NOTES OF THE MONTH.

Globe, Volume III, Issue 285, 11 May 1875, Page 4

NOTES OF THE MONTH.

(From the Spectator.) There appears to be no truth in the report of Prince Bismarck's approaching resignation. The Chancellor is ill, and his relatives are anxious that he should retire, but he has himself given no intimation of such an intention. On the contrary, -he is said to be arranging a grand plan for transferring the control of all education in Germany from the local authorities to the central power, the object being, of course, to make all education Imperialist and secular. There can be no doubt that such a project would be supported by the National Liberals, and as little that it would excite still stronger opposition from the Catholic subjects of the Empire.

The abates on the Address were of no importance in either House of Parliament, except as indicating the tone assumed respectively by the Opposition and by the Government in relation to each other. Lord Granville had very little doubt that the Government were right in not going again into the Conference summoned by Russia on the usages of war. He thought the Ministry should recognise or not recognise the new Government of Spain without taking Parliament into counsel on the subject. He thought Spain should not have been called an " unfortunate " country in the speech from the Throne. He was very glad that Ireland was no longer held to be in a state of " veiled rebellion," and that there was a prospect of relaxing the special Peace Preservation laws. He criticised the omission to refer to the state of the Navy, and to propose any measure for the reform of local taxation. Further, he objected to the doctrine that the Liberal party should put forth a " programme," a term to which he objected as a theatrical term, even if the thing had been good, and if the Conservative party when in Opposition had put one forth, instead of succeeding chiefly, as it did, through not putting acy forth, Finally, Lord Granville

promised, on behalf of the Opposition, not to be factious. The Duke of Richmond briefly replied, intimating that what Lord Granville thought the very opposite of factiousness might, by possibility, seem decidedly factious to him; he denied that any advice was asked from Parliament in relation to the recognition of the new Eoyal Government in Spain, and pointed out that Spain was called not merely " unfortunate," but "a great but unfortunate country," in the Speech from the Throne. He also made other rejoinders of equal weight and importance. In fact,, the discussion came to something like this—that Lord Granville said there had been several political i's left undotted and some political t's uncrossed by the Government, and that the Duke of Richmond, with the aid of a microscope, found that the dots and the crosses were all there. In the Lower House it was much the same, except that the mover of the Address, Mr E. Stanhope (M.P. for Mid-Lincolnshire), a barrister, thirty-five years of age, gained a considerable oratorical success by the beauty of his flowing periods, chiefly in relation to the wide colonial policy of the Government. The Marquis of Hartington followed very closely the line of Lord Granville's criticisms, deviating only here and there to show a somewhat more decided Conservative bias; while Mr Disraeli, who replied to him with an air of humorous and serene condescension, repudiated altogether the Conservative bigotry of his own most enthusiastic supporters. Moreover, he declined absolutely to give any assurance that the measures referred to in the Queen's speech were really to be pressed through. "At present," he said, " it is our intention to bring forward the measures we have enumerated, but you may have revolutions, great catastrophes, ecclesiastical misconceptions; you may have the revival of those burning questions which were the pride of the Ministry of the noble lord and his colleagues. I cannot answer for consequences, if such circumstances occur," —but Mr Disraeli would not anticipate them. Indeed, with Mr Gladstone's leadership, his opponent's thirst for ecclesiastical discussion seems to have disappeared. At present, the horoscope of the Government is fair. Lord Hartington and Mr Disraeli are of one mind and heart. Righteousness and Peace have kissed each other.

Matters are not looking well with Alfonso XII. We make it a principle to btlieve no news from Spain not forwarded by British correspondents, but it is difficult to doubt that the army, under General Laserna, failed in the attack on Lacer on their way to Estella, or that they lost three guns, or that the slaughter was very severe indeed. The Carlists believe it amounted to 7000 men. Don Carlos himself has issued a proclamation thanking his troops for their great victory ; the Government at Madrid acknowledges a "check"; and the King has issued a decree levying 70,000 men, and fixing £320 as the price of exemption. All this looks ill for the restoration of order in Spain, as does the return of the young King to Madrid. It is known that he wished to stop with the army, and the inference is either that he embarrassed his Generals by giving the Carlists a perpetual point of attack, or that the Government think it necessary for him to be present in the capital, |where defeat may any day produce disorder. If the recruits are required, as seems probable, to reinforce the army in the field, it must be weeks before General Moriones, who succeeds Laserna, is in a position to resume the offensive.

A conference on the subject of the Disestablishment and Disendowment of the Chnrch met at the Masonic Hall, Birmingham, on February 10th, but nothing particular came of it, except resolutions that a much more complete disendowment than any effected in the case of the Irish Church must accompany disestablishment when it comes, Mr Illingworth even maintaining that all private gifts to the Established Church, however recent, as we understand him, should be regarded simply as. national property, and devoted to any purpose to which the endowments conferred by the nation itself shall, in case of disestablishment and disendowment, be devoted. The Conference refused to commit itself to the principle that Liberals should vote for nobody who did not accept the pledge to disestablish and disendow, and was certainly wise in that bit of moderation. On the whole, the Conference does not seem to hare advanced the position of the movement by a single step, unless the candid and evidently serious recognition of the |great difficulties with which it has to contend, be considered as such an advance. The official order of the day rather |resembled] Louis Napoleon's remarkably diffident proclamation, when he took the field against Prussia, It was full of " the difficulties to be encountered," and " the necessity for activity, persistency, and firmness." The need is assuredly great, unless the Liberation Society wish to experience calamities like thoae of Worth, Gravelotte, and Sedan.

Mr C. Lewis moved on February 10th that no new writ be issued for the election of a new member for Stroud in the place of Mr H. R. Brand, whose election had been declared void. He commented on the worst scandals of the last four elections, all taken within seven months, and contended that a certain delay in issuing anew writ for Stroud which it was quite within the competence of the House of Commons to cause, would be a political sedative to the borough, and likely to lead to much purer elections for the future. Sir William Harcourt resisted the motion, on the ground that it was quite contrary to precedent to delay the issue of a new writ, except with a view to give time for an inquiry into the extent of the corruption. Now in this case there could be no inquiry under the Elections Petitions Act of 1868, as the Judge had not reported that corrupt practices " extensively prevailed " at the last election. Hence to delay the issue of the writ would be to take the power of punishment into the hands of the House in a fashion unheard of as yet. And this was the argument which prevailed, in spite of a most amusing and rattling speech from Sir Wilfrid Lawson, in favor of the delay of the writ, a speech in which he denounced "musty precedents," and drew a most ludicrous picture of the fatal result to the "holy calm" of the Liberal party likely to be caused by the return of Mr Bouverie as M.P. for Stroud. Mr Lewis's motion was rejected by a majority of 181 (225 to 44).