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New Zealand Times. MONDAY, JUNE 21, 1875.

The Cyphrenes arrived in Auckland, from San Francisco, on Saturday, two days within contract time. She brings the English mail, and important news. That which will most interest readers, however, is the detailed narrative of the wreck of the Schiller. This appears to have been one of those preventible catastrophes of which so very many happen nowadays by sea and on land. The officers appear to be blamed. They are accused of drunkenness, and that the captain was reckless does not admit of doubt. Doubtless there will be an official inquiry in Hamburg, and if they manage these matters in North Germany as in England, we shall have a futile finding by the Court, making things pleasant all round. Twenty-five New Zealand„mail bags have been recovered, and one hundred and thirdy dead bodies. From America we have news of extensive fires, burning towns, destroying settlements, and sweeping bare the face of the country of its forest timber. As if to tempt destruction, a railway train rushed through the burning woods, dragging with it one thousand human beings. This is a real American adventure. It shows to what extra hazards travellers may be exposed in that dare-devil goahead country. President Grant has been threatened with assassination ; but threatened men. proverbially live long, and what is such a threat compared with the whisky frauds of Chicago, and the efforts made by the Washington Executive to pay off the National Debt. The latter is a duty which no civilised country thinks of undertaking except the United States. All honor to Democracy therefore, and may we some day follow the example in Australasia, which certainly owes a tidy bit of money. "The Darien canal ia being surveyed;" —another swindle afoot, but the Honduras loan exposure, and the shaking of the Stock Exchange : black-mailers, will doubtless prevent its maturing. "The "Canadian Pacific Railway is being " vigorously pushed ahead." This is of great consequence to the British people, who are emigrating .to the Dominion ; but this great public work is the result of provincial log-rolling and lobbying, not unmixed with fraud of a gigantic character, in the Parliament House of Canada. British Columbia . demanded a , transcontinental railway as the price of passing under the Dominion .Government; and the MacDonald Government carried the general election by making concessions to a contractors' ring which took up the scheme. And so the scheme was matured, the public estate hypothecated, and "the Canadian Pacific " Railway is being vigorously pushed " ahead," It will open a magnificent country, and promote settlement on the Pacific coast of British North America.

The Carlists appear to be victorious at all points in tho field, but they have been attacked by small-pox, a much more dangerous foo than the Alphonaiats. The Madrid Government is busily engaged buying over tho Carlist loaders. Money appears to be a sovereign balm to every wound in Spain. The reactionary edicts of Alphonso's Government were so unpopular that thoy could not be carried out without danger to the Monarchy. Accordingly wo read that freedom of speech and of publication has been established. Freedom of worship will follow. Alphonso represents the Liberalism of Spanish royalists ; it ill became him to follow in his" mother's footsteps, who made herself infamous by reason of her immorality and subservience to ecclesiastical guides. His only chance is to go with the spirit of the age. Their imperial majesties, tho Emperors of Russia and Germany, have resolved that there shall bo peace between Franco and Germany, and Alexander has expressed a wish to interview M. Thiers. What part do these autocratic potentates wish tho Fronch presidential stop-gap to play in tho now European drama they are preparing for the stage ? Do thoy think he is more malleablo than the Marshal-Presidont, the master of nearly one million fighting mon,

who had the audacity to send, agents to Germany to buy ten , thousand: troop horses'! Of course he didn't, get the horses, an Imperial decree being issued to prohibit their export, and France must mount her troopers by buymg horses in Ireland and Hungary, as the Spaniards have already done; but the fact that MacMahon sent to Germany for remounts for the French cavalry is not without its significance. M. Thiers is exceedingly vain, he is very old, and extremely volatile. He. may therefore be influenced by the Czar, in the interest of his " dear brother and uncle," Kaisar William. A noted Maori once said of Sir George Grey : " The Governor is '' soft; he is a pumpkin." May not these august personages regard M. Thiers as a kind of vegetable marrow, which they may find useful one of these days in the event of another great war ? It is not at all improbable, these Imperial personages being mere puppets in the hands of the great Chancellor of Germany. " Russia has made a treaty with the " Pope ;" and " a Polish priest has been " arrested for aiming at Bismarck's life." This latter fact may occasion some little difficulty, especially if the culprit be a subject of the Czar. We doubt the first item of news, seeing that " the " prisoner of the Vatican" has ceased to be a temporal sovereign, and that in deference to the Italian Government most European Powers ha,ve withdrawn their representatives' from the Papal Court. But apart from that difficulty,there is the denationalisation of the Polish people, and substitution of the Eastern ritual for that of the Roman Church in Russian Poland. Surely the. shepherd of the flock will not make a treaty with the Russian wolf? Strange things happen, however, and to serve apurposeevenstranger alliancesthan this one have been entered into by former Popes. The Italian Government is about to enforce the law regulating the appoint- | mentof Bishops. KingViCTOitEMMANTJEL, although a devout Catholic, will doubtless be denounced by the head of the Church, who is just reported to have struck a bargain with a schismatic persecutor of the faithful. It all comes of the temporalities, however. Russia has done another good stroke. She lias " sent " England a satisfactory note in reference "to Central Asia." Russia always does that. She makes advances, annexes territories, and presses upon the outposts of British India, and after every advance we have the same explanation : '' Russia " has sent a satisfactory note to England " in reference to the Central Asian ques- " tion."

The Burmese trouble is likely to blow over, a revolt has taken place in Hayti, and a great demonstration has been made over a dead Fenian in Dublin. These items are about on a par. The odd part about this Fenian business is, that it always demonstrates over the dead. It is a solemn mockery of a living principle to parade it at the grave of some unknown man; —a mockery almost as cynical as that which assigns to Judge Keogh the judicial task of condemning his former compatriots. There is no measure of malignant meanness to equal that of Mr. Justice Keogh's judicial career. He has just put the finishing touch upon it by trampling on the memory of John Mitchell. The grave covers Mitchell's faults. These brought sharp punishment on him ; but they were all faults of the head and not of the heart. The " felon " lies in an honored grave, while the renegade sits in the temple of justice, despised by every man of principle, of whatever rank and condition, in the United Kingdom. Sir George Bowen repeated * his historical parallel between the Scottish clans and the Maoris, at the London banquet. Respecting Sir George very highly as we do, we must protest against this comparison. There is no race similarity," no social similarity, between the two peoples ; and the only conclusion we can come to is, that he in reality knows nothing of the Celtic and Maori races. Both have points of similarity, but so have all races. Why not compare the Maori to the Saxon from his love of pork, or to the Irishman from his love of fun ? Historical comparisons are always unfortunate, and Sir George Bowen has been singularly unlucky in contrasting the courtly Montrose, and gallant Dundee, with Tamihana Te Waharoa and Rewi Maniapoto. These latter are doubtless remarkable men, but it is an insult to common sense to speak of them in the same breath with.the two foremost men Scotland has produced. They wore similar in this, that Scottish and Maori leaders alike espoused the losing side. But even then the comparison fails, as Rewt has made his peace with the Government and retains his patrimony. Mr. Fox will have an opportunity of studying in Michigan the causes that led to the repeal of the anti-liquor law. We wish him well out of the United States and back again to his home in New Zealand.

Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NZTIM18750621.2.8

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4447, 21 June 1875, Page 2

Word count
Tapeke kupu
1,460

New Zealand Times. MONDAY, JUNE 21, 1875. New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4447, 21 June 1875, Page 2

New Zealand Times. MONDAY, JUNE 21, 1875. New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4447, 21 June 1875, Page 2

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