Current Topics.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVIII, Issue 24, 8 October 1886, Page 1

Current Topics.

AT HOME AND ABROAD.

The disposition of the loyalists of Ireland, the supporters par excellrnce of law and order, is well shown in the following extract from the Dublin Express, "The Tipperary boys " spoken of, we need hardly say, are the police. " What are the Queen's Ministers going to do with regard to the ' Tipperary boys ' who have been shooting in Belfast f . . . No doubt they have been badly beaten by the unarmed lads of the Btreets of Belfast. That, however, was more 01 less an accident. Had the cowardly constabulary been backed up a few days earlier by the military they would have done the trick. They could have gone South boasting that they had crushed the Orangemen of the North. It would not have been true, but there would have been sufficient truth in it to justify in an elastic Celtic mind the proud boast ; but now no human being can doubt that an apprentice boy of Belfast showed more courage than a dozen of the cowardly peelers vrho shot women and children in Shankhill-road. . The constabulary are not only a defeated but a disgraced body so far as Ulster is concerned.' 1 They were the finest body of men in the world, nevertheless, according to our loyalists when they were shooting little boys and bayonetting young girls in Connaught. — But that was done in the loyal cause, and as usual the end justifies the means.

AN UNPLEASANT DOUBT.

The Times in concluding an article on the relative strengths of the English and foreign navies as calculated from a Parliamentary return, Bpeaks in a manner that, ia view of the possibility of war, is hardly reassuring :—": — " It is very difficult " it says," to discover from the figures of this return whether the fighting navy of thiß country ia in a condition which ought to satisfy the public, or which is capable of meeting all probable requirements in time of war. The difficulty is enhanced by the differences of opinion which prevail, even among those who must be described as competent authorities, which regard to the value of the broadside ships, and to toe duties which they could be fairly expected to discharge. It seems certain that England would be far more than a match for any single adversary ; and events which led to a coalition against her would be hardly likely to le»ve her without powerful allies. On the other hand, it may be doubted whether her preponderance over even a single adversary is sufficient when considered iv relation to the vast extent and enormouß coast line of the Empire, to the dependence of this country upon sea-borne supplies of food, and to the magnitude of the maritime commerce which it might become necessary to guard."

A THREATENf ING SITUATION.

STEPNIAK, the well-known writer on Russian affairs, has recently published a book in which he explains why the Government of the Czar threatens disturbance to the world. Discontent, he says, prevails throughout the empire, both noble and peasant having been ruined by the emancipation of the latter and made by its means the dependents of the money lenders. In the army also there is discontent and under a most dangerous form since it exists among the officers, who are unquestioningly obeyed by the soldiers. Many of these officers have of late years been sentenced to death as Nihilists, or to imprisonment, or banishment to Siberia. To divert the anger that exists and turn it into less dangerous channels the Government U under the necessity of placing before the nation the prospect of conquests in other places. Again, the traders of the towns including the money lenders are the only class who have benefitted by the emancipation of the serfs, and the Government to recompense them for the support it has received from them ap well as in hopes of replenishing the exhausted exchequer by their aid has established tariffs which are prohibitive. Russian manufactures, nevertheless, are not successful and even within the empire cannot compete with the product of certain German factories established, so as to evade the protective duties, across the frontier of Poland. To create markets, therefore, for thess inferior manufactures is a crying need and the only way in which it can be satisfied is by the annexation of Eastern territories. Russia, says Stephiak, is " rather pushed from behind than rushing headlong after some long«determined purpose. 1 '

COWARDLY PEELERS.

SECULAR MORALITY.

Nowhere more than ia New England can we Jbe furnished with evidence as to what secularism can perform when grafted on a Puritanical system, and we are especially interested in this matter in New Zealand generally and in Otago particularly whose antecedents are in a greater or less degree similar to those of New England. A writer in the New York Sun tells us, then, that bribery in elections is the rule without disguise, and he gives as a case in point the election for the mayoralty lately held in the city of Camden. At this election, he says, as much as 18 dols. was given for a vote, and negro electors were entertained all day with rum, tobacco, and the music of a fiddler, until they were marched to the polling booth at six dollars a head. A voter for sale is known in the slang of Camden as a " floater," and there is no cloak necessary in dealing with kirn, the bargain to be made is commonplace and openly acknowledged. But such is the state of society in a community that has passed like our own by an easy transition from the extreme of Puritanism to undiluted godlessness.

A VAIN UNDERTAKING.

It seems that while England is engaged in the fortification of Herat and a line of defences by which she hopes to make her Indian frontier impregnable, folk in Persia are quietly laughing at her as throwing time and money away in literally building up false hopes. Russia, they say, is prepared to make use of quite another route if the occasion arises, and is actually busy constructing a road from Askabad to Meshed for that purpose. Are we destined in our day to see history once more repeat itself, and a line of British fortresses prove as ineffectual as did of old the great wall of China or that erected in Great Britain by the Emperor Hadrian ?

NEW SCHOOLS

While Ireland has been engaged in her political struggle and the |minds of the people are much occupied in that, it is enconraging to see that her educational interests have not been neglected but that her bishops and priests especially have been ardently pursuing them. The report of the commissioners of national education recently published tells us that in the county Galway, for example, thirty-three school-houses capable of accommodating 3,300 children were built in 1884, in Mayo the number built in the same year being thirty-five with accommodation for 3,500 children. All these Bchool, we may add, are under the management of the parish priests who had interested themselveß in bringing about their erection. It is evident, then, that the Irish Catholic clergy are vigilantly watching over the educational wants of their people.

AN IMPERFECT ILLUSTRATION.

Another illustration of the Anglo-Saxon metkod, of dealing with native tribes which we hare lately heard set off against French methods, is supplied by the following paragraph :— The New York Tribune calls attention to the serious difficulties which are arising in consequence of the high-handed treatment of the Leech Lake Indians by Congress. Several years ago Congress authorized the construction of the Leech Lake and Winnebagoßh reservoir dams, making no provision for compensating the Indians whose lands would be destroyed by the resulting overflow. Attorney- General Deven a stigmatised this step as unlawful and unconstitutional. Efforts have been made to obtain compensation for the distressed Indiansi but the paltry sum which has been offered has been indignantly rejected. Although the Commission has recently reported that 26,000d015. a year should be paid as compensation for the injury done and 10,OOOdols. for destruction of personal property, nothing whatever has been done. It is now reported that the Leech Lake Indians are, through semi-starvation, becoming dangerous, and that they have begun te retaliate by burning the forests of Minnesota, They cannot catch fish as formerly, and the lands which once supplied them with rice are all under water. The people of Minneapolis and St. Paul are beginning to ask what would be the consequences to those cities of the cutting of the dams. Pressure is at length to be brought to bear on Congress. ' But for the agitation undertaken by the Minnegotans, however, there is no reason to believe that the Interior Department,' saya the Tribune, 'would ever have succeeded in getting any compensation for the Chippenwas, and thia is so palpable that it adds to the disgrace of the whole humiliating episode.' " The Anglq.gaxon method employed in thiß instance was,however nos

quite perfect. For that, when the Indians had been provoked by injustice to the cotnoiissiou of outrages a war of extermination Bhould have been under! aken against them. A weak point thus distinguishes the modern American from the time-honoured British mode of action.

STILL THE VICTIM.

The following details, given to us by a contemporary, show us the evils that may follow from a false and unfair association. That the Catholic Church should be involved in the emnity provoked by the un -Christian French Kepublic seems as strange and out of place, as does the Betting up as a ruler in these lands made holy by the blood of martyrs of M. Paul Bert. But the C.itholic Church continues the same, and as in many instances she received of old the vengeance due to the deeds of her enemies— so she must bear it to-day :— The ' Annales des Missions Catholiques ' have just been published, and the orgau of the great French missionary society fully confirms the sad intelligence published during the past year of the great massacres occurring in',the kingdoms of Annam and Cochin China. The report scutes thirteen missionary priests, twelve native priests, sixty catechists, 300 native nuns, and 30,000 Christians were massacred ; one large mission embracing 200 establishments, 250 churches and chapels, two seminaries, forty schools, seventy missionary residences, seventeen Orphanages, thirteen homes of religious communities, one printing establishment, aud the homes of 55,000 Christians were sacked and burned. But while such is the tale of martyrdom, there is the consoling intelligence of still unabated hope and confidence. During the year baptism was administered to 19,710 pagans, and 180,966 pagan infants in danger of death."

THE COST OF SECULARISM.

The French people are beginning to find out what the destruction of the Catholic schools means to their purses, and this should have a very wholesome effect upon a nation noted for their frugality. la other ways besides they hare bad an opportunity of estimating the value of godles3nesß,and before loug we may see them take courage and pronounce decidedly against it. The excessive cost of the secular system as well as its demoralising tendency is, moreover, a feature common to it in every part of the world. The following is the substance of a report recently read before the Society of Education in the Department of the Nord :— "The expenditure is divided into two heads : 1. Construction, repairs, and enlargement of schools ; 2. Salaries. Under the first head it was, up to 1885, not above a million of francs (£40,000). In 1877 it stood at nearly two millions and a quarter ; in 1879, after the new Act had been passed, it rose to 5,365,937 francs. Then it fell to a little below two millions, and increased again until, in 1883, it had reached the sum of nearly nine millions and three quarters. Since then the successive secularization of schools hag throwu a large number of children into the ' free ' Catholic schools, those at Lille, Roubdix, Douai, Cambrai, and Armentieres having received in 1883 an augmentation of 4,500 children, and in 1884, ot 2,.'j00. In 1877, the departmental director of primary education stated in his report that 36,000 places remained to be provided in the State schools, at an estimated expense, in 1879, of 9,136,810 francs. And by 1883 only 124 new State Schools had been opened, while the expense under this head from 1877 to that year had reached the enormous figure of 20,048,716 francs. Under the second head, salaries, the substitution of lay teachers for members of religious congregations has of course produc d a uotable increase in the bill ior education. The establishment of gratuitous education m 1881 put an end to all receipts from school fees, and between 1880 and 1884 the annual increase in the number of masters and mistresses waß doubled. Each substitution of a lay teacher for a Religious cost 3,400 francs, and the general ' laicisation ' of all the schools of the department would burden the communes with an additional sum of 2,927,400 francs annually on account of salaries alone."

PBIVILECrED.

The morality of a Parliamentary election may probably be looked upon as occupying tbe same level as that attending oq the sale of a horse. We know that no man engaged in the latter undertaking is considered guilty of telling a lie, no matter what he may say, and that any little stratagem he may resort to is allowed as lawful. Indeed, we have had personal knowledge of a case in which a man passed for a fool because, and because only, having a horse occasionally to sell, he plainly told intending purchasers all he knew about the beast, extenuating nothing. It is to be hoped that there is no question as lo the right of Parliamentary candidates, their friends and supporters, or their opponents, to say whatever may come into their heads or they may think opportune at the moment. It is an undoubted fact, in any case, that the contest at present raging for the representation of Dunedin Central is of a more than usually lively character, and, if we are to judge by what we iead in the daily papers, the real issue before the public is not which of the candidates is most fit to be a good and useful Member of Parliament, but which of

them is least qualified to wear the halter of Jack Ketch. Nevertheless, as we said, the matter is a privileged one, and there ia nothing, therefore, to prevent whichever of these gentlemen is elected from proving himself an ordinarily respectable member of the Legislature — no difficult task, perhaps — or to disqualify his friends and supporters, or opponents, or all three of them, for continuing to fulfil the duties of citizens, husbands, and fathers, without any particul&r danger to the community at large. Great are the blessings of privilege.

RESULTS IN TIEKE.

The Glasgow correspondent of the Dublin Freeman writes as follows :— The crofter rebellion in Tiree, as some sarcastic persons teim it, has come to an end in the meantime. The termination affords no signs of bravery or a desire for land wars once the military put in an appearance. Such, at least, will, I think, be the opinion of the Irish people, whom the presence of thousands of military and wholesale imprisonment could not deterjfrom dealing heavy blows on landlordism. But the contrast between the Irish and Scotch land wars ia not encouraging to land reformers in this country, and it may well be dropped. It will be remembered that the Tiree affair arose from the alleged determination of the crofters to hold Greenhill farm as a common pasturage. With boldness and valour they showed that they considered U-reenbill was their common property ; and with courage and determination they turned back the police who at first bore to the islanders summonses interdicting them from the use of the disputed farm. But there their resources were exhausted. Some talk was heard of ' passive resistance ;' nothing, however, came of it, and after a simple march through Tiree the military had merely to call at their houses and secure the ' wanted.'

A DEFIANCE.

ACCOBDINO to all accounts Lord Salisbury has departed from his policy of Manacles and Manitoba, As to what has occasioned this sadden change we have as yet do information, but such passages as the following taken from an article in which the Nation commented on his speech at the Mansion House are very suggestive :— " Hia lordship," it sayg, " does not put it into these words, but there can be no mistaking the meaning of the following declaration' ' The first duty of every Government is to devote their whole energies to freeing the loyal people of that country from the constraint which is exercised upon them. 1 The landlords and the Orangemen are of course, in the opinion of the Tories, the only loyal people in this country. The constraint exercised upon the one is the constraint which prevents them from plundering and evicting the agricultural population. The constraint exercised upon the other is the constraint which prevents them from murdering their Catholic fellow-countrymen. If Lord Salisbury's ' first duty ' be fulfilled, the constraint on both one and the other will be removed. Lordlordism will diive the Papist hordes from the hills and villages ; Orangeism will see that they find no refuge in the town 3. A Tory Cabinet will provide them with transport ships, and the money which would under the design of the Liberals have gone to extirpate landlordism will now be better employed in restoring it. Inen we will have in Ireland ' a perfectly concordant and homogeneous people.' It is a vision that has ere now danced before the eyes of the Saturday Itevieiver who is at present at the head of her Majesty's Government. But it is a vision that that will never be roalisod. We defeated ruffianly exterminators like these before, and we are in a better position than ever to defeat them now. After ail, Lord Salisbury's mandate is not as unequivocal as he would make us believe that he thinks. Neither is the declaration of tbe nation irrevocable. Without belying their character as a democracy the English people may find means of getting rid of such governors as the present. Many thousands voted against Mr. Gladstone's measures who were in thorough accord with his principles. A still greater number refused to vote against the former lest they might violate the latter. To these men the ultimate appeal will lie. One service Lord Salisbury will do the Home Rule cause — he will make the naked brutality involved in the rejection of Mr. Gladstone's measure manifest, and when that ia accomplished the British democracy will not only revoke Lord Salisbury's mandate, but will shrink in horror from the man who would lead them in the hour of their new-found freedom to imitate the bloody example of the oligarchs of whom the Tory party is the wretched remnant."

A. VEBACIOUS TALE.

Here is a bug-a-boo story told by a correspondent of the London Times — a story to make the flesh creep at the inherent wickedness, the " double dose of original sin," that characterises Irish Papists. It ceems then that there is somewhere or another in Ireland, verily we know not where— a very Popish town named X — and near it there is a very Protestant town called A, and lately a Christian Society of A made up their minds to give a picnic in a few days at X, which is situated near the sea. But the Popish priest of X, meantime, beard that the Christians from A were coming, and bo

next Sunday at Mass says he—" Boys, " says he, 1 ' the Orangemen are coming on Friday ; there will be plenty of sticking-plaister wanted." Now these boys were of the light kind to make work for the slickingplaister. for the most of them were navvies from Galway, and other Romish districts in the West, and so we may guess what was in store for the Christians. The navvies, therefore, were warned to leave off woiving on the morning of the Christian picnic, under penalty of being killed if they would not, and othar Popish men were brought in from the neighbouring mountains, and a mighty pleasant welcome was made ready for the picnic party. As luck would have it, however, a few Protestant policemen got word of what was going to happen, and off they went post-haste with one or two others, and prevented the navvies from massacring the Christians befoie their arrival, and shipped them back to their work by train. The Popish priest of X also waß caught in the nick of time, as he was leaving home,— "on important business" says he, — and byathreatof exposure ) made Btop at home to stop the right. And so all is well that ends well — particularly if it blackens the character of Irish Catholics, But this is the kind of stuff published by anti-Irish papers on anonymous authority, and bearing every token of malevolent inveo. tion to iDJure the Irish cause. Names, dates, and everything else in the shape of proof, are scrupulously omitted. But it serves its purpose, and that is all they want.

A CRAZE CONDEMNED.

The President of the British Medical Association speaking the other day at the 54th annual meeting of the Society, pronounced very decidedly against the craze of the period relating to women. He answered etrongly in the negative this question. "Is it for the good of the human race, considered as progressive, that women should be trained and admitted to compete with men in the ways and walks of life, from which heretofore (as unsuited to their sex) they have been excluded by feeling and usage, and largely, indeed, by actual legislation ?"— " I think that it it not for the good of the human race," he said in reply, " considered as progressive, that women should be freed from the restraints which law and custom have imposed upon them, and should receive an education intended to prepare them for the exercise of brain-power in competition with men. And 1 think this because I am persuaded that neither the preliminary training for such competitive work, nor the subsequent prectice of it in the actual strife and struggle for existence, can f <iil to have upon women the effect of more or less (and rather more than less) indisposing them towards and incapacitating them for their own proptr function — for performing the part, I mean — which (as the issue of the original differentiation of the sexes) nature has assigned to them in the maintenance and progressive improvement of the human race. 1 ' —The President then went on to quote a long list of weighty authorities in support of his views, concluding as follows :— " Excessive work, especially in youth, is ruinous to health, both in mind and body ; excessive brain work more surely so than any other. From the eagerness of woman's nature, competitive brain work among gifted girls can hardly but be excessive, especially if the competition be against the superior brain weight and brain strength of man. The resulting ruin can be averted— if it be averted at all— only by drawing bo largely upon the woman's whole capital stock of vital force and energy as to leave a remainder quite inadequate for maternity. The Laureate's " sweet girl graduate in her golden bair " will not have in her the fulfilment of his later aspiration — ' May we see, as ages run. The mother featured in the son.' The human race will have lost those who should have been her sous. Bacon, for want of a mother, will not be born. She who should have been his mother will perhaps be a very distinguished collegian. That one truism says it all — women are made and meant to be, not men, but mothers of men. A noble mother, a noble wife — arc not these the designations in which we find the highest ideal of noble womanhood? Woman was formed to be man's helpmate, not his rival ; heart, not head ; sustainer, not leader. Many times, indeed, woman's fate has set her in the foremost place ; in some of those times no doubt, such place nasbeen well and grandly filled by her. Yet, even then, our admiration is not untinged with compassion."

THE CHURCH AND EDUCATION.

Another instance of the anxiety of the Catholic Church to spread education abroad in every quarter of the world, has lately been brought under the notice of Europe by certain letters written from Haybi to a Frpnch newspaper by M. de Molinari. M. de Molinari will be remembered sowewhat unfavourably by Irishmen as the Parisian journalist who some years ago was brought over in the Landlord interest to Ireland, whence he wrote such letters as under the circumstances might have been expected, and made great fun for himself and his readers about the whiskey drinking proclivities of the peasantry. The writer, however, gives a striking picture of the work of education carried on by the teaching orders of both sexes among the more than semi -barbarous Negroes of Hayti, and, in particular, mentions with much interest the progress that classical studies are

A TRYING TASK.

We want to know, however, what kind of reporter he is. for, says he, " It i 9 not a very acceptable task to describe a lady." — Has our reporter a morsel of taste 1 has our reporter a heart* or bears he, instead, a gizzard in his breast 1 Sure such a theme should awaken all his enthusiasm, and in such a description he should positively revel. Our repoiter, however, for the public good, struggles with his repugnance, and does all that is polite, and something that is picturesque, and brings Miss Campbell before us as she appears in her effort to emancipate mankind, and, above all, her fellow-woman. Miss Campbell, nevertheless, is an enemy to the men of the future, and, according to the President of the British Medical Association? would have the possibility of coming Bacons frustrated in the struggle of the mothers, diverted from their right use, with usurping man. Miss Campbell, also — like our uagallant reporter, though with a trifle of difference perhaps, — appaiently finds woman an unpleasing subject, and, even as she passes by in the streets of our New Zealand cities, observes that she is the " servile follower of fashion and c uatom." — But, " thoughts is free " says Mrs Tickit — and who, if he could, would enchain the lady's mind? We would gladly learn, meantime, how emancipated woman is to conduct herself in the highways, so as to assert her freedom. What manner of gait, or what mode of costume is to distinguish her 1 or how shall we perceive at first sight that man has lost his mastery? Will the reporter of the future have a more agreeable task than that of our friend of the Evening Herald.

SENSIBLE BEMARKS.

The speeches made recently in Sydney by the Chief Justice, the Premier, and other prominent colonistß, respecting the New Hebrides, and which have excited so much comment, are chiefly remarkable as showing how completely the mind of eminent men in New South Wales differs from that so warmly expressed by eminent Victorians. There is nothing to surprise us in the fact that men of intelligence and education should profess themselves pleased at the prospect of having a French settlement in their neighbourhood. — Nor is it only true, as Sir James Martin recalled, that France has done as much as even England herself to open up waste and bar. barous regions, but she has been a chief source of culture and civilisation to England, to all Europe, and to the world generally. — There is one reasonable objection alone that can be urged, and the French Government have of their own accord offered to remove that beyond all possibility of doubt. That ia that the islands bhould be made a place of expatnation for the irreclaimable criminals. Under all other aspects, there is nothing in the French proposal that any man of intelligence can justly fiud fault with. Great Britain haa no right to a monopoly of the Pacific, and, if it had, the monopoly would be of very questionable benefit. English civilisation may be very good in its way, but it is far from perfect, and French civilisation has many qualities eminently capable of improving it. Friendly intercourse, and a wholesome emulation between different nations, are also most beneficial in their effects, and the British colonists of Australasia may consider themselves fortunate if they have the opportunity for such intercourse brought within their easy reach. It is to be hoped, then, that, following the example of these prominent citizens of Sydney, colonists will generally repudiate the Victorian craze — which also finds its wildest manifestation in the ravings of Sir Graham Berry, referred to contemptuously by some of the speakers in question.

LATITUDE.

Some fuss has been going on in one or more of our daily contemporaries concerning the change of creed made by a Presbyterian minister who has embraced the tenets of a sect calling themselves the Church of Christ and been baptised by immersion. Curiosity, induced by the corres« pondenee alluded to, led us to read the report of the address in which the rev. convert explained the step taken by him, but without our gaining any information that we had not before possessed. We merely found the state o£ confusion to be expected from the grope? in the dark who makes his painful and undiscerning progress from one dark corner to the other. We did not in the least require to b e told, moreover, that no " Papist" who received a particular tene received by this convert could possibly remain a " Papist." That is vident beyond all power of controversy, and it ie well for any given " Papist," that he has no temptation whatever to receive anything bo oolish. What, however, we hare received by our consideration of

making in their schools. Music also is a subject that in a high degree engages the attention of their pupils. But while such testimony as this is borne to the work done in secret almost — for Hayti is far removed from civilised thoroughfares, by the religious sons and daughters of the Churcb, we may well afford to despise the common tongue of calumny that, either in ignorance or malevolence, accredits her with encouraging and desiring to encourage ignorance alone.

A reporter of our contemporary the Evening Herald has been favoured by an interview with Miss Campbell, a lady now lecturing in Dunedin.—

this matter is the renewed assurance of the eupreme folly of private interpretation and the unsettled, if not voluntarily insincere condition in which it must place all who practise it. Private interpretation, besides, is now extending beyond the meaning of Holy Writ and claiming to possess the right of determining what even its letter must be. We find, for example, a writer who defends the Reformation in one of the reviews for August, arguing his point on the assumption that the Gospels as we now possess them contain in their verses many words and many sentences that did not come from the original writers. And, indeed, the revisers of the Bible had already suggested to us that the point had at length been reached at which, on Protestant principles, men must not only interpret but compose the sacred text for themselves. But what a latitude is thus gained can easily be seen.

AN ABBDBD MEETING.

The wickedness of duelling is long acknowledged ; its absurdity is also occasionally evident. General Boulanger, for example, meets the Baron de Lareinty. The Baron fires and misses his man, and bis second inquires why the General has fired in the air. But, explains BoulaDger, not for the world would I treat a man of Lareinty's bravery in Buch a manner. He should have had all the lead it was in my power to oblige him with. Unfortunately my piatol missed fire. — And then the principals shake hands, each declaring that all the time he had known the other to be the best fellow, the least deserving to be shot, and the most honourable man in all the world, whose loss to his country would be irreparable. Let us remaik, however, in passing that some confusion must have prevailed on the part of those who thought Boulanger had fired in the air while hit pistol had failed to go off. It may have been absence of mind that affected them, and was certainly not fear. A rumour went abroad, meantime, that Lareinty who, notwithstanding his acceptance of a challenge, is reputed to be an excellent Catholici had brought a priest in his carriage prepared to give him absolution in case of mortal results. This, however, turns out to be untrue. No priest under such circumstances could attend, and in all probability the Baron de Lareinty had already learned that lesson taught, for example, of yore by a certain black cherub, who boasted himself a logician, to one Montefeltro in his extremity and all too late to be of any use to him — " Nor can one both repent and will at once, Because of the contradiction which consents not."

▲ SERIOUS QUESTION.

A chief use of the Indian and Colonial Exhibition now being held in London is said to be the striking and conclusive manner in which it brings before the eyes of all who visit it the greatness and selfsufficiency of the British Empire. This is seen at once to embrace all regions of the earth, and to yield produce that iB universal, and the bearing of the matter on Imperial Federation is considered highly important.—" With regard to commercial union," said Sir Alexander Gait at the recent Conference, " while it must be admitted that in an Empire of ;such diversified resources it is impossible to establish perfect free trade, having regard to the fiscal methods by which revenue must be raised, it is surely not too much to expect that the interchange of commodities amongst the different sections of the same nation should be conducted on terms more favourable to each other than to foreigners ; and that while sharing the duties and risk 8 of a common citizenship, we should not, on the one subject of our trade, declare by our action Jtbat we have neither sympathy for nor interest in the success or failure of our own people." — The question, however, arises as to whether in these days of a growing commercial rivalry, the risk of the common citizenship might not be increased beyond the bounds of prudence by a system of inter- Imperial protection — and whether foreign nations — who also, doubtless, have benefited in their particular way from the lesßon taught by the Exhibition, might not be stirred to a dangerous resistance at the tight of so great a portion of the world shut up against their trade.

It is impossible to remain long sick or out of health where American Co.'b Hop Bitters are used. See another A conference of tenant farmers from the different counties of North Wales was held at Rhyl on Tuesday. The conference passed a series of resolutions advocating the establishment of a Land Court in Wales, and also a general reduction of 50 per cent, in the rents of farms. It was stated that 80 landlords had been communicated with and asked for a substantial reducation ; but that only 18 of them had sent replies. The conference unanimously adopted a resolution favouring the adoption of a sliding scale, and at a public meeting afterwards held, under the presidency of Mr. J. Roberts, M.P., a committee was appointed to draw up a schedule embracing the demands of the Welsh farmers, to be sent to the representatives of North Wales in Parliament. Mr. S. Smith, M.P., while admitting that a readjustment of rents had become necessary, counselled moderation, and questioned whether legislation on the lines of the Irish Land' Act would be applicable to Wales. Mr. Bryn Roberts, M.P., advocated the appointment of practical valuers and greater security of the tenure of a tenant against capricious disturbances. — Times Jun« 2«.