NEWS BY THE MAIL.

Globe, Volume V, Issue 572, 19 April 1876, Page 3

NEWS BY THE MAIL.

We take the following from the London letter of the Argus, dated London, February 18th:— THE SUEZ CANAL. The Suez Canal business came under more thorough discussion this week, when, in committee of supply, the Chancellor of the Exchequer moved a vote of £4,080,000 for the purchase money of the shares, and for defraying the incidental expenses arising out of the transaction. I need not follow Sir Stafford Northcote into the history of the negotiations. In his following argument he urged that we had not only got value for our money, we had obtained influence in the administration of the canal.. Nor would that influence be limited to ten votes. Arrangements were in progress which would probably result in the admission of three English representatives into the directorate. It was also explained that on the return of Mr Cave, who leaves Egypt at the close of this week, Mr Rivers Wilson will probably go out at the suggestion of the Government, but in a more independent capacity, to accept service under the Khedive, and aid him in the administration of his finances. The debate has been adjourned in order to allow time for the full consideration of the practical questions connected with the subject, Mr Gladstone in particular asked for full information, but deprecated party discussion. Europe has great interest in this matter as well as ourselves, and any weakness, or passion, or inconstancy we may show in dealing with it will be severely criticised. For my part I should have found it difficult, so far as the metropolitan press at least was concerned, to draw a distinction between that portion which was Conservative, and that which was Liberal, in their, I may almost say, inflammatory approval of the measure. FUGITIVE SLAVES. The Government have not succeeded in staying the agitation on the fugitive slave question by the promise of a Royal commission. A great meeting has been held at Exeter-hall, presided over by Professor Fawcett, and numerous smaller meetings have been held elsewhere, at which the second circular has been condemned, and the broad principle asserted that the deck of a British "ship shall be inviolate to the slaveowner. Mr Whitbread, the member for Bedford, will challenge the opinion of the House next week by a direct resolution on the subject, the edge of which will probably be turned by a proposal to postpone the decision till after the report of the commission. The names of the commissioners have been promptly announced. Amongst them are the Lord Chief Justice, the Duke of Somerset, the Right Hon Montague Bernard, Mr Fitzjames Stephens, and others accustomed to' disentangle the knotty questions of law. QUEEN v. EMPRESS. Mr Disraeli last night moved for leave to introduce the promised Bill authorising her Majesty to exercise her high prerogative and assume a title of sovereignty over the people of India, The debate turned mainly on what the title should be, whether Queen or Empress. Mr Lowe, whilst professing the profoundest concern for the feeling of the Queen, which, he said, merited the greatest possible consideration, observed, amid loud cheers from below the gangway, that the question was one which also touched the people. What was the new title to be 1 Presuming it would be Empress, Mr Lowe examined the meaning of the term by the light of Blackstone, and arrived at the conclusion that it was not a desirable title for a constitutional monarch, He much preferred the old English title of Queen, but if her Majesty’s full title was to be Queen of Great Britain, Ireland, and India, Defender of the Faith, there would, he pointed out, amid great laughter, arise the question “ whose faith ?” Moreover, India could not be regarded as a certain possession of the British Crown, and supposing it were lost, with what sort of feeling would the Parliament of the day come to drop the title. This question was answered by prolonged groanings of the Ministerial benches. Another question was what would the other colonists say if India were thus to be singled out for a mark of royal favour. Sir George Campbell, following instantly, disclaimed any community of feeling with Mr Lowe, and excited an outburst of laughter by warmly declaring the time had come for the Queen to occupy the same position as the Great Mogul had hitherto filled in India, Mr Disraeli subsequently declared that Mr Lowe was the only man in the House who would have brought forward such an argument as the possible loss of India, and stigmatised him as a prophet of evil. Several members urged that the title should be announced before the Bill was read, but finally leave was given for its introduction. THE WORK OF THE SESSION. The session promises to be a busy and lively one. Within the first few days notices of nearly a hundred Bills were given by private members, including those which annually reappear, and some which are intended simply as the assertion of a principle, and have no prospect of passing into law. Sir Charles Adderley has promptly introduced his Bill to amend the Merchant Shipping Acts, the chief object of which is to render permanent the provisions adopted at the close of the last session. A Bill relating to maritime contracts has also been brought in by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The whole subject will be thoroughly discussed, but at more leisure and with less excitement than last year. The shipowners have had a large and influential meeting, and sent a deputation to the Premier to represent their interests at this crisis. THE NEW DOOMSDAY BOOK. _ Some elaborate returns of great political interest have recently been issued in the Doomsday Book for England and Wales, which is a nominal roll of every man who possesses an acre of soil, covering every grade of proprietorship. The work accomplished for Scotland a year or two back has now been completed for the southern and chief portion of the kingdom, It may be remembered that in the census of 1861 only 30,766 persons returned themselves as proprietors of the soil, and this fact was made free use of in public discussion. Lord Derby in 1872 suggested that positive information should be obtained. The proposal was adopted by Mr Gladstone’s Government, and we have now the results. The statistics are, in condensed form, as follows: —Number of parishes in 1871, 14,700 ; population, 19,458,009 ; inhabited houses, 3,841,364 ; number of owners below one acre, 703,289 ; number

of owners of one acre and upwards, 269,647. Total number of owners, 972,836 ; extent of land, 33,013,510 acres ; gross estimated rental, £99,332,303 ; estimated extent of commons or waste lands, 1,524,648 acres. But these figures need careful scrutiny before their real significance can be perceived. The Spectator, for example, has prepared from them a table, which shows that the number of landowners in England owning over 100 acres is 37,719, and in Wales 4,760 ; so that less than 43,000 persons are landowners in the political sense. On the other hand, we find the Duke of Northumberland possessing 181,000 acres of soil in a single county, the Duke of Devon some 83,000 acres in Derbyshire, and numbers of other great landowners who are bound by the laws against which Mr Bright has recently protested. It should be noted that the metropolis is excluded from this return. EGYPTIAN FINANCE. The financial necessities of the Egyptian Government appear to be a bottomless abyss. The four millions paid for the canal shares were long ago swallowed, and encouraged by the ease of the operation, the needy Khedive offered to sell his prior right to 15 per cent, on the profits of the canal company for a Tamp sum down, but the British Government declined the offer, and reminded his Highness, that pending^-the arrival of Mr Cave it would not be advisable to enter into any further transactions of the kind. Repelled in this direction, the Khedive turned to the throng of usurers who have flocked to Egypt during the last few months, eager for some more splendid pickings before the final crash comes. Cairo has of late been the scene of the most extraordinary financial intrigues and daily rumours, which have agitated nearly every European bourse, and caused the most violent fluctuations in Egyptian stocks. At the outset of Mr Cave’s mission, everybody thought the Khedive was about to mend his financial ways, to look his difficulties in the face, and place his fiscal system upon a sound basis, under English advice. But those hopes have gradually died away. All sorts of rumours have been current respecting Mr Cave’s failure. Nothing authentic, however, is known, or probably will be, until the presentation of his report. Meanwhile, it has been announced by Ministers that Mr Rivers Wilson, controller of the National. Debt, has accepted the post of financial adviser to the Khedive, which would seem to indicate some serious reforming tendencies in his mind. On the other side the persistent rumours as to financial operations for consolidating the floating debt of £15,000,000 on usurious terms exci e one’s suspicions. As a temporary stopgap, the Anglo-Egyptian Bank has undertaken to advance £2,000,000 sterling on the security of the crops of the Daira, but the funding of the Treasury Bills is to be entrusted to a French syndicate, to whom the Government are to pay 9 per cent interest, and establish a sinking fund. The agent of this combination, M. Pastre, is now on his way to Paris with a scheme for establishing a national Egyptian Bank, capital four million pounds. This is said to be merely a new confederacy of men who have for years fed and feasted upon Egypt. The World last week devoted four pages to a history of the Khedive’s extravagances, the unscrupulous method by which he seized upon one-fifth of the cultivable area of Egypt, the hordes of usurers by whom he has hitherto been flattered and fleeced, and the impending bankruptcy of the country. In publishing the telegram announcing the new financial operation, the Times says, warningly :—“ This information portends several things. In the first place, the French group who have been eager to continue manipulation of the Khedive’s finances have so far triumphed, the AngloEgyptian Bank being practically a French institution. Secondly, this advance is temporary only, and one-third of £3,000,000 is optional. It is therefore preliminary to some more permanent arrangement for the socalled funding of the floating debt. Egyptian bondholders will therefore do well to watch the course of events carefully, so as to be ready to protest against any alienation of their right in the event of a new loan being tried ; and should an attempt be made as is now very probable, to raise a new loan, those who are asked to subscribe may as well remember that their money is wanted not so much to relieve the Khedive as to enable those who have lent him money at twentyfive and thirty per cent to get away with all that they can lay claim to. If Egyptian finance, we can only repeat, is to be satisfactorily dealt with now, it must be by treating the debt as a whole, by honestly revealing the true position, and if losses have to be borne in order to bring affairs round, by asking all classes of creditors to take their share in these losses. Another loan after the fashion of those that have gone before is not to be tolerated while Egyptian affairs remain in the darkness which has so long shrouded them.”