NOTES OF THE MONTH.

Globe, Volume I, Issue 93, 17 September 1874, Page 4

NOTES OF THE MONTH.

LFrom the Spectator.~\ Events in France seem to be hurrying towards some as yet invisible catastrophe. Marshal MacMahon is firm in his seat, there is no chance of disobedience in the army, and there is no probability of any large popular rising. The Government, however, has been defeated in an attempt to cripple universal suffrage in municipal elections, the Left Centre has demanded dissolution, and a furious quarrel has broken out between the Bonapartists and the Republicans, in which the populace takes sides. It is found necessary to station large bodies of police, and even soldiers, at the railway station to Versailles, to protect the Deputies ; large Republican mobs gather to hoot or applaud individual members, and M. Gambetta has actually been struck with a cane. The striker, the Comte de Sainte-Croix, a Bonapartist, acknowledges that his object was to provoke M. Gambetta to a duel, in which he doubtless hoped the Republican leader would fall a victim. The Assembly appears too excited to work, and it is by no means certain that the Dissolution so long resisted may not arrive in a day. The parties appear to have become red-hot, the return of M, Bourgoing for the Nidvre having made the Bonapartists intolerably conceited and the Republicans as intolerably suspicious. Up to the latest accounts, however, no disturbance of public order has taken place, and it is possible that Marshal MacMahon may be able to maintain it until the chamber can order or refuse a legal dissolution. The occasion of the quarrel between the Republicans and the Bonapartists was the discovery of a circular promising rewards to all half-pay officers who voted for M. de Bourgoing in the Ni6vre. M. Girard, deputy for that department, read this in the House, and M. Gambetta in a speech in support called the Bonapartists ees mishrables, which produced a “ scene.” The quarrel extended out-of-doors, the people took it up, and the railway stations, both in Paris and Versailles, have to be guarded by soldiers. The assault on M. Gambetta has, of course, embittered the Republicans, as have the evasive replies of M. Fourtou, who professes not to have information enough to decidewhether the police protect Republican deputies or not. The real causes, however, are the resolution of the Left Centre to accept a dissolution and the vote retaining universal suffrage. With a dissolution under the present laws the struggle must lie between the Republic and the Empire, and the advocates of both are heated by the knowledge of that fact. The week ending June 13th has been marked by a heavy fall on most of the Bourses of Europe, caused, it is believed, mainly by the position of Turkish finance. The financiers of the Porte, who already owe £120,000,000, at various rates of interest, which swallow up £9,000,000 annually out of £17,000,000, now propose to swell this amount nearly £200,000,000, by issuing some £80,000,000, in 3 per cent bonds, at 25 or 26 This course, which increases immensely the capital of the debt, and almost precludes repayment, is of course intended to tempt investors, who gain by any rise, instead of the Government ; but it means that the Turkish Treasury is very nearly desperate. No further loans can be raised unless further resources are obtained, taxation in its present form has reached its limit, and the next step must be the sale of State property, concessions, and so on, to be followed by taxation of dividends. If investors like that prospect, let them invest; but let them also remember that their money will be expended at the pleasure of the Sultan—that is, uselessly. Lord Shaftesbury has so far left the Bishops “ a discretion” in relation to the Public Worship Regulation Bill, that he allows them to decide any issues on which both parties agree to abide by his decision without appeal, only providing that any decision arrived at by the Bishop shall not be held to determine any question of law so that it might not be revived again. Also, if the Bishop declines to receive a complaint, he must state his reasons in writing to the complainant, and an appeal is then permitted. Security for costs to the amount of £IOO are to be given before an appeal to the judge is allowed, the intention being apparently to weight the recourse to a proper legal tribunal with heavy costs, and so to encourage the disposition to abide by the Bishop’s discretion. The effect of that provision will be, we fear, to give the rich the means of securing a legal judgment, and lo leave the poor in the hands of the Bishop—not, on the whole, a “ happy thought.” Laymen with means are sure to manipulate the simple equation, Judge’s discretion— x= Bishop’s discretion, in other words, x = Judge’s discretion —Bishop’s discretion, by suggesting a value for x very much higher than £loo—so that if they can secure the value of that difference for only £IOO, they will think it an excellent bargain.

The Duke of Argyll made another vehement speech against the proposal to place the suffrage for the minister, under the new Scotch Patronage Bill, in the hands of the parishioners and ratepayers, instead of the congregation with the communists. He declared that every attempt to put the suffrage on so wide a basis as to include men who were not only not members of the Church, but even hostile to it, would render it simply impossible to extend the comprehension of the Scotch Established Church. The other Dissenting bodies would point to so novel and startling a form of Erastianism as this committing of the choice of a minister into the hands of indifferentists, and perhaps unbelievers, as an outrage on true faith infinitely worse than that which caused the Secession thirty years ago; and he asserted with the greatest warmth that the _ only hope of strengthening the Scotch Establishment would be to accept the Bill in the form proposed by the Government, with at least the slight enlargement he had proposed, an enlargement of the body of the communicants into “ the communicants and members of the congregation,” the term ‘ congregation ’ to be defined by the General Assembly. And this infinitesimal amendment the Duke of Richmond accepted. We can only say that if the Duke of Argyll is right, as he is very likely to be, as to the state of opinion in Scotland, it is no doubt perfectly useless to press the larger idea, but then what the Duke is fighting for is, sooner or later, Disestablishment, as we have said before, and rather sooner than later. To place national property at the disposal of a narrow sect, sifted out by sacramental tests, is to make the opponents of Disestablishment a present of an argument so powerful and unanswerable that it must leaven the whoh mind of the country within a very moderate period. Lay patronage in a national Church when it is used solely as a trust, never as a mere proprietary right, is an intelligible and

not unnatural arrangement com pared to this, which endows a sect pledged by the very organisation of its patronage to promote sectaria proselytiam, and not the religious interests of the whole nation.

Mr Richard brought on his Education Act Amendment Bill for striking out the famous 25th clause, Sir Henry Havelock (M.P. for Sunderland) seconding him. The discussion was remarkably free from the acrimony of former debates on the same question, and yet very little attention was paid to the practical issue before the House. Every Liberal who wished to substitute any provision whatever for securing education to the children of parents too poor to pay the school fees, voted for Mr Richard, though Mr Richard himself did not propose to substitute anything but simply to repeal the existing clause. The objection to this course is, as Mr Forster pointed out, that it cuts away the foundation on which compulsion rests, since it would be simply impossible to punish parents for not paying school fees they are too poor to pay. Yet there is no sort of proof that the Dissenters would accept Mr Lowe’s proposal, for instance, to charge these poor parents’ fees on the consolidated fund, and it is certain that the Government would not accept Lord Frederick Cavendish’s iriposal to compel every denominational school to teach gratuitously the children of those poor parents who select it. Mr Forster intimated pretty clearly that he was not at all averse to compromise, if a working compromise could be discovered which would leave the parent his choice of schools, and, therefore, not strike at the root of compulsion, though, what with the d sinclination of the Conservatives to see the Denominational schools deprived without excuse of their school pence, and the disinclination of the Dissenters to allow any more grants to such schools, whether out of taxes or rates, he was not sanguine as to a working compromise. Mr Forster pointed out that, by conceding compulsion, the Dissenters had to some extent estopped themselves from objecting to religious teaching in the primary schools, since the people wish for religious teaching, and often declare that they prefer no schools to schools from which it is banished. Thus in Holland the strictly secular character of the education given prevents the Government from adopting the principle of compulsion, just as here compulsion makes it quite essential to permit religious teaching, and to let the parents choose what kind of religious teaching it shall be. The second reading was rejected by a majority of 245, 373 against 128. The division list is rather curious. Four members of the late Cabinet, Mr Lowe, Lord Hartington, Mr Goschen, and Mr Stansfeld, voted in the minority, and no less than twelve members of the Government i.e. the four Cabinet Ministers already mentioned, and also Mr Baxter, Dr Playfair, Mr A. Peel, Mr Grant Duff, Mr Campbell-Bannerman, Mr Lefevre, Mr Trevelyan, and Mr Adam. On the other hand, of the late Government, only Mr Knatch-bull-Hugesson voted with Mr Forster against the second reading. Notwithstanding this great accession of official Liberalism to the side of Mr Richard, the Liberals who voted for him were only more numeious by thirteen votes (exactly one more than the official accession itself) than those who supported Mu Candlish in his motion of two years ago, when he received the support of 115 votes. Of course, a great many Liberals abstained altogether from voting, while a few very strong ones, like Mr Locke (Southwark) and Mr Kathbone (Liverpool) voted with Mr Forster, Mr Knatchbull-Hugessen, and the Conservatives. Clearly the Birmingham League has not as yet gained any ground. Lord Salisbury has introduced and passed through the Lords a Bill adding a sixth member to the Cabinet of the Viceroy of India, who will have charge of the Public Works Department, already vast, and about to be entrusted with irrigation works to the extent, possibly, of fifty-eight millions. By the last clause the Secretary of State is entitled to seat any member of this Cabinet in the Council either of Madras or Bombay. That clause has been left unexplained, and is, we confess, to us wholly inexplicable, while it will cause the most bitter irritation in the two Presidencies. If the Minister on deputation is intended to explain things, why seat him in the local council? and if he is intended to rule things, why give him a single vote? We neither condemn nor approve till we know more thoroughly what the clause means, but we confess we rather despise the action of the Lords in the matter. They have voted what may be an immense change for what they know, in absolute ignorance of its meaning. We do not believe that even Lord Napier of Ettrick, who said off-hand that the measure would work badly, knew what it was intended to secure. It will not, at all events, put an end to the quarrels with the Supreme Government, which amuse the Presidency Governors so much. President Grant might as well send his Finance Secretary to sit in the Massachusetts Legislature, and so smooth all conflict between Washington and Boston.

Mr Cross is getting on with his Liquor Bill mainly by letting the House do as it likes, and it likes to do very little, and that little in the restrictive sense. For instance, the Home Secretary, who is in power because the publicans thought the Tories would help them, has accepted 10 as the hour for closing in villages instead of 11, and has actually raised the close time on Sundays from G to 7, an arrangement which, it is asserted, will cause the greatest possible annoyance. Mr Ward Hunt would not stand it, and said he should vote for 6 ; but Mr Crossjstuck to his figure, though he might be disposed to modify it by and by. On that understanding it was inserted, as was a clause prohibiting the police from searching publicans’ private rooms. Mr Cross thought this needless, but was by no means finally decided about it, while the War Secretary successfully resisted a proposal to exempt innkeepers from their liability to have soldiers and militiamen billeted on them. We have not the smallest objection to make to the Government plan, but we certainly agree with their stout supporter, Mr Fielden, that as far as the liquor traao is concerned, they came in on false pretences. This is not an extravagant Government ; that is quite clear. It promised to be one, but whenever it is asked for cash it is as close-fisted as Mr Lowe. On Tuesday, Mr Meldon, member for Kildare, asked for a little more money for the Irish school teachers, and made out an almost irresistible case. There are 9,000 teachers, of whom only 2,500 are assistants, who receive an average of £42 a year each. They have ne tensions, only gratuities of £lO after ten years’ service, no residences, and no hope of prizes. In other words, they are paid a good deal less than Lincolnshire day-labourers.

One would think that Conservatives, of all men, wo ild see that a very sensitive class entrusted with such a function, forced to expend £SO on training, and then left hungry, mus‘ become disaffected, and that is actually the case. We are assured there is not a class in the country so anti-English as the school-teachers. The Government, however, refused all redress, at least till another year had passed, although the teachers’ terms are moderate enough. They ask £1 a week for the ordinary teachers, £1 10s for the second class, and £2 for the first, salaries all less than those paid in England, where, besides, one-fourth of the first class have residences. Home-rule would give these men no more, but rather less, but we do not wonder that they cry for it. The Suffolk farmers, under the guidance of Mr Hunter Rodwell, Q C., have declared war to the knife upon their laborers. At a meeting held at Bury St Edmund’s, with this gentleman in the chair, it was proposed that the Trades’ Union of Farmers should decline any reconciliation with the Trades’ Union of Labourers “until the cause of action now adopted is discontinued ” —which was explained to mean until the striking power was expunged from the Union rules, until the voices of Mr Arch, Mr Ball, Mr Taylor, and others, were no more heard, and until the Labourers' Chronicle was suppressed. The men, in fact, are allowed to combine, if they will combine as the farmers like, if they give up their legal right to hear lecturers, and if they surrender their right to read any newspaper they prefer. They had better enter the Unions in a body, or He down on the road and die quietly, than submit to such monstrous terms, which have nothing to do with the struggle, which can be intended only to make them feel they are not freemen and which are offered in the face of proof that landlords like Sir B. Kerrison and the delegates can get on excellently together. The terms, we perceive, are to be met by some plan of action which the Union keeps secret, but which evidently is founded on some use to be made of the t'oor Law. The miners at Aston Hall Colliery have struck, because the manager retained four non-Union men. The manager, therefore, by way of showing how he hated oppression, requested Mr Gladstone to turn the strikers out of their cottages. Mr Gladstone accordingly called his mining tenants together, and remonstrated with them strongly, arguing justly that they were bound to allow these men perfect liberty, and declaring that it would be most difficult to secure them votes as he desired, if such injustice turned the opinion of the country against them. Mr Gladstone has been much censured for using this argument, but surely it is a fair one, and from anybody but an ex-Premier would be considered so. It is merely a statement that the Parliament, when asked to concede the suffrage to miners, is likely to be prejudiced against them if they are tyrannical. The real puzzle, as it seems to us, is to decide whether “ sending to Coventry” is an act of tyranny or not. Anybody, except a workman, is at liberty to decline to associate with anybody he likes, and that is all the Aston Hall colliers have done. They are exercising their right unjustly no doubt, but is that their landlord’s business? Suppose Mr Gladstone “cuts” Lord Granville unreasonably, is the Crown to turn him out of Carlton House terrace ? If not, why not ? Cardinal Cullen has received a mandate from the Pope—having, presumably, first suggested the mandate to the Pope—to summon a National Synod for the consideration of various Roman Catholic ecclesiastical matters. Accordingly such a Synod—the first since that of Thurles, in 1850—is to meet at the end of July or the beginning of August, the place being not yet fixed. Let us hope that the new Synod will be wiser than the last, which condemned the Queen’s Colleges,—institutions which, with all their defects, might have been flourishing now, had the Synod blessed instead of banning,—and established the Roman Catholic University, which has hitherto lived but a poor and bloodless life. A Synod with power enough to blight but not power enough to bless, should be exceedingly cautious in its proceedings. Mr Cross carried the second reading of his new Factories’ Bill by a triumphant majority. The only real opposition to it was Mr Fawcett’s speech, and it was obvious that he spoke without much knowledge of the real state of feeling about it in the manufacturing districts. The Bill proposes to reduce the hours of work for women and young persons to 56£ a week, i.c ., 10 hours a day for five days and 6£ on Saturday ; but the hours are to be so arranged that, as regards the women and young persons at least, four hours and a half are the most that can elapse at one time without a meal. The children, or halftimers, may either be employed fully every alternate day, or by alternate shifts on the same day, some in the morning and some in the afternoon. Mr Fawcett’s objections are the old ones, grounded on the interference the labor of adults, on the danger of diminishing production by striking off hours’ work in the week, and on the jealousy felt by men of women’s work. But he was defeated by a majority of 295 to 79. Nothing, indeed, was more remarkable in the debate than the change of tone ever since the discussion on Mr Mundella’s Bill. Mr Hugh Mason’s letter to the Times, which not only withdraws his opposition to the Bill, but objects to the additional half-hour for “ closing,” was an index of this. Mr Mundella himself produced adequate evidence that the Bill is the expression of the factory women’s wishes, and not of the men’s jealousy —60 per cent of the cost of the agitation coming from the women’s earnings, and the rest from the pockets of employers—indeed, the men in factories are only 26 per cent of the whole number of workers, the labour being now chiefly done by women and children. Mr Fawcett’s objection to legislation as the mode of giving effect to the will of the majority in a great trade which roust usually operate with a certain uniformity, seems to us to savour but little of principle. What is the justification of our legislation against Sunday,trade, except that if there were no rule against the trading of all, many would be compelled by competition to trade against their will, and against the interests of the community ? One of the modern functions of Government is to act as executive of the will of the majority, in matters in which a uniform rule of some kind is advisable.

Another German bishop, Bishop Martin (of Paderborn), is threatened with immediate imprisonment ; and the property of the Archbishop of Posen, M. Ledochowski, to the amount of some £20,000 or so, has been sequestrated, The moment approaches when some vacant see will be filled by a heretic, and then the tug of war will come,

The Minghetti Ministry has returned to power in Italy, and has announced its financial programme. This is, to impose a stamp on all deeds of transfer, to collect all existing taxes equally and rigorously, and to resist, at all hazards, any proposal for fresh expense. The recent resignation seems, in fact, to have the strength of the Ministry, who have for some time found it most difficult to resist the extravagance of the Chamber, —an extravagance produced mainly by the desire of members to keep up expenditures formerly sanctioned by the separate Governments, and distribute as much patronage as they can. Half the cities, for example, ought to give up their Universities or pay for themselves, but each alternative is equally unacceptable. The Home Secretary has introduced a Bill for the Regulation of Friendly Societies, the chief principle of which is to carry out an elaborate system of district registration, to provide forms in which the accounts of registered societies must be made out, to supply accurately calculated tables by which (very intelligent) people may be able to judge of the solvency of these bodies, to prohibit the insurance of the life of any child under three years of age altogether, and to permit it only under fixed conditions even above that age ; and further, to consolidate the various laws concerning friendly societies into the eighty clauses of the new Bill, The most important, however, of Mr Cross’s intimations was, that the Government itself thinks of taking up the subject of Life Insurance in a more practical form than hitherto, and so bring the benefits of a secure life assurance within the reach of the working classes. If this is to be done, let the Government not only insure, but itself collect the premiums. Without that, the scheme will be nearly abortive ; with it, it might add really to the prudence and the happiness of the working class. Mr Cross takes the second reading of his Friendly Societies’ Bill on Monday week. Mr Ruskin has been writing from Rome, to a Glasgow committee for organising lectures, a Carlylean piece of invective against the taste for popular lectures. “ I find,” he says, “ the desire of audiences to be audiences only, becoming an entirely pestilent character of the age.” (Why, by the way, does Mr Ruskin “find” this instead of noticing or observing it? and why does he use the adverb “ entirely” with his adjective, in preference to ‘ very,’ or any other intensive? In Mr Carlyle these are idioms translated from the German use of “ finden” and “ ganz,” but Mr Ruskin is not a Germaniser, and his own English style is so polished and effective, that it is doubly perverse of him to Carlyleise in his discourse.) “ Everybody wants,” Mr Ruskin goes on, “to get the knowledge it has cost a man half his life to gather, first sweetened up to make it palatable, and then kneaded into the smallest possible pills, and to swallow it homoeopathically and be wise,—this is the passionate desire and hope of the multitude of the day. It is not to be done.” “ Your modern fire-working, smooth-downy-curry-and - strawberry - ice- and-milk - punch - altogether lecture is an extremely pestilent and abominable vanity ; and the miserable death of poor Dickens, when he might have been writing blessed books till he was eighty, but for the pestiferous demand of the mob, is a very solemn warning to us all, if we would take it,” As far as we understand the story of the public “ readings ” which exhausted Mr Dickens, and probably hastened his death, the demand of the mob for the lectures was not so “ pestiferous ” as the demand of Mr Dickens for the dollars of “ the mob.” Surely nothing can be less just than to revile the public thus fiercely for their taste for an innocent amusement.