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the Irish. Can there then be a greater condemnation of the system by which the Anglo-Irish partnership is carried on, than the fact that such a gross overcharge could be made and enforced despite all protest even by Mr. Gladstone himself! now that the report has been signed, and that the Royal Commissioners have by ten to three certified before all men that Ireland has been overcharged to this amount, how long shall we have to wait before an English Government will attempt to readjust this frightful financial inequality? No doubt there is a set-off on the other side, in the shape of special grants from time to time, but it does not appear that the sum of these comes to anything approaching the annual drain which is now being branded aз unjust by the Royal Commission. No fact in my lifetime has ever been brought to light which is so certain to trouble the consciences and move the hearts of the English people.

With the burden of this certified injus-and for tice upon our shoulders we should look Amnesty. more leniently upon the men who, maddened by despair and the hopelessness of appealing to our sense of justice, resorted to the use of dynamite. The crowded and enthusiastic meeting held in St. James's Hall for the purpose of demanding the liberation of the Irish political prisoners confined in Portland, appeals to us much more strongly now that we have been forced to admit that as a nation we have been muleting unjustly the Irish all these years. No doubt a resort to dynamite is to violate the laws of the political game. No nation can admit that high explosives can be introduced into political controversy with impunity; but when the imprisoning power is thus caught red-handed in flagrante delicto, the less we say about our right to take a high line in the administration of justice to dynamitards and others, the better. And the finding of the Royal Commission, which has this effect upon us with regard to the Irish political prisoners, will necessarily make itself felt in other questions that come up in the future between England and Ireland. The movement in favour of an amnesty to for the misguided men who have already Portland. served so many years in slavery at Portland, has received an impetus from another quarter. South Africa has been a great object-lesson to our Unionists in many ways. The Duke of Abercorn

From Pretoria

and his friends on the Board of Directors of the Chartered Company have probably much clearer ideas to-day as to the sacred right of insurrection and the duty of assisting oppressed populations

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MR. BARNETT I. BARNATO.
Active promoter of the Transvaal settlement.

President Krüger exacted fines amounting in the aggregate to £216,000 from his political prisoners, but that is a mere bagatelle to the millionaires who have developed the gold fields of the Rand, and the important thing is not the fine, but the fact that all our Unionists, who are still so keen to exact the uttermost farthing of vindictive punishment from the dynamitards, discovered no end of cogent arguments to prove the impolicy of severity in dealing with the political offenders of Johannesburg. It will be well if Sir Matthew White Ridley could follow the lead of President Krüger and open the prison doors which

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The Collapse of the

Bill.

Ministers are not at present in a mood likely to prompt them to do anything Education magnanimous, for they have been heavily hit, and they are feeling sore accordingly. In the month of May they carried the second reading of their Education Bill by the almost unprecedented majority of 267. In the month of June, twelve months to the very day from the date when Lord Rosebery and his colleagues surrendered the seals of office to Her Majesty, the strongest Government of modern times had to confess to one of the most humiliating defeats that has overtaken any administration in the present reign. After struggling for eleven days to carry their Bill, Ministers discovered that the opposition which it had aroused was too great to be overcome even by a majority of 267, when the members of that majority could not agree among themselves. It is probable that if the Church party could have held together, instead of getting up an internecine war as to whether the additional aid granted to the denominational schools should come from the rates or the taxes, Ministers might have pulled through some kind of an Education Bill; but that was impossible with the Bishops all at sixes and sevens, while the various sections of the Liberal party were welded together in a white heat of fury.

Even then, if Ministers could have thrown out the clauses which attacked the School Boards, they might have escaped by the skin of their teeth, but as it was they could do nothing.

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The Growth

of Unionist Disunion.

First one and then another member of their own party hoisted the standard of revolt, insisting upon alterations in the Bill as the condition of their support. Sir Albert Rollit demanded that every municipal borough should be empowered to appoint an educational authority under the new Act, instead of limiting this privilege to boroughs of 50,000 population. Mr. Balfour, despite the warnings of Sir John Gorst, gave way so far as to lower the standard from 50,000 to 20,000, and from that moment the Bill was doomed. Ministers, summoning their followers to a party conclave, announced that they would prolong the session by a long adjournment until January, and then take up the Bill, which would be postponed until next year. But within a week this also was discovered to be hopeless, and on Monday the 22nd Mr. Balfour came down to the House of Commons, and with a somewhat ill grace sacrificed the Bill altogether. This unprecedented fiasco has naturally led to a multitude of explanations. Mr.

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who multiplied amendments at such a rate as to render it impossible to get the Bill through Committee, even if the whole of the session were devoted to its consideration. But the Conservative press, with hardly an exception, astonished everybody by repudiating Mr. Balfour's explanation and saddling the responsibility upon his own shoulders. There is There is reason to believe that neither Sir John Gorst nor his chief, the Duke of Devonshire, particularly regretted the failure of an attempt to subordinate the interests of education to the demands of clericalism. But one fact has not yet been adequately appreciated, viz., the Conservative party for the first time for many years feels that it is strong enough to allow its members and its newspapers to exercise somewhat of that independence which has

been at once the making and the unmaking of the Liberal party. Until now, Conservatives have always felt as if they were more or less living on sufferance; hence, with the exception of Sir John Gorst, there is hardly a Conservative in Parliament who has ever dared to call his soul his own when the party Whip held up his finger. But a majority of 267 made even the most docile partisan feel that

he could assert his own From Picture-Politics.] views without jeopardising

his Ministry.

of Par

similar agreement as to the time to be devoted to the discussion of each of the contentious measures which would come on after the non-contentious proposals had been placed on the Statute Book. Take, for instance, this Education Bill. It consists, not of one Bill, but of two, one of which is not merely inoffensive, but is urgently needed in the interests of education. If, when the session commenced, the Education Bill could have been discussed privately between the representatives of both sides of the House, there would have been no difficulty whatever in passing that section of it which raised the age of compulsion by one year, and which gave effect to the recommendations of the Royal Commission on secondary education. When this section of the Bill

[June-July, 1896.

THE BISHOPS AND THE BILL. "Stick to it, my Lord, don't let it drop."

The Mr. Balfour laid great stress upon the Breakdown breakdown of Parliamentary government, liamentary and from one point of view he is right. Government. The machinery of the House of Commons is utterly inadequate to pass any measure that is violently opposed by a large section of the House, and contains a mass of detail which can be debated at any length. But the moral of this is not that the House of Commons should be reduced to a mere machine registering under a guillotine-like closure the decrees of Ministers, but rather that at the beginning of every session Ministers and the Opposition should agree upon two things. First, as to what measures in the Ministerial programme can be accepted as embodying the common judgment of the whole House, and these measures should be first of all passed into law. Secondly, there should be a

had been passed, as it would have been with little or no debate, an agreement could have been arrived at as to the length of time to be devoted to the other half of the Bill. Unfortunately, no such commonsense suggestions will be listened to as yet, but it is only in this direction that I see any hope of extricating legislation from the present deadlock.

Ministers have
Mr.
Balfour's been com-

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Leadership. pelled, not merely to abandon the Education Bill, but to drop the Employers' Liability Bill and the Bill dealing with the clerical benefices. Three measures, therefore, have gone, and it is probable that more will follow. They are forcing the Rating Bill through, and it is probable they will pass their Light Railway Bill. Beyond these two measures, they will not have much to show as the outcome of the first session in the way of constructive legislation. Unionists of all shades of opinion. are much disgusted, while the Liberals are correspondingly clated. The immediate result of the sickening shock which has been administered to the colossal majority has been the revealing of no slight dissatisfaction with the somewhat nonchalant Parliamentary Leadership of Mr. Balfour. There are shrewd observers who profess to discern clear traces of an intrigue on the part of Mr. Chamberlain to supplant the present leader of the House; while others who

can see still further through a brick wall than their fellows, profess to discern various straws which show that the wind is blowing in the direction of a possible return of Mr. Chamberlain to the Liberal ranks. It is assumed that Joseph of Birmingham will never rest content until he leads the House of Commons. His first move will be to succeed Mr. Balfour as leader of the Unionist majority; but if it should turn out that the Conservatives will not have him at any price, then he will return to his first love, and endeavour to regain the position from which he fell when he deserted Mr. Gladstone. All these things belong to the future. What is certain is that all Unionists are very sore-headed, and that almost for the first time in the recent history of the party they are permitting public expression of sinful doubts as to the infallibility of their elected Chief.

"Touch and

There is one text that may be recomGo" for Mr. mended with advantage to the attention Chamberlain. of those persons who day by day are singing the praises of Mr. Chamberlain. It is that which warns him who is putting on his armour not to boast as one who is putting it off. Mr. Chamberlain is " a dreffle smart man," but his twelve months of office have not increased his reputation for sanity and lucidity of judgment. When the secret history of the South African trouble comes to be written, the chief advantage that will accrue to Mr. Chamberlain will be that which is enjoyed by persons who appear to be perpetually screened from the consequences of their blunders. Miss Kingsley, in her entertaining article upon "Black Ghosts" in the Cornhill, says that the natives of the western coast pay great regard to old people, no matter how wicked they may be, because they hold that the mere fact of their surviving so many dangers proves that they have a very powerful "bush soul," whom they conceive as a wild animal who lives in the forest and whom it would be dangerous to offend. When we think of the blind plunge after plunge that Mr. Chamberlain has made in the South African policy, and the reckless manner in which he risked everything on the chance of something turning up trumps, it is difficult to avoid the belief that he has a "bush soul" somewhere, who shields him from the consequences of his own blunders. But had it not been for Sir Hercules Robinson at the Cape, Barney Barnato at Pretoria, and Mr. Edward Garrett at the Cape Times, Mr. Chamberlain would have come as bad a cropper in South Africa as the Ministry has experienced in the Education Bill.

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speeches last month in favour of an Imperial Customs Union in order to promote the establishment of closer commercial relations between Great and Greater Britain. The Associated Chambers of Commerce of the Empire listened to what he had to say, and then passed a very non-committal resolution declaring that the subject deserved prompt and careful consideration, and urged upon the Government to summon an Imperial Conference to consider such a scheme and formulate some practical plan, if such a suggestion should be made on behalf of any of the Colonial Governments. The initiative, therefore, is

shifted from Downing Street to any Colonial Government which may choose to take the first step. If Mr. Rhodes had still been Prime Minister of the Cape, there would have been no tarrying for lack of a suggestion from a self-governing colony, but at present Mr. Chamberlain pauses for

a reply.

The only

Mr. Chamber

Practical lain's suggesScheme. tion has been met with scoffing and contumely by Mr. Asquith and Mr. Courtney. Speaking at the Cobden Club dinner, Mr. Courtney disposed of Mr. Chamberlain's suggestion in the following down thump fashion :

road is patrolled and policed. By this means a door would be held open to the United States to enter into an alliance with the mother country, and at the same time we should avoid the odium. of levying differential duties.

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very startling, and in many quarters totally unexpected, revolution has been wrought in the position of parties in the Canadian dominion. Sir Charles Tupper, the Conservative Prime Minister, who was the chief advo cate of the Imperial Zollverein, has been hurled from power, and Mr. Laurier, the brilliant leader of the French Canadian Liberals, has been installed in his place. The Liberals of Canada have always leaned more in the direction of Free Trade with the United States than with

RICHARD COBDEN. From the portrait by Lowes Dickinson, in the Jubilee edition of Mr. John Morley's "Life of Cobden."

What did it mean to the people of Great Britain? That they were to have additional duties on their meat, corn, sugar and timber, so that those articles might only come from the Colonies. Every man, woman, and child in the United Kingdom would at once feel a burden in the increased cost of life and production. And what for? In order to augment a fourth of our trade at the cost of diminishing threefourths. The proposal had already received its answer. sooner was it mooted than it was repudiated by the greatest Chambers of Commerce in the kingdom, and it was repudiated from the Antipodes. Neither Free Trader nor Protectionist would have it.

No

And Mr. Asquith spoke in much the same sense. It will probably be found when the subject is closely examined that there is no other way by which the desired end can be obtained, save that of clapping a duty, which could be described as a navy due, upon all goods coming over sea excepting when they come from States which are within the offensive and defensive alliance which exists between Great Britain and all her Colonies for the maintenance of the police of the seas. If other states such as the United States, Argentine Republic or Chili, chose to enter into that league, then imports from these republics would be equally free from the navy dues which would be collected on all goods crossing the seas from States which did not contribute to the maintenance of the force by which the ocean high

the mother country. There is a great deal to be said in favour of this policy, and if Mr. Laurier adopts it, it is not very likely that the initiative which Mr. Chamberlain has suggested should be taken by some Colonial Government will be taken by the new Canadian Ministry. Of one thing, however, we may be quite sure, and that is that while it may be possible to arrive at an agreement, based upon clapping extra duties on foreign goods, no agreement is possible which will provide for the repeal or reduction of Colonial duties on British goods. The industries fostered into artificial life by the Protective tariffs of our Colonies have far too strong a hold on Colonial sentiment for us to hope, for some time at least, for anything more than this.

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