TELEGRAPH INTRIGUES IN THE EAST.
WHY is a telegraphic line of communication to be attempted along the Euphrates Valley route, when one was already arranged for the Red Sea route ? The 9.nestion is raised by a circular which we have received, and which certainly demands an answer. The Red Sea route was suggested in the spring of 1855; and in the interval considerable progress has been made with it. The Ottoman and Egyptian Governments have granted lands and powers for a term of—ninety-nine years, on conditions securing the freedom and neutrality of the line ; the whole course has been surveyed and mapped; it secures communication with Aden • the stollens have been marked down at distances of not more than 490 statute miles ; all is ready for the line to be laid next summer. The East India Company had intimated its willingness to give a subvention towards the funds. But soddenly a rival project is put forth by the Chairman of the &hide Railway—to go by the Euphrates route ; and this rival is said to be supported by the Treasury and the East India Directors. What is in the wind? It was supposed that the Red Sea line was supported by the Foreign i Office and Lord Stratford de Radcliffe. The Euphrates line s, as we showed last week, more broken, more expensive for engineering purposes;. it passes through a territory less accessible, more at. the mercy of barbarous tribes ; it is further from British protection, nearer to the influence, machinations, and even attack, of Persia and Russia. All this might be understood if the Euphrates were the natural highway ; but the fact appears at present to be the very reverse. The Red Sea is the short route to Indio. Being so, it is acquiring
much of the advantage proper to a great thoroughfare : standing in a main road of the world's commerce, it enjoys the protection of a vast and increasing traffic. Should. the Suez Canal project be carried out, all these characteristics will be proportionately strengthened. The facts on the Red Sea side are stated : what are the facts on the other side ? We are in the dark. We observe some collateral circumstances. The French Government is known to patronize the Suez Canal project; so is the Austrian, through Baron Bruck-, the founder of the Austrian Lloyd's ; so are the Turkish and Egyptian Governments. Are there any official jealousies at the bottom of the mystery ?
Tali SCOTTISH FRANCHISE CONTROVERSY.
Otra able and ardent contemporary the Scotsman beseeches us to receive some words, "few and mild," on the subject of the Scottish forty-shilling franchise movement, which he supposes us to have misconceived. He takes the pains to inform us that there is a freehold franchise in Scotland; that a forty-shilling ownership franchise would be something different from the English forty-shilling freehold franchise, and that "the English anomaly of borough property votingfor counties would in Scotland be considered alienand newfangled." Our pleasant instructor is at the pains to tell us that the Free Kirk men have supported the Whigs; that many of the Members elected by the Scotch county fran&ise are " Liberals " ' • and that Mr. Beanie Cochrane—who in a letter to ourselves disclaims the office of advocate for Naples —is an exceptional instance of a Tory returned by Lanarkshire county, while the Lanarkshire towns do return Tory Members. We receive these corrections in good part—only unconscious how far they were called for by anything that we had said. It is the accident of a junction between great families in Lanarkshire that has rendered the election of a Tory Member easy; the people of Lanarkshire unquestionably not being Tories. lhat there are freeholders in Scotland we know ; that the feu is not a freehold we also know. But we do not see the fore() of the distinction. In. the words of a very able writer— "Lawyers, and politicians too, will make much of the difference between the laws or tenures of England and Scotland, and 'raise a philosophic reek' about freehold, and leasehold, and copyhold. Give it them all their own way as to words, and stick to the facts. The sum of the whole matter is, that practically, any man that can pay for land of forty shillings annual value has a vote in England—in Scotian(' he has not. Give us the thing that the English have, with any name that you may think technically, correct. Parliament is as able to make a forty-shilling franchise for Scotland in 1861 as for England in 1429."
This passage, whioh we find quoted in a number of the Cakdonian Mercury just sent to us, is extracted from the Scotsmen, which in 1851 supplied the present movement with arguments that are quite as available in 1857. It is not for us to judge between Sootchmen when they differ on their own institutions and their own modes of amending them. It is the fact, however, that when Scotchmen cross the Border and represent to Englishmen that they are without a working franchise which we possess, the defectis intelligible, and it does excite a degree of sympathy; the more so since the proposal is believed to be impeded in Scotland by vested interests. In his lecture to us, the Scotsman avows that the movement "has procured the aid of a class of persons who never before were seen connected with any such proposals save as bitter opponents." The Liberal Members for Scotland are mostly of the Whig order, and they have no reason, personal or political, for desiring the proposed extension of the franchise. This was shown at a meeting which they held in London last week, in a somewhat private manner, to consider the newinovement, which they were rather inclined to discountenance than otherwise ; whereas at the English meeting on the previous Tuesday, it certainly was held as analogous in its tendency, whatever may be its technical incidents, to Mr. Locke King's instalment of reform. In the very brief remarks that we published last week, we simply stated the aspect of the measure as it was presented to England, and the kind of feeling with which it is received in England.
Tim MEETING OF LORD DERBY'S SurroRTERS.—The historical event of Friday last week is already one of the historical doubts. In the House of Peers, on Monday, Lord Derby alluded to the current reports,, complaining that they were "grossly inaccurate " ; and that they represented him (to quote his own words) "not only as saying what I did not say, but as saying the very reverse of what I did say." Lord Derby did not specify in what respects the reports were "grossly inaccurate,"— whether it was in representing him as saying that he had had no communication with Mr. Gladstone ; or that tho Tories were in a minority ; or that he would accept accessions of strength ;. or that he would not submit to dictation ; or that he would not recognize any member of his party who should vote against him, or that if recruited he might be enabled to undertake the Government. Which of these statements was "the reverse of what he did say " ? We have made further inquiries, and we find that some who were present at the meeting were unable to fix upon any part of the current reports as substantially wrong. One error in the report was, that the meeting was not held at the house of Lord. Derby, but at Lord Eglintonrs, which is also in St. James's Square ; Lord Eglinton, we believe, having for some time exerted himself to reconcile the breaches of good fellowship among the members of his own party. A conjectural correction on another point was, that Lord Derby. did not use language quite so strong in alluding to the seceders from his, own ranks ; but if so, the discrepancy must have been only in tone. Another explanation is, that he was less forcible in denying comraunieations with Mr. Gladstone ; and this is the more probable, since there had been communications between the two 'statesmen, though perhaps no specific arrangement between them.
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