NEWS OF TIIE WEEK.
THERE is likely to be after all one exciting debate this session. Mr. Stansfeld, backed by a strong and growing feeling in the House, has given notice of a motion for the reduction of the national expenditure, and parties are falling back into rank. The movement, it is under- stood, comes from a third party within the House, men who, while determined not to endanger either the safety or the rank of the country, still regard a war revenue levied in time of peace with strong dislike and alarm. The object, which was pretty distinctly stated in Mr. Forster's speech of Thursday week, is not of course to censure the Ministry, whose foreign policy Mr. Stansfeld, for example, warmly sup- ports, but to impress on the Government the iarliamentary necessity of more thrifty administration. The heads of de- partments, as Mr. Gladstone allowed, can, if they choose, reduce, and the object of the discussion is to convince them they must. Our squadrons, necessarily strengthened in the Channel, have been increased in every sea. There is a force in China which is, in fact, at war on its own responsi- bility. The regular force retained in the islands is larger than if volunteers and militia were not in exist- ence, and the number of men paid in the Navy demands some explanation. Unless some willingness is shown to reduce the national burden, to stop, as it were, all leakage, and secure a pennyworth for our penny, we shall have one of those mad reactions periodic in our history, and which, while crippling the national strengths, ultimately involve us in huge and sudden expense. The Ministry, it is said, dislike the proposed motion, but it can involve nothing I not already said by one of themselves, and can reflect no dis- credit on men who up to the recent changes in the European position have been justified in holding themselves, as it were, prepared to act.
We are not at war with the Chinese ; we have only killed from six to seven hundred Chinamen. Admiral Hope, it ap- pears, and the French commander in Shanghai, on 1st March, attacked a village twenty miles from Shanghai, then occupied by the Taepiugs, or Chinese rebels. They fought with unusual bravery, but could not resist the shells, and fled, leaving 600 bodies, one-tenth of their strength, heaped iu the village lanes. A body of Chinese recruits, led by a Colonel Ward, showed the utmost determination, and had sixty of their number wounded,—a curious comment on the English belief that all Chinese are cowards. The affiiir is of course very glorious, only what right Admiral Hope had to kill Chinamen in hundreds, twenty miles from the European set- [UNSTAMPED STAMPED .. id. tletnent, is, perhaps, not exactly explained. We must pro- tect Shanghai, but we protest against lending ourselves to the Imperial cause before the Ministry has even announced what policy it intends to adopt.
On Wednesday, in a House which, including sixteen pairs, contained 605 members, the Church Rate Abolition Bill was thrown out by a majority of one—the division showing 287 on the Conservative to 286 on the Liberal side. The debate was rendered remarkable by Mr. Bright's able and moderate speech in favour of a settlement which ought not to be un- popular, namely,the repeal of the clause which gives the power to compel payment of Church Rates, without any further change. Mr. Bright said very truly that if the House would trust the decision to a committee of two, Mr. Sotheron Est- court and himself, the matter would soon be settled. But the character of a harbinger of peace is as yet too new and dazzling a disguise for Mr. Bright to gain the confidence of the House;— the language of spontaneous good-will having so often served him as excellent ball-ammunition for delivering the most deadly fire, that the Tory moderates shrink back in alarm. SirJohn Pakington drew away from the offered alliance as though he had been asked to lay his hand on Behemoth : "Will he speak soft words to thee ? Will lee make a cove- nant with thee ? Wilt thou play with him as a bird ? " ft was too dangerous. Yet the offer was genuine, and the plan is feasible.
New Orleans has been taken at last, apparently after a long and protracted contest. At least the fleet under Com- modore Farragut seems to have been twelve days passing the forts, and breaking a chain stretched across the channel. Once opposite the city, however, the contest was virtually decided. General Lovell had an army of some kind, includ- ing 12,000 " foreigners," but they could effect nothing against iron-clad gunboats, floating on a river which rises above the streets. The General, therefore, withdrew, and the mayor announced in a grandiloquent but spirited letter that New Orleans accepted the victors, but as victors, not as friends. A collector has been appointed, the port is open to trade, and the Northern journals are full of confidence in a coining supply of cotton. This success has been followed up by the capture of Baton Rouge, and the Federals may be said, ex- cept at Memphis, to be masters of the Mississippi. All in the West now depends on the action which must shortly be fought between General Beauregard and General Halleck, each of whom has been heavily reinforced, and who by the latest accounts were within a few miles of each other.
M. Texier, one of the French reporters on the Great Ex- hibition, has published some remarks on the changes in the national character since 1851. Englishmen, he says, now wear beards, the demi-monde has invaded London, and the people amuse themselves by witnessing poses plastiques. It is all true, as true as most English pictures of France, the only mistake being that M. Texier has confused London with Leicester-square,—the few people whom he has seen with a nation of twenty millions.
Lord Taunton moved on Tuesday the second reading of the bill abolishing certain partially obsolete qualifications for office, which consist of declarations that the candidate will not use his influence to interfere in any way with the authority of the secular and spiritual authorities of the kingdom, especially including the bishops. In the case of Government officers the declaration is not required ; in the case of municipal officers it is required in England where there is no need of it—but no such declaration is imposed in Ireland, where objections bot h to the Crown and (Protestant) Bishops are conceivable. The Lords rejected it hastily, and without further discussion, by a majority of 32, after an alarmist speech from the Duke of Marlborough, who intimated that it was part of a con- spiracy by Mr. Miall and Dr. Foster to undermine the Church of England. So the State is to parade the tattered political tapestry of Queen Anne's time at least for another year, because though stained, moth-eaten, and dusty, and disagree- able alike to sense and senses, the Bishops and the Peers see in the proposal to remove it a .dark conspiracy todestroy the Church. Mat might not be hared from an Akiarman who had not swornfealty to the Bishops ?
Lord Westbury during the week has claimed for himself a military reputation by accepting, on behalf of the House of Lords, a problematic challenge from the Speaker of the House of Commons to a rifle-match at Wimbledon, on the 5th July. Eleven members of each House, it is said doubt- fully, are to fire at 200 and 500 yards, each firing seven shots. From the cultivation of the " Beautiful," therefore, this ver- satile peer is now passing to the cultivation of the military art. It is not too soon ; for Lord Westbury's personal foes are multiplying on every side. To Lord Derby and Lord Chelmsford must be added this week the Bishop of Win- chester, and his champion, the Duke of Buccleugh. Prowess at Wimbledon may avail him with the lay lords, but if he makes the bench of bishops his foes, even his calm and pas- sionless equanimity will yet be overmatched.
We have a summary sent by telegraph of the new Indian budget, and if not quite intelligible as to the present, it is still tolerably satisfactory as to the future. There is a deficit of six millions on the year which has to be met somehow, by loan, or drafts from the balances, but next year Mr. Laing thinks there will, if no new rebellion occurs, no war breaks out, and no tribe thinks it necessary to avenge some sacred ape, be a surplus of a million-and-a-half Of this sum Mr. Laing gives 100,0001. for education, 400,000/. for additional public works, and surrenders most of the rest by remissions of heavy taxes. The duties of piece goods are reduced to five, and on yarns to three and a half per cent., the duty on paper is abolished, other minor reductions are sanctioned, and incomes below 501. are all declared exempt. It seems a san- guine budget, for Indian statistics are about as reliable as railway profits, and we must wait for the details. Mr. Laing, we regret to perceive, promises once more to abandon the Income tax, and so throw the country back on the old system of revenue. Promises, however, reported by tele- graph are always apt to look more absolute than when spoken.
The British Government, it would appear, has finally retired from intervention in Mexico. Spain seems dubious, General Prim having threatened to return to Madrid, while the Captain-General of Cuba orders the troops to remain. Napoleon, however, is determined, and the French army, now including some fifteen thousand men, is expected to march on the capital by 20th April. What they are to do when there, is still only known to the Emperor, though a belief has of late gained strength that in the proved impossibility of governing through a subject Prince, he may declare the Mexican States a direct dependency of France. This country would not interfere, the Mexicans are too divided for war, and the United States must await better days before they can do more than protest. A dull sense of having been tricked is left on the British mind, but the Mexicans are not a race whom we are bound to protect, and if Frenchmen are gratified with the idea of an India with a frontier twelve hundred miles long they are welcome to the expense and the responsibility.
Captain Coles complains in the Times that he is not to superintend the construction of his own cupola ship, and Lord C. Paget, in the House of Commons, complains of the complaint. Both appear to be a little too sensitive. A de- partment can seldom entrust a work wholly to an inventor, for he is almost sure to devote his attention to his own especial point, and neglect more general considerations. Captain Coles is to superintend the building of his own shield, and his claim to construct the ship oversteps the right of invention. At the same time, Lord C. Paget need not have administered a public rebuke to a man of genius because he was a little too anxious to make himself useful to the country, and a little too jealous for an invention which events have proved of high value.
The Fen country has sustained a terrible blow. The vast tract between Lincoln and Cambridge, including some '700,000 acres, lies below- the sea level. A sluice, four . miles from Lynn, through which the Ouse discharged itself into the sea, has given way, and the tide comes in through a breach more than 40 yards broad. Twenty thousand acres • of the richest land in the country are already destroyed, the cattle are huddled together on the uplands, and hundreds of famiffes. will be ruined. Should the summer be wet, the Joss w211snvery much greater than at present, and the people on the anotldle level," the district most immediately affected, seers lost in helpless dismay.. Strangely enough, though therein a board of Conintissionersr, no.one on the spot seems to have had authority to give the requisite orders, and up to Thursday the Commissioners were still in London, "attend- ing to Parliamentary business," which one would think might wait.
The sculptors are highly enraged. The Commissioners of the Great Exhibition it seems allowed Mr. F. T. Palgrave to publish a Handbook criticizing their work and the painters', and sell it, stamped with their imprimatur, within the build- ing. The criticism is excessively severe, and the sculptors are indignant that they should have been asked to contribute, and then abused for their work. Sir W. Dilke, when asked for an explanation, declared himself ignorant of the contents of the book, the Commissioners only receiving a royalty of two- pence on each copy sold. We have seen the book, which, though well written and sometimes original, is as audacious as book can be, certainly not a work to go forth under an official guarantee. The Commissioners are a great deal too greedy. There was not the slightest necessity for any book of the kind, and the Commissioners might in courtesy have left their guests' works to the only criticism they had invited, that of the public. Suppose all the tradesmen who are exhibitors were labelled in the same style ?
One corps of Volunteers seems to have broken down, the corps of the London Irish. The officers, it would seem, quarrelled about promotions, the men would not attend their drill, and the finances are in such a state, that the Marquis of Donegal is ashamed to mention the balance. A meeting was held to discuss these matters on Monday, which was " indescribably stormy," which passed no resolu- tions, and which broke up somewhat prematurely. The corps seems virtually dissolved. Perhaps the Irish national- ists will now comprehend one reason for not encouraging Irish volunteer corps.
In 1860, 14,775 persons died violent deaths in England and Wales, or one in every 1,328. Of these 1,365, or nine per cent., were suicides.
Count Rechberg's speech, on 6th May, was not, it appears, altogether in favour of non-intervention. His master accepts that policy, it would seem, but with a certain reserve. No- body is to intervene any more, but the whole German empire is to fight for Venetia. That is the last new reading of the dogma, and very satisfactory it must be to M. de Rechberg. France is not to interfere for Italy, but Prussia, of course, may move up her armies against. Fortunately, liberal Germany may have a voice before that policy is adopted, and Italy compelled to appeal to France or the Revolution.
