NEWS BY THE MAIL.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 54, 3 February 1872, Page 5

NEWS BY THE MAIL.

We take from the telegrams in the Melbourne “ Argus” the following additional items of news by the Suez Mail:— A Commission has been appointed to inquire into the condition of the Megsera prior to her departure. The demand for preserved mutton from Australia is so large that all the stocks are nearly exhausted. It is being largely used in prison workhouses and other public institutions. The ship Underley parted amidships, and went to pieces on the 21st Nov. A Liberal Conference has been held at Birmingham, to consider the reform of the House of Lords. Three members of Parliament were present, and letters from others were read containing suggestions. Resolutions were passed denouncing the hereditary principle and the legislation of the bishops. Sir C. Dilke attacked the House of Lords, advocating the limitation of its powers, j All the newspapers give verbatim reports of the Tichborne trial. The evidence of the identity of the claimant is accumulating. Serjeant Ballantyne hinted that the case was being conducted without payment by the counsel. Mr Baignet, an old friend of the family, was examined for ten days. Kelly was acquitted on the plea that Talbot died from unskilful medical treatment, not by the assassin’s bullet. The acquittal was celebrated by popular rejoicing at Cork, Limerick, and Waterford. The miscarriage of justice induces “ The Times ” to advocate the abolition of juries in Ireland. Sir Charles Dilke is repudiated by his Chelsea constituents as a declared Republican. His Newcastle attack on monarchy, and his coarse abuse of the Royal household, aroused a storm of indignation. He says monarchy costs one million annually, and that it would be worth two to abolish it. Ihe licensing question is becoming one of prime importance. The Woolwich cadets have been reviewed at Chiselhurst Common by the Emperor Napoleon. The Oxford boat club has forwarded a challenge to Cambridge. The Mansion House relief fund for ' the Chicago fire has reached £50,000 ; for Persia, £8000; for the West Indies, £SOOO. Birmingham is about to raise a statue to Dr Priestley, aud found a scholarship in his name. Mr Bright and Mr Childers are welcomed back to public life. Speculations are rife as to the question of Mr Bright’s support of the Government. The East Lancashire weavers have amalgamated, and the associations are initiating a movement for introducing the 54 hours per week system by act of Parliament. Disorderly meetings have been held at Bolton and Derby when Sir C. Dilke was present, A state of siege is again proclaimed by the Germans in the French occupied territory, which was consequent on juries acquitting the murderers of German soldiers. The Tichborne case is adjourned till January 15. The claimant’s counsel closed his case on the 70th day. He presented a strong case. Arthur Orton was not produced. The public anxiously awaits the defence. Mr R. Grove, Q.C., is gazetted a judge. Earl Russell has given his adhesion to the Birmingham Education League in its pledge to support unsectarian education. Mr Scott Russell, in a long letter, explains the origin and history of the new social movement of working men. Further action is suspended. In the meantime nine hours is rapidly becoming the working day in England. The railways, engineers, shipbuilders, and builders, are daily acceeding to the demand. The Newcastle police are still on, trike —ruffianism abounds. There is an agitation amongst the dock laborers owing to reduction of wages. Mr Hughes advises them to organise and strike.

The movements of the International

Society excite almost universal disquietude. The telegraph clerk strike has been suppressed. Subscriptions are invited for the widow and daughters of Mark Lemon. Mr Disraeli authoratively denies the words attributed to him at Hugheoden respecting the Queen’s “physical and moral incapacity” for work. It is believed that the Tichborne case will collapse. Mr Auberon Herbert, addressing his electors at Nottingham on the 4th, advocated a republic after the Queen's death. Sir Chas. Dilke attempting to lecture at Derby, a riot broke out. Mr Lowe censured Sir Chas. Dilke, and denied the statement that the Queen paid no income-tax. America and Italy have signed a treaty exempting from seizure private property at sea during war. M. Thiers speaks strongly in favor of the return of the Government to Paris. The committee is unfavorable to the project. The “ Times” states that Baron Lesseps is endeavoring to arrange a combined purchase of the Suez Canal by the great powers. The Sublime Porte and the Khedive of Egypt disapprove of the project. The Spanish Ministry has resigned, and Sen or D’A gusto is entrusted with the formation of a new Ministry. The “ Army Gazette” says no officers have applied to the purchase commissioners for compensation on retirement,. INDIA AND THE EAST. Galle, 27th December. The steamer Geelong has proceeded to Bombay. The new mail arrangements in connection with the Mont Cenis tunnel will commence with the steamer leaving Sydney 30th January. The Bangalore will leave Sydney as an extra steamer February 13. The greater portion of the mails and passengers’ luggage has been recovered from the Rangoon. Many letters are illegible and useless. All that can be deciphered are sent on by fke Bangalore. It is considered that Sir Hercules Robinson is inclined to exchange governments with Mr Gregory, M.P. A breakwater at Colombo and a grand, harbor suitable for mail steamers will probably be constructed. The eclipse observations on 12th December in Ceylon and India were most successful. Mr Norman Lockyer telegraphs from Bairal that the extension of the corona above the hydrogen is apparently a structure of nebulous air. M. Janssen, from Ootacamund, says that splendid weather was experienced, and important results were obtained. At Jaffna there was good weather, and important observations were got. Lord Hereford is travelling in Ceylon, and the Earls of Wicklow and Selkirk are in India. The latter fell from, his horse, but was not seriously hurt. The diamond fields at the Cape continue to be most prosperous. Gold has again been discovered at Natal. The mail steamers building at home for the Cape route to India are likely to be totally abandoned. Press messages by telegraph in India are now to be sent at one-fourth the ordinary charges, The natives of Bombay all offered prayers for the recovery of the Prince of Wales. The ship Defiance, from Bombay to Liverpool, was wrecked on the Natal, coast. CHINA AND JAPAN. Telegraph communication between Nagasaki and Europe is completed, via Siberia. The J apanese mint is working satisfactorily. Sir Richard M‘Donnell has resumed the Governorship of Hong Kong. ADDITIONAL ITEMS. Amongst the month’s accidents are a colliery conflagration at causing seven deaths ; a gas explosion at Leeds, scattering destruction and death ; the fall of a large building at Glasgow, from which the inmates narrowly escaped; and a railway collision at Wigan station, from the Scotch express running into a stationary train; no life was lost, but 20 persons were injured. Th» Qaisen’s train was not farbehind.

ROYALTY AND REPUBLICANISM.

The London correspondent of the Melbourne “ Argus” writes London, December 1. Royalty has been the one main topic of the month. Sir Charles Dilke s attack on the Queen and the illness of the Prince of Wales have stirred the thoughts of men to the consideration of an institution of monarchy to an unusual degree. It is not that the throne is in any real danger because the Chelsea baronet has assailed it. It is rather stronger by that attack. The 'universal sentiment of the people always, except the extreme sect of patriots who abide in the “ Hole-in-the-WaH” and follow Odger, has been roused to indignation at the unmanly way in which Sir Chai’les Dilke —he of all men—has raised the ques tion of monarchy or republic. The question itself as an abstract one is, of course, a fair one, which all free Englishmen are at liberty to discuss. In these days nothing is holy, either for the sapper or politician, and in the absence of any serious matter to talk about, it may be permitted to the young-nien of the Radical persuasion to question the basis of our constitution. What the public cannot help feeling, however, is that the attack on Royalty has been made in a way most unchivalrous and ungenerous. To'pitch into the Queen because of the expense of monarchy is a course neither logical nor dignified. Nothing is easier, of course, than to criticise the composition of the Royal household, to find fault, with the too many cooks in the Royal kitchen, and to be severe upon clerks of the ewry, gentlemen of the bed-chamber, and things of that sort. That is not why the public are angry with Sir Charles Dilke. In the first place, if he seriously contemplated a republic, this is but a shabby way of bringing about that blessed consummation. If there is no other argument against monarchy than that it keeps too many under-cooks and entertained too large a staff of flunkeys, the institution is justified indeed. The answer to all this ineffably mean criticism is, that if the expenditure is too large, it should be brought to the notice of Parliament and corrected in the usual way. For a member of Parliament himself to go into a detailed analysis of the items of the civil list before a meeting of half-educated North country boors, is felt to be a false blow, in resentment of which the whole chivalry of the nation has arisen. Why could not Sir Charles Dilke, if he was in earnest in desiring a reduction in the expenditure of the Royal household, wait till the meeting of Parliament, and there make his voice heard? Nothing could be more petty than the manner or the spirit of his Newcastle speech. Granted that all his facts were true,-what did they prove but that Parliament had failed in its duty of controlling and regulating the Royal household ? As an argument in favor of a republic, the Dilkean utterance was in the last degree frivolous and absurd. The matter stands thus: In exchange * for the surrender by the Crown of certain ancestral properties—properties as legitimately belonging to the heir of the house of Brunswick as Coventgarden belongs to the Duke of Bedford—the Parliament agreed _ to grant the Sovereign a civil list, in which were included all the charges necessary to the maintenance of the dignity of the Crown. It was a contract to which the honor of the nation was pledged, and which was made in the nation’s own interest and for t°he nation’s benefit. Nothing can be more false or absurd than to charge the Queen herself with being responsible for the items in the civil list. If in any respect they are extravagant it is Parliament that is to blame; and Sir Charles Dilke, as a member of Parliament, ought to have known that, and ought to bear his share of the responsibility. To quote the items themselves as an argument that a monarchy has failed in its duties, and that it must be replaced by a republic, is a miserable way of promoting that end, and especially unworthy of Sir Charles Dilke. All that we know of this young baronet is that he is the son of his father, who rose from a comparatively obscure social position to be the proprietor of the “ Athenaeum”—who in that capacity enjoyed a certain promience in the public eye which brought Rim under the notice of the late Prince Albert—who cultivated the favor of th«

late Prince Consort with singular zeal and assiduity, and who, as a reward for his patient and much-suffering flunkeyism, was created a baronet at the time of the Great Exhibition of 1851. If the court chronicles do not lie, there never was, even among Radicals, so consummate a courtier, with so elastic a backbone, as the late Sir Wentworth 1 Dilke. That it should be his son to stir up this agitation against royalty is what amazes most people. Rumor accounts for the phenomenon in a way not creditable to the young baronet’s sense of impartiality. It is said that on the death of the first baronet, his son aspired to hold the same place about the royal household, that he expected to step into the place of amide maison and confidential. adviser of the highest personage in the land, and that it is because he was disappointed in that modest ambition that he has sworn deadly war against the line of Brunswick. Ido not believe the republic is any nearer by this speech of Sir Charles Dilke’s, which has been, with one accord, repudiated by all the leaders of his party. We are too practical a people to change our system of government be. cause of the number ofcooks in the Royal household, and because of thesuperflous clerks of ewry. The cost of monarchy we see ; but the cost of a republic—of arriving at it and retaining it—who can estimate ? If we regard the example of France, our nearest neighbor, it cannot be said that a republic is m all things economical. If ever we are fated to arrive at a republic, it will be upon better grounds than those which Sir Charles Dilke has offered, and more serious consideration. That Royalty has, of late years, lost something of'its hold on Englishmen’s minds, may be admitted ; but this is due to exceptional causes. The long continued retirement of the Queen has doubtless had a prejudical effect on the public mind, but her Majesty has only to re-appear in the world to recover tbe affections of her people.

THE NEW SOCIAL MOVEMENT. Mr J. Scott Russell has published the following correspondence in connection with this-movement: — Westwood Lodge, Sydenham, November 11th. My Lords, Gentlemen, and Fellowworkmen, —Immediately on my return home I hasten to make the statement which T understand you all desire me to make, of the origin, history, and aims of our social movement. I find that, along with much truth, many errors, mis-statements and misconceptions have been printed and spoken on this subject; and if a simple liistoiy of the origin and progress of the movement, and a statement of the circumstances and aims of its initiation, can remove seeming differences and reconcile apparent misunderstandings, I shall be happy to place them at your disposal. But I cannot undertake to correct individually all the erroneous statements that have been made during my absence, nor will I undertake to reconcile the personal differences of opinion which appear to me to have been too hastily expressed at the outset of this conflict of truth with error. Our proceedings have been misrepresented in two forms, as a conspiracy and as a manoeuvre of political, parties. The answer to the first will be given by the recital of how it grew gradually out of the social circumstances of England, and never at any moment was a plot or a plan, lo the second, I, who know all the circumstances, can testify that nerer have I received from or made overtures to the leaders of either of the political parties of the State. One of the chief causes of our movement has been our utter disbelief in the wisdom, patriotism, or statesmanship of mere party politics, and our conviction that the great interests of the nation are utterly neglected, while the two rival parties in the House of Commons are factiously contending for the paltry purpose of keeping one of them in power and the out out; and thus we see year by year go by, leaving the well-doing and the wellbeing of the great mass of the people uncared for. Our great social movement is therefore the reverse of a party manoeuvre. The origin of this movement, in so far as I have to do with it, dates back some 20 years, for it is nothing more than an endeavor to raise the condition of the great mass of the

people in well-being and well-doing, in education, conduct, and character; and if I must call any one the founder of this movement, I prefer to attribute it to the late Prince Consort, who first informed me—of what to me was then an astounding fact —that the masters, foremen, and working men of certain countries of the Continent were much better educated, and their interests much better cared for by their Governments than our own, and lie furnished me with letters of introduction by which I was able to study all the wonderful organisation for the culture and discipline of the people, which in the case of the Prussian nation has since produced such results. The great exhibition of 1851, which took place soon after, was nothing more than an attempt to raise the standard of education and practical culture of the people, and of that, under Prince Albert, I was one of the founders ; and I venture to assert that, bad be lived till now, he would have been the leader of our Social Movement. Twenty years of subsequent experience, and frequent opportunities of studying foreign countries, have deepened my conviction that, while there is no finer breed of working men in the world than the British skilled workman, there is no civilised country in which his interests are so little cared for, and in which the institutions, laws, and customs, are so unfavorable to his material well-being and to bis moral development. But the precise origin of my intervention to bring about a better understanding between the dissevered classes in England dates from the outbreak of the late social troubles in France. Returning from France at tbe outbreak of the war, I was led to make a comparative study of the conditions and relations of the different classes in the two countries, and I thus came to the conviction that the social relations between the different classes of society in England are too intolerable to last long; they must either be speedily and timely cured, or they will suddenly cure themselves. Six months of last year I devoted to the purpose of studying the real evils which depress the condition of the working men. I conversed with the least educated and the most educated, the less skilled and the more skilled, with the object of learning, not the imaginary grievances of their political fancies, but the real griefs of their daily life. I was soon able to reduce these by careful classification to the number of twelve, and afterward to seven ; and it was thus that tbe seven points of our movement were not the invention of any one, but grew naturally out of the actual condition of English society. The seven evils which we thus discovered were :

I. The want of family homes, clean, wholesome and decent, out in pure air and sunshine. 11. The want of an organised supply of wholesome, nutritious, cheap food. JTI. The want of leisure for the duties and recreations of family life, for instruction, and for social duties. IV. The want of organised local government to secure the well-being of the inhabitants of villages, towns, counties, and cities. V. The want of systematic, organised teaching, to every skilled workman, of the scientific principles and most improved practice of his trade. VI. The want of public parks, buildings, and institutions for innocent instruction, and improving recreation. VII. The want of the adequate organisation of the public service for the common good. It thus took six months to inquire into the disease, and next came the inquiry into the cure. To aid me in this work, I sought advice from the ablest and most moderate of those who are considered representative working men. We found but two cures for those great social wrongs—revolution by force, and revolution by good-will. We choose tbe last; but we did not conceal from ourselves how difficult was the undertaking to secure to the community the benefits of a revolution without payiug its terrible penalties. Fortunately for us, a simple incident opened up the way. In conversation upon another matter, I dropped a few words which induced a member of the Upper House to ask from me, not merely verbal, but written communications. I laid before him my reasons for believing that the House of Peers was the fittest body in England to initiate the necessary legislation for our social movement, and why I thought it to be, not only their highest interest,

but their inevitable duty to undertake tbe task. THE HEALTH "OF THE PRINCE OF WALES. We rejoice to be able to announce that his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales is making satisfactory progress towards convalescence. To day (Friday) is the nineteenth day of the disease, and no untoward comcomitants show themselves —a circumstances which in itself is most reassuring. We must caution the public against accepting many of the statements which have been made relative to the cause of the malady in the case of his Royal Highness, since tbe source of the typhoid fever is still obscure. It was imagined that his Royal Highness had contracted the disease when visiting near Scarborough, but this is doubtful. Since his Royal Highness fell ill, one of the grooms at the Sandringham stables who did not attend his Royal Highness to Scarborough, has sickened with the same disease, and it is notorious that typhoid is prevailing in many parts of England. Of course there will be a searching inquiry instituted into every possible source of tbe contagion. The early symptoms of indisposition were in his Royal Highness’s case, as we stated pieviously, accompanied by slight inflamation at the base of the finger-nail. The connection of this with the incubation of the typhoid may be accidental, but should be noted. It was early suspected by Mr Clayton and Dr Lowe that there was more in tbe feverish symptoms than could be accounted for by the state of the finger, and we think the early recognition of the typhoid by these gentlemen was a most important circumstance, and one for which they deserve no little credit. On Monday, 13th November, bis Royal Highness was chilly alter a day’s shooting ; he had not, indeed, felt well on leaving home in tbe morning, but there was nothing noticable to create suspicion of typhoid fever for four days afterwards. Then it was that headache became a prominent symptom, with other indications of typhoid, and particularly a high temperature of the body. Up to the present time the course of the illness has been characteristic of a rather severe attack of typhoid fever. Everything has most happily conspired in the Prince’s case to a favorable issue. We lay great stress on the tact that the disease was so accurately diagnosed a* its earliest period, for it led to the adoption of a proper line of treatment at the very outset of the malady, in itself a most important point. We.need not add how complete is the confidence which the profession reposes in the medical attendants of his Royal Highness, including as they do the highest English authority on the subject of typhoid fever—Sir William Jenner. As the public may be anxious to know what risk her Majesty runs in visiting the Prince of Wales, we may add it is simply nil, under the circumstances. Typhoid fever is contagious in a very subordinate degree, and it is infinitely rare after fifty years of age. Her Majesty’s short stay at Sandringham, therefore, exposes her practically lo no risk whatever. —“ Lancet.” DR MACLEOD IN DEFENCE OF ROYALTY. At a meeting held near Glasgow the other day, in connexion with the building of a new lunatic asylum, the Rev. Norman Macleod gave some particulars in reference to her Majesty’s health that will be read with interest throughout the globe. He said’:—“ T had no intention whatever of making any remarks about her Majesty. J think is the first time I have done it in public, but as the chairman has called upon me so pointedly to confirm his statement, I beg, having just returned from Balmoral, to say that I am very glad to unite with my friends here in drinking to the health of the royal family ; but I trust Providence has given me such an amount of common sense as not to presume to return thanks for them. But as you have alluded to the Queen’s health in connexion with some information I.have given you, I beg to say this, and to say it very emphatically, that what is meant by her Majesty having been morally or mentally incapacitated for any work, I leave it for Mr Disraeli to explain, for I cannot eomprbhend it. I have had the honor, in the providence of God, of ministering to her Majesty

in public and private for the last 19 or 14 years I have seen her in every variety of circumstance, from the highest prosperity and happiness which any married woman, not to speak of a Queen, could enjoy, and also in the depth of her distress. I declare most solemnly I have never in the greatest privacy, and in the most intimate communion that a subject or a clergyman can have, heard one word offered, or one sentiment expressed, which did not do the highest honor to' her Majesty both as a Queen and as a woman. I have never seen—no, not the remotest trace —of any moral or mental weakness, but I have seen in every instance down to the last moment remarkable evidence of moral and mental strength and capacity. I am very glad to say that from the severe attack of neuralgia and rheumatic gout (which has so affected her hands that for a time she was unable even to sign her name) she has entirely recovered. I have never seen her in better spirits and stronger in mind than she is at present. At the same time, I am far from saying that she has recovered her strength so as to he able to do more than she is doing. Indeed, lam 'certain that the Queen has done all that her nervous energy permits her to do; for I make bold to say that none of - us have the slightest conception of the unceasing demand that is made upon a person in her high position of attending to enumerable details, of carrying burdens on her mind without the slightest pos sibilitv of one moment’s rest. Our own wives find how trying upon the nervous energy are the constant cares of a large family ; but when we think what sheiias to do as a mother, with her children occupying such important positions in society ; what she has to do in being compelled often think about the affairs of the nation t*j whose interest she is profoundly devoted; when we think of the constant weight that must ever lie upon her mind, the wonder is that she is able to perform her duties as she has done. Anyone who knows the Queen knows that she would do all that is possible for her do, and no one who knows her is amazed at her extraordinary considerateness for everyone ; how she occupies her thoughts upon every subject, and how she attend to each minute detail of her duty, I will take it upon me to say that the case of the poorest subject in her kingdom, if made known toiler, would receive her immediate attention. Let me also say, that it is a cruel and cowardly injustice, the manner in which her Majesty is often criticised, when neither as a Queen nor as a woman can she make any reply, but must endure in silence. But while these criticisms are made by the few, I feel certain that the large majority of the nation so revere the Monarch who occupies the throne that dates for a thousand years, and so admire her unblemished personal cinmicter, and the manner in which, during her reign, she has discharged her public and private duties, that could they utter it, one voice would unite with ours when we say, ‘’God save the Queen ; may she long be preserved to the ’Tuition.” Mr Disraeli has written to say that he did not make the statement attributed to him.