NOTES OF THE MONTH.

Globe, Volume III, Issue 216, 17 February 1875, Page 4

NOTES OF THE MONTH.

The French Assembly is about, it is stated, to adjourn on the 19th instant for twentyone days. The reasons assigned for this unusual delay of business are that Parisian tradesmen want to get quietly through their traffic on New Year's Day, and that many of the Government Bills are not quite ready, but the real reason is probably a wish to gain time for combinations which may make it possible for the Assembly to act. At present the Left Centre has split into two fractions of nearly equal strength, one inclining towards the Left and dissolution, and the other towards the Right Centre and M. Ernest Picard's project of dissolution by thirds. On the sth December Prince Bismarck defended tbe abolition of the post of Envoy to the Vatican, by alleging that the war of 1870 had been brought on by the Pope and the Jesuits, who overbore Napoleon 111. when he was hesitating—as if Napoleon had been Jiclele —and that the Papal Nuncio at Munich in 1869, Monsignore Meglia, had said to the Wurtemburg Envoy there that " the Church was free only in America, and perhaps England and Belgium, but that elsewhere her chance of regaining her rightful position rested on revolution." This statement, in itself of little importance, as it has repeatedly been made by Protestants, is, according to the Soir, denied by Monsignore Meglia, who is now in Paris ; but according to the Universe. a much better authority, Monsignore Meglia has made, and will make, no reply. As Herr Varnbuler. then Premier in Wurtemburg, and a man of the highest character, states that the remark was sent to him by his agent in Munich, it probably was made, but it is difficult to see why it so bitterly offends Prince Bismarck. Everybody has always knov n that the Vatican cares nothing about forms of government, and would, especially since the fall of the Temporal Power, jusfc as soon rely on democracies as on Princes. To foment revolution and to wish well to revolution are two entirely different matters. German affairs have indeed occupied the week. Besides the Arnim trial, there have been two debates of importance in the German Parliament. The first was raised by Dr Jorg. leader of the Bavarian Catholics, who complained that the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Federal Council was never consulted, and that consequently Prince Bismarck had intervened in Spain in a way which had dissolved the entente oordiale between Germany and Russia. The Chancellor replied, that although the Foreign Aff iirs committee had not been convened for a year, the German Governments had been full/ consulted, aud that as to Spain, he

had felt that no English or American correspondent would have been murdered as Captain Schmidt was. According to the Times' correspondent, he added that international law would have justified him in landing on the coast of Spain, seizing a Carlist officer, and hanging him in reprisal; but it is probable this astounding assertion was not made, as the Cologne Gazette reports that he prefaced it by saying: " if we had been a barbarous Power."a very different thing, He had acknowledged the only Government in Spain possessed of a relic of authority, and if Russia had not done so, why Captain Schmidt was not a Russian. Dr J org had alluded to the attempt of Kullmann, calling him a maniac, and Prince Bismarck, in tones of suppressed fury, denied this, declared that Kullmann avowed himself a member of the Centre fraction, and turning to Herr Windhorst, the leader of that party, exclaimed to the Centre, " Discard the man as much as you like, he is hanging to your coat-tails nevertheless." This insult was received by the majority with enthusiasm, and by the Centre with cries of " Pfui!"—" Shame, shame 1" to which the Chancellor retorted that he also wanted to cry " Pfui !" but was prevented by good manners. Herr Windhorst's reply in substance was that the Prince, by giving a cue to his papers to attack all Ultramontanes. had brought Dr Jorg's assault upon himself.

It was supposed last week that Marshal Serrano was on his way to the north with a large army, and that the Carlists were in straits, an idea confirmed by a letter from the Bishop of Urgel abandoning the Carlist cause, but the Marshal has not gone. He has remained in Madrid raising money, while General Loma has marched from St. Sebastian upon Oyarzun, and has been defeated and forced to retire. The reports of a coming Alfonsist movement have been rife all the week, but Serrano seems not to be in the plot, and it can hardly be announced until the Carlists have been beaten in some battle. There is talk of a <; transaction " to be effected by bribing Carlist generals, but there has been talk of that for months, and the end seems to be as far off as ever.

President Grant's annual Message to Congress was delivered on the 7th inst. According to a very imperfect summary forwarded by cable, the President is hostile to SpaiD, stating that the " offences" of that country in the matters of the " Virginius" and of Cuba cannot long continue unsettled, that the Government cannot put down the insurrection, and that other nations in conjunction with the Union must bring it to a close. He will, however, submit to Congress a special Message upon this subject. He strongly advocates a return to specie payments, wants the legal-tender clause of the Currency Act repealed, and savs that with the return of specie payments " banking will be free" —which would seem to mean that he would advise the concession of the right to issue notes to everybody. He, however, adds that Congress will regulate the organisation of the free banks, which makes his view unintelligible till the text has arrived. He still believes in reform in the Civil Service, but holds it impossible to go on uuless supported by Congress. It is affirmed by the latest accounts that the old House of Representatives, which has still three months of life, is so paralysed by the recent elections that it will not touch the financial question or any other, and suggested that the President knows this well enough, and is bidding for popularity. It is very doubtful, however, whether " hard money " is popular in the West.

The trial of Count Arnim has begun, but we have not as yet the means of judging in any degree of the nature of the defence. It is clear that if he has not detained despatches which he ought to have surrendered to the Foreign Office, he has been at least exceedingly slovenly in his care of them ; and there is in the indictment a certain amount of evidence that he did hold relations with the Vienna Presse of a kind which seemed to involve obligation on his side, inasmuch as payment seems to have been expected for the services rendered to him. But both the Times and the Daily Telegraph make the blunder of taking for granted that the Memorandum of 1870 as to the policy of Rome and the best mode of meeting it, which was undoubtedly published in the Vienna Presse, and if not by Count Arnim's authority, yet in all probability with his concurrence, was an official memorandum. Nothing is more certain than that it was not, and that, indeed, it was a private paper of a liind which assumed no official knowledge, and which the Count was perfectly justified in publishing, so soon as he was no longer a public servant of the Crown—who ought never, of course, to prof ss publicly his own feeling on subjects on which he might be subsequently required by his official duty to support quite a different policy. It is quite too soon to speculate as to the validity of Count Arnim's defence.