NOTES OF THE MONTH.

Globe, Volume IV, Issue 394, 16 September 1875, Page 3

NOTES OF THE MONTH.

(From the Spectator.') It has been decided that the visit of the Prince of Wales should be a State affair or Royal Progress, and be paid for partly out of Imperial and partly out of Indian funds. Mr Disraeli stated in his place that the Prince would sail from Brindisi in the Osborne, aud be escorted by the Serapis, and would be met either at Aden or Bombay by a aquae ron from the China seas. The journey will cost the Admiralty £52,000. The escort in India will be provided by India, and the Prince will be the guest throughout of the Viceroy, at an expense to the Indian Treasury of £30,000. Mr Disraeli asked the House of Commons to grant £60,000 for the Prince’s private expenses, presents, and so on, and thought that this sum would be sufficient. The Marquis of Hartington, while supporting the proposal, hinted that the sum would be inadequate, and the general feeling of the House appeared to be in favor of a larger grant, and of the total exemption of India from any direct contribution. The

money is certainly not enough, if the visit is to last fourteen weeks, and the House may . 11, for the first time in its history, h.'have with liberality to the Indian Treasury. Government must decide what India ought to rp.-nd, without taking a native plebiscite, hut tbo r e i< little grace in assuming that your host will like to pay for your excursions. The proposal, of course, did not pass without opposition. Mr Burt, Mr Macdonald, and Mr P. A. Taylor opposed the grant, assigning no reasons, hut stating that it would create discontent among the working classes. Their speeches, though short and simple, provoked an outburst of rowdyism within the House, the majority evidently thinking that any objection to the vote was an “ ungentlemanly ” proceeding. It was just as ungentlemanly as objection to any other vote, and the overbearing conduct of the majority will merely irritate the opponents iuto taking a division. We have endeavored elsewhere to show that the vote is not a personal grant, but Mr Burt’s adhesion shows that the dislike to the grant has a real existence, and it may be as well if the Premier explains a little more clearly why the sum, even if raised *o £IOO,OOO, will be very small. Any serious opposition such as that produced by the Lome appropriation ill take half the grace out of the visit, and make any application for a supplementary estimate very disagreeable indeed. Mr Disraeli should take all the Prince is likely to want in one vote, and take a little trouble too, to awaken the always-existing liking in the country for doing things in a grand way. The people are not mean, though They do not understand how much £IOO,OOO is. The prospects of the dissolution of the French Assembly are rapidly improving. All fractions of the Left, with a moderation rare in French politics, have agreed as far as possible to avoid discussion, that the Dissolution may be hastened on, and on Wednesday the second reading of the Public Powers Bills was carried through in a single sitting, U, Margou proposed that if the Assembly was dissolved, the permanent committee should continue sitting, but was defeated by 604 votes to 23. The Duke de la RochefoucauldBisaccia proposed to give the power of declaring war, without the previous consent of the Chambers, to the president, provided that president were Marshal MacMahou, and made a speech, in which he said that a mere President of a Republic would find himself a pariah among Kings and Emperors. Of course this merely irritated the Chamber, and the amendment was rejected by 433 to 177, the minority being made up of Legitimists, soldiers, aud the Marshal’s personal following. Finally, the whole Bill was adopted by 547 to 97. The new political sense which misfortune has developed in France came out strongly in the whole proceeding, which has scarcely a precedent in her history. Mr Trevelyan’s Bill for the extension of household suffrage to the counties has been debated, when Mr Balt (M.P. for Kafford) moved its rejection, in a rather remarkable speech, in which he did not spars either the present or the late Government, or, indeed, our existing Parliamentary system at all. He charged the Reform Bill of 1867 with having engendered a spasmodic condition of the public mind, rendering both parties iu the State prone to legislative excesses. The legislation of the last Government was excessive, after a violent, or as he called it, an alcoholic type; the legislation of the present Government is equally excessive after a heavy, or as he termed it, a suetpudding type ; and Englishmen were as likely to have a surfeit of the one as of the other. What the English people wanted was an Assembly manifesting the very best qualities of the English people, “ their quiet aud deep courage, their strong commonscnse, their love of order, and perhaps, above all, their obedience to the law.” Mr Salt intimated that reform w=is leading us further aud further from this ideal. But can that be said of the special reform proposed ? Are not these the precise qualities which the English agricultural laborers hare displayed in their patient, earnest, and tenacious agitation for higher wages and electo.al rights ? Mr Forster replied to Mr Salt in a speech of a good deal of fire. He disclaimed above everything making a party issue of this question, and expressed his belief that among the county voters whom a household suffrage would enfranchise, would be found not a few of the class so popular with the Ministerial party, “ the Conservative working men.” The absence of agitation was a great reason for passing the Bill, not for delaying it. It was wretched statesmanship to wait for signs of impatience like the pulling down of park palings before a concession was made to confessedly just demands, and it was a most dangerous policy for us to vie with each- other iu acknowledging the justice of demands which on grounds of mere convenience we refuse to concede. After Mr Forster’s speech the debate fell into rather poor hands, till Mr Trevelyan rose, and spoke with much more than his usual eloquence and force on behalf of the Bill for which he was responsible. After pointing out how the interests of the rural laborers had been neglected in the recent legislation, he proceeded“ See the position in which these people are placed. They paid the taxes they never voted; they kept tha laws which they have had no hand in making; they did the country’s work; they bore the country’s burdens; they fought the country’s battles; they were Englishmen in all respects and for every purpose, except during the progress of a General Election, Then, at the very moment when a citizen’s privilege was best worth possessing, they sank from the rank of citizens to the level of aliens. They saw men who had only a nominal and fictitious connection with their neighbourhood, flocking up by special trains from every quarter of the compass to vote in those booths from which they themselves were ruthlessly excluded, and then hurrying off in order to be in time to swamp by means of faggot and plural suffrages the real public opinion of some other unhappy locality. They, meanwhile —the native, the genuine, the resident inhabitants stand in the market-place, waiting patiently and helplessly to hear who were to be their members during the next seven years.” It would seem that the Abyssinians have some reason for their fear of the Egyptians. The Khedive has been receiving submissions all down the Nile Valley, including that of Darfur, and he has now purchased Zeyla, the best port on the west side of the Gulf of Aden, from the Bultan. If he can make a good road from his new possessions to Zeyla, Abyssinia will be hemmed iu by Egypt, and must gradually be subdued. The west coast of the Rod Bca will then be Egyptian and Mohammedan.