The Evening Star THURSDAY JULY 14, 1870.

Evening Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2242, 14 July 1870, Page 2

The Evening Star THURSDAY JULY 14, 1870.

The European news by the Suez Map is of more than average interest this month) mainly on account of its disclosing symptoms of reviving prosperity. Although there have been frequent depressions of trade since the peace of 1815, and consequent widespread distress, wg are not aware that any previous commercial crises have continued so long, or have been productive of such universal stagnation'. But this might naturally have been expected ; and quite as naturally may it be concluded that any future one ■will prove still more disastrous. No nation can now suffer by itself. So interwoven are human interests through the expansion of trade, that what affects one affects the whole. And as new and easier modes of intercommunication are adopted these relations will be extended, so that each succeeding reverse will be so increasingly serious, that it will become the common interest of mankind to institute a searching investigation into tho causes of these ever recurring crises, with a view to their mitigation or remedy. At this vast distance from the populations most affected by them, any pointing to their main cause would be of no avail. It is sufficiently indicated by the state of the money market at Home—an index which few can read, but which is unerring in its pointings out. From the tone of the English advices wc conclude that there will be a gradual improvement, perhaps for

jeans, if there is no war to disturb the natural courses of events ; and that we in New Zealand, so long as we avoid Maori insurrections, may, if we act wisely, leap great advantages from the change. Manufactures are lighting themselves at Home, a demand for raw material is springing up, and the wool markets are recovering their tone.

But while the commercial news is cheering, there comes along with it causes for regret. It is not that Spain is without a king, for kings are no rarities, and most commonly cost more than they are worth. The world could easily in need supply ten thousand kings, each of whom might rule as well or even better than those who wield the destinies of Europe. A nation may create a king, but not a Dickens or a Mark Lemon. These two have done more for mankind’s good than all the mouavchs that history tells of. Although they wrote to amuse men, they did not leave them uuinstructed. They ennobled wit by making it subservient to the cultivation of the higher attributes of humanity. They used satire as the means of correcting human folly. They painted vico in its deformity, denounced conniption, exposed hypocrisy, laughed at folly, showed the rich their duties and pleaded for the poor. Unlike the satirists of past ages, their invectives were free from coarseness, and their darkest pictures free from filthiness. If the haughty were reproved, as far as possible the neglected duty was pointed'out; if an abuse was disclosed, the remedy was taught. No phase of human society escaped their supervision. The wretched and the poor were their special care. They taught that the human being, beat by the world and driven to the hospital or the workhouse, had human feelings } that the wretched criminal, though enclosed within a prison, had not forfeited all claim to human sympathy ; that even in the most wretched abodes were noble hearts and high aspirations ; and that one of man’s highest missions was to foster these, until from out those dark places of the earth light sprung up, and the man evolved, ( intelligent, moral, freed from the direst of all curses, poverty and its attendant vices. Their work is done, but their influence remains, . They have marked out a course, which will be followed by many social reformers in time to come. Their writings may be forgotten as years pass away, for they spoke to the men of the time, and pleaded for present reforms, but the good they have effected remains ; and much as what they might have given to literature will be missed, high and low, rich and poor, in all time owe much to the great departed ones, Charles Dickens and Mark Lemon.