The Evening Star THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 1871

Evening Star, Volume IX, Issue 2724, 9 November 1871, Page 2

The Evening Star THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 1871

The European news is in some respects gloomy this month ; not so much on account of any likelihood that that continent will relapse into war, but mainly because of the unsettled state of public feeling in France, Spain, and Italy. We need not be surprised at this. Each of those nations has gone through the ordeal of a revolution. Each has had to frame a constitution for itself distasteful to a large section of its population, to which time alone can reconcile them ; and it would be expecting too much from human nature to suppose that class privileges can be swept away without some eifort to regain them by those deprived of them. The wonder is that with the traditional ideas of hereditary succession to thrones, so many royal families are content to sink into private life, instead ®f making efforts to regain the positions from which they or their fathers have been driven. In these democratic regions the young can hardly form a conception of the hold that monarchy and aristocracy have on the feelings of the inhabitants of Europe. It would almost seem as if the traditions of a thousand years had become an instinct with the mass of the people, so wedded are they to forms of government that have proved oppressive. They have driven rulers away because of the intoleranc of their administration ; but they cling to their institutions, and fail to perceive that the fault lay more in them than in their exiled kings, who latterly have been much the sport of circumstances. To this blindness to the nature of the evils they wish to rid themselves of, is owing the difficulty of working out constitutional governments, and to this is attributable the difficulty of reorganising society upon an enduring principle. A generation or two must pass away before the popular mind can accept the new social condition, even if those countries escape military tyranny a phase of Government that almost invariably follows changes so radical as those to which they have been subjected. From

Home— Great Britain —we have intelligence of disaster, of gloomy harvest prospects, and of cattle disease. These will be sad drawbacks to returning prosperity. A country crowded with people requires a constant outlet tor its manufactures and productions, and can ill-afford to bear those heavy burdens which high prices of food lay upon it. Had the threatened evils of a bad harvest and cattle disease occurred thirty years ago English statesmen would have looked forward with apprehension to the probable consequences. The distress under the then protective tariffs would have led to discontent, even to the verge of revolution. But now, though

threatened with high prices of sustenance, there is no danger of the people starving. Every country that has a surplus of food above the needs of its own people, will help to supply her need, and the danger seems to be not so much that the people will not have food to eat, but that they will not allow each other to work to obtain wages to purchase. Not only England, but the Continent has become the scene of strikes of workmen, cither for higher wages or shorter hours of labor. Facility of communication is doing its work, and equalising the conditions of labor through the world. We should rejoice at this were there a corresponding advance in the intelligence of the

classes who are thus struggling into a higher relative position. Unfortunately this advanced culture will have to follow instead of preceding their elevation, and until it is accomplished, the greatest hindrance to the prosperity of the producing classes will be their own mistaken system of strikes and restrictions upon each others labor. In Great Britain and America the worst tyranny that men have to endure is that imposed by workmen upon their fellows. Every colonist will regret that Her Majesty is in such feeble health. We*trust that a change for the better may remove the apprehensions that appear to be entertained concerning her. Her reign has on the whole been so prosperous, and marked by such ameliorations in the condition oi all classes in the United Kingdom, that there is scarcely one in the Em-

pire that would not regard her death as a calamity to the world. We do not apprehend that any change would be attempted in the policy of the Empire. The power of English monarchs is very limited, and Governments nowadays depend for their successful administration more upon the Ministry than the Crown. The true power in England is the House of Commons, and that power has been much augmented by the wise concessions made from time to time during the last tWO reigns, and especially that of Victoria, Virtually the Prime Minister is the ruler of England, but the Court has its influence not only in politics but morals. The reign of Her Majesty has been remarkable for the advance of the Court in refinement and purity. The literature of the country and the manners of all classes evince this. It is to be hoped that the principle* on which this change has been based are too deeply rooted now to permit of retrogression, even should the Queen not recover; but we sincerely hope that our next advices will tell of renewed health, and that those beneficent changes which hare marked her reign will under her lengthened dominion take still firmer hold on the national affections.