NEWS BY THE MAIL.

Globe, Volume I, Issue 68, 19 August 1874, Page 4

NEWS BY THE MAIL.

• [From the Spectator."] The Due de Broglie’s Government has fallen, and great was the fall of it. It was by a majority of sixty-four (381 to 317) that within a year of the much less overwhelming defeat inflicted on M. Thiers, M. ,de Broglie was beaten on a trivial question of form, but one on which all parties agreed to stake the issue as to the existence of the Government. The nominal issue was to the priority of the Municipal or the Parliamentary Electoral Bill, —the Government wishing to take the latter first, —but of course no one cared about the formal {joint. The real issue was whether the Government was to be permitted to go on with its constitutional Bills for the organisation of the feepteunat, and a coalition between the whole of the Left, the Bourbonists, and seventeen of the

eighteen Imperialists declared that they could not be trusted to do so. A member of the Left .Centre, Count Rampon, stated very clearly, after the division, why the Left Centre had voted against the Government. It was because it had always been essentially a “ party Ministry,” and never spoke in the name of the whole Assembly. Nevertheless, said Count Rampon, the Left Centre had no intention of opposing the Marshal President, and the Left would support any moderate Ministry that should be (formed, in the discussion of the Constitutional Laws. Nevertheless it is said that Marshal MacMahon will not hear of a Ministry representing in any sense the party which opposed the Septennat. The resentment or the patriotic disapprobation with which the Marshal regards them is still “laidup in his high mind,” and he will hear of no reconciliation. Consequently, M. de Goulard, who has made every effort, —as yet fruitlessly,—to form a Ministry, had to try and solve this insoluble problem,—Required a Ministry representing a majority of the Assembly, but not containing any representative of either of two minorities which together make a majority. The Legitimists will not hear of the Constitution Laws, and the Marshal will not hear of the Republican Constitutionalists. Of course, under those conditions, the solution turns out an impossible quantity.

The attempts to form anew Ministry, with anything like a majority in the Chamber, on the principles which, as it appears, the Marshal President alone sanctions, have, nevertheless, been many. M. dc Goulard has tried, and the Due Decazes has tried, and the Due D’Audiffret-Pasquier has tried, and one or two members from the Left Centre, especially M. Waddington and M. Bodet, have been negotiated with, but up to last night at least, there had been no success. If anything is to be done without the co-operation of the Left Centre, the Legitimist Right must be conciliated by a promise not to proceed with the constitutional organisation of the Septennat, but there the Moderate Right are obdurate. M. de Broglie’s party insist that the organisation of the Septennat shall proceed, and that, too, appears to be the wish and intention of Marshal MacMahou, On the whole, the puzzle seems to be very like the old childish one as to how you were to take the fox, the goose, and the cabbages over the river, not all in one journey, without ever leaving either fox with the goose or the goose with the cabbages,—except that the wit of children could devise a solution for that puzzle, while the wit of Frenchmen seems quite unequal to this. Dissolution is the only true key of the situation. But then that is dissolution not only for the Assembly, but for the monarchical aspirations of the Right. The Czar, towering in green and gold, as tall as Solomon Lobb, has come and gone again within a week of weary sight-seeing. He has seen Aldershot, the Albert Hall, Windsor Forest, Westminster, the Royal Academy, Woolwich (especially its big hammer), the Corporation of London, the Crystal Palace, and the Thames from Gravesend to the sea. The French papers are anxious to discover that the visit had some political significance and that he has indicated his determination to preserve the peace of Europe,—which means (what a change !) to protect France against Prussian aggression. But the Nord semi-officially denies, and, we do not doubt, truly, that the visit was one, in any sense, of policy. Some who saw him, when he was not in active movement or conversation, were struck by the increasing aspect of sadness which grows upon his countenance, and by the extent to which he has aged with the last ten years. It is to be noted that the Duchess of Edinburgh is placed, in the Court Circular this week, among the ladies of the Royal Family, next after the Princess of Wales, and is described as “Her Royal and Imperial Highness,” and also as, in a parenthesis “ (Grand Duchess of Russia),” Will she precede the Crown Princess of Germany, when that ambitious lady next attends her mother’s Court?

It is not very easy to see what Marshal Concha is at, in what appears to be called his pursuit of the Carlists. He has been marching southwards, after leaving a garrison in Bilbao, has occupied Miranda and La Rioja, which gives him the command of the line to Burgos and Madrid, and also the eastward line skirting Navarre ; and he is said to be threatening Estella, and to have seized Orduna and the passes in Biscay east of Bilbao. But surely he would never have passed the mountains southwards for such a purpose as that, when it might have been in his power, if not to attack the Carlists directly, yet to cut off their lines of supply from France, by placing himself between between the Carlists and the French border, and when ho could have occupied the passes in Biscay from the north, instead of from the south of the mountains ? Can it be that he feared for his own communications with Madrid if he remained north of the the mountain chain ? Or is it possible that Serrano may need his help for the political crises which occur every month or two in the capital ? General Pavia has resigned his command in Madrid, in spite of the pressure put on him to remain, and with Sagasta as Home Secretary, political affairs in Madrid look somewhat reactionary. The latest accounts of the Bengal Famine are grave, and what is worthy of note, the Viceroy’s in tone are gravest. The official telegram published on Tuesday begins, “ More rain much required,” and it is obvious that the authorities in India are rendered exceedingly anxious by the prospect of continued drought, with the consequences of which, if it be again severe, probably no effort which Government could make could adequately cope. According to the official account, 2,190,000 persons received assistance from Government in the last week of April, and the “numbers were rising everywhere.” The estimate for May was 2,550,000. The Times' correspondent’s telegram of July 22nd, was also ominous : According to missionary reports,” it said, “great numbers of Sonthals are fasting alternate days, and others eat only every third day. Gangs of starving people are passing along the trunk road to Calcutta from Behar.” If the rain does not come soon and plentifully, the tragedy before us may prove to be of greater proportions than even tire horrible annals of famine can as yet match. In quiet times at least, English constituencies love a compromise. At Stroud, after the election was declared void, a compromise had been agreed upon between the Conservative and Liberal parties, by the terms of which Mr Stanton (Liberal) and Mr Dorington (Conservative) were to be accepted by the constituency, and no contest was to take place. But an enthusiastic Liberal, who was scandalised at this waste of power and compromise of principle

in a Liberal constituency, carried, apparently the Liberal party with him in repudiating the compromise and trying to seat two Liberals, Mr Stanton and Mr Brand—the latter an admirable candidate. The Liberals appeared to acquiesce in the determination to seat both these candidates, and it is obvious from the results of the election in February, when Mr Stanton and Mr Dickinson were both returned, that, if they had all wished it, they might have done it. But they did not wish it. Mr Dorington (Conservative) was returned to the head of the poll, to mark, we suppose, the secret displeasure with which many of the Liberal electors regarded the repudiation of the compromise, and with him Mr Stanton (LiberaD, while Mr Brand (the other Liberal) and Mr Holloway (the other Conservative) were both defeated. Stroud, therefore, has had the satisfaction, under the ballot, of changing its mind three times within five months. In January it returned a Conservative.. In February it returned two Liberals. In May it returns one Conservative and one Liberal, the Conservative at the head. Can it be doubted that the ballot encourages, or at least encourages the expression of, caprice ? The Duke of Richmond introduced his Bill for putting an end to Patronage in the Scotch Church on May 10th. We need only say that while we agree with those who do not think that the principle of popular election in a church is the best, still, that principle having been already adopted in Scotland, and having been completely naturalised there, we cordially go with those of the Peers who wished that the election should not be limited to communicants, but extended to all the ratepayers. Lord Rosebery made a good point by asking “ whether in parishes where there happened to be no communicants, it was intended to create them.” But he was hardly so fortunate in sneering at the notion of giving the vote in such matters to female communicants. Surely if there be any matters in which it is hardly decent to distinguish between sex and sex, they are questions of religious administration. If the women already take more than three-fourths of the interest and more than half the trouble which goes to the management of church affairs, there can be no excuse for refusing them the same voice as men have in the selection of the religious teacher. It may be quite true that “ women in Scotland are not the best judges in ecclesiastical matters,” a very good reason for educating them till they become better judges, but hardly one for denying them the right to make (a choice which, be it good or bad, they take so much more to heart and take so much more trouble about, than the men. You might almost as well refuse them the right to judge of personal fascination, as of religious unction. The Duke of Richmond’s Bill will not be properly sifted till it reaches the Commons, where we predict for it a very warm discussion. The Guatemala Government have, it appears, offered Consul Magee an indemnity of £IO,OOO and “every possible reparation,” for the insults and injuries inflicted on him by Colonel Gonzaleg in ordering him 200 lashes. We trust that our Government is demanding something more than a personal indemnity to Consul Magee. The British nation has been insulted in the insult offered to the British flag, and it would ill become us to regard a pecuniary indemnity as in any degree adequate. The insolent author of the injuries, if not a lunatic, should be punished promptly and condignly, as well as all who might have interfered to prevent the infliction of the injury, and did not. We cannot afford to sell for gold the right to insult the British flag. It seems not impossible that their usual ill-luck in finance will attend the Tories, and that Sir Stafford North cote, having come in to a surplus of six millions, may have to deal with a deficit of one or two in 1876. On May 20th, Mr Childers, in committee on the navy estimates, drew the attention of the House to the fact that the vote for the ‘ Shannon’ of £40,000 this year would bring up the sum to be charged by way of mortgage on next year’s estimates to the amount of £400,000; and, having lately demonstrated, to the satisfaction of everybody, except the editor of the Pall Mall Gazette and a select circle of old admirals, that the British navy never was relatively so powerful as it is now, he again cautioned the Chancellor of the Exchequer against the extravagant tendencies of the first Lord. But evidently he had a deeper purpose, Mr Childers showed that if the return of the portion of the year which had just past was a fair criterion, there had been a falling-off to the extent of £187,000, —equal to a deficiency of two millions odd on the year, and he wished to know from Sir Stafford Northcote, whether there were any disturbing causes in action to account for this. Sir Stafford was evidently carefully prepared for the question, and while able to say that the real state of the Treasury was somewhat better than the figures showed, admitted without reluctance that “ the revenue was not so brilliant as he could wish.” The alarm of a possible deficit, after the successive surpluses of the late Government, will do much to help Sir Stafford in his sincere and arduous struggle for economy, Mr Justice Lawson has unseated the member for Galway, Mr F. H. O’Donnell, on evidence of the strength of which, from the reports of the trial we have hitherto seen, we cannot form any just estimate. But if the Times report be, so far as it goes, accurate, Mr Justice Lawson has not allowed that distrust of his impartiality in a quarrel between Catholics and Protestants, which the Irish members displayed in Parliament, to make him cautious of using wounding and contemptuous expressions towards Irish Catholics. A witness, apparently the Rev Mr Comyns, deposed that he took to the printer’s the MS. of a placard which treated Mr Joyce, the defeated candidate, as the apologist of Judge Keogh’s famous Galway Judgment, and the witness added that whilst he could not dispute the legality of that judgment, “ he, .in common with many Jother Catholics, was deeply pained at the language in which it was delivered, ” whereupon Mr Justice Lawson is reported to have remarked that “he was sure the learned judge would be gratified to hear it.” If this were really said, Mr Justice Lawson flung, not only in his own name, but in that of Mr Justice Keogh, a very weak, as well as imprudent taunt at the Catholics of Ireland. Why should any judge be gratified to hear that Catholics had been deeply pained at the language of his judgment, unless it were on the assumption that they deserved pain for their sympathy with intimidation I And is that a decent imputation to cast on the Church of three-fourths of the Irish people ? When Mr Justice Lawson was in the House of Commons, he was not accustomed to use words idly, or worse than idly, after this lashiotp