OUR LONDON LETTER.

Globe, Volume XXI, Issue 1741, 18 September 1879, Page 3

OUR LONDON LETTER.

LONDON, August 1. The Marquis of Hartington, solicited by two constituencies, has made his choice. “ On revient toujours,” says the French proverb, “ a nos premiers amours,” and so it is to be with the noble leader of the Opposition. When he was a good many years younger, when he was a man about to? a and cared a great deal for fashionable frivolities and apparently very little for politics, he represented North Lancashire, but the Tory Government of 1868 cut that divi sion in two, gave two members to each, and then at the next election contested and won them all. Fortunately Lord Hartington found a refuge in the Radnor Burghs, which ho has ever since represented. Now a general election is thought to be imminent. Ministers will not admit the slightest intention to dissolve, but most people think they will, and for this last fortnight it has become more and more evident than ever that when the prorogation of the House'of Commons comes some time this month, it will probably meet no more, and hon. members may lay by their guns —for there are few birds and those not fit to shoot—and address themselves to their constituents. Well, those who rule in the great Councils of the Liberal party, which has been of late, it may be remarked, in a minority varying from sixty to somewhere near double that number,Jhaye resolved to assault the Conservative strongholds in the counties. Some time ago it was announced that Mr Gladstone would desert Greenwich and fight in Midlothian the son and heir of the ducal house of Buccleuch, which is supposed to be omnipotent in that district. Now Lord Hartington is going to be an exact parallel. With as good a grace as he can, for the noble Marquis is not a master of felicitous language, he has bidden farewell to the Radnor people who have cherished him these eleven years, and he is going back to woo the suffrages of the people of North-East Lancashire. Of course, he has not done this in an open way. His advisers have chosen to adopt the transparent fiction of getting up an address to him from that constituency inviting him to become a candidate, and assuring him of a triumphant return, because the address was signed by more than half the electors on the register. Having disposed of his present constituents, simple Welsh people, who know that a contested election presents many surprises and have, therefore, resolved to elect him as before, in case Lancashire should reject him, Lord Hartington went down to Darwen, one of the cotton manufacturing towns, and having devoted the morning to opening an art exhibition, set to work at night to make what is facetiously termed “ an exhaustive political speech ” —an effort of which the noble Marquis, greatly improved though he has become of late, is not capable. But, there is a tinge of sadness in the tone with which the Darwen people address him, and while they lament the past, they do not seem to be jubilant as to the future. “ Eleven years ago,” says Darwen, “ you came here. The circumstances wore precisely similar; you opened an art exhibition ; you then sought election as one of our representatives, but —” And here Darwen falters, as if unwilling to remind Lord Hartington of a rejection. “ Aye, aye,” says the noble Marquis, with the air of a young widower who is trying to make it up with an old Hama; “ but, never mind ; wo may bo happy yet,” and then proceeds to make some serious proposals for the future. The country wanted to know what he had to offer, but they look in vain through his long and tedious speech for anything of a programme. All his complaint is that during the existence of the pr sent Parliament Ministers have had a majority which has enabled them to defeat every movement of the Opposition —a remark which might be made at almost any time by anyone who leads the Loft. Ho would extend the county franchise—of course that must be offered to the Liberals in a county constituency ; ho would seek to conciliate the Irish members ; ho would manage foreign affairs on an altogether different basis ; and please will you have him, for better or_ worse ? Lord Hartington’s political nature is simple, but ho cannot imagine that the Tory stronghold in Lancashire—four divisions, be it_ remembered, each returning two Conservative mom-

hers, and a majority of Ministerial supporters sent by tho boroughs—is to bo destroyed by any such weak artillery as he brought out at Darwen.

Now, Mr Gladstone cannot go down to Midlothian just yet, it would be a little too barefaced, though the Liberals have of late tried every dodge to force the hand of Ministers and make them disclose some hint as to when the dissolution will come. But if Mr Gladstone has not the opportunity of speaking ho can write, even at greater length than he can speak, and the best of our reviews are always open to him. Accordingly, ho has taken up six and twenty pages of this month s number of the “ Nineteenth Century with an article on “ The Country and tho Government.” Of course I have read this production, but I feel that my time has been wasted. It is always a pleasure to hear Mr Gladstone speak, for though you may disagree with every sentence he utters, his incomparable voice lends a double charm to a rich flow of language. The right hon. gentleman as a writer is altogether as dull. I don’t think ho writes these articles, though sometimes in the House of Commons he may bo seen scribbling away almost as fast as the reporters in tho gallery over his head. I think ho speaks these articles to an amanuensis, for they have only one half of the style of his public speeches, and that the poorer moiety. Anything duller than this “ Nineteenth Century” article cannot be imagined as proceeding from him. It is meant to be an indictment on the whole course of proceedings by tho present administration, and an appeal to the constituencies to elect men who will turn out the present Government. There is scarcely a suggestion as to what should be the political future of his party, and Mr Gladstone goes so far as to praise the Irish Obstructionists for having been at heart the best friends of Sir Stafford Northcoto and tho Treasury Bench. This is too difficult to believe, especially at a time when all the ingenuity of both sides of tho House is being exercised to find some means of circumventing the Home Rule brigade, and putting them to ignominious silence. But it may happen that all these efforts, of both Lord Hartington and Mr Gladstone, will bo thrown away. Many Conservative members seem to have taken alarm at the preparations being made throughout tho Liberal camp, but the older and steadier of tho members on the Government side of the House of Commons, who know the Prime Minister’s conduct of affairs when he was Mr Disraeli and tho leader of the Opposition, know and are doing their beat to politely point out that he is too wary to be caught in any Liberal trap, and that he is much more likely to spring a mine upon his opponents.

The Army Discipline Bill has at length become law, after a waste of time in the House of Commons which is perfectly unprecedented. in Parliamentary annals. The Opposition, which at first consisted only of the little group of Home Kule obstructives, subsequently became enlarged by the “ Circassians ” of the Radical party, who took up the question of flogging in tho army, and, after having obtained some concessions from the Government on that matter, forced Lord Hartington to take up the question as a party one, and the result was, that just after I despatched my last letter, the House spent the whole of one night in a set debate on this subject. It was about as dull an affair as can well be imagined, and ended in tho signal defeat of the Liberals, who were in a minority of 106. To make up for this sheer waste of time the Commons were obliged to make an unusual effort, so next day they began at two o’clock that stage of the Bill which is called the “report of amendments,” and continued at work with the brief intermission which is usual after a morning sitting, until four o’clock the next morning. The same afternoon the Lords met at five o’clock for tho special purpose of reading the Bill a first time, it being Saturday. On Monday Lord Cranbrook, who was the War Minister, moved the second reading of the measure, and was forced to beg that no amendments should bo made in it, as it was necessary that it should receive the Royal assent before the end of the week. Everybody understood that if only a word was altered the Bill must go back to the Commons, and this would afford an opening for a fresh obstructive campaign ; so after a mild protest from Earl Granville, the Lords expressed their approval of the Bill, which, it is well to note, was cordially supported by Viscount Cardwell, who was Minister for War under tho last Gladstone administration. So, the steam being up, their Lordships suspended the Standing Orders and went clean through tho remaining stages of the Bill next day, and thus left the Irish members in tho lurch, if they had any hope of placing the Government in further cmharassment.

But, “ the more haste the leas speed,” aays an old proverb, and so it was in this case, for just when the Bill was being hurried through the House of Lords some one discovered that it was without any clause fixing a date for its coming into operation. So another Bill of a single clause had to be draughted and carried through both Houses atjlightning speed to remedy this omission. This is not the only case in which such neglect has happened. In another instance Ministers and one of their draughtsmen appear to have had very different ideas, and when Sir Stafford Northcote rose a few nights ago to move the second reading of a Bill, he was stopped on a point of order, objection being taken that the Bill as printed differed materially from the speech on which the House gave him leave to introduce it. This measure had accordingly to be withdrawn.

As regards foreign affairs the-a are but two matters which I can deal with in this letter, but they are both important ones. The first is the war in Zululand, which most people regard as being virtually over, in consequence of the brilliant victory that Lord Chelmsford has gained over the enemy at TJlundi. While everybody at home was grumbling at him for his inactivity after the disaster at Isandula, and a great many people in the Capo Colonies were finding fault with him for his seemingly constant change of plans, he appears to have been quietly settling the best way to strike an effective blow at Oetewayo’s power. Possibly the receipt of the intelligence that Sir Garnet Wolseley had been sent out to take supreme command had some effect in hastening his operations and bringing about this final result. But while Lord Chelmsford has been thus fortunate in defeating the Zulus and driving them from the southern and only cultivated portion of their territory—a feat which will go far to retrieve his reputation as a soldier and a commander —no more unhappy fate than that of Sir Garnet Wolseley, who was-sent out to do all Lord Chelmsford has done, can be imagined. He had arrived in time, everybody thought, when he reached the Cape, to take part in these operations, but the sea was against him, and when his ship arrived off Port Durnford, for two whole days the water was too rough to allow him to land, and he had to return to the Cape. In the meantime Lord Chelmsford had fought the battle of Ulundi, and now, anparently imitating Othello, says that as far as he is concerned the war is over, and ho leaves Sir Garnet Wolsely to arrange a peace, if the Zulu King desires a formal settlement of affairs, though we can very well afford to do without that ceremony. But Sir Garnet had with him a companion in misfortune—the celebrated Dr. W. H. Russell, whoso special correspondence to the “Times” during the Crimean war, and on many subsequent occasions, has won for him an enduring tame. He gave up the pension which the “ Timee” allowed him on retiring from their service and accepted an engagement from the “Telegraph” to write them letters from the seat of war at the Cape, but when he got there the war was over.

Tho only other foreign matter of importance is the condition of Turkey, which, in spite of all that the Berlin Congress could do for it, appears to be hastening on a process of disintegration. The obvious fact is that not all tho advice which ito best friends gave it will prevent the Porte from taking the course its enemies desire, if it does anything at all, and its Oriental impassivenesa is the feature which it most commonly displays. Khoreddin Pacha, the man whom all Europe believed to be the beat man to manage Turkish affairs at the preaent time, haa been virtually dismissed from power and his very office abolished, because ho would not consent to bo the mere tool of the Sultan. The conduct of tho Porto towards Egypt is still more inscrutable, and it is only under direct pressure and a threat to curtail ax stop tho supplies from that quarter that the Sultan has yielded, though it is evident that it is rather his poverty than his will that has consented to give to the new Khedive, the young Prince Tewfik, all the privileges for which his father paid in tribute. The greedy Turks at Pera wished to have all the tribute without giving an equal enjoyment of privileges,‘and for weeks England and France, very weakly supported by tho other powers, have been negotiating at Constantinople as to what should bo the contents of the firman to be issued for the investiture of tho Egyptian

vassal. At last this matter has been satisfactorily arranged, but in every other direction there are increasing the difficulties between Porte, its subjects and the powers and though Russia cannot enter upon another war, she may yet find other means for the annihilation of Turkey.