TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 476, 31 May 1890, Page 5

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

(FROM OUR SPECIAL COKKESI’ONDENT.) London, April 18. BISMARCK AS AN ORGANGRINDER. Some months ago, as Prince Bismarck was passing through the Royal Palace at Berlin to interview the Kaiser, he camo upon the Royal children romping and dancing to the music of a terribly plebeian barrel-organ. “Comoand dance, too, dearßeichskanzler,” cried thetwoyounger boys, merrily, and each seizing a hand, “it’s such fun.” “ 1 am too old,” quoth the stiff and stately septuagenarian, “but if the Crown Prince would like to dance, I’ll grind the organ for you fora bit.” The elder boy nothing loath joined his brothers, and all three were presently enjoying a fine game when their father entered. He smiled broadly at the spectacle of the redoubtable Chancellor meekly grinding out “Two Lovely Black Eyes,” aud, after a word of greeting to the youngsters, turned to his old friend in mock displeasure. “ You begin in good time, Prince, to make the Hoir-Apparenb danco to your piping. Why, this is the fourth generation of the Hohenzollerns to whom you devote yourself!” Recent events make one wonder whether this playful observation was quite so playful as it then seemed, or whether the Kaiser wished to convey a note of warning. STEAD ON THE EMPEROR. An observation which the estimable Mr Stead makes in the new number of the “ Review of Reviews ” concerning the German Emperor, strikes me as sounder than most of his sage recollections on foreign politics. The Kaiser, chatting with Mr Burt at the recent Labour Congress in Berlin, is said to have expressed a wish that he could test the Socialists with the responsibility of government. “ But I cannot hand over the throne to Babel.” Of course nob ; bub even to talk of such things raises hopes, and more than forty years ago Bismarck bold us pretty plainly what he thought of such things. Speaking as a deputy at Frankfort he said : “ One cannot mite use with impunity of the enchanted bullets of Revolution, and one cannot conclude a compact with the demon of popularity without giving up some shreds of one’s soul. Sooner or later the evil genius whose help you have invoked, the Robin of the woods and streets, will rise up and, claiming your salvation, will tell you 1 that he is nob in the habit of working for nothing.” If nothing comes of all the tine ! talk at Berlin about the amelioration of the | condition of labour, the Kaiser may soon j have reason to recall Prince Bismarck's warning.

Mr Stead, like many other people who a year ago vaguely distrusted the young Kaiser, is growing into a warm admirer. “His personality at least,” he writes, “is being sharply defined. On the broad canvass of contemporary history there seems likely to be no figure in such clear and conspicuous relief. He at least is nob a dumb, drab lay figure, bub rather a loud-speaking vividly-coloured personality, whose character, although at the first repellent, may end by fascinating even his enemies. Early in March he made a speech to his Brandenburgers, which contained two sentences that will sink into the public mind. Speaking of the importance of foreign travel, he said : “I have seen the starry firmament at night on the high seas, and ever after I have been able to look at political questions from the outside.” The Kaiser acquiring detachment of mind under the starlit expanse of the midnight sky, while his yacht steamed unresting through the surge of the Northern Sea, is a figure which may dwell in popular memory beside that of Napoleon, who, on another ship on far other seas, confounded the glib and shallow sophisms of his taheistic sbafl by pointing to the stars and saying, “ What you say is all very tine, but who made all these ?”

Less pleasing, bub equally characteristic, was the other sentence in the same speech. After referring to the work entrusted to him by the Almighty in the position which he inherited from bis ancestors, he said : "AU who will assist me in my great task I shall heart ily welcome, but those who oppose mo in this work 1 shall crush. ’ There is tho iron hand without even the semblance of the velvet glove. But that is the note of the Kaiser. Ho is as magnificently nude as an antique statute. Nor does it detract from the sincerity of his declaration that the first to bo crushed was Prince Bismarck himself. BISMARCK IN RETIREMENT. The fallen Reichskanzler is now living a quiet, regular, and occupied life at Friedrichsrue. He sees guests only at dinner in the evening. The other night a lady was talking to him of Berlin’s farewell. " Those last days must have tired you teriibly, Piince,” quoth she, “but the demonstrations were very beautiful.” "Yes,” said Bismarck, quietly, “ it was all very beautiful; a first - class funeral!” This and kindred observations from time to time show that despite outward placidity the great man still simmers. THE CREWE MURDER. THE HOME SECRETARY’S EXPLANATION. The indignant "greater jurymen” and blathering Si. P.’s who threatened Mr Matthews with the condign vengeance of both sides of the House of Commons for his persistence in executing Richard Davies, reckoned wholly without their host. The Home Secretary said a very few words on the subject, but that they carried conviction to the majority of members present was so obvious that evon the usually irrepressible “ Tay Pay ” found it impossible to pursue the matter further. "The crime of the Davies brothers,” observed Mr Matthews, " was cruel and deliberate, and the recommendation of the jury to mercy on the ground of the murderers’ youth only. It was impossible to give effect in the case of Richard Davies, who was all but 19, an age approaching manhood, at which responsibility for deliberate crime hi is beta, and in my .opinion ■•should fe* ewjorced. (Hear, hear.) Geo. Davies was only 16 years and 8 months old. No person so young ha* h&en left for execution for very q\wy years, although his guilt was undoubted. The conclusion at which both myself and the judge who tried the arrived, was that Geo. Davies wider the influence of*his elder brother, who initiated the plot and tool* & principal part in its execution \uijder these circumstances, I it was possible to give effect to tl\q rec.obpeendation of tho jury in tho of George, and I am permitted, to say that I had tho adyice at>d of the learned mda© *9, emending naercy to a>,d D.eorge only. (Hear, hear,)" Thus/ebdjS tho Davies Murder Boom. It b*as transpired in a Northern paper that too Jwy cqyrUl agree which of the Davies© 3 really initiated the murder schome, nor were they unanimon* (as the foreman subsequently led the public to believe) that I George struck the blow which actually killed his father.

LORD SALISBURY REFUSED ADMITTANCE AT MONTE CARLO.

The shabby, unbrushed, and, at times, almost frowsy appearance of the present Prime Minister (who has grown terribly stout), aro well known at Westminster, but abroad often lead to strange contretemps. At Monte Carlo last week, for example, the janitor of the Casino flatly refused to admit the noble Marquis, and when he disclosed his identity roared with laughter. “Many give that name, monsieur,’' ho said, sceptically. “ Mais je vous assure,” exclaimed Lord Salisbury. “ Alors, milord, montrezvous votre passepoite,” said the janitor, triumphantly, and when his lordship naively offered to write himself ono, the wretch again chuckled. Eventually the Prime Minister of England had to confess himself fairly “ beaten,” and retire. The janitor did not think the incident so funny an hour later, when he was discharged by the irate authorities. THE LATE MAT HARRIS.

The death of poor Mat Harris, after a lingoring and painful illness (cancer of the stomach), deprives the Irish party of one of its most militant, energetic and genuinely patriotic members. Harris was rough, not to say coarse, in his speech, and but little to the taste of the House of Commons, where, indeed, he was seldom. At an agrarian or Nationalist meeting, however, Mat could rouse the people by homely humour, keen reasoning, and oftentimes by the fierce rhetoric of a man whose whole soul has been roused to fury by the sight of human suffering and hideous serial wrong. “ What his life was,” writes his friend O’Connor, . “ nobody can understand but an Irishman, and an Irishman of the class and locality to which Mat Harris belonged. At one time he had a prosperous business, but he could not sleep with the sounds of his country’s agony in his ears. And he had underneath his own eyes experiences that would fire the blood of a cooler or moro patient or more selfish man. He lived near to Aughrm, the spot where the Irish troops met with one of their worst disasters, and close to this historic spot he saw miles of country laid desolate of cabin and peasant by the Scotch settler who substituted herds for human beings. Theso things made Mat an agitator and a rebel at an early period. He was among the young men who formed the abortive movement of 1848, and afterwards, when the treason of Keogh, the horrors cf the famino, and the dishonesty of Parliamentary representation gave birth to Fenianism, ho was one of its leaders and most daring spirits. When Fenianism failed, and Mr Parnell showed that constitutional agitation offered hope of national regeneration, Mat threw himself into Parliamentary agitation, and suffered much obloquy from old associates in consequence. But ho was always faithful to anything he undertook. To Ireland he sacrificed his livelihood, his time, his strength, his liberty, and finally his life.