LONDON LETTER.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 9638, 13 January 1903, Page 2

LONDON LETTER.

HOME TOPICS DISCUSSED. AUMY REORGANISATION.

, LONDON, December 13. Ilie Ministry gradually is being made to lealise that its grandiose army corps scheme has almost as many determined opponents among the Ministerialist M.P.s as among- the Liberals. These Ministera«!ivi g 4 SUI M Illßr ' grouped them-] selves together resolutely to oppose Mr Unl~ff 1 all evente on P a l* r - England, they claim, needs only a small "TO .««"•». but. absolutely efficient for pol.cmg the Empire. Her navy must ivnm.li. her one bulwark, and its maintenance at .the highest fighting capacity w, 1 need all the money Enflan/can gJw. For the rest, the volunteer and militia, orees, winch the War Office so sySatically snubs, must be encouraged on a purely voluntary basis. Every English youth should be taught to Handle a rifla m defence of his home, if the occasion should arise. These Ministerialists reaJly seem to mean business. They have bound themselves to pay no heed to the party whip m the pursuit of their policy. Even m the preliminary skirmish this week, over Mr Brodnck's Militia Yeomanry Bill, m the House of Commons, Mr Brodrick was forced to abandon a section of the Bill m deference to their pressure. Such patent evidence of Ministerial unrest, no doubt, is responsible for Mr Balfour's announcement this week that the Cabinet is seriously considering the removal of the present irresponsible and rarely-meetiiisr Council of Defence. What is quite cc* tarn is that if the present muddlin.r Administration, or want of it, goes on much longer,, there will be only one way- out— namely, a modification of Lord Rosebery/s panacea, whereby a man like Lord Kitchener would be called m, told that he has at present a vote of £30.000,000 a year to spend for five years, given, a free hand, and instructed to reconstruct the whole machine, clearing out the rubbish and red tape, and fitting the army to a, real but comparatively small purpose, leaving the navy England's great mainstay. Fossilised railway boards. This is the day of -the younger men, even m England. All London is laughing just now at the clever cartoon m the Christmas number of Truth, depicting » board meeting of an English railway company. Septuagenarians and octogenarians, some half blind, some half deaf, some asleep, some mere society figureheads, crowd round a board table m the most, laughable attitudes, and find the luncheon menu the most momentous item of the agenda. Pictures of Yerkes and Morgan also arise before them as spectres. Tbis is not far from a true picture of the condition of the directorates of even the leading roads. On the London and North-Western Board, for instance, out of 24 directors, two are over 80. three over 70, and six, including the chairman. Lord Stalbridge, over 60 years old. The lea>ven of reform, however, is at work, though, naturally the directors turn first to the staff. A circular, issued by the North-Western Board, directs that from July, 1903, all employees shall retire at 65 years. UNION OF THE CHURCHES. The foundations of belief of the Church, of England suffer a further shock by a letter to the Times, m which Canon Hensley Henson, writing from Westminster Abbey, strikes out for reunion, of the English churches on the broad lines of Christianity 1 . A conducted by such leaders m the Anglican community must have a wide-reaching effect upon public opinion. It arose out of the Archdeacon's funeral sermon on the late Rev; Hugh Price Hughes, when, he appealed to the Nonconformists to cease remaining apart from "the historic Christianity of iheir country." Canon Henson protests against the illiberality and absurdity of an exclusiveness which breeds such a store of religious hatreds as have accompanied the course of the Education Bill, and adds that reunion must speedily become the leading question of the time. An auswer will be found not by regarding Nonconformists as aliens, their sacraments as doubtful, and themselves as left to the. uucoveuanted mercies of God, but rather will , be found. in the clear testimonies of historic science, a more justly understood teaching of the New Testament, and, above all, m a revisal of the Church's dogmatic statements and a reversal of its long accustomed attitude of exclusiveness.. it is difficult to exaggerate the possible ultimate consequences of such a pronouncement from a leader of the Church writing from tiie Abbey, which is the headquarters of Anglicanism. . THE COBDEN CLUB. Against the tlu.-ea.tmed uivc.rsiau of freeu-iide principles the Cobden Club made emphatic protest at their gathering last night, when Liberal Parliamentary leaders like Earl Spencer and Sir,B. Cainpbell-Banuennan were the chief speakers; and reading the newspaper comments, it is easy to see that Englishmen may soon have to fight over again Cobden's battle, with this vital difference, thai almost the, whole weight of the new Imperialism will be casb into the protectionist scales. The Daily Mail throws a bomb into the Cobdenist camp by an analysis of the club's membership, showing that out of 475 members of the dub, no fewer than 242 are foreigners domiciled abroad, while of the remaining 233, a large number are foreigners resident m England. Hence, says the Mail, the club has no right to speak for the British nation. These foreign gentlemen help to pay for the- printing qf pamphlets winch axe sent broadcast over the: laud urging the advisability of allowing foreign goods to enter England duty free. Why, asks the Daily Mail, if the members are so eager m the cause of freetrade, do they not spend their time m convert- [ ing Germany, France, and tlie United States to that doctrine, instead of coming here to teach a people which is already converted? . Tlie British Empire has come to the conclusion that a system by Avhich. the colonies admit British goods under a tariff so designed as to differentiate m England's favor offers some obvious advantages. At the Colonial Conference all tlie great colonies have undertaken to follow the example of Canada, and to give England a preference. We are not going to« throw tnis gift back m the faces of our™ kinsmen because of the tall talk of a number of Little Englanders and their foregia supporters. Already the Canadian tariff has most beneficially affected our tradeBy acquiescing m and welcoming the attitude of our colonies we arc not abandoning our freetirade system ; arid, by abolishing the sugar bounties we are placing tlie coping-stone upon, the edifice of unhampered industry which past geueratious reared.