ENGLAND IN 1875.

Tuapeka Times, Volume III, Issue 184, 17 August 1871, Page 3

ENGLAND IN 1875.

{From the " Spectator," May 13.)

Everybody is talking about the first paper in ' Blackwood ' for this month, ami everybody is quite right. We do not know that we ever saw anything better in any magazine, or any better example of the vraisemhlance which a skilled artist can produce by a variety of minute touches. If fie writer i.s, as reported, Colonel Hamley, then Colonel Hamley, when he wrote the charming story of" L idy L Vs Widowhood," misconcieved as a novelist the nature of his own powers. Pie should rival Defoe, not Anthony Trollope. The writer of this paper, jiving about 1925, giveß his son an account of his adventures as a Volunteer during the invasion of England fifty years before, and so powerful is the narrative, so intensely real the impression it produces, that the coolest disbeliever in panics cannot read it without a flush of annoyance, or close it without the thought that after all, as the world now stands, some such day of humiliation for England is at least possible. The su<j[s;esterl condition prceedent of invasion, the destruction of the fleet by torpedoes attached by a new invention to our ships, h; s attracted many minds, and with the destruction of t!ie regulars, the helplessness of the brave but half-organised volunteers, and the absence of an aran f ;emont, make up a picture which, fanciful as it is, we seem as we read it almost to have seen. Ir describes so exactly what we all feel that under the circumstances, Bn^lis'imen, if refuse' l time to organise, would probably do. It is impossible to make extracts such as wculd sjive an idea of the paper, for its effect depends upon a thousand minute touc'ies which would be unintelligible wit'iout the context , but we must give thf writer's account of the destruction of the fleet The G-orman Government, has found means of transport by laying an embargo on every vessel in the northern ports of Europe ; but England though unready, had still a fleet which, visited by the Queen, and cal uly complimented by the " Times," steamed out to destroy the advancing armada. A cable was laid dowJ as it advanced : —

" I had just come up to town by train as usual, and was walking to my olfice, when the newsboys began to cry, "New edition — enemy's fleet in si^ht!" You may imagine the scene in London ! Business still went ou at the banks, for bills matured, although the independence of the country was beiiv.fought out under own eyes, so to say ; and tie speculators were active enough. But even with the people who were making and losing their fortunes, tiie interest in tiie fleet overcame everything else ; men who went to pay in or draw out their money stopped to show the last bulletin to the cashier. As for the stieet you could hardly get along for the crowd stopping to buy and read the papers : while at every iiouse or office the members sat restlessly in t!ie common room, as if to keep together fur company, sending out some of their number every few minutes to get the latest edition. At least this is what happen -d at our office; but to sit still was as impossiole as to do anyt.iinj;, but most of us went out and wandered about ainonjf the crowd, under a sort of feeling that the news was got quicker in tin's way. Bad as were trie times coming, 1 think the sickening suspense of that day, and the shock which followed, was almost the worst that we underwent. It was about tt'ii o'clock that tiie first telegram came: an hour later and the wire announced that t!ie Admiral had signalled to form line of battle, and shortly afterwards that the order was given to bear down on the enemy and en^asje. At twelve came the announcement, " Fleet opened fire about three miles to leeward of us," tliat is, the ship with the cable. So far all had been expectancy, then came the firsttoken of cala ity. '• An ironclad has been blown up "— -" the enemy's torpedoes are doiivj: great damage "" — the flagship is laid aboard the enemy "—" — "the vice-admiral has signalled — there the cable become silent, and, as you know, we heard no more until two days afterwards. The solitary ironclad w'lich escapedthe dis wter, steamed into Portsmouth. Then the story carat* out — how our sailors, uallant as ever, had tried to close with the enemy ; how the latter had evaded the conflict at close quarters, an.l, sheering off, left be'iind the fatal engines which sent our ships one after the othpr to the bottom; how all thi? happened almost in a few minutes. Tha Government, it appears, had received warn ins; of this invention ; but to the nation this stunning blow was utterly unexpected." That scene will happen some day, though the means of diatrtietion will will probably be the fall of barrels of nitroglycerine, or some similar compound, thrown from catapults on the decks of our ironclads, and exploding downwards, so as to avoid all danger to the assailants, and we can only hope that the second lineof defence maybe in better order. It it is not, the rest of the picture may yet be realised :—: —

" We had heard of generosity in war ; we found none ; the war was made by us, it was said, and we must take the consequence. London and onr only arsenal captured, we were at the mercy of our captors, and right heavily did they tread on our necks. Need I tell yo.i the-resfc? —of the ransom we had to pay, and the taxes raised to co"er it, which keeps us paupers to this day 1—

the brutal frankness that announced we

must give place to a new naval Power and be m"ade harmless for revenge? — the- victorious troops living ac free quarters, the yoke they put on us made the more grilling that their requisitions had a semblance of method and legality 1 Better have bc?en robbed at first hand by the soldiary themselves, than through our own magistrates made instruments for extortion. How we lived through the degradation we daily and hourly underwent, I hardly even now under stand. And what was there left to us to live for 1 Stripped of our colonies ; Canada and the West Indies gone to America ; Australia forced to separate ; India lost for ever, after the English there had all been destroyed, vainly trying to hold the country when cutoff from aid by their country men ; Gibraltar and Malta ceded to the new naval Power : Ireland independent and in perpetual anarchy and revolution. When I look at my country as it is now -its trade gone, its factories silent, its harbors empty, a prey to pan peri m and decay — when I see all this, and think what Great Britain was in my youth, I ask mysalf whether I have really a heart or any sense of patriotism that I should bive witnessed such degradation and still care to live."

It is said this paper is to be published separately. If its author will add one p i£e explaining why a new army could not be raised in the North, and a seoonJ displaying the helplessness of a people like that of London without wepons or the habit of using them, and then skII his pamphlet in the fashion of Dame Europas Sj/iool, he will produce an effect of which he little dreams, psrhaps do more to arm England than Ma CirJwell, with his sixteen millions, will be able to accomplish.