ENGLISH AND FOREIGN NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 1031, 2 September 1871, Page 17

ENGLISH AND FOREIGN NOTES.

(The Spectator.)

Long accounts have been published this week of the triumphal ceremonial in Berlin held in honour of the conquering Army. The festivities appear to have been of an exclusively military character, even Prince Bismarck appearing in uniform and helmet ; they lasted ten hours, and they culminated in the unveiling of the statue of Frederick William 111. , the sovereign who lost half Prussia. There was a little unreality about them, too. "Peace" has been made, but the Army has not returned, only some representative regiments and the Guards, and the Kaiser had just forbidden a French review ordered in Paris for the following day. The triumph was natural, and except as a matter of international taste unobjectionable ; but nothing about it seems to have justified the very tedious descriptions. It is stated that the Government of St. Petersburg has made another attempt to obtain Hammerfest, the most northerly Norwegian harbour which does not freeze up. The Swedes had claimed Spitzbergen, but the Russians say it is theirs and they will only give it up for Hammerfest and the intervening wilderness. The Norwegians are not likely to sell the harbour, but such a transaction would be a great advantage to Great Britain. Hammerfest would become the grand Russian arsenal and naval station, the Baltic being only defended by monitors, and would in the event of war either for Constantinople or India be well within tho British guns, It is a curious fact, revealed in Lord Brougham's letters, that William IV, always believed in the imminence of a Russian invasion of Great Britain, and half oonvinced his Ministers.

General Trochu has delivered his defence before the Assembly. We have analysed it elsewhere, but may here note that he accuses the 250,000 men of the National Guard of utter want of discipline, of vanity, and of ignorance. They were brave, he says, but so ignorant of war, that at Buzenval out of 3000 men killed on his own side 400 were killed by the National Guard. The charge is doubtless well founded, but then, is it not the first recommendation of a general that he can enforce discipline \ The Commune does not seem to have had much difficulty in doing it, and General Troche had what the Commune had not, a strong nucleus of regular soldiers and marines. The weather seems throughout the siege to have been terribly against the Parisians. On one night 900 men were frost-bitten, and 20,000 men entered Paris suffering from anaemia, the result of cold acting on ill-fed and debilitated frames.

Dr Dollinger has issued a protest against the decision of the Church on Papal Infallibility, said to be signed by thirty-one names, defying the authority of the Church, inviting what seems to be practically a new reformation, and saying that the signatarie3 " reject the menaces of the Bishops as unjustified, their compulsory measures as invalid. " It is believed that Dr Dollinger will no longer abstain from celebrating mass, as he has hitherto done in deference to ecclesiastical authority, but that he will take up his

rdk openly aa an opponent of the Pope. The Munich curreHpuiulenta «ee»i to expect that the King will suppurt Dr Dciilmger by going to hear him any mans in the Royal chapel, and that, in puint uf fact, a Bavarian schism favoured by the King will soon 1>« a fait mrvrnpli. We see it stated that, when the- allowance is asked for Prince Arthur, as it will be in a week or two, it will be announced that he has been created Duke of Ulster, and will fix his principal residence in Ireland. The step is a politic one, an the Irish have long felt that they are regarded as poor relations by the Ruyal Family ; but we shall be curious to see if the offer pacifies the English malcontents who were so bitterly annoyed with the dotation to the Princess Louise, or whether they are capable of rising to the idea that the general benefit of the Empire is worth 1 n sacrifice of a little money, There is i "c, in a recent speech of the Prince, +wia"t™ ' 9Omethin g to say when ha Sfaks which v ;U be a real addition tv the pleasures of »» nn ° h ? h f^-dmner life. Speaking is not c .\»™ly ***»» though the Duke of Cambrlu « someThe University Tests question la flexed at last. On Tuesday Lord Saliabur> s proposal to insist *>n his chief amendment the new tent — was titru-wn out in the. House of Lords by a majority of 39 (128 to 89), when he withdrew the other two amendments— which it is said he might have carried— and the Bill r as it last came from the Commons, was agreed to,, and has since received the Royal assent. Th* Universities have now, therefore, for the: first time become truly national— all lay students, of whatever religious creed,, being on equal terms, though the prizes, held out to men willing to take holy orders are still far too numerous, and a great mischief to the Universities. It has been a long and tediona struggle, and the Church would have gained a very different position by this time in the nation, if nhe had accepted this just and sound measure twenty years' sooner. A remarkable trade outrage ia reported from Sheffield. A man named John Giß, a brickmaker, had raised himself a little, and obtained a contract for making bricks from the Manchester, Sheffield, and Lincolnshire Railway. H6 had been Oflty eighteen months in the Union, and by it* rules no man may become a master in lesa than two years. He accordingly sought to rejoin his Union, which he had tern« porarily quitted ; but its managers insisted that instead of six months he must wait the whole period as if he had been a new hand. He refused, and opened his yard ; but on Tuesday night 18,000 of his bricka then drying were " walked upon " and entirely destroyed, Thero seems to be little doubt that this was a Union outrage, and it is one of the worst kind, becauße intended to punish a workman for rising | in life, and enforce an equality which is in fact nothing but theft from the able of the market value of his ability.

The Times has published an answer to. " The Battle of Dorking" in the form of an imaginary account of an invasion by a second Armada, having 200,000 Germans on board. England, however, has been forewarned ; our army, well officered under the system of selection, is on the alert, the Channel fleet is sent out with orders to sink or be sunk, and though decoyed away for a moment by rumours of an American invasion, returns in the niok of time to destroy the fleet while its boat* are transporting the invaders to the shore, The hostile ironclads are destroyed by 000-pound steel-headed shot, the transports are run over, the boats are sunk, and there iB a glorious bag of princes, archdukes, and dukes. The story, though far from equal to " The Battle of Dorking," is told with spirit, and granting that Germany has no marine needle-gun, no invention like a catapult flinging barrels of nitroglycerine, its picture is tha mora probable of the two. But the point is, can we ever be certain that our first line. is impregnable ? A rumour haa been current this week of a new Holy Alliance. Germany, Ruasia, and Austria are to form a leajjjue for the maintenance of peace in Europe. It is quite certain that Biamarck is trying to conciliate both powers, but the alliance is probably a dream. He haa inserted hi the last number of the Correspondent an account of a conversation with General Klapka, in which he stated that Germany had no wish for the German provinces of Austria, but hoped for the consolidation of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. As to Russia, he could not predict the future, but the Czar had acted with scrupulous honour and probity, and while he lives, peace between Germany and Russia will be maintained. That statement is much more moderate than it would have been had an alliance been thought of, and the language of Count Beust about Russia, in hia speech of June 20, was very cold. Russia had not interfered about the autonomy of Gallicia. Austria would allow no interference. Her relations with St. Petersburg were "excellent."