DE OMNIBUS REBUS.

Globe, Volume VI, Issue 689, 4 September 1876, Page 3

DE OMNIBUS REBUS.

Advices from the Cape to the 10th of June state that the House of Assembly, after a debate of two days, has decided that no delegates from the colony should be sent to the proposed Conference in London; The Premier, Mr Molteno, has, however, been authorised to visit this country in order to give counsel and assistance to Lord Carnarvon in the disputes that have arisen in connection with Griqualand West. The Standard and Hail says :—" Mr Molteno, without any declaration of Ministerial policy, has bound himself only to treat on the Griqualand West question in his interviews with Lord Carnarvon. The Opposition treat this with much ridicule. The Government majority is only five, so future defeat is not far off." A report has been recently circulated at the Cape that, in order to settle the question of the disputed ownership of the Diamond Fields, the Imperial Government intended to cede Basutoland to the Orange Free State, as well as to make pecuniary compensation of large amount. This report has occasioned considerable uneasiness among the Basutos and also among the French Protestant missionaries, who for forty years have laboured in the country. The Aborigines Protection Society having written to Lord Carnarvon for information on the subject, Mr Herbert, in reply, has been directed to inform the society that " there is no foundation for any rumour to the effect that the cession of Basutoland to the Free State has been contemplated by Her Majesty's Government."

A return has been issued iu which the annual expense of maintaining the turnpike roads of England and North Wales, exclusive of debt, is contrasted with the similar outlay under the peculiar system which was introduced into South Wales as one of the consequences of the " Rebecca " riots. Ordinary trust roads are in course of being •• disturnpiked," with, of course, a considerable reduction in the receipts from tolls. Thus, in 1865, the total expenditure was £774,772 for all the roads of England and North Wales ; in 1873, the latest year of available statistic?, it was but £438,217. The total disbursement per mile of road varied during the nine years 18(55-1873 between £3l llsGd and £37 16s Gd, the lower yearly cost being found in the latter part of the term. The aunual average cost for the nine years was £35 15s 3d ; as much as 82J per cent of the expenditure, not counting debt payments, was devoted to the repair and improvement of the roads. In South Wales the expenditure between the later and the earlier years is uot so considerable. The annual average cost per mile ranged between £25 4s 41 and £2B 7s 6d. Here also it is noticeable that the coat latterly is lighter. The average for the nine years was £26 3s Sd, or £9 lis 7d (exclusive of about £1 per mile spent by highway boards on turnpike roads) per mile leßs than in the other parts of the kingdom. The proportion of expenditure given to repair and maintenance of roads in South Wales differs only £ per cent from the English rate, it being 82 per cent. It is not yet decided by the table before us that the roads of South Wales are less costly than those of England and North Wales, by virtue solely of the better system and management of the former.

News has been received from Zanzibar to ihe Ist of Juue. On the 12th of May an Arab vessel loading slaves waH seized acd burned in the harbor by bis Highuess's orders. In consequence of the recent orders issued by the Sultan prohibiting the lane! traffic in slaves, and forbidding all slave dealers from going inland for slaves, the elders and people of the important town of Kilwah, on the opposite coast, openly rebelled. Dr Kirk had anticipated the danger by having sent her Majesty's ship Thfltis to the vicinity of the place, and, on hearing of the rebellion, Dr Kirk at once proceeded in one of the Sultan's steam vessels, taking 200 of his JHighness's Arab troops with him to strengthen the garrison, which is now suffi-

ciently strong to resist any attempt at rebellion and to cause the new laws to be observed. The Consul-General has returned to Zanzibar, leaving the Kilwah district perfectly quiet. The Sultan, in a letter to De Badger, recognises gratefully the aid of the British Government " and the powerful support which we receive from our friend Dr Kirk." There are rumors that heavy losses will be sustained by the merchants at Kilwah, who at the present time have upwards of £40,000 of goods in the Nyassa country for the purchase of slaves, much of which will be lost, as the steps being taken by the Sultan, guided by Dr Kirk, are so energetic as to make the papsags of slave caravans a difficult and dangerous matter. The Blave trade in the Banadir or Suwahily ports of the Somali land under Zanzibar is said to be at an end ; at the same time there seems to be a great development of legitimate traffic throughout the dominions of the Sultan. A denial is given to a statement made in the Western Morning News that a great blow had been inflicted on the slave trade by the capture of three Arab slave dhows and crews, who haa been taken to Portuguese territory and there sentenced to five years' imprisonment, "instead of the almost nominal punishment which would have been inflicted on them at Zanzibar." The facts are said to be these—One slave crew and owners, taken in the act, with about three hundred slaves which had been shipped near Mozambique for Madagascar, had been sent by our Consul-General to the Portuguese authorities. There was no lack of proof to convict them, nevertheless, instead oi punishing them, the Portuguese acquitted and dismissed them. Another lot have now been placed in their hands, and it remains to be Been how they will be dealt with.

Profeesor Beuleaux, of Berlin, who is one of the representatives of Germany on the jury of the Philadelphia Exhibition, asserts in a letter to the National Zeitnng that by far the greater number of the German articles exhibited at Philadelphia are inferior to those of the same kind which have been sent from other countries. " The Germans in America," he says, "have for many years talked of what Germany would produce when she should be united and regenerated; they proudly foretold that their former fatherland would certainly surpass other nations in many respects, if not eclipse them altogether. Now that they see the very opposite has happened, they have become our bitterest critics, though indirectly they may prove to be our friends ; for they are publicly setting before Germany truths which she would not believe when they were told her by her friends in Europe." There are three principal criticisms, proceeds the professor, which are made on the German department in the Exhibition : firßt, that the leading principle of German industry is to produce things which are cheap and bad; secondly, that most German goods are not made to be beautiful in themselves, but to attract by an appeal to German patriotic feeling ; and, thirdly, that German industry shows no progress whatever either in taste or in invention. I cannot refrain from a feeling of shame when I wander through our department of the Exhibition, and see nothing but German ias, Borussias, Kaisers, Crown Princes, Bed Princes, Bismarcks, Molkes. and Boons in porcelain, zinc, irons, terracotta, lithographs, paintings, and embroideries. In our art products we have sustained a defeat equal to two Sedans. In the machinery department, too, seven-eighths of the space seems to be taken up with Krupp's giant cannon—those killing machines, as the Americans call them, which stand like a menace among the pacific productions sent by the other nations. Is that really a true expression of Germany's ' mission ?' Do we not by such demonstrations force other nations to believe that Germany is penetrated with a spirit of Chauvinism 1 . . . As to the third objection, I hear people say: 'We have found something to learn of all the nations which are represented at the Exhibition except Germany; she teaches us nothing.' This is hard, but it is almost quite true. I cannot deny the general justice of these criticisms, and can only express a wish that many German manufacturers will come here, in order that they may see how much we have to learn and how much to forget." The Swedish and Norwegian Government have made an important representation to the English Foreign Office on the subject of the proposed prohibition of timber cargoes by the Merchant Shipping Bill. In its original form this prohibition, it may be remembered, was not absolute, and extended only to timber cargoes exceeding three feet in height above the deck. An amendment, however, was carried by Mr Plimsoll making it illegal for any ship which leaves any port beyond the United Kingdom between the Ist of October in one year and the 16th of March in the next to carry any cargoes of wood on deck at all ; and it is against this proposal that the Swedish and Norwegian Government are protesting. They observe that the definite adoption of the amendment would have the inevitable result of increasing the freight of timber cargoesduring a greatportion of the year ; and while "this inconvenience, although considerable, ought naturally to be tolerated if the restriction imposed by the House of Commons was required in the interests of humanity, the Government of the King, after an examination of the question undertaken some years ago, and recently resumed, does not believe there is any necessity for proceeding with such a rigorous measure." Ths Swedish Government go on to urge that they know her Majesty's Ministers had carefully considered the circumstances before fixing the maximum at 3ft, and they therefore " earnstly desire that Parliament should stop at that point, and they trust that more mature consideration will cause the House of Commons to reconsider its decision." They " hope that her Majesty's Government will use their influence to prevent deckloading being entirely prohibited by the House of Lords when the subject is considered by them." lier Majesty's Government, and still more the House of Lords, would probably find it very difficulty to take the step thus pressed upon them, or, indeed to do anything which should resemble curtailment of the life-protecting provision!, sanctioned by the popular assembly. Stil the difficulty which has thus arisen betwee! us and the Swedish Government is much

be regretted, and we can only wonder that more such protests have not been received. The " careful consideration " with which the English Government has been credited as regards this question did not apparently include any inquiry whatever into the extent to which penal provisions directed against ships of other nationalities would be ap proved of or acquiesced in by their reflpectiv Governments.