Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IX, Issue 458, 20 January 1882, Page 1

Current Topics

AT HOME AND ABROAD.

A cobbespondent of the London Times is evidently NON-CELTIC of the opinion that it should injure the repute of IBISHMEN. Mr. Farnell among the Irish people to consider

that he is not a true Celt, and that much more should he fall in their estimation when they learn he deserves their hereditary dislike, as a descendent of those who sided with Cromwell. The Parnell family says this correspondent, were of good position at Congleton, in Cheshire, in the seventeenth century, and during the civil wars were Roundheads. After the Restoration, he adds, their head purchased an estate in Ireland, which is now in the possession of Charles Stewart Parnell — himself the son of an American mother and a graduate of Cambridge. We fancy, however, that the Irish people are not as sentimental as this correspondent seems to believe. The memory of Cromwell, indeed, they detest, and it is detestable ; the memory of his followers also is in evil odour among them, and it deserves to be so ; but, as to the descendants of these followers, they are taken on their own merits. A Romulus among them might not, indeed, find bis paltry father hidden under the pretence of a god, but bis origin would be overlooked in the nobility of his actions. No Irishman, then, will see in Mr. Parnell the Cromwellian, but all Irishmen worthy of the name will hold him as the champion of his country, a true patriot, and a true Irishmen. But, indeed, there is no more silly objection in tbe world than this that is made to the distinction of Irishmen, whatever it may be, because they are asserted to be come of some descent that was not Irish. It is a special cry uttered for a special purpose, and there is neither sense nor meaning in it. We hear it concerning no other country : — the honours of Lord Beaconsfield, for example, are claimed for the memory of an English statesman ; nor would England he found willing to accredit Germany with the particular virtues of Queen Victoria's reign. Of late years, again, the theory that men's natures are deeply affected even by the very scenery among which they have been brought up, finds general acceptance — and we may well allow that the country in which a man has been bom, and where bis family have lived for a generation or too is most truly bis Fatherland. It is not, moreover, claimed that the Irish nation is of pure Celtic blood ; there is, in fact, so nation concerning whom it would be more difficult to discover in what proportions the original stock is represented. Where else have there taken place so many expulsions, immigrations, depopulations settlements? Surnames here form no basis of judgment, for the people of the country changed their names by the thousand, and even the Norman invaders themselves had at first done so, and in this respect become Irish, as in others they were known to be " more Irish than the Irish themselves." But in tbe old Celtic days, properly so-called, when the race was pare, they had done enough to prove their noble nature. Before they had become Christians they were known as warriors of renown even far away from home upon the Continent of Europe. Ages before an Irish Saint had set his foot on the soil of Switzerland, where such a Saint's name is now immortalized and given to a province, an Iriah heathen king had been struck dead at the foot of the Alps hy lightning as he was leading his victorious band of troops homeward. The Christian island of the Celts was an island of saints and scholars ; learning, music, and poetry, had their

seats there, and those natives who went out from thence had a larjre

part in civilizing the world. Nothing that has in modern times been Wone by the Irishmen of mixed blood has surpassed what was done of Ji e l by the pure Celt ; hut, on the contrary, it may be the ambition 'oi the Irishman of to-day, let him derive his descent whence he may, to equal the stature of those whose descent was purely Celtic. It is, we protest, absurd at this time to point out any leader of the Iriah people and tell us he is unfit to lead them because he is of mixed

descent. Should the Irishman, indeed, of mixed descent, in reverence

for his forefather's dust, submit to injustice from England the country of his forefathers 1 Let the men who celebrated the victory of Yorktown the other day make answer. If men of English descent in America led their own brethren, and men of Celtic descent, and of many other stocks, all banded together as a Beparate and united

American people, in a just resistance to England, why may not men of English descent lead men like themselves, as well as men of otber blood, in demanding, without the infringement of any just law, and as one united Trisb people, that legislation which England owes to Ireland ? Was Washington, indeed, because he was of English descent, unfit as an American to lead Americans in their effort to eecurt freedom? For unless this be asserted, it is void of meaning to condemn Charles Steviart Parnell as a leader of tbe Irish people, numbers of whom are like himself of mixed blood, because his forefathers were English and Cromwellians. This is a matter of common sense and not of foolish sentiment.

A wbiteb in the Quarterly Hevietv for October THE state gives a glooming account of the condition of Britisk OP trade, Some trades, he says, are dying out in Eng* British trade.' land, and others appear to offer a sorry prospect for the next generation. The returns of exports are delusive ; thousands of boxes of men's made-up cravats, for example, are shipped abroad and duly entered as exports oi British manufacture. Each box is valued at 20s, but out of this 2s only have gone to the British workman, and the sole article of British manufacture contained in the export is a little common stuffing made in Brad* ford. Scarcely a tenth of (the nominal value represents etored-'up British labour — and the same obtains in the case of numberless other kinds of goods. Lord Derby looks upon it as a sure proof of prosperity that pauperism is diminishing, but he should understand that a man who once earned thirty shillings a week may feel himself reduced to great privations when he can only earn fifteen, and yet may shrink from seeking aid from the parish. Lord Derby should further know how bitterly the poor hate the workhouse. The Board of Trade tables cannot convince a man that he is better off when only employed for half the week, than he was when he worked the whole week. " The country is prosperous," saysthe Times-, " although the workmen in some trades are not able to idle half the week and live riotously, as they did a few years ago, to their own real loss and that of the community as well." And from this the workmen may learn how adversity chastens their lives and elevates their spirits. In Birmingham the outward signs of declining prosperity are perhaps few, except the immense number of houses and offices to let. But employment is not so easily obtained or so well paid there as ie was a few years ago, and many mechanics are unable to earn half their old wages. The gun trade has fallen off ; the Small Arms and Metal Company, whose shares stood at fifty percent, premium, this year has not been able to declare any dividend and its shares are at a discount. The returns of the principal works engaged in manufacturing fittings for railway carriages have fallen off twenty per cent. A representative manufactory ef railroad, wheels and axles, having because of declining trade exhausted a large reserve fund, has this year been obliged to withhold a dividend from its shareholders. The large profits of the Patent Shaft Company have been reduced to two per cent. The smaller firms have suffered still more severely, and are less able to bear the strain to which they are subjected. In the iron trade the directors of the company known as John Bagnal and Sons, one of the most prosperous formerly, have been obliged to apply for extra capital to carry on the business, and the sum of thirty-two thousand pounds standing as losses on the books is set down to the account of the bad times only. Large iron-masters generally would have a like tale to tell. There are over ten thousand houses without tenants. The Banks have been making smaller returns, and every large retail house in the city has had to record a falling off in its business. Again the census of 1861 showed that in England there were 118,000 operatives employed in silk ; Coventry employed 40,647 persona in the ribbon trade, and Macclesfield had fifty-five factories at work, employing 14,000 hands. Macclesfield has now not more than forty■ix factories open, employing 6520 hands, and in Coventry the annual return of ribbons and trimmings has fallen from £2,500,000 to £600,000. The glove trade once flourished in Worcester, Yeovil, and other towns, and at Yeovil twenty years] ago there were fortytwo manufacturers ; there are now only twelve. Not one third so many gloves are made in England now as were made there a few years ago. In the Staffordshire and Worcestershire potteries, it is stated, " depression is steadily increasing, and the condition of the lower

class of operators is indeed deplorable." The exports of woollen and mixed woollen and cotton goods from Grimsby have fallen off 60 per cent. Lord Granville, at the recent meeting of the Iron and Steel Institute set down the loss of the iron trade during tbe four years '75 to 78 inclusive as £160,000,000. Finally, the particulars as to the decrease of agriculture show that in Berkshire one landowner holds four thousands acres for which he can find no tenant* ; in Kent ten thousand acres cannot be let. although vacant land there was once unknown ; in Sussex farmers of apparently good position and of repute as careful industrious men, declare their resources to be utterly exhausted, while many of those still possessing capital are giving up or reducing their occupations, and it is almost impossible to induce capitalists on any terms to invest their money in farming ; in Surrey there are farms not only unoccupied but uncultivated. The Ustatet Gazette reports the amount of county sales up to July 30, as £464,617, whereas last year it was £1,013,464 ; and £3000 was bid for one property on which £5000 had been advanced. Sheep have decreased four millions since 1879, and the decline of wheat sown since 1868 is one million acres, or one-fourth of the whole extent.

The President of the Statistical Society, also in the THE ekolish address from which we quoted in our last issue, LAND QUESTION, referred to the relationship between landlord and

tenant existing in England, and pointed out in what respects he considered that the condition of the English tenant might be ameliorated. He did not, however, consider that there was any likeness between the condition of English and lush tenants, or that any such changes as those made by the Land Act in Ireland could be usefully introduced into England. There are, he said, two capitals employed in British agriculture, those respectively of the landlord and the tenant ; the tenant trading on the capital of the land-owner, of which he obtain s the use at the low rate of three per cent., and which he converts into a trade profit of ten per cent. The land-owner is the nominal owner of five-sixths of the joint capital embarked in British agriculture, and upon him there should fall in the end the chief weight of any disaster that may occur. He is, however, so hampered by entail and family settlements that he cannot bear his fair share of such a strain as that which now presses upon the country. It is only as the owner of the fee-simple that he can do | justice to his tenantry. — The question here touched upon, however, is one that the Prime Minister has promised shall be dealt with fully and fearlessly by the present Government. But as to the farmer, the losses which have taken place of late years have affected him chiefly, and been the more keenly felt Bince they fell mainly upon his •hare — the lesser share — in the joint agricultural capital. For this, nevertheless, the nominal land-owner is less to blame than the law which fetters and incapacitates him. What the distressed tenant requires is an immediate, though perhaps temporary, reduction of rent; the exhausted land, again, needs a higher rate of farming. Hence there is pressing necessity for such legislation as shall free the land-owner from the shackles that now fetter him, and give the farmer that assurance of security to which his share of the capital is entitled. The Prime Minister, in one of his great speeches at Leeds made use of words that are as '* light arising in darkness." "Itis of capital and immtdiate importance," be said, " for tbe farmer to see that effectual and not abortive measures are taken to secure tbe whole interebt of the tenant?, not a part of that interest, but the whole interest in his improvements, and bia interest, as the law may define it, in bis tenure." — This interest being explained as the tenant's •hare in the increased lettable value of his farm at the time he surrenders it. It would, however, be a mistake to alter by law the rule that the landlord makes all the permanent improvements required, and the tenant only supplies capital for cultivation ; or to lessen the landlord's interest in the improvement of his property. The measures indicated by the Prime Minister will enable the landlord to take bis full share of the burden of his position, and it is on every account desirable that the law for the better security of the tenant's capital and interest should be passed at tbe same time. The Farmers' Alliance indicates as the better aad simpler course by which the value of the farmer's improvements might be ascertained, the introduction into England of the Ulster tenant-right ; but such a mode of compensation might prove illusory. The Ulster tenant contends that his labour and capital have made all the buildings and improvements on his farm. In England, on the contrary, the landlord owns two capitals in the land, the soil, and the improve, ments made by him upon it. On good agricultural land, worth £50 an acre, the land will represent £35 of that value, and the buildings and other permanent works £15. The Ulster principle cannot, therefore, be reasonably asked for. and it would, besides, take away from tbe land-owner the interest in his property which induces him to b«ar his full part in ita improvement. Nor would it be just to exclude from choosing his future tenant tho holder of five-sixths of the capital in tho joint concern. The " marketable security " principle, moreover, demands the interposition of a Court, taking away the right to contract, as in any other business. This is a system •? tottfage which has been found necessary in Ireland, where among

the small holders the desire for land is almost a struggle for life But tutelage means inaction and stagnation, living and acting under guardianship and restriction, which is the very position from which we desire to see both landlord and tenant in this country emancipated. Over-competition will be restricted by emigration, and landlords will give little heed to offers from applicants with inadequate capital ; nor can any Court be so competent to judge of the value of a farm as the owner whose income, and the farmer whose living depends upon it. The other proposal of the Farmers 1 Alliance, then, is preferable — that is, that the amount of compensation for j improvements should be ascertained by valuation subject to arbitra-4 tion. The Agricultural Holdings Act might here be made the rule * of law, and if in addition notice to quit were extended to two years the desire for a lengthened term of lease, which was heretofore the tenant's sole security for the improvements made by him, weuld be much diminished. The position of the farmer would then be this—that he would hold a tenancy either under a lease for a term of yean, or, subject to two years' notice to quit, that on quitting he would be entitled, under the Agricultural Holdings Act, to reimbursement in terms of that Act for his outlays under the second and third classes of improvement ; and, finally, for the interest in his tenure he would receive the amount which the law shall define as the value of that interest. Both parties would then have an advantage in maintaining the condition of the farm to the close.

A sentence or two also uttered by Mr. Caird in PRIVILEGES in his address, gives us food for a few reflections tjndeb the on the Irish Land Act, and the lessons to be derived land act. from it. President Caird, then, in referring to the

fact that the English farmer traded on the capital of his landlord lent to him at a low rate of interest, said the system in England could not be compared with the terms offered to Irish farmers who desired to purchase their farms. " For the price of land in Ireland he added, is reckoned at 20 years' purchase, yielding a return of 5 per cent., which admits of tbe existing rent redeeming the freehold, on Government terms, in 35 years. The Irish farmer may thus become the owner of his farm by paying his present rent continuously for that time." A little consideration of this statement will, we think, serve to show the relation of the Irish tenant to the soil he farms in a light somewhat different from that in which he is exhibited as anxious to wrest it unjustifiably, and by shameful violence if possible, from its rightful owners. For, according to the decisions of the Land Court, Irish tenants have been paying, in many instances, twenty-five per cent, over the sum of their just rents, and thus the landlords must in very many cases have received, over and over again, the value of their freeholds. A no-rent manifesto then, of even absolute and more sweeping terms than that issued by the Land League might still be regarded without any sue* picion of a reckless desire to plunder on the part of those issuing it. And this consideration is made the more weighty when we re* member that to the money paid to the landowners by Irish tenants there remains to be added the value of the improvements the tenants have made. On this point Mr. Shaw Lefevre, who moved a vote of thanks to President Caird, spoke as follows. "He had warmly sup* ported the Irish Land Act, not only on account of what had been called the land hunger, but because for generations Irish tenants had themselves to so large an extent effected all tbe improvements on the land that there appeared to him to have been created on their part an equity to a joint ownership in the soil which entitled them to consideration in respect to their share." Irish tenants then, who have for generations paid twenty-five per cent, over the fair rents of their holdings, and who have, moreover, improved [their holdings so as to possess an acknowledged joint ownership in them, could hardly be fairly cried down as robbers, even if they claimed that they were themselves tbe rightful and absolute owners of the land — which, however, they have not done. There may be those, on the other hand, who believe that the landlords, who have received the excessive twenty-five per cent, for generations, and who, on the failure of the tenant even once to continue its payment, have seized, on his improvements, and are still doing so, and thrusting him out penniless on the road, are the true robbers, however much the law may protect them. — Or is there no such thing as ownership apart from the law, or can the law justify everything and alone determine the meaning of the commandment — " Thou ahalt not steal " 1 Is the law of God here defined by and dependent upon the law of man f But, againf>f the twenty -five millions sterling now owed by Irish tenants for w and of which, as we have seen, some twenty-five per cent, isffshonestly claimed, we may set it down as also more than likely that a large portion is claimed for land that does not exist ; for among the privileges of the landlords was also that of charging rent for larger areas than those their tenants occupied. Finally, let us remark President Caird's opinion as to the effects of a Land Court. It was, he eaid, a system of tutelage and its meaning was " inaction and stagnation." Our Land Act, then, permits Irish tenants, whose landlords consent, to spend thirty-five years in pun-basing freeholds that they and their fathers have already paid for over awl over again

It leaves them liable for twenty-five millions sterling, twenty-five per cent, of which is an over-charge and very much more merely the Talue of the tenants' improvements, and, failing their payment of it, permits them to be driven out and robbed of the joint ownership in the soil their improvements made through generations have conferred upon them. It confers upon them as their chief privilege, a Court which carries with it " inaction and stagnation," which, moreover, binds them to an agreement to pay a rent for fifteen years, that, long before that term expires, may have become exorbitant and will have become so if things proceed as they promise. Yet, because the Irish ' people are not fully content with this net and engaged in cheering it to the echo, their ingratitude is shouted through the world, and they axe denounced as a nation of would-be plunderers I In the November number of the Nineteenth Century A FORCIBLE the Poet Laureate gives us an illustration of the illustration, spirit of the age that should act as a check on some of those would-be philosophers who are now so busily engaged in an attempt to gain followers, and on the wreck of of Christian creeds build up tabernacles of their own. Under the beading " Despair," then, Mr. Tennyson writes a monologue supposed to be spoken by a man rescued from the commission of suicide, and who tells us of himself and his wife— " We had read their know-nothing books, and we leaned to the darker side." Heaven had no hope for them, and earth nothing but misery. One son had committed a crime — if such a thing as crime there be, — and fled, almost breaking his mother's heart. Another son was dead, and a baby girl was also dead, the happiest of all— " For she past from the night to the night." There was no reason that they should bear the torture of life, and crazed by what the speaker aptly calls the " horrible infidel writings of the new dark ages of the popular press" — " When the bat comes out of his cave, and the owls are whooping at noon"— they made up their minds to drown themselves. The place they chose for this was a point jutting into the sea and within sight of a lighthouse, but the light that had saved many lives only made them think of how little it availed to save people from death when all are wrecked at last. The very stars in heaven appeared to them only as a lie— " And the suns of the limitless universe sparkled and shone in the sky, Flashing with fires as of God, but we knew that their light was a lieBright as with deathless hope — but, however, they sparkled and shone, The dark little worlds running round them were worlds of woe like our own,— No soal in the heaven above, no soul on the earth below A fiery scroll written over with lamentation and woe." But undoubtedly Mr. Tennyson has grasped the situation well. The philosophy of the day may suit the tempers of a few, and seem to furnish them with a reason to live ; but for the masses it can only mean despair, or riot. They will think only to be filled with horror, or they will drive away thought by every means that human nature uncontrolled knows how to call into play for the purpose. And, in either case, suicide will become a natural end. The cosmical suicide is already the culmination appointed by one system of philosophy ; but it will require something more than philosophical schooling to persuade men filled with despair, or hopelessly worn out and sick of life, to delay the end to which alone they look for relief until the whole world are prepared voluntarily to perish in their company. But if, as the correspondent of the Times to whom A HERO not we have already alluded says, there are hereditary all hatreds in Ireland, they have undoubtedly been HEROIC, bequeathed from times when very hateful deeds were performed there. And some of those who performed them were, moreover, men who have been enshrined in history as heroes of the brightest honour, and whose fame goes far to make up the crown of glory worn by their country England. Such a man, for example, was Sir Walter Raleigh, concerning whose career in Ireland we find a few notable particulars from the pen of Sir John Pope Hennessy in the Nineteenth Century for November. The writer, then, for instance, quotes a passage from Mr. Froude relative to the surrender of Smerwick Castle on Nov. 19, 1580. " A certain number of the original party (it runs) had fallen sick and had been sent back to Spain. With the exception of these and of the officers, the entire painty was slaughtered. A few women, some of them pregnant, were ha Ked. A servant of Saunders, an Irish gentleman, and a priest we*r hanged also. The bodies, six hundred in all, were stripped and laid out upon the sands, ' as gallant goodly personages,' said Grey, 'as ever were beheld.' " The writer goes on to quote Hooker's Supplement to the Chronicles of Holirished to show who were the authors of this slaughter ; the quotation runs thus : " When the captain had yielded himself and the fort appointed to be surrendered, Captain Ralegh, together with Captain Macworth, who had the ward of that day, entered into the castle and made a great slaughter, many or most part, of them being put to the sword." But that the valiant English captains had it so much their own way in Ireland is to be

explained by the superiority of their arms. In a work of Raleigh's published after his death the following passage is to be found :— " I myself remember that, within these thirty years, two of her Majesty's ships would have commanded 100 sail of the Spaniards. I remember also, when I was a captain in Ireland, 100 foot and 100 horse would have beaten all the forces of the strongest province. But of late I have known an Easterling fight hand to hand with one of her Majesty's ships, and the Irish in their last war have been victorious with an equal or even with an inferior force. And what is the reason 7 The Netherlands in those days had wooden guns and the Irish bad darts ; but the one is now furnished with as great a number of English ordnance as ourselves, and the other with as good pikes and muskets as England hath." Raleigh, however, was not only skilled to fight and massacre ; assassination and deceit were also among his methods of warfare. Lord and Lady Roche were taken prisoners bj him after he had entered their castle under the pretence of friendship and while he was being entertained as an honoured guest. Poisoning, or assassination otherwise, was approved of by him, and there is a letter extant in which he defends the practice alluded to — declaring that he regrets more its failure in a certain instance than that he was accused of it. An associate of his also was captain Piers who persuaded the chief of the Hebridean Scots to murder John O'Neil and his companions treacherously, when they had gone without suspicion to his camp. But it is not to be supposed that Raleigh's massacres and murders were performed merely in the disinterested service of the Queen, whom also he flattered from no disinterested motives. He laid claim to and obtained an estate of twelve thousand acres ia Munster. They were thickly wooded with magnificent oak and yew trees, and these he converted into pipe-staves, which being exported to the Continent were made into wine vessels, and served this purpose for some years. "In a few years not a tree was left, and the demesne that was described as * the woody Kilcolman,' became a few naked fields surrounding the bare and burnt walls of the castle." What Raleigh here accomplished was done elsewhere by others. But Raleigh's reward shows the nature of his service. " The reign of Queen Elizabeth was not a short one. From the time when the Lord Deputy. Sussex arranged with her for the assassination of John O'Neil down to her last interview with Raleigh was a period of forty years. During that time the only servants she rewarded for work in Ireland were the Mahometan-conquest ones. It was not victory she rewarded so much as severity and the effort to exterminate. . • . Ormond (continues the writer), it might be thought, was as unrelenting and thorough as Mr. Froude could wish, but he was not quite prepared. . . to get the Irish to come in from the mountains of Duhallow under pledges of protection for their lives, and then, seizing them unprepared, to hang them up, as Ralegh did, from the Northgate bridge to the Red Abbey of Cork." The last advice given by Raleigh to the Queen was with respect to Cormac MacDermod, Lord of Muskerry, whose people had been slain and his country spoiled, and to whom Cecil thought some mercy might be shown." ' Whereupon Sir Walter very earnestly moved her Highness to reject Cormac MacDermod.' He gave her the old and sufficient reason, ' because his country was worth her keeping.' The Queen, he added, was 'so wrought upon by Ralegh's advice as to give special charge about the next despatches to Munster : no pardon should be given to Cormac MacDermed.' " Hooker in his Supplement to Holinahed sums up the result of Raleigh's Irish career, when in dedicating the work to him as the ' right worthie and honourable gentleman and knight, a partie and dooer, a painful and a faithful servitor,' in those transactions he speaks as follows :—": — " The common people such as escaped the sword all for the most part are perished with famine or fled the countrie. The land itself from beinge verie fertile, is waxed barren, yeelding nor come nor fruits — the pastures without cattle ; nothing there to be seen but miserie and desolation." Truly hereditary hatreds, where they exist in Ireland, have descended from a full source ; but when shall we see their renewal avoided by the accordance of a sufficient measure of justice to the Irish people. Will it be so in our times ?

Last week we quoted from the arguments of Mr, A PLEA FOE Goschen and the Times in favour of Free Trade ; thii fair trade, week we desire to lay before our readers some

particulars of the argument in favour of protection. — We take them from the article in the Quarterly Review from which we have already taken the statements quoted by us lelative to the condition of British trade. The writer, then, denies the favourite dogma that an excess of imports is a mark of wealth, or that commodities bought of another nation must always be paid for with commodities of our own. Adam Smith, he says, explains the matter thus :—": — " When one ot them (i.e. of two nations) imports from the other to a greater value than it exports t» that other, the former necessarily becomes indebted to the latter in a greater sum than the latter becomes indebted to it ; the debts and credits of each do not compensate one another, and money must be sent out from that place of which the debts overbalance the credits." Facts, moreover, prove that the United States do not take our goods in payment, but

are paid in securities, and even in gold. — During the last three years out of four the exports of gold from England were greater than the import!. The late Mr. Walter Bagehot, again, -wrote as follows :—

" The ordinary foreign trade of a country requires no cash ; the

exports on the one side balance the imports on the other. But a 1 Hidden trade of import — like the import of foreign corn after a bad » -arvest — or (what is much less common, though there are cases of it) the cessation of any great export, causes a balance to become due, nhich vtvst be paid in cask." This explains the situation in England, where large importations of grain, to compensate for the deficient supply are paid for partly in gold, partly in the interest of investments, partly in Stock Exchange securities. While the Times was denying that American imports were paid for in gold its own Philadelphia correspondent wrote that there had been an increase of 105,000,000d015. in favour of the United States over tho previous year's trade balances, of which about 90,000,000d015. had been paid in gold. And, again, the newspaper in question was obliged to state that although the United States are a gold producing country, " without reckoning the amount it is now beginning to draw from Europe, it has absorbed into its currency at least £55,000,000 in less than three years." Adam Bmith disposes of the theory that excess of

imports is a proofjof wealth and shows that retaliatory duties may be

good policy when " some foreign nation restrains by high duties or prohibitions the importation of some of our manufactures into their country." John Stuart Mill declares that the " only mode in which a country can Bare itself from being a loser by the revenue duties imposed by other countries on its commodities is to impose corresponding revenue duties on theirs." Even Mr. Goldwin Smith justifies the adoption of the Canadian Tariff with a view to coerce the Americans to lower their duties. "If the pressure were likely to be effectual (he Bays), why should it not be applied ? An immediate sacrifice would no doubt be made in refusing to buy cheap American goods, but it would be made in anticipation of a greater gain, and a doctrine of Free Trade which should forbid such an exercise of foresight would surely be Free Trade gone mad. Political economy is a matter of expediency ; it is not like morality, which forbids us to do evil that good may come." The "enormous growth of English shipping," again, has been

advanced in favour of Free Trade. Mr. John Morley, however,

in aa address to the Trades' Union Congress at Bristol, showed that multiplying the number of vessels owned by us did not necessarily

imply the growth of a sound and lucrative trade. He stated that " one of the ablest and best informed shipowners in Liverpool " wrote to him saying, " The fact is that we British have not only beaten the

foreigner out of the carrying trade of the world, but have cut our

own throats into the bargain," and he fully accepted the statement. He was, moreover, confirmed by the Economist, which said that sales

of our goods had been forced " probably at a considerable sacrifice," and that •' owing to the extremely low rates of freight, our shipping has derived little if any advantage from the carrying trade. Mr. Morley again says that the economic proposition, that the interests

of civilisation are best promoted by the supply of his goods to the

consumer at the lowaat possible rate, is not really tenable, and nobody acts as if it were. Mr. Gladstone questions the prosperity of

the United States, and says they have not " gone forth and possessed the world." He does not, however, explain that the energies and resources of the people of the United States have found full scope in developing their own country — in opening up rivers, making roads, and building towns. They are, nevertheless, begianing now to go

fortb, and are already met by us at every turn, and wo shall continue to meet them bo long as the two nations are destined to endure. " Because the United States, with all their land to open up and cultivate, a frightful war of four years' duration on their hands, and a gigaatic paper currency to redeem have not made so much absolute progress in their foreign commerce as England has done, Mr. Gladstone asks them and us to consider their oommercial system a failure." During the last thirteen years, again, the American people have reduced their debt by the sum of £111,517,000, besides lightening domestic taxation and resuming specie payment, and all by means of

their " baneful policy " of Protection. But as to the relative smallnew of their dapping, " it ought not to be necessary to remind the Mincer, who paid £3,229,166 13s. 4d. as damages for destruction committed by the Alabama, that other causes may have affected that branch of trade besides Protection. Mr. Gladstone is probably the only man in England who baa forgotten the ' Alabama claims,' and why they were made." Wb feel the utmost commiseration for our conA HBN OX A HOT temporary the Otago Daily limes when we CURDLE. find him obliged to publish paragraphs like the following. Since the time when king Balac patronised a vexatious prophet who would persist in blessing instead of cursing his enemies, never was any one in such a quandary as our ultra-loyal editor. If there be any thing worse than gall and wormwood, it must positively be bubbling up in his interior and girtug bin tome kind of a mental cholic ; nothing, we should

think, could possibly hare a more mortifying effect upon him, unleiti, indeed, by some extraordinary reversal of fortune, he should heivr his guardian chimes Bow-bells themselves begin to ring, in nil hilarity, St. Patrick's day or Garryowen. But here is the paragraph as we clip it from " Jacob Terry's " San Francisco correspondence, and it ii enough to warm the cockles of any unregenerate Irish heart. — Is the yellow flag really not displayed from the summit of the Daily Tlmei office ? " The Irish National Convention at Chicago was an important gathering, because it was eminently representative of the great masa of Irish-Americans who, in this country, are a very powerful political factor. It lasted two days, and adopted rasolutions justify* ing Irish rebellion and an address to the American people. 35,000 dols. odd was also subscribed, and funds are pouring in to the Treasury for tha Irish people in their anti-British war. As this ques tion affects all parts of the British dominions, and as the duration of the struggle in Ireland exactly depends upon the support the Irish at Home receive from the Irish in America, the real heart of tho movement is to be sought for in this country. When you come to think that this great country is the successful political expression of armed resistance to English misgovernment (not a feather-weight in the scale when weighed againt Irish grievances), you will understand that this appeal and the principles enunciated in the resolutions commend themselves to the sympathies of all American citizens. Herein lie their strength and significance. They are equivalent to 10 batallions of British troops in Ireland for the moral and material aid they are certain to give the Irish National party. The United States Government will b« asked to interpose on behalf of the " Buspects," and obtain the liberation of all who may be American citizens. In the House of Representatives last week, Congressman. Robeson, former Secretary of the .Navy, rose to a question of privilege, claiming that an officer of the Government (Secretary Blame), by order of the President, had usurped the functions of Congress by ordering a salute to the English flag at the Torktown ceremonial. Although Speaker Keifer headed him off at the time, he has given notice of motion, and will bring on a debate. His resolution recites that it was an insult to the nation to salute the British flag at a time when the English Government were dragging members of the British Parliament and worthy, innocent persons to prison (some of them American citizens) for exercising th: right of free speech ; that the Yorktown centenary of Cornwallis' surrender was a protest against the tyranny of the English Government at boms and abroad ; and that the British flag should never be raised in this country. An exciting debate may ensue, because Americans are becoming thoroughly disgusted and aroused at the recital of current events in Ireland, from the pen of Henry George — a man incapable of falsehood, and too conscientious to exaggerate in any particular. Tht reign of brute force in Ireland is a cause of estrangement in this country. The Land Leagures know this, and make the most of it."