[From the "Spectator."]

New Zealander, Volume 8, Issue 605, 31 January 1852, Page 3

[From the " Spectator."]

With the exception of Mr. Hume, Mr. Disraeli is the only one of our House of Commons notables who has yet complied with the time-honoured practice of addressing the general public, during the Parliamentary recess, in an " aside" to a more or less numerous assembly of his own constituents. Of Mr. Hume's confidential whisper, meant to be overheard, it boots not to say anything. Though not poetical, honest Joseph may say with the poet, " My harp hath one unchanging theme." Out of Parliament, Mr. Hume has one stereotyped speech for all occasions. He begins with showing how a 'penny may be saved here and another penny there, and complaining that Ministers and Parliament will not make the saving; these are his own ideas. He then concludes by declaring that the country can only be saved by Parliamentary Reform: this is a lesson learned Iby rote, taught .him by those whom men profanely termed "the "Westminster Rump," after his pounds, shillings, and pence prelections had earned him a name that made him worth catchIng. There i$ truth in what Mr. Hume says, but his incessant repetition of the same themes, in season and out of season, is as monotonous as the succession of tunes on a barrel-organ, and, like that instrument of sweet sounds, more likely to drive auditors .away than attract them. With infinitely less singleness of purpose, and an infinitely less tangible aim, Mr. Disraeli has at least variety to recommend him. Mr. Disraeli's speech was clever, polished, and plausible; its only fault was that it related less to the position of public affairs than to the position of the lively Member for Buckinghamshire. Amid considerable diversity of topic, the orator kept one object relentlessly in view: he adroitly alluded to the lead taken on various great occasions by the politicians of Bucks; he reverted to what •had been done in the struggle to maintain the Corn Laws; he pointed out the hopelessness of attempts to reverse the national decision on that question ; he tried to allure his hearers to join in a crusade against financial abuses; but the link which bound together all these varied topics was the Parliamentary career of Benjamin Disraeli the Younger. They were introduced for the .purpose of reminding his constituents of what he Lad done; of insinuating that if he had been checkmated so had the whole ot his party; of inciting them to follow him in pursuit of new game. It is transparent that Mr. Disraeli is painfully aware that in his last campaign he had lost rather than gained ground; and that Iris very clever speech was merely a bulletin, in which a confessiom of defeat was made to appear as like as possible ±o the claiming of a victory.

In Ireland, the sectarian agitation, the result of the Durham Letter and the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill, has experienced at least a temporary lull. The patriots -who figure at public meetings in the sister island are, for the moment, absorbed in discussions not less congenial : they are devising excuses for the non-repayment of advances made out of the Imperial Treasury to the various Poor law Unions. The most prevalent pretext is, that the money having been spent, and spent improvidently, is not forthcoming ; and that it will be a great hardship upon those by and for whom it was spent, to have the debt exacted. As usual, Irish politics bear a painful resemblance to the domestic shifts of Sir Condy Eackrent, and other cool, pleasant, brazen spendthrifts, immortalized by Miss Edgeworth and many of our dramatists. American repudiation was phlegmatic, prosaically Impudent; Irish repudiation is flavoured by a dash of saucy humour.

" It moves notwithstanding," said Galileo, after he had been fqrced to recant the doctrine that the world turns round. So our social machine continues to move, although the statesmen to whom has been delegated the task of regulating and guiding its movement are scattered to all points of the compass, in search of repose or pleasure. Though the President of the Council is embowered in the shades of Bowood, the question of National Education is kept alive. The partisans of « voluntary," that is of desultory, makeshift education, have had their field-day this week, as those of the Manchester scheme No. 11. had theirs a week or two back : and while the amateur promoters of education are thus ostensibly busy, the subordinate agents of the Educational Committee of the Privy Council hold on the noiseless tenour of their way, doing as much good as their limited sphere and means permit. The President of the Board of Trade is supposed to be wandering amid Andalusian bowers, or threading the defiles of the Sierra Morena in the footsteps of Don Quixote ; and the Board lias intermitted its rigid surveillance of railways and electric telegraphs; yet the trading agents of improved and accelerated communication advance. Another attempt is in progress to complete the line of electric telegraph between Paris and London by a submarine wire. That English perseverance will in this, as in so many other enterprises, be ultimately crowned with success, there should be no doubt ; but perhaps the day of final achievement might have been accelerated had the ingenious invention for securing the wires from abrasion, now exhibited at the Crystal Palace, and explained in last week's Spectator, been turned tQ account.

A seemingly successful expciimenfc in steamploughing, following close upon the recent trials of the American reaping-machine, opens an interesting field of speculation. While a new sect of economists, preaching up more minute subdivision of the soil and reverting from the plough to the spade, are exerting themselves to bring their theories into practice, the economists of the old school are seeking to improve upon the simple machinery of the plough, and dispense to a still greater extent than at present with the arms of men in the toils of agriculture. A change of one kind or other seems to be impending over the rural population : either their condition is to be still more closely assimilated to that of the manufacturing districts, where mammoth capitals wield the sinews of thousands of proletaires as mere accessories to machinery, or the times are to be brought back which Goldsmith remembered, when, in England, " every rood of ground maintained its man."

Hanover, after vainly endeavouring to place herself at the head of a " Steuerverein," (taxunion,) in rivalry of the Prussian " Zolleverein," (Customs-union,) has merged into the latter. The treaty providing for the incorporation of Hanover into the Germanic Customs Union has been ratified. The Free Towns and Oldenburg must follow ; and in a short time the whole of North Germany will form part of a league, which, professing Free-trade principles, practises moderate Protection. The accession of Hanover to this league has been purchased, however, by pledges to reduce still lower the protective duties exacted by the Zollvercin : practically, therefore, the cause of Free-trade may be considered to have gained in Germany by the new treaty. The party with Free-trade tendencies in the Zollverein has also gained an additional number of votes. But the political consequences of the treaty are likely to be more important than the commercial. It is another step in the process of gradually blending the German states into one nation, which, whenever capable leaders arise in Liberal or Protestant Germany, (the terms are synonymous,) will strengthen their hands to accomplish what the leaders of 1848 have failed to do. The preliminary negotiations of the treaty by which Hanover has agreed to become a member of the Zollverein were so skilfully concealed, that the announcement of its conclusion was the first intimation received at Vienna that ifc was in progress. The news alloyed the triumph of reaction in Austria. Combined with the slow progress of the new Austrian loan, it is a kind of minor hand writing on the wall to disturb the festivities of the Absolutists.

The press is probably subjected at this moment to more relentless persecution in the French liepublic than even in the most despotic state of Germany. M. Francois Victor Hugo has been sentenced to imprisonment and a fine for publishing a protest against the eulogiums lavished in ( the Constitutionnel on the indiscriminate arrest of '"two hundred foreigners of all nations, on mere suspicion of their complicity in a plot. In the writings of most Continental politicians there is what Englishmen, blase with political writing, deem to be an exaggerated tone 5 and this peculiarity a youth of twenty-three (M. Francois Hugo's age) was little likely to escape. Making allowance, however, for its somewhat ambitious diction, his protest is sound in principle and unexceptionable in sentiment. But even had it •been^ otherwise, can that country be considered free in which a little excess of language in political discussion is immediately visited by penal inflictions ? In America such a thing could never have been thought of, nor in this country since the days of Sir Vicary Gibbs. That it is otherwise in France, betrays on the part of her rulers an utter forgetfulness of the secret of allowing angiy passions to expend themselves in words — the great secret of governing in any free state. Persons so thin-skinned to the pricklings of journalists —so morbidly apprehensive of the stimulating cflicacy of impassioned words —arc not fit to rule a country where thought and voice are free. To silence the voice of complaint, is too often to act like those empirics who, by driving eruptions of the skin inwards, convert the healthy efforts of nature to relieve itself into lethal diseases. The President, however, has no misgivings as to his capacity to sway the destinies of France. In his speech, on the occasion of laying the foun-dation-stone of the Central Markets of Paris, he hinted his hope of being re-elected, with a frankness that has at least naivete aud bonhomie to recommend it. I

By the last intelligence from India, Lord Dalhousie remained at a distance from Calcutta and his Council. lie had moved from SimJah, but only to the base of the mountains. This apparent aversion to the constitutional check of his Council is the only shade on the otherwise judicious conduct of the present GovernorGeneral. It appears to imply, that he does not understand the important art of working with and by others, so indispensable to every chief administrator of extensive territories. The Nizam has had a reprieve, but on terms that indicate merely the postponement of the fatal day. He has had a longer term for payment allowed him on paying one-half of the instalment of late so peremptorily demanded. Cut to raise the forty laps which he has paid, he has been obliged to pawn hip jewels and promise usurious interest. His ultimate ruin is as certain as that of the tradesman who gets into the hands of the pawnbrokers. The insurrectionary movements in the South of China are m-ged with unabated vigour. The trade of Canton has in consequence been curtailed to one-half of its ordinary extent: general after general sent out against the insurgents has been defeated by them; and the Imperial anger has given itself vent in degrading the chief Man darin of the province three degrees. Roused by this example, the Governor had left Canton to meet the rebels, but with a force so small as to suggest a suspicion that (as in the case of the pirates) he counted more lipon buying off their leaders than subduing them.

Sir Harry Smith's despatches, published tliis week in the Gazette, speak of victory in the abstract, but enumerate reverses in the details. Government aie no more deceived by this Napoleonic subterfuge than the public; for they are sending out additional regiments to the Cape. But arms cannot restore the tranquillity of South Africa. Defeat can only keep the Caftres quiet till they feel or fancy themselves stronger. Unless the tribes are to be exterminated, (a supposition not to be entertained,) the peace conquered by additional regiments will require for its maintenance, the continued presence of those regiments. A judicious and national local government is what is needed in South Africa —or was needed, for it is probably now too late to save that province.

" Do everything by halves," appears be the maxim of our present Administration. A Parliamentary Committee recommends monthly steammails to Australia, and Ministers advertise for tenders to carry mails once in two months. The advertisement may also bo a mere blind, put out to save appearances : it will be so easy to back out of the pledge to establish postal communication by steam with the Southern Colonies, under the pretext that none of the tenders are eligible. This suspicion is warranted by the habitimfdilatoriness of Government in such matters, and by their vague allusions to "difficulties" in the way of carrying out the recommendations of the Committee uttered in Parliament a few days before the close of the Session. Yet it may be said to have been demonstrated that regular communica-

tion with Australia by means of screw-propellers, round the Cape, is possible, and that this is the only practical route. It is a simple question of finance : can the steamers be made to pay ? It is clear that if passengers and freight can be obtained, the payments for them, together with a moderate allowance for letter-carriage, will be sufficient to make the undertaking remunerative. But passengers will not go by the Singapore route 5 the passage-money is and must continue too high. Merchants will not send goods either by the Singapore or Panama routes ; the risk of damage by transshipment is too great. Mailcarriage alone would not pay. But passengers can afford to proceed by the Cape route, and goods would be forwarded as there is no " breaking bulk" on the passage. The hesitation of Government implies imperfect knowledge of the case, and that imperfect knowledge implies neglect in not seeking for proper information. The discovery of " diggings" in New South Wales has converted Sydney — always predisposed to exciting speculations — into a San Francisco in little. Sir Charles Fitzßoy has issued a proclamation threatening the pains of law against all who shall dig or search for gold without a licence from, the Crown. This threat is likely to prove a brufrum fulnien, for want of an adequate army to enforce it.