LONDON LETTER.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1866, 16 February 1880, Page 3

LONDON LETTER.

[fbom the pebss correspondent.] LONDON, January 1, 1880. We enter to-day upon a new year with more than usual feelings of hope for the future, since we cannot look back upon the year which has just ended with any pleasurable feelings. The year 1879 will long be remembered by many people as the worst they ever passed through, and the majority of folks have parted with it without one sigh cf regret. Trade was at its worst, and although for the past two or three months there have been some signs of a revival in some branches j yet the awakening is not by any meangeneral, nor is it permanently assured in those departments which towards the close of the twelvemonth showed more activity than during the earlier three quarters. Agriculture has passed through even a worse period of depression, although, while English farmers are not reaping much benefit therefrom, the prices of bread and moat at this past Christmas were ranch higher than they have been during several previous Decembers, making life additionally harder to those who have not had too much money to help them through a winter of exceptional severity. And abroad wo have bad to sail over several troubled sear of politics. Our expeditions to Afgbanislar have cost us considerable anxiety, and never

has the public attention in that directum been raoro strained than during the last fortnight. This and the other matt era into which we have been driven, coupled with a diminishing national income, has left us with aconsiderablo deficit, which it will require several very good financial years to replace. With regard to the two wars which wo have on hand, events during the past fortnight have proved very favorable to us. When we heard that General Roberts and his little army had been compelled to withdraw from Cabul and shut themselves up in the cantonments outside at Sherpur, everyone looked serious, fearing that the worst might befall our troops who were surrounded by many times their number of the wildest of the Afghan tribes, And the thirty thousand of the enemy who had gathered on all the strongest positions to the north of Oabul evidently meant to eat us up, if they could, but they cannot keep their intentions secret, and so when the signal was given for a general attack upon our entrenchments they found us fully prepared to meet them. They swooped down upon us in terrific number, but they speedily fell back before our artillery, and were totally dispersed by the cavalry, which chased them for a great distance and cut them up. In South Africa the war may be said to have closed just as we are put in possession of that direct telegraphic communication, the need of which was so much felt a twelvemonth ago. With Cetywayo our prisoner, with the death of the native chief Moirosi, and the capture of Secocoeni, troubles from the natives in that part of the world may be truly regarded as at an end. The Dutch Boers were threatening while there was a hope of their being able to annoy us, but in the face of recent events they have determined to do nothing hostile for at least three months, which moans that they will quietly submit, and already Sir Garnet Wolseley has boldly announced that the Transvaal will be treated as a Crown colony. Unfortunately, the year 1879 has not been allowed to close without another daring attempt being made to shoot a monarch, the intended victim in this most recant case of attempted regicide being the young King of Spain, whose marriage to the Archduchess Maria Christine, of Austria I recently chronicled. The young and royal couple have hardly yet got over their honeymoon, and are in the habit of driving out daily with a very simple escort. It was not supposed that anyone would be criminal enough to attempt the life of a man when he was sitting by the side of his bride, especially in Spain, where, whatever faults may be laid to the charge of that unhappy country, violence towards women is a crime of very rare occurrence. Indeed, it not known whether, in this case, the assassin meant to kill the King, the Queen, or both of them. They had been out for their usual drive, and were returning to their palace when, just as they had reached its very gates, two bullets were fired at them. The assassin, who had hid himself behind a sentry-box, and had remained there for some time nnpercoived, was seized by the bystanders, and it is a wonder that he escaped with what little life there was in him. He proved to be a lad of nineteen, who came from the province of Galicia, in the northwest corner of Spain, and had been employed by a confectioner in Madrid. It is not easy to guess what could have been the motive for this crime. There is considerable excitement still prevailing in Madrid, but it is difficult to conceive how such a fellow as this Otero Gonzales could have imagined himself born to set things right. He will assuredly be executed. His attempt, however, has had the effect of making the young King and Queen more popular than before among their subjects. They went to the Opera House the same night, where they received an ovation beyond anything; on record, and yesterday, when the King openly drove the Queen in the same phaeton to the church where they were married to offer their thanksgivings, they were more vociferously cheered than on their wedding day. Politics in England are at their very dullest, and of course the Christmas holi ays, which have this year been more than usually prolonged, have caused an almost total absence of excitement. But in the speeches with which we shall be favoured between now and the day appointed for the meeting of Parliament, we shall probably hear more vituperation than ever against the Government, who have certainly fallen on most unhappy times. Successive budgets, which had shown surpluses under Mr Gladstone’s administration —surpluses, it is true, which were either the result of the then boundless prosperity of this country, or of some of those ingenious tricks at which Mr Lowe is so clever—have in Sir Stafford Northcoto’a hands not come up even to the modest expectations he formed of them, and the returns, published this morning, of the revenue during the past quarter show a falling off worse than ever. It is now quite certain that, in addition to all previous deficits, we shall be quite half a million to the bad on the balance sheet of the current financial year. But is this the fault of the ministry ? Erery candid person must say that it is not. The revenue from Customs and Excise is falling off with alarming rapidity, and the receipts from these two sources alone were in the past quarter less by £658,000 than in the corresponding period of the previous year. It is true that in some other branches there is an increase of revenue, but altogether they are too small to cover more than a fraction of this loss on exoiseable articles. Clearly Englishmen are drinking very frugally. This question of finance is the one that most deeply affects the future position of the Ministry, and therefore it is not surprising that Sir Stafford North cote should have had a good deal to say on this topic in the speech which he made at; Leeds a day or two before Christmas. As I have said, the occurrence of the Christmas holidays, which this year were extended from the middle of the week to the beginning of the next, put an end to all political gatherings for the time, and so the Chancellor of the Exchequer has made the two concluding speeches in last year’s political campaign, one just before, and the other just after Christmas. His earlier speech was the first reply made to Mr Gladstone’s recent addresses in Scotland, and Sir Stafford very good humoredly cautioned the public against accepting as truths the many mistakes which Mr Gladstone has been obliged to confess he made during those high pressure harangues. He put the whole case very fairly and clearly in one sentence, in which he showed that during Mr Gladstone’s five years of office the revenue derived from malt and spirits alone gave an increase of its own accord of nearly five and a half millions sterling, while during the last five years the same revenue has fallen off by nearly a quarter of a million. Englishmen have not been able to drink themselves out of their recant difficulties, as Mr Lowe told them they did out of the Alabama scrape, while Mr Lowe’s successor has had to provide for neaily five millions of extraordinary expenditure, besides the natural growth of the estimates, and having to find money to meet those many items which have been taken over to the national exchequer in consequence of the centralising policy and legislation of the Liberals. No doubt if times tad been better, our total outlay would have been higher still, hut especially for the last two or three years Sir Stafford has had to be rigidly economical. i repeat that this question of taxation will probably exorcise a material influence on the general election, which everyone is sure must come to puss before this year is ended ; since from what has happened at Sheffield, where an election has occurred since last I wrote, it is evident that on their foreign policy alone Lord Beaconsfield and his colleagues could very successfully appeal to the natien. True the Liberals have won a seat at Sheffield, but with a majority so small—it was less than five hundred out of twenty-eight thousand who polled—that they do not crow very loudly over their victory, which they scarcely care to conceal is nearly equivalent to a defeat when one considers the exceptional circumstances under which they fought the battle, For tnis was the first occasion on which the Conservatives had ventured to bring forward a candidate of their own, since all that they did on previous occasions was to join with the moderate men of the other side in returning the late Mr Roebuck. Nor were they well provided with a candidate, for Mr Stuart Wortley, a scion of the noble house of Wharncliffo, the only man they could find willing to contest a seat, the tenure of which must necessarily be short, was very unequally matched against Mr Waddy, whoseexperionco Doth at the bar and in the House of Com mons (where he sut as member for Barnstaple) gave him a mi oh greater acquaintance with puolic affairs. Tne result of this bye election clearly proves that in spite of Mr Gladstone’s oft repeated denunciations the people even in such a Radical place as Sheffield do not condemn the Government for its conduct of foreign a flail a. Mr Gladstone has this week celebrated his seventieth birthday, and although he received

many invitations to attend banquets which it was intended to get up in honor of the event, ho declined all the invitations that were cordially sent to him, from, as it now appears, an exaggerated idea of the solemnity of arriving at the age of threescore years and ten. However, ho was, after much pressure had been put upon him, prevailed upon to receive at his residence at Hawardcn Castlo, a deputation ostensibly representing tho Liverpool Liberals, who were the bearers of a very handsome present, to which many Conservatives and a very largo number of people who felt no strong political convictions either one way or the other, had gladly subscribed. This was a silver casket which, unfinished though it is, is very beautiful, and when it has received the finishing touches from tho artists engaged upon it, will be one of the finest gifts ever offeed to a public man. (Of course I except the golden laurel wreath, which tho Prime Minister declined, and which is now to bo seen at a public exhibition in London.) Well, an ordinary statesman would have received the deputation (which numbered only seven persons), would have thanked them for their gift, and have at once offered them some champagne. But Mr Gladstone is not an ordinary statesman, and before he invited them to quaff the cup of pleasure he made them drink of the fountain of politics, which gushed forth from his lips for at least half an hour. He reviewed { tho circumstances under which he retired from public life six years ago, and if his auditors had not been as grave as fashionable undertakers they must have laughed outright when he attributed the downfall of his Cabinet to internal dissensions, and not to the popularity of the Tory leaders.