NOTES OF THE MONTH.

Globe, Volume III, Issue 276, 30 April 1875, Page 4

NOTES OF THE MONTH.

{From the Spectator.') Lord Salisbury made a speech on India in the Manchester Town Hall of very considerable importance. He openly announced that he had changed his formerly strong opinion of the value of irrigation. “We can scarcely yet be said to have had one genuine instance of financial success.” The Madras Irrigation Company does not pay its working expenses. The Orissa Company does not earn the interest on its capital. The Bast and West Jumna Canals succeed, but they are founded in part on the works of native rulers, whose expenses are not carried to account. The natives are reluctant to pay for the water—expecting it, as under native rulers, as a benefaction —and in many places the effect of the water, though admirable on the vegetation, has been so bad on the health of the people that the Goverment, after expending huge sums to get water, has had to expend huge sums to get rid of it. Finally, it has been shown that in some f pots water diminishes the fertility of the soil, producing an efflorescence of alkaline salts. We may presume, therefore, that the Marquis does not intend to expend those forty millions or fourteen millions, which he at first thought were necessary for irrigation, and will adopt the simpler plan of facilitating the transport of grain from rich districts to poor districts. The impatience of France for a more settled Constitution is not soothed by the financial statement for 1874, which shows a deficit of £3,500,000. This is not a real deficiency, as heavy back-paymentstothe Bank of France are included, but it is alarming, because it has arisen from a falling-off in the produce of the taxes on liquors, registration of sales of property, and colonial and foreign sugars—all marks, it is supposed in France, of distrust in political security. We should rather attribute the decline to a decrease of business, which has reduced workmen’s wages ; but the French are nearly unanimous in supposing that the cure must be sought in settled government of some kind, as insecurity, besides alarming the people, prevents the adoption of a settled system of finance. The Archbishop of Canterbury appears to have been telling his clergy at Maidstone not to expect any very important ecclesiastical legislation this session, and especially not to expect any decision from Convocation this year as to the revision of the Rubrics, Dr Tait expressed his strong disbelief in the existence of any appreciable number of really “ lawless” priests, aad made a very strong appeal to all parties to “ resist all extravagances.” That is a very good exhortation, but the Ritualists are not the men to be subject to their Bishops. They hold that as Dr Newman once described them, the Bishops habitually “ handsell their apostolic weapons against the Apostolic party”— which is what the Archbishop of Canterbury is even now doing—and that is a crime Ritualists cannot forgive. So we fear that when the’ Public Worship Regulation Act comes into operation, there will be a good deal of grief from it still, in the way both of assaults on excessive ceremonial and of sallies against deficient rites. The Lord Chief Justice of England has inaugurated the new lecture-room at the Manchester Athenieum in an eloquent speech of that verbose and showy kind more common in a past generation, a speech with a good deal of reference in it to Athens and Florence, and Cicerc, and fountains of youth and elixirs of life, and much vague praise of literature, all rather in the ornate style. It was what De Quincey once called a “ j welly diarrhoea of words.” Lord Salisbury, who spoke after him, made a good point by insisting on the little that can be expected from institutions of the Athenieum kind, and the great superiority of the secondary schools and colleges for the real education of the people, and by suggesting that in an age of popular science it was too common to found the most anarchic speculations on a very shallow basis of fact, and still to make them plausible to the half-educated. Lord Houghton, on the contrary, put in a plea for ■v*guo, general culture, as exceedingly useful in its way, and especially as counteracting the effect of narrow study of special subjects. He thought the old distrust of it had greatly declined,' and that in recent times, the clerk in a commercial house who was known to read or even write poetry would no longer be thought, on that account, necessarily unfit to rise to a high place in the firm. Both the politician and the poet certainly touched more solid ground in their speeches than the great and eloquent Judge.

Mr Horsman has addressed an enthusiastic meeting of his constituents at Liskeard in a very amusing speech. He posed as prophet, and said that he had warned the party that if it yielded to Rome, if it offended the publicans, and if it alienated the dissenters, the dissolution would produce a crash. And so, said Mr Horsman, with the chuckle of a man who was not turned out, it did He posed as the virtuous man, declaring that it was his duty to warn the Government, and not flatter if when it was in power, and then kick it when it was down. He posed as philosopher, asserting that it was a crime to punish a man for his religion when it was a mere geographical accident. If the Quaker Mayor of Liskeard had been born on the Bosphorus he would have been a Mohammedan, if in the Sandwich Islands a cannibal, if a Jew on the throne of Solomon, he would have had 700 wives and then have asked for more. And finally, he posed as an English member very nicely placed in the world, and allowed that “as regarded the country, politically, socially, morally, and commercially.it wasin every way sound and satisfactory.” The general deduction therefore is that a country which by geographical accident is Christian, which is Liberal, and which neglects Mr Horsman’s advice, gets along admirably well.

A memorial, signed by a great number of the most em’nent men of the day in all spheres and professions o,f life, was presented to the committee of the “ Society for the Prevention of Cmlty to Animals,” to urge immediate steps for the restriction of the growing practice of vivisection. Amongst the signatures were those of Lo d Selbcne, Lord Coleridge, the Archbishop of York Lord Russell, Lord Cardwell, Lord Carling ford, the Archbishop of Wes'minster, the Bishop of Manchester, the Bishop of Exeter, and of a number of other distinguished peers and prelates; also those of a great many eminent judges and lawyers, like Sir William Earle, Sir John Coleridge, Baron Amphlett, and many others; of a great number of members of the House of Commons of both parties, like Mr Bright, Mr Beresford Hope, Mr Forsvth, Mr Tre velyan, Sir Henry Holland, Sir H. Selwyn Ibbetiouj of a great many distinguished

soldiers and sailors, like Sir Hope Grant, Sir Garnet Wolseley, Sir Richard Airey, Colonel Evelyn Wood, Admiral Parker, Admiral Sir H. Smith; of many persons high in administrative office, like that of Colonel Henderson, the Chief Commissioner of Police; of many eminent literary men, like the Poet-Laureate. Mr Robert Browning, Sir Henry Taylor, Sir Arthur Helps, Professor Jowett, Mr Martineau, Dr Blackie, Mr Leslie Stephen, and many others; of a considerable number of medical men, some very eminent, like Sir William Fergusson, Dr Cotton (senior physician to the Brompton Hospital), Mr Bader (the great oculist), and others, —of medical men some sixty in all; and last, not least, of a number of distinguished women, Lady Strangford, Lady Waldegrave, Lady Wood, and at the core of the whole movement, —to her great and lasting honour, — Miss Cobbe.

The Session of Parliament was opened at two o’clock February sth, the Queen’s Speech being read by Commission. The document is decently grammatical, but that is all that can be said for it. It is very lengthy, very verbose, and contains scarcely anything at all. Her Majesty informs the Houses that Europe has remained at peace, which she does her best to consolidate and preserve ; that she has declined proposals to negotiate further on the usages of war ; that King Alfonso has ' een called to the throne of Spain, and his recognition “ will not be long delayed ;” that henceforward freedom is to exist on the Gold Coast; that new measures are to be proposed for ensuring wise and humane native administration in Natal ; that Fiji will be useful to the fleet in the Pacific ; that the Government of India has averted loss of life from famine ; that the revenue is increasing; that the Coercion Bills for Ireland are to be reviewed ; and that Bills for facilitating the Transfer of Land, for improving agricultural tenancies, for improving workmen’s dwellings in large towns, for consolidating the sanitary laws, for improving friendly societies, for punishing personal violence, and for establishing ■public prosecutors, will be introduced, as may also an amendment of the law on offences connected with trade, The bill of fare, it will be seen, is lengthy, but most of the dishes are potatoes differently cooked, sufficiently nourishing, but not particularly appetising. The French Republic, which last week seemed impossible, has this week been proclaimed. The whole of the Orleanists, frightened by the progress of Imperialism, have moved into the Republican camp, and in a single week the new majority have decreed, in a succession of votes, that France is a Republic, governed by a National Assembly consisting of two Houses—a Senate whose composition is still unfixed, and a Chamber of Deputies—and a President elected for seven years, who is re-eligible, who cannot be removed during his term except by the Senate on impeachment for high treason, and who will be replaced by the two Houses acting together. The right of dissolution is vested in the President and. Senate, but the right of veto in the Senate alone, The seat of Government is to be Versailles, and no revision of the constitution can be attempted before November 20th, 1880, without the President’s consent. The majority in favor of the Republic, which on Saturday was only one, has increased with each vote, and now amounts to two-thirds of the House. Marshal MacMahon apparently accepts the separate votes, the funds have risen, the people are tranquil, and it is believed the work will be completed, the Senate settled, and the Republic in working order before the 15th inst, A Ministry will then be formed, headed by M, Dufaure, and containing the Due Decazes, M. Laboulaye, M. Wallon, and other Conservatives of the Left Centre.

The dread of the Imperialists, which has caused this change, seems to have some foundation. It is stated that the official inquiry into the election for the Nievre has revealed the existence of a complete Bonapartist organisation, with Cabinet, heads of departments, prefects, a marshal, and all manner -f subordinates ready at once to assume posts already designated. Money has been raised in sufficient quantities, and had the Assembly continued irresolute, a military pronunciamiento might have enabled M. Rouher to take a plebiscite. It is added that Napoleon IV ia to be affianced to the Princess Thyra, sister of the Princess of Wales and of the Ccsarevna of Russia. How far all this is correct we have no means of deciding, but a great deal of it is evidently believed by the Orleanist princes, counsellors, and deputies, including the Due de Broglie. So considerable is the alarm, that it is said it will postpone the Dissolution of the Assembly, which ought to follow the proclamation of the Republic, and that it will induce the Left to give way on almost every point not inconsistent with the idea of a Republic.