knows more, than to do anything of the sort. He simply smiles and says nothing. But his friends say on his behalf: "How can you expect him to volunteer to lead vou after the disloyalty with which you treated him before? No, no! If you want him, you must go to him and beg and pray and also pledge him the loyal support of vour whole party, otherwise hell see you-r-I forget'what—before he hns anything whatever to do with you." And he is quite right too! , ~ , , T Only when Harcourt and Morley and Labouehere intrigued and caballed against him they had not quite realised the sort of man they had to deal with. They are beginning now to find out, and to wish they had pursued a different course. , The late seneral election might have resulted very differently had Lord Rosebery come to the front while the public irritation against the War Office wae at its height, and had raised the flag of Imperial Liberalism" or "Liberal Imperialism, which, unlike the other Literal leaders, he was so well able to do without the slightest inconsistency with former views or action* But he knew that the whole Liberal party i- , rotten with disloyally and with dissension, and » he wise y held aloof pod bided his time. But he will be the next Libcwl Premier, and if the present Government falter or palter over Wnv Office reconFtrwtion and array reform his chance may 'come sooner tlpn anyone expects. .Only the Liberal party will .not regain power untl it definitely casts'off all connection with httleEndandiem and adopts Imperialism as a national principle, .as a thing apart from all party politics and entirely, above them. Among the numerous dismal events of th nifglcomy week, .one- of .the strangest and direst has been the wholesale, l» n E ° nearly a thousand persons in the >,ortii-w»t of England through linking beer into w 1C arsenic had found its way. Such a least,s the prevalent medical opinion as to the cause of tiis widespread epidemic, which lias alveadv caused the death' of 62 persons white manV others still lie in a most enUcal shte. "Peripheral neuritis" is the medical designation of the affection, and thin is directly produced by arsenious acid-thc " white arsenic of conieree-when it enters the bodily system. Although the whole matter is still mvolvcd in mystery, it appears probable that the explanation-will bo found m the fact that beer is no longer brewed from malt and hops alone, but from a combination of ingredients in which "artificial" sugar-not even the honest cane or beet sugar, but a product of the operation of sulphuric acid on glucose and commercial sulphuric ; acid—is found otten to contain tricfe of arsenic. , ' , The curious thing is that the poison should have been present unnoticed in auch quantities as to cause such wholesale destruction oflife and health, also that this should liave hap. pened just now and not at any other time, especially as people drink less beer in w.inter. One natural effect has been to check the consumption of malt liquor to an extent that must be highly gratifying to Sir ■Wilfrid Liiwson, but is exceedingly damaging to the noble army of brewers. Another is to set up a recrudescence of tho demand that brewers should be compelled by law. to make their beer of honest malt and hops. It is s'omowhat Flange that England should have lost W'o eminent musicians as Sir .Arthur £'"ivn and Mr Sims Reoves in the course of a single month. Our'moot prominent—l will not say our " greatest "—composer and his greatest interpreter have passed away within a few days of one another. Mr Sims Reeves, it io true, had attained a ripe old age (83). but Sir Arthur had not readied his sixtieth birthday when the hand of Death snatched him from us. The end was very sudden. He had been suffering from, influenza and bronchitis, but seemed to be recovering, when sudden failure of the heart's

action occurred and all was over in a. moment. His funeral at St. Paul's Cathedral was a most impressive function, but the two features which transcended all others were, first, thp singing by the cathedral choir of the deceased composer's most exquisite unaccom- ' pamed quartet, from his oratorio - The Light of the World, " Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of Death "-which he had always wished to be used when that occasion should arise-and the singing round ' the erave, also without instrumental accompaniment, of his beautiful hymn "Brother, thou art gone before us," from "The Martyr " of Antioch.' The latter wax sung with deep feeling by the chorus of the Savoy Opera, a most appropriate and touching farewell to the composer of the delightful works they had so often aided in interpreting A» for poor dear old Simsßeeves, ho had falJen lately into impecunious clays and had to eke out his living by teaching to the last Hβ was the greatest tenor England has'ever known, and there is.aa yet no sign of any com- ' ing man who will entirely fill his place Edward Lloyd has done much. Poor Joseph Maas might have done even more had he lived. But now Reeves and Haas have gone Edward Lloyd bids the concert stage farewell on the 12th. and then we shalHie forlorn indeed so far as great tenets go. By the bye, I suppose Sjms Reeves must stand almost alone in one of his experiences—that of having.his " eightieth birthday" celebrated three years in succession. At any rate, his eightieth birthday was announced in ftrce consecutive years, and the usual congratulations and compliments flowed in unon the aged singer, much to his amusement I believe. Heleaves a younpr widow of 25, having married a second time when, already an octogenarian.