EUROPEAN ITEMS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 909, 29 April 1871, Page 4

EUROPEAN ITEMS.

♦ {From the Spectator.) On the occasion of King William's assuming the title of Emperor, in thei Galerie des Glaces, at Versailles, the religious service seems to have been very simple. The Psalm read waß the 21st, beginning, " The King shall joy in thy strength, O Lord, and in thy salvation how greatly shall he rejoice. Thou hast given him his heart's desire, and hast not withholden the request of his lips.'' It was certainly appropriate enough, and so was the continuation ; — " Thine hand shalt find out all Thine enemies. ... Their fruit shalt Thou destroy from the earth, and their seed from among the children of men." The Court preacher and military chaplain, Herr Rogge, delivered an " impassioned discourse " | from the words of the handwriting on the wall of Belshazzar's palace, " Mene, Mene, Tekel Upbarsin," — addressed, say the reporters, to France. Surely it was rather late for that. France missed the meaning of her handwriting on the wall, and hence her seed are being " destroyed from among the children of men." It would not have been the act of a Court preacher, but it would have been the act of a faithful minister of God, if he had addressed the lesson to the new Emperor who was holding what seems much more like a Belshazzar feast than any Frenchman of them all. It is when the heart's desire is evil, and seems to be granted, not when it is taken away, that handwritings on the wall are best worth attending to. The new Irish Land Act seems to be working very satisfactorily in every respect except costs. The judges find no difficulty in applying it, assessing damages for eviction by a flexible rule of common-sense, with a distinct leaning towards tbe tenant. A holder, for instance, of 3a. lr. Bp., at a rent of £6 10s, who has been evicted without cause, claimed £45 compensation under, the Act, and was awarded £39, or the maximum award, minus the] year's rent due. Fines like this check I

I capricious eviction, while they do not annoy good landlords so much as was expected. One of them, just fined more than £500, openly states that he is neither annoyed nor hurt, the additional eecurity increasing his rental from the next tenant in quite an equivalent proportion. Just so, and if they had consented to fixity, with power of revising rentals, the Irish landlords would in twenty years have been among the wealthiest of mankind. The Prince de Joinville writes to explain his recent arrest at St. Malo. He had gone to the Army of the Loire to offer his services in defence of France to the Republican Government, and asked General D'Aurelle's permission to enter the ranks under a fictitious name, a permission General D'Aurelle thought himself compelled to refuse. General Chanzy, however, was less severe, but thought it needful to inform M. Gambetta of his presence, whereupon the Prince was arrested, confined five daye at St. Malo, and finally deported to England. M. Gambetta has received men of every party, making Charette, for example, a General, and we hardly know why he rejects the Orleanist Princes, more especially as the Revolutionary tradition runs the other way. Philippe Egalite, afterwards Loqis Philippe, fought at Jemappes as a regular officer of the Republic. A writer in Macmillan is very angry because we called M. Guizot an intriguer, and attributed his advocacy of a National Assembly partly to a wish for peace at any price and partly to an inherent formalism. Considering that all Europe has for twenty years declared the Spanish-Marriage drama a disgraceful intrigue, that M. Guizot is tbe formalist among the statesmen, and that he for yeara upheld a policy of peace at any price, we cannot see what we have done to excite such anger, or to be likened to Thereites contending with Ulysses. We did not attack M. Guizot personally, or, as the writer says, when living in retirement, but as a statesman who had left his retirement, and was doing his very best to induce France to accept his policy. Ulysses is not en retraite when delivering powerful arguments before the European world. For the rest, the writer states again, and states very ably, the old argument that free government means government by the majority, and that a minority, even if in the right, bas no claim to coerce it into a better course. And we can only re- state, possibly very badly, tbat there are cases, as, for example, when slavery is established by law, or is likely to be established by conquest, where a minority has a moral right of insurrection. As a matter of fact, we hold that the readiness of the French people to follow M. Gambetta was in itself a majority vote. If they cease to be ready, he must either depart ; or ask, through an Assembly, their resolve ; or fight on as a mere insurgent, liable to be executed if taken, but no more morally in the wrong than Kosciusko or Hofer was. Earl Russell has published another letter advocating immediate increase to our defensive forces. He adheres, as is natural, very much to the old ways ; but holds that we ought to be ready to defend the United Kingdom against invasion, to defend our Colonies, to maintain all engagements, and to protect our honour and interests when deeply involved. For these ends, he would, now that armies are on such a gigantic scale, always keep 200,000 Regulars and embodied Militia within the islands ; would largely and quickly increase the Artillery; would reduce the term of service in the lime to seven years, and would restore the ballot for the Militia. And he would abolish purchase. On the other, hand, he would retain that curious abuse, the appointment o.f officers to the Militia by the Lords-Lieutenant, though promotions should be made by the Com-mander-in-Chief, and he affirms the Duke of Cambridge to " be, by general assent, the right man in the right place." It remains to be seen if Parliament is of the same opinion, i Mr Kinnaird and Mr T. Chambers, acting as representatives of the Protestant public, have asked Mr Gladstone to explain his letter to Mr Dease promising to supp6rt the " spiritual independence " of the Pope. -The letter is long, but its drift is that Eaglish legislation since the Reformation baa'

always ignored the Pope altogether, and that to make the Papal jurisdiction an object of " fostering care " would excite in Great Britain deep dismay. Mr Gladstone was not to be betrayed into a correspondence, but asked Mr Kinnaird to see him, and accepted Mr Kinnaird's version of the results of their conversation. That version is that Mr Gladstone only meant to promise, if the Pope's personal freedom or personal acts were restrained by the Italian Government, to make representations to them on behalf of civil and religious liberty. We question if that reply will give satisfaction to men who say we should no more make representations on behalf of the Pope than on behalf of the Archbishop of Naples, butthe correspondence is of little moment with the Session so near. Count Bismarck has managed to hurl one more sneer against M. Jules Favre, and has managed to include the neutrals who asked for his safe-conduct to attend the Conference in the sneer. Lord Granville had applied for this safe-conduct, and had assured M. Jules Favre that he had obtained it, and that on application to Count Bismarck it would be given to him. But Count Bismarck at once returned for answer that the assumption was not correct. He did not admit M. Favre's right to represent France ; he could not regard anything said by M. Favre as the voice of France ; he could not, therefore, help declining the official safe-conduct. M. Favre, had he applied to the military authorities, would have been allowed to go out, but an official recognition of his position as French Foreign Minister in London or elsewhere could not be given. Moreover, M. Favre ought not to wish to leave Paris at a time when he was likely to be wanted to enter into negotiations on a state of affairs for which he (M. Favre) was responsible. Even th© friends of Germany have seen in this reply a very unmanly taunt to conquered foes, and a not very covert sneer at Lord Granville's request. In the Athenceum of last week appeared a letter calling attention to the very dishonest practices of many of the book-canvassers, who go about obtaining from old ladies or womenservants signatures which they believe to be orders for one or two parts of some book appearing in parts, but which really are orders for the whole series. The practice is one which we know to be most prevalent. A servant in a family known to us was taken in only the other day precisely in the same way as the lady mentioned in the letter addressed to the Editor of the A.then<Bum, and of course had no redress. No doubt the publishers' agents are the authors of tbis sharp practice, and are induced to press so hard on account of the very great commission tbey receive ; but then the publishers for whom the contract is obtained ought always to be ready to cancel the order on the clear evidence of the person aggrieved tbat it was for a specimen part and not for the whole of the book, and should make their agents agree in all such cases to forfeit their commissions. In the meantime, if women would only be a little peremptory in refusing what they don't want, — and not think it|ratberjimpious than otherwise to say they don't want an illustrated Bible in parts, — these very sharp book-canvassers would not play so many successful tricks. Mr Muntz, the Member fpr Birmingham, during a speech to his constituents on Monday, brought out a very significant fact. He was on the Commission of Inquiry into the purchase system, condemns it utterly, but believes tbat it will cost £7,000,000 to abolish it in an equitable manner. He explained this to his constituents with great clearness and some peremptoriness, and asked them to tell him clearly whether they were prepared to pay the money. The question was put in themost formal manner to the meeting and elicited an absolutely unanimous vote. Not a single hand was raised in objection, though the pecuniary difficulty had been most forcibly explained.