NOTES OF THE MONTH.

Globe, Volume II, Issue 186, 13 January 1875, Page 3

NOTES OF THE MONTH.

{Front the Spectator?) Mr Gladstone is to publish a somewhat bulky pamphlet, whicl) will piobably < xert no inconsiderable influence over the minds both ©f his Irish supporters and of his- Cona.frvative detractors It is called " The ViiUcau Decrees, in their bearing on Civil Allegiance, a Political Argument and Expostulation;" uild its drift is, vvo bcliuVry fi.jjt to show that the Vaticau decrees were the policy of "a party in the Church anxious to impose a stronger tie on the consciences uf Catholics than any they owned before 1870, in case of a European combination to re-establish the temporal power of the POpe ; and next, that in that event there niust, be a keener struggle between orthodoxy"aujl cjVjl loyalty in the minds of llornan Catholics, than there would have been before', the proclamation of the Vatican .Notwithstanding his attack upon those, decrees "and the party which carried them, ;.!ftr Gladstone goes on to deciare,-7-herein yiil'ualjy; condemning the Bismarckian mode" of meeting what Mr Gladstone nevertheless 'tefons the " aggression of the Church'."— change ought not to cause, and in hind <Jd£s not cause, the slightest feeling of Tegret for the successful effort which the Liberal "party has made to give perfect equality to the Catholic faith with other faiths in the- Bta> pire, and that whatever little there njay yet remain to be done ia the execation'of-the same task, he will endeavour ? to :j: dd i; 'Ml earnestly and as effectually 'as 7 '" eve*'.'' 1 Mf Gladstone also, we believe, explicitly: asserts his belief that, in matter of fact, though "ho longer theoretically, the Roman Catholics'ot this country remain as good andloyal c'itl* zens as himself. --%"•; iw ,!.7".r.!.

The . tfovfeni'ber flections in £he jfoited States have resulted, in the cqtpplet^overthrow of the Republican/p^ty. i South may b.e"said to have been los.t,.aucL,ihe most important States of, the Wept, jjiud .fi(ew York State and tfevv York City, together with Pennsylvania; The Republican raaf jqrity of 100 in the House of Represent,*tives has been cancelled, and the Democrats have a majority of fifty-six, while in the Snate the Republican majority has been reduced to ten. Even in Massachusetts the Democrats have carried their nominee for Governor by a majority of 5000, ■.., . Asjtjjp President together ,fclj Executive power, thisfiecision for the present only invests the Democrats with a veto on new legislation requests for it is not doubted that in 1876 President,and Legislature will both be Democratic, r We have endeavoured to describe some of: the causes of thisr revolution elsewhere, but may add here that the dividing line parties is unusually faint The have been fourteen years in powef/.and.tbe people are tired of them—that is, mi brutal form, the most reasonable explanation. The latest rumor in Paris appears to. be that on the meeting of the Assembly on November 30th, a message will be read from ihe presideut, demanding that the deputies should proceed with the Constitutional Laws. These laws, which are to define the Marshal's powers, to secure him a successor, and to create an Upper House, will be referred again to the committee of thirty, who will probably delay actiou... as before. The object of such a move must be. to continue the Septennate, and. avoid a final decision as to the form of Government; but its success depends entirely on the action of the Left Centre, which can, if it pleases, either force the Assembly to proclaim the definite Republic, or to pronounce its own dissolution. It is imagined that the fight over the constitution will be as sterile as all previous fights have been, but that idea rests on the assumption that Assemblies in France never change, whereas experience shows that every recess more or less modifies Deputies' opinion. They hear what their constituents say, and unless they aie Legitimists are always susceptible to the new influence. It will be found, we suspect, that the splendid harvest and vintage have influenced the peasantry towards Marshal MacMahon and the Republic he professedly represents. The Berlin Correspondent of the Times telegraphs that the disabilities of the Raskolniki, the Nonconforming sects of Russia, have at last been removed by decree. They do not acknowledge the Patriarchate of the Czar, though acknowledging his civil authority, or use the modern Russiau liturgy, and have hitherto been treated almost as enemies of the State, their marriages being declared illegal, their children illegitimate, and their property on death forfeited to the Stat&r-the latter penalty, being evaded. Heuceforward they are to be treated as other Russians, and: as their number is "variously estimated at from nine to fourteen millions, the concession is an immense: one. The obstinacy of these 6ects, whose dissidence commenced in the .reign of Peter the Great, has been of the immovable, passive kind* and has at last worn out the Government, which, moreover j saw in them the only powerful body of disaffected men within the limits of the Empire.: The Liberationists have held a conference at Manchester, at which Mr Hugh Maßon presided. The general tone of the meeting was in favor of pushing on the agitation without reference to the exigencies of the Liberal party, and also in favor of a much, more stringent disend'owment than that imposed on the Irish Church,—in this respect repudiating Mr Leatham's declaration on this point at Huddersfield on the following day, so far as we understand its tendency. Mr Richard, as usual, attacked Mr Forster, at the same time Saying he had never said anything unkind about Mr Forster, which only shows that Mr Uichard, like most partisans, can be very unkind, and what is more, unfair, without knowing it ; and Mr John Morley made an able speech, in which he maintained that all the good, aud more than ail the good, the Establishment does would be done by a private Episcopal sect, but he ignored the tree interchange of very different religious views within the Establishment, which does not, and hardly can take place, between one sect and another. He also put the possibilities of disendowment in avery attractive light for the agricultural laborer, as we have elsewhere shown; in our comments on Mr Leatham's speech. The report of Mr Illingworth showed that the £IOO,OOO demanded for the agitation would in all probability be raised, Yorkshire alone having promised oearly £25.000. -But the value of such a subscription in spreading a scientific certainty like the doctrine of Free Trade, and its value in urging a mere matter of opinion will be found to be very different. You can popularise political • economy, but you can hardly popularise* a particular view on a

matter which, decide it which-way you will, depends on balancing so many weighty con* siderations on one side against bo many, also weighty, on the other.

In the course of the Conference^ a curious assertion was made by the Rev George Beany Warrington, that in politics "gratitude was grossly immoral," —the hearing of which was, that gratitude to Air Gladstone or any other leader should not prevent any man from throwing him over the moment he refused to accept any principle like disestablishment, which seems essential to a particular elector. If that view had been acted upon consistently at the pollingbooth* and in Parliament, Parliament would long ago have been swept away as a mere chaos of individual self-wills. Leadership is organisation. And who would. be leader, if his followers never showed him any gratitude for right and wise guidance, by deferring to his judgment when they did not personally agree with ;it 1 The Rev George Beany Warrington's principle Would disestablish and disendow a great many institutions besides the Established Ohureh. A curious stockbroking case has been decided in Dublin. Mr Westby Smith; stockbroker, of Belfast, employed Mr Bernard Cracrof t, of the London Stock Exchange, to buy and sell shares for him to a very great amount. He represented that he was acting {or a syndicate of rich linen-men, and usually paid up losses pretty promptly. In December, 1873, however, he telegraphed that his syndicate had broken up, and he could pay no more, whereupon Mr Cracrof t, to whom he owed 432,000, failed. Mr Cracroft claimed that Mr Smith should be adjudicated a bankrupt, and his opponent pleaded that the transaction was a gambling one. As, however, Mr Cracroft had not gambled, receiving none of the gains and paying none of the losses, the Judge held the plea invalid, and the jary; after eight hours' deliberation, caused, apparently, by an idea that a man could not gamble alone—which is true, only the public in these cases is second player, not the broker, who is merely, so to speak, the dice-box—-found for the plaintiff on all the issues. No other decision was possible, unless broking in all its departments was prohibited. How on earth is a broker to know if his client means to sell his shares, or sugar, or houses, or anything else, before he gets them, or not? In the actual case, Mr Cracroft made every effort to discover who Mr Smith's principals were, and only desisted because every claim, however large, was met in full. In a single ease of hesitation, as to £IOOO only, he pulled his client up very sharply. There are 1200 cases of epidemic fever in Over-Darwen, a town of some 24,000 inhabitants. The reason is abominable filth. Darwen is drained by cesspools, acres of excreta lie uncovered, and the inhabitants are, in fact, living in an immense privy. A Government inspector has been sent down, but he can scarcely get the local Board, elected to keep down rates, to do anything. A story of the same kind, though not so bad, is reported from Winchester, and might be reported, if the weather were hot, of many another town; but the remedy is not qnite so easy as it appears. The town ought to be thoroughly drained by a State engineer at its own expense, but how is that expense to be met ? You cannot fine all owners a whole year's rent all at once without exciting resistance, and the method of distributing the original charge is still most imperfect. The work ought to be done by an issue of town bonds, with a sinking fund of three per cent., but the machinery for that operation outside the great cities seems not to be in gear. Draining in a panic, moreover, gives every builder and plumber in the place an opportunity it is hardly in human nature to withstand. The work ought to be done, but some brain must be applied to the organisation of the machinery.

Lord Salisbury has filled up the vacancy in the India House caused by the retirement of Sir John Kaye through continued illhealth. His office—that of permanent UnderSecretary to the Foreign and Secret Department —is, perhaps, the most important in the House, and requires a rare combination of knowledge of Indian Princes, breadth of riew in Indian politics, and habitual secretiveness. The selection has fallen, therefore, on lieutenant-Colonel T. O. Burne, who may be roughly described as having been for four years Lord Mayo's guide in all relations with the Princes, and one of the main causes of the success of his administration. The soldierpolitical, when Le is good, is the best, as he is the most exceptional official product of India, and Colonel Burne has been soldier political for all India at once. A better appointment could not have been made, though, as in every such case, some one or other in the office must have lost what, if office rules were all, was a just hope. Something should be done to correct the one misfortune of the Indian Home Service, the impossibility of weighing their claims against those of men who possess actual experience. Mr Grant Duff is going to India, intending, he says, to clear away the " veil before his his eyes" which harasses his view of Indian politics. He has learnt, he thinks, all that can be learnt at home, and he certainly has learnt one thing,—the absurd underestimate of the strength of the Indian Empire current among Bussopbobists. At the end of a very able answer to " Cassandra " Greg, which it is impossible to condense, he gives very clearly, though not dogmatically, his opinion that if Russia and India ever clash in Asia, it is not Great Britain who will lose her Asiatic dominions. We want no more territory, but if we are harassed by the Czars too much, three such expeditions as that which pulled down Theodore would release Asia from Bussian grasp, and carry our Protectorate up to the Pole. Mr Grant Duff, in fact, adheres in Asia as in Europe to the first canon of warfare—" If you have to fight, invade," and then you discover your enemy's secret weakness. How many Mussulmans in India, we wonder, would enlist to rescue the old dominion of Jenghiz Khan l The Midland Bailway Company, amazed at the disfavor with which their recent " reform " has been received, have put forward a defence which contains new promises. They will pnt on Pulmancarsas fast as they can, they will set aside compartments for ladies, or ladies with gentlemen ; they will allow four passengers to purchase a whole compartment, and they will give return tickets to all classes without restriction as to date of return. The last will be a highlypained concession, and so will be that of ■gojgpai&tncnta for gentlemen with ladies, -but,it is on Pulman cars ordinary travellers must jm future rely for comfort. The .company'add thajt jtfoey will risk, at the out,«de, 0njy.£25,000 a year, and believe they wilt gain greatly by decreased .expenditure, a proposition we have never disponed. What, we urge if that the profits will be wade pj

disagreeable packing. Six of the greatest railways have' asked them to postpone the change till thalhalf-yearij meetings are over, but aa yet they have only agreed to meet their own shareholders on the 17th of November. >"'

. Tht»*«ecretaTy for India has a; deputation of Manchester manufacturers,' who pray for the abolition of the heavy duty now levied on their.goods in India. Lord Salisbury acknowledged. that in principle the remonstrants were in the right, for England could not speak with two voices about free trade, but did not, with an inelastic revenue, see his way to give up £BOO,OOO a year. There was no surplus in India, except, when opium accidentally produced it. ' He trusted that Indian manufacturers would not rely on a protective system, and doubted whether, if even were the tax abolished, Manchester would benefit much. The cotton grew in India, the market was in India, and labor of a singularly suitable kind also was in India. Nothing was wanting but coal and capital, and be had received papers showing that in one locality, not named, seventeen millions •f tons of coal exjsted not 170 feet below the ground. It was unfair, therefore, to charge all the competition to the financial policy .of the Indian Government. We believe this argument will, some years hence, prove sound ; but as yet. while coal is dear, communication not perfect, and the habit of manufacture on the great scale not formed, there is this fallacy in it. The import duty pretty nearly represents the local manufacturer's profit in excess of the interest he could get without exertion. Abolish the duty, and the mills would first languish, and then stop, as the native manufactures did.

The Conservatives are indulging in what seem to us very fanciful hopes that Convocation may yield to the wish for a revision of the Bubricsin the sense desired by Parliament. For example, both Lord Galway, M.P. for East Retford, and Mr Foljambe. the other member for the same place, stated in speeches at Worksop, that they hoped to see some reform effected by Convocation in this direction ; and Mr Foljambe added that if Convocation would not doit, Parliament would have to do it itself—a truly formidable undertaking, which we venture to think Parliament will decline to attempt, even though earnestly invited to the task by Mr Foljambe. Mr Foljambe waß yet more sanguine; he ventured to hope that Parliament might make so great an alteration in the conditions of the establishment aa to bring back some of the great dissenting bodies. But this is a dream which it will take a very different state of the public mind from any we have seen for a long time to realise. It seems much more likely that Parliament, when it finds thai Convocation stands stock-still under the invitation addressed to it, will leave the Public Worship Act to take effect on the Rubrics as they are ; will discover that that effect strengthens the party it wishes to weaken ; and will finally be compelled to repeal in a hurry the Act which it carried in a huff.

At all events, Dr Pusey and Archdeacon Allen bold out no hope that Convocation will stir a step in the matter of Rubrical Reform. In the Times there is a short correspondence between these gentlemen, in which Archdeacon Allen exhorts Dr Pusey to use his influence against any change in the Rubrics, and Dr Pusey replies in somewhat ambiguous terms, and in very low spirits, but appears to think, with the Archdeacon, that if "God preserves us this [the Prayer-book] unchanged," and by the context the Prayer-book is expressly meant to include its Rubrics, —" we may, by His mercy, yet weather the storm," and Dr Pusey evidently means to add, but if not, not. There is something a little unintelligible to us in the passionate attachment manifested by high Anglicans for a number of directions, drawn up or settled, after they were drawn up, by men for whom they express exceedingly little respect; directions, moreover, which, as Dr Pusey implies, frequently relate to forms that are doctrinally "indifferent." The experience of ecclesiastical history certainly goes to prove that there is nothing on earth so easy to make in all ages as an idol; but assuredly some of the oddest idols ever yet devoutly worshipped are the dry and diplomatic Rubrics of the Church of England.

Cardinal Cnllen and the Irish Catholic Bishops have pbt out a very careful Pastoral on the relation between science and faith, as discussed at Belfast in the meeting of the British Association in August last. The Cardinal broaches the subject by saying, cautiously enough—" It is the duty and the right of physical science to observe the phenomena and the laws of the material world, but the physicist, as such, will never ask himself by what influence external to the universe the universe is sustained, simply because he is a physicist." So far, good; indeed, even Professor Tyndall, we may remark, whose address called up Cardinal Cullen and his colleagues in the Catholic Episcopacy, did not infringe this rule, for he did not pretend to say by what influence external to his primitive atoms, the primitive atoms themselves on which he relied for such wonderful dcTelopments. were generated or sustained. But then to say that truth cannot contradict truth, and that if an appearance of contradiction exiotß, "it will be found that the boasted discovery which creates it is but an ephemeral theory, and not the truth ; or if its truth be beyond gainsay and the contradiction plain, then the doctrine with which it is in conflict will be found to be but a theological opinion, and not a dogma ; or if it be a dogma, it has been misunderstood, and not explained according to the mind of the Church." No doubt that is a statement elastic enough to cover all the cases in which an infallible dogma may give way before scientific investigation, without admitting in so many words that it has been compelled to give way. But we should like to ask the Cardinal the substantial difference between a true and infallible dogma universally misunderstood up to a certain epoch, and a false dogma ? Does it consist merely in the fact that the former is couched in ambiguous words, to which one whole generation attaches a false meaning, while another discovers for itself the only sense in which they can be true ? But that would be little better than an infallible dogmatic pun, of which the less obvious sense, and the only true one, remains hidden for generations. Yet, if that be not the explanation, in what sense can an infallible dogma be re-explained so as to agree with the science which it seemed to all men to contradict, while yet its only useful quality to man, that of instrucuyeness, should be vindicated ?