NEWS OF THE WEEK.

-p ARMAMENT was amused on Monday to hear officially that the Governor of Queensland had sent a policeman to annex Papua, an island about a third larger than France. Members laughed out as the telegram was read, not, we think, from ridicule, but from a certain excitement and sense of the incongruity between the means and the end. It appears, from a short speech by the Under-Secretary for the Colonies, Mr. E. Ashley, that in the Colonial Office the annexation is supposed to have been made in self-defence, the Queenslanders expecting a German or French descent on Papua. If there is ground for that fear, it may, as we have argued elsewhere, be expedient to adopt the annexation, though Papua must be a separate colony. There will, of course, be much 'debate, but substantially the matter is of less importance than it looks. Papua is sure to fall to Australia, and the Queenslanders are only a little in advance of inevitable occurrences. The great island will not allow its most important strait to be in anybody's hands but its own.

The German Parliament was on the 14th inst. startled by a Message from the Emperor, countersigned by Prince Bismarck, in which his Majesty stated that legislation for the benefit of the working-classes must go on. He had already in his hereditary dominion relieved them of the Income-tax, and he had now 4' obtained the assent of the allied Governments "—a curious paraphrase for the Federal Council—to a proposal for passing the Budget of 1884. If the Reichstag also assented and passed that Budget, the winter would be left free for economic reforms. The Liberals are greatly annoyed with this message. They think Prince Bismarck is using the Emperor and the workmen to force on them his proposal for an anticipatory Budget, which will leave him for eighteen months free from Parliamentary control. They are, therefore, resolved to resist, but resistance will, as usual, depend upon the action of the Catholic Centre, which may have been conciliated. The Vatican, however, can hardly desire to untie Prince Bismarck's hands.

Sir Stafford Northcote unveiled on Thursday, at Westminster, the noble bronze statue of Lord Beaconsfield by Signor Raggi, at the request of Lord Arthur Russell, who with happy courtesy has taken the lead in rendering this tribute of honour to one of the greatest of his uncle's adversaries. Sir Stafford's speech was not particularly happy, for it consisted chiefly in attributing to Lord Beaconsfield those qualities and that kind of popularity which you would suppose a priori that a great English statesman would possess, but which, as a matter of fact, Lord Beaconsfield certainly did not possess, though he possessed other qualities and another kind of popularity far more unique. Sir Stafford said that Lord Beaconsfield had "rooted himself in the affections" and obtained "a command over the hearts " of the whole British people, which we believe to be as far as possible from the truth. And he attributed to Lord Beaconsfield's individuality of character the power to make all of us "sympathise with him," even while we feel our own unlikeness. Lord Salisbury, on the other hand, attributed to Lord Beaconsfield a fixed resolve to make war on all the tendencies which threaten the separate nationality of England, and the diminution or extinction of her peculiar glories,—which is true enough, only Lord Salisbury went on to identify Lord Beaconsfield's whole " nature and being " with a passionate desire for the greatness of this country, of which there seems to us absolutely no evidence. Lord Beaconsfield made the best he knew how to make, of course, of the nation with which he had identified his career. But whether he ever loved us in the least, or even liked us heartily, we entertain the gravest doubt.

The heartiest speech was that of Lord John Manners, who was really attached and grateful to his hero, and expressed his attachment with manly force and gratitude. He declared that Lord Beaconsfield was "a charming,—an ever charming companion,—and a true friend." He further described him as having, behind a somewhat impassive appearance, "a heart full of the most generous emotions, and alive to the tenderest and gentlest sympathies,—a fancy ever free, an imagination ever soaring, a, faith that was constant even unto death." We can hardly imagine words that seem to us less accurately descriptive of the man. That they truly and fairly describe, however, Lord John Manners's private ideal of the man, we are well aware. But was it not part of Lord Beaconsfield's speciality that the leading features of his character were far more powerfully impressed on those who studied him from afar than on his friends,—that the near view of him confused the observer P

There is talk of taking four nights for the discussion of the Affirmation Bill, which comes on next week. Such a waste of time on a Bill the principle of which has been discussed and rediscussed for years, till the whole country is sick of it, and wants simply to decide the matter, would be monstrous. We hope that if any organised attempt to waste the time of the House of Commons in this way should be made, there may be a very significant explosion of opinion on the subject in the country. A single night's debate is more than enough for a subject beaten-out already as fine as goldbeater-skin.

Joseph Brady and Daniel Carley, the two men who with Kelly were accused of being the ringleaders in the murders of Lord Frederick Cavendish and Mr. Burke, have both been found guilty, and sentenced to death. An alibi was set up on behalf of each, but the evidence against them was irresistible. Four approvers, none of whom had any motive for fixing on these men, swore to their guilt, and were corroborated by independent testimony. Curley, who made a long speech in his own defence, accused the police of teaching the independent witnesses to identify him after his arrest, but he offered no proof; and it must be remembered that these witnesses had every temptation to escape the popular dislike, if they could have done it on so easy an excuse. The jury, who were very painstaking, felt no doubt; and Curley, a very bold and decided man, admitted frankly that he had been a member of the Invincibles from his youth, and stepped down saying, " God save Ireland !" Carey, in his final evidence, accused him of having suggested the murder of the carman Kavanagh, who, he contended, " ought to be wiped out," lest he should peach ; but there is no corroboration of this. The most extraordinary feature of Curley's case is that, while acknowledging that he had taken the oath to commit murder when ordered, he declared and believed that he was a man of unusually high " moral" character. It seems as if with such men, as with the followers of Bhowanie, murder had been struck out of the list of crimes.

Another informer ! There is no help for it, and no reason why a bad man should not confess and so aid the law, but it is

very unlucky that the right cause must rely on such agency. Normal, the possessor of the dynamite taken in the Strand, was on Thursday admitted Queen's evidence against the arrested dynamiteurs. He stated that his name was Lynch, that he was an American, of Irish parents ; that he wished to free Ireland ; that he was induced to join one of many New York societies ruled by O'Donovan Rossa, who is called by them " The Old Man ;" that he was ordered to England at a moment's notice, and there found, principally from the statements of Dr. T. Gallagher, now under examination, that he was expected to aid in a conspiracy to blow up the House of Commons and other public buildings. His evidence has still to be corroborated, but if it is true, it for the first time directly implicates the American leaders of the violent party. The legal advisers of the Crown, moreover, consider it sufficient to justify a prosecution of the dynamiteurs for treason-felony, the penalty for which is ten years' penal servitude.

Lynch's revelations have greatly accelerated the growth of healthy opinion in America. The great majority there have for some time been doubtful as to the propriety of allowing such plots to be arranged on their territory, but have doubted the evidence. Knowing Lynch, and being able to test his statements about persons and places, they are growing convinced, and the feeling is rapidly rising that a great State professing Christianity ought to prevent the despatch of agents and money for murderous purposes against a friendly people. This opinion has been loudly expressed in the Press, and by public speakers —one speaker in particular, a Mr. Davis, President of the Young Hebrews' Association, accusing the Fenians of "sheltering their cowardly carcases behind the American Constitution "—and is, it is said, beginning to influence the respectable Irish. The strong language employed is no proof of strong action, but it is proof that the Americans are not afraid of the dynamiteurs, either as criminals or voters, and will when the time arrives deal with them with their characteristic decision. The ultimate remedy, as we pointed out long since, will come from that side.

Sir William Harcourt was rather overdoing his part of guardian of the public safety, when he went so far on Monday night as to say, in answer to Mr. Parnell, that he would ask for permission to dispense with the rule which allows prisoners to have a private interview with the solicitor who is to defend them, and that he had actually given instructions that no such interviews were to be allowed in the case of persons accused of belonging to the dynamite conspiracies. The truth is that such instructions were quite inconsistent with the present law, and it is doubtful enough whether Parliament would have granted the Home Secretary an Act of indemnity for breaking it. That in such cases it would be quite right to insist that no solicitor whose respectability is not known to the Government should be permitted to defend this class of prisoners,—a precaution formerly adopted in cases of treasonable conspiracies,—we admit. The safety of the public is of paramount importance, and, no doubt, under cover of interviews with legal advisers, steps might be taken to destroy all evidence of conspiracies which it is essential for the public interest to bring to light. But though that is a good reason for not letting the person accused of dynamite conspiracies choose their own legal advisers without check, it is no reason at all for the monstrous injustice of refusing them a perfectly free and unfettered consultation with any respectable legal advisers who undertake their defence. Sir W. Harcourt poses extremely well as the enthusiastic guardian of our hearths and homes, but he should beware of overdoing the part. We observe with pleasure that he is not acting up to his threat.

At the annual dinner of the Conservative Central Committee, held on Wednesday night, Sir Stafford Northcote declared that he did not remember a single occasion " since the death of our lamented and revered leader," on which Lord Salisbury and himself had seriously differed on the course of policy which ought to be pursued. That certainly takes one somewhat by surprise. Did Sir Stafford Northcote really agree with Lord Salisbury when the latter proposed to the Conservative Peers of the House of Lords to reject the Arrears Bill, since so many of the Lords' amendments had been disagreed with by the Commons P if he did, why -did he support the Lords' amendments in the Commons so languidly, and give everybody the impression that far from desiring to bring up the whole strength of the Conservative party to the support of those amendments, he was not in the least serious in the wish to force a dissolution on them ? Lord Randolph Churchill has expressed the view which the whole public took of Sir Stafford Northcote's attitude,—his very wise attitude, we venture to call it,—on that matter. Butif he did not agree with Lord Salisbury, what an extraordinary declaration was that of Wednesday night. But perhaps Sir Stafford Northcote does not think it a " serious" difference,. when Lord Salisbury wishes to risk a dissolution on a matteron which he himself thinks that a dissolution would be an actof madness.

The full operation of the remission of the passenger-duty effected by Mr. Childers is not yet perceived. It will not only enable the Companies to improve third-class travelling, as long as the charge is kept below a penny a mile, but it will tempt them to do it. Trains heavily loaded with third-class passengers. will pay, and we hope to see the order, which is the great want. of the third-class traffic, fully established. This can only besecured by the introduction of the Swiss carriages, with their short benches and free gangway between them stretching from carriage to carriage, down which a conductor can walk, with= authority to remove drunken men, prevent riot, and suppress foul talk. Such carriages will be eagerly sought, the seclusion which is desired by first-class passengers being just the quality which third-class passengers dislike. " They like company," andwhen assembled in large numbers will help to keep decent order. It is to the increase of this class of travellers that the Companies must look to keep down the expense of haulage, and with theSwiss carriages they would soon add one-third to their receipts.. Female travelling especially would be doubled. At present, a decent or feeble woman able to pay only third-class fare travels only when compelled.

Mr. Goschen, on Wednesday, delivered to the Bankers' Institute an address on the increased purchasing power of gold_ Itsdrift was the same as that of his speech in the House of Commons, but he adduced much evidence, and entered intofurther detail. He holds that the gold production of the world since 1862 has sunk to £20,000,000 a year, of which £10,000,000P is used up in the arts and other ways, leaving £10,000,000 toswell the volume of the currency. Three Governments, however—those of America, Germany, and Italy—have absorbed £200,000,000 in changing silver and paper currencies into gold,. and have thus swept up the whole surplus, while the rapid increase of trade and intercommunication makes the demand for metal yearly more eager. There should, therefore, be a heavy fall in all prices not kept up by special causes, and Mr. Goschen' quoted a mass of returns proving that this had been the case_ Wehave rarely, or indeed never, seen a speech which approached so near a mathematical demonstration ; and, if it is correct, it follows that rents must fall. It is impossible for the farmer,. with all his prices reduced—permanently reduced, unless a new gold supply is discovered—to pay the rents based upon a higher average of receipts. The landlords may, however, take comfort.They have had nearly thirty years of prosperity.

The House of Commons did not distinguish itself on• Thursday. General Wolseley and Admiral Seymour, having received orders to act against Arabi, did act, and acted with success. As the action was great, it was needful to reward them with honours and money. Being baronets, they were made peers, and granted about £30,000 each, in the cumbronS shape of pensions of £2,000 a year for two lives. Parliament, of course, had to vote the money, and in the House of Commons all who dislike the war, all who object to pensions, and all who hate Britain, joined together in an ungenerous and unmannerly resistance to the grant. Eighty-five Members voted against Lord Alcester and fifty-five against Lord Wolseley. The whole proceeding is contemptible. To expel the Government for its conduct in Egypt is reasonable, but to support the Government. and snub its agents for doing their work so well is almost base. As to the amount of the grant, it is nothing compared with what the country saves by rewarding the Services with occasional prizes instead of permanent pay, and about half the year's profits of several big shopmen. We are ashamed to see sound Radicals so ignorant of the first conditions of efficient State service. If the hereditary principle alone was the object of

dislike, why did not the objectors propose an adequate grant at once ?

The Queen has hit the West-End butchers a bard blow, by notifying publicly that, in view of the declining numbers of English sheep, lamb will not be eaten this year in the Royal establishment. The higher classes always follow the Queen, the price of lamb has fallen, it is said, 4d. a pound, and as the butchers gain their best profit on this meat, they are proportionately hurt. Householders will not grieve for them, but it is doubtful if the Queen's idea, though purely benevolent, is economically -right. If the lambs are allowed to become sheep, there will be more mutton, and more potentiality of producing mutton,— that much is clear. But whether the flockma,ster will be -equally anxious for large flocks is not so clear. His profit is derived, first, from his wool, which, as Mr. Goschen shows, is horridly cheap ; secondly, from his mutton, which is dear ; -and thirdly, from his lamb, which is extravagantly dear, and in fact makes up for the decrease upon wool. Whether, without this ,excessive profit on lamb, he has still sufficient temptation to go on, is the question. Buyers of mutton say yes, but the flockmaster says the profit on mutton all goes to the butcher, and that, so far from the stock-breeder growing rich, on the Downs of South England half the sheep are pawned a year before killing, at heavy interest.

To Monday's Times the Duke of Argyll addressed a letter :attacking Mr. Chamberlain's last Birmingham speech,—mainly for the sentence concerning Lord Salisbury's wealth as having grown and increased while his ancestors and he slept, " by levying an unearned share on all that other men have done by toil and labour to add to the general wealth and prosperity of the country of which they form a part." Against this comment the Duke of Argyll directs a sharp criticism, which might have been more pertinent if he had fully understood Mr. Chamberlain's drift, which he certainly does not. Of this, however, we have spoken elsewhere. Here we may add that the Duke of Argyll, while admitting that Lord Salisbury has a sharp tongue, and that he himself has sometimes smarted under his piercing shafts, testifies that he never heard the Marquis direct an illiberal attack upon the whole class to which any of his antagonists belongs, or indulge in " allusions to the sources of his -adversaries' private fortune alike invidious and unjust." As a matter of fact, the defence for Mr. Chamberlain was that Lord Salisbury's only sympathy appeared to be with the Irish proprietors of the " unearned share," while he had nothing but hard names for another class,—those tenants whose earned share of the value of their property the recent Irish Land Act had just been restoring to them. Mr. Chamberlain's attack on Lord Salisbury was not gratuitous. It was an attack on the class legislator, not on the individual peer.

Mr. Bradlaugh was acquitted on Saturday, after a three days' -trial, of any legal complicity in the responsibility for those blasphemies of the Freethinker for which Mr. Foote and his colleagues have been convicted and punished. The Lord Chief Justice in his charge was as fair to Mr. Bradlaugh as Lord Selborne had been in the appeal case of the previous week ; and as neither Lord Selborne nor Lord Coleridge feels anything but -disgust for Mr. Bradlaugh's peculiar views, we have some reason to congratulate the English Bench on their completely impartial review of the law and the facts of Mr. Bradlaugh's various issues with his accusers. The Lord Chief Justice on Saturday pointed out, in the most emphatic way, that, unless the jury could find proof that Mr. Bradlaugh was directly responsible for the publication of the condemned blasphemies of the Freethinker, it would by no means be enough to show that he might, had he chosen to do so, by the exertion of his authority and influence have pre'vented their publication. There was no adequate evidence at all that Mr. Bradlaugh bad personally authorised the publication of any of these blasphemies, and he was, therefore, very properly acquitted. If the Legislature were only as well able to detach their minds from the irrelevant offences of Mr. Bradlaugh, as the Judges are, the fame of his rank creed and of the indiscreet persecution to which he has been subjected would soon vanish out of the popular view.

We are sorry to find, by a letter addressed to Thursday's Standard, that the authorised report of the Archbishop of Ganterbury's reply to the deputation which waited upon him

with the remonstrance against the Affirmation Bill,—the report revised by Dr. Benson himself,—ends with a declaration that though he sees nothing intrinsically irreligious in the substitution of an affirmation for an oath, he regards the present proposal to allow that substitution, as objectionable,—apparently because it would remove the obstacle in the Member for Northampton's way,—and that he shall oppose it. Does the Archbishop think that an abstractedly right proposal is transformed into a wrong one, by the fact that it removes an admitted injustice from the path of an unbeliever and an enemy of Christian morality P Or does he suppose that a beneficial change of the law would ever take place, if it were carefully postponed till there was no practical grievance to cry out against ?

Eight thousand lay Churchmen, " including several Peers, Baronets, M.P.'s, J.P.'s, &c., &c.," have expressed their opinion that the Bishop of London did very wrong in seconding the Archbishop of Canterbury's dying wish for the peaceable settlement of the feud between Mr. Mackonochie and the party bent on getting him deprived of his benefice at St. Alban's, Holborn. These eight thousand have got Dr. Deane and Mr. Jeune to give them a legal opinion that the Bishop of London had sufficient legal ground for refusing to permit Mr. Mackonochie's resignation of St. Alban's (suggested by Archbishop Tait himself), and also for refusing to institute him to St. Peter's, London Docks ; and that, having sufficient legal ground for both these refusals, Dr. Jackson ought to have acted as the Bishop of Manchester acted in Mr. Green's case, and have thwarted the Archbishop's dying effort for the peace of the Church. With all respect to these eight thousand members of the Evangelical Church Militant, we nresume to think that a mind so little prepossessed in favour of Ritualism as Dr. Twit's,—we may say, so strongly prepossessed against it,—was much more likely to judge aright when, under the very shadow of death, he endeavoured to retrace steps which he had formerly taken, than any 8,000 of them, though justified by a legal opinion from Dr. Deane and Mr. Jeune, under the annoyance of a party defeat, are at all likely to judge. In the number of counsellors of that kind there is no safety, or if any, only a safe misguidance.

Mr. Childers has given up the proposal for the gradual abolition of the duty on silver-plate. Finding that the trade object altogether to the suggestion of warehousing silver plate in showrooms under the Queen's lock and key till it should be bought by the public, when the duty would be paid of course by the buyer, and regarding the drawback on any remission of duty which, without some such arrangement of this sort for getting rid gradually of existing stocks, would have to be paid to the trade, as altogether too costly to the public, the Chancellor of the Exchequer has completely abandoned all notion of repealing the duty at present, either in whole or in part. It is a pity. India would certainly benefit greatly by the abolition of the duty ; and would the trade suffer so much even if no drawback were paid ? They would gain, of course, in the end. Even for the moment, would they lose more than a considerable part of their profit?

M. Tirard, the French Minister of Finance, has brought forward a very weak proposal for converting the Five per Cents., which now amount to 0228,000,000. He proposes to reduce them to Four and a Half per Cents., exempt from repayment for five years. The effect of this proposal will be to save £1,140,000 a year, but to irritate all holders of the Fives, who will not only lose income, but will find their stock gradually sinking as the time for repayment approaches. The true way would have been to consolidate the whole Debt in one Three-per-cent. stock, at a fraction above present prices, thereby saving £2,280,000 a year, and giving the holders the advantage to be derived from the gradual rise which any safe stock, once limited, is sure to experience. Huge as the French Debt is, the savings of the people, if order were maintained, would very speedily force it up to ninety, more especially if English investors were to come in, as, but for their chronic panic about emerges, would happen even now. The late Mr. Bagehot, a first-rate judge, used to say that the French Debt was, for permanent investment, the safest of all, for the stockholders all carried bayonets.