OUR LONDON LETTER.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5392, 9 July 1878, Page 2

OUR LONDON LETTER.

(PROM OCR OWN CORRESPONDENT.) London, May 23. To he or not to he—war ! At six o’clock yesterday evening Count Schonvaloff landed spruce and tidy on the platform at Charing Cross, and a few hours afterwards was to be seen rapt in innocent admiration of the Royal quadrille at the Queen’s ball. But the Queen at the same hour was enjoying her first sleep in the mountain stillness of Balmoral, whither she betook herself last week, perhaps to rebuke by the hard fact of her conspicuous absence at such a moment the recent controversy about her tendency to over-meddle in foreign affairs. Count Beust had a great dinner party at the Austrian Embassy in honor of Lord Salisbury, and thence they, too, went to Buckingham Palace. Amid the dancers thus the Czar’s messenger and oar Minister met again, knowing that before twenty-four hours had passed they two would have to make a little history. It is said they met with effusive cordiality. But that means nothing. Are not diplomatists bound to be moat courteous when most opposed ? Do not even prize fighters shake bands before they set to ? There was one at least among the dancers, a person with a pernicious memory for poetry, who could not help remembering, as the troop of gay figures swept glittering by, the matchless lines in which,Byron described the ball of the Duchess of Richmond at Brussells in June, 1815, and wondered whether the " cannon’s opening roar ” would break in on the exquisite strains of Mr. Coote’s dance band. After pleasure, business is the way of the diplomatic world. To-day Count Schonvaloff is at the Foreign Office. What he had to tell it is said that no one knows—that it is, in fact, a direct, positive, confidential communication from the Czar himself, regarding which even Prince Gortohakoff was not taken into council. It is idle to speculate. You will know all about it probably before these lines have even crossed the Atlantic. But one thing is certain, while words have been, since I last wrote, becoming more and more pacific, deeds are all in the direction of war. General Todlcben has moved his army from San Stefano and concentrated it, as ha would if he were determined to seize Pera and the Bosphorus, There is no doubt now that the Russians are purchasing vessels in America for privateering purposes. The Indian regiments have during the last week bean coming to the fore in a long lino of transports stretching from the Moditerranea t to the Red Sea. The army reserve is mustered. Militia regiments are volunteering. The Volunteer movement has received a new. impetus, and uniform is as common now in an English as in a Continental street. The most common word in conversation everywhere is, “Anything rather than this suspense.” I think the popular sentiment at this moment distinctly tends to war. The debates in both Houses on the constitutional question involved in the movement of the Indian army have only excited n languid interest. But there are a few points which do not transpire in a newspaper report, to which it may be worth while to draw your attention. One is the great step in advance taken by the Colonial Secretary. Sir Michael Hioks-Beach has hitherto been content to take quite a secondary place in debate. A skilful defender, when need arises, of the policy of his own department, or of that of the Government at large, he was never chosen as the opgan to" enunciate it. Mr. Hardy’s elevation to the House of Lords has given him the opportunity of coming more to the front, and ho seems to have been not unwilling ip seize it. He justified his ambition by a speech of great ability, well arranged and well delivered. It seems to me that there is a great position open to the Colonial Secretary

under these circumstances, if only he have the spirit to seize and the strength to hold it. Sir Stafford Northoote’s leadership certainly does not give satisfaction. Everyone likes and respects him, but he is amiable to a fault. He never seems to be able to forgot that he was once private secretary to Mr. Gladstone, and perhaps wonders occasionally at the perverse fate which has placed them finally on opposite sides of the House. I suppose the true secret of Mr. Hardy’s insisting on going to the House of Lords, where he will be nobody, is that his fiery and voluble temper chafed at the tame method of leading the Lower House adopted by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, until sitting on the same bench and having to play second fiddle became intolerable to him. Now the Colonial Secretary is very strong in his convictions, and very calm, for so young a man (he is not yet 31 years of age), in his utterance of them. • He is to a degree that could never be said of Sir Stafford Northcote or Mr. Hardy a personal pupil and follower of Lord Beaconsfield. It has been hitherto complained that between Lord Beaconsfield's speeches and Sir Stafford Northoote’s there was a difference on important occasions that amounted to mors than a difference of mere tone. I think you will observe, as time wears on, that Sir Michael Hicks- " Beach will prove more and more the exponent of the foreign policy of the Government in the House of Commons. On matters of this kind he is perfectly agreed with the Premier. He has always been credited with holding a very strong belief in the inevitableness of war ; and I think you will observe, it you read his speech and Lord Beaoousfield’s together, that the professions of hope in peace are very formal, but that the true tone of the “ voice is still for war” as much as Cato’a, in Mr. Addison’s tragedy. By far the ablest speech on the Opposition side in the debate hitherto has been that of Mr. Childers on the second night, and. it will be interesting to see what answer Mr, Cross, who moved the ■ adjournment immediately aftei wards, will make to it to-night. Last week there was for a day or two a very serious alarm as to the possibility of an operative civil war. in Lancashire, The outbreaks ih two or three places were violent and disgraceful to the last degree ; but the danger was brief, and is now believed to have completely passed away. To-day the decision of the 8000 weavers of Blackburn is,being taken by ballot on the last proposal made to them on behalf of the manufacturers; and this is only one of a number of symptoms that methods of arrangement and compromise are being honestly fought for. The pressure of distress in many districts is, however, very great, and it is difficult to see a . remedy where there is both congestion of population and over-produc-tion of manufactures. Nor is the class one to which ordinary emigration gives relief. The colonies don’t want weavers or cotton-spinners, and in the United States trade languishes as it does here. .

The Irish and indeed the English papers have been filled to nausea for the last fortnight with the disgusting details of a trial .before the Dublin Probate Court in regard to the will of a returned Australian squatter named Bagot, a member of a good Irish family by birth, and who, while among his sheep, turned wool into gold at a great rate, but was in his latter days a sad reprobate and moral and physical wreck. I shall not attempt any sketch of the proceedings, but I may say that hardly any case within my memory has given such a shock to the nerves of society. The late Sir William Werner was an Irish Protestant gentleman of the same type as Mr. Newdegate, pious after a rather bigoted fashion, but upright and honest. His eldest daughter became Mrs. Bagot. The jury have at the end, somewhat reluctantly, given a verdict which is virtually in her favor, but the revelations of the trial have astounded and shocked those who may be ignorant of what a certain fast and loose side of Loudon life is like.

Of specially colonial news there is not much to' report. . Mr. Header Wood has been for some weeks ia London, and is staying at the Westminister Palace Hotel, Mr. Larnach arrived a fortnight since, and after a brief sojourn at the Alexandra has taken a furnished house in Kensington, It is ao secret that the prolonged suspense as to peace or war, which has so disturbed the money market, has among other retarded operations delayed the New Zealand loan. But the suspense, which has in this sense been worse than either alternative, cannot at all events last much longer. Meantime the New Zealand funds hold their own, and hold it well. During the last month, the 5 per cent consolidated have ranged from 104£ to 103$, and their foremost price is 104 i. The have ranged from 98£ to 96|, and they are now rated 98. The 5 per cent, 5-30’a have fluctuated between 103| and 102 f, and they close at 103 g. I .think such a statement in such times as these shows considerable financial firmness. The Queensland funds have dropped from 96J to 94£ in the same time, and are at 94J as I write.