NEWS OF TIIE WEEK.

riERE have been rumours of all kinds floating about this week as to the break-up of the Ministry,—rumours that Mr. Gladstone is on the very verge of resignation,—that Sir Charles Dilke and Mr. Chamberlain wish to be unmuzzled before the General Election, in order to speak out their Radicalism more freely,—rumours that Mr. Childers (who has been ill) wishes to resign, that Lord Selborne is to resign and to be replaced by Sir William Harcourt, and finally, that Mr. Chamberlain, Sir Charles Dilke, and Mr. Lefevre, have all bound themselves not to renew the Irish Crimes' Act for more than a single year at most. The only substantial fact at the bottom of these rumours is this, that on Monday night Mr. Gladstone, being treated with the discourtesy now usually shown to him by some of the rabid Tories below the gangway, said, in rebuking them, "As to the painful subject on which I have just touched, I can assure honourable gentlemen that if I take any notice of these interruptions, it is not really upon my own account. They matter very little to a person whose future interventions in political conflicts is much more likely to be measured by weeks rather than by months, and certainly by months rather than by years. It is because of the deep conviction I have that a great blow has been struck at the dignities and liberties of this Howse by the modes of proceeding which have within the last few years,—the last very few years,—been introduced into the debates of this House." No doubt Mr. Gladstone at present contemplates the possibility,— we hope it is no more,—of not seeking re-election after the dissolution of the present Parliament ; but it is extremely unlikely that he has contemplated even the possibility of retiring before the present Parliament is dissolved.

The "hitch" in the negotiations with Russia continues. All friends of Russia, and the Daily News, deny that it is of any importance ; but the right to furlough has been again suspended in India, the Guards who were returning have been stopped at Alexandria, and the replies made in Parliament to questions are constrained. Mr. Gladstone on Thursday, for example, while pleading that he could give no explanations in the present condition of affairs, stated, in reply to Baron de Worms, that the interpretation of the Agreement of March 16th which is to be submitted to the arbitrator " does not mean a discussion of its verbal meaning,—a mere grammatical debate,—but it means an interpretation of it as implied in the conduct for which the respective Governments are responsible." The words may be accidental, but if they are not, they make the arbitration more genuine than M. do Giers, perhaps, intends. Moreover, Lord Hartington, when asked to explain the stoppage of the Guards, replied in these words :—" The House is perfectly aware of the reasons which existed some little time ago for the decision of the Government to concentrate as far as possible for service in any part of the world the troops then serving in the Soudan, and the reasons which made it necessary for the Government to ask Parliament for a vote of considerable amount for special preparations. Those preparations have not been suspended, and I do not think it would be desirable to state how soon, in the opinion of the Government, those preparations should be suspended."

In reality, of course, the whole question turns upon the sincerity of the Russian Government, about which there are three theories. One, defended by the Pall Mall Gazelle, that is, by the Russian Embassy here, is that negotiations about frontiers are necessarily slow, and that there are geographical puzzles involved ; a second, is that M. de Giers likes delay, knowing that as long as war is possible domestic difficulties are kept in abeyance, and it is possible to issue paper roubles ; and the third is that the Russian Government is so unwilling to offend its Generals, that it hesitates to close negotiations, and may even break them off. The first theory is unsound, for M. de Lesser, the first of Russian experts, is in London, where the new frontier was provisionally delimited ; the second would indicate that the Czar hesitates ; and the third is probably true, the military party being greatly elated by the assertions of the London Press that Mr. Gladstone will submit to anything. It has no means of knowing that this Press always represents " society," and not England, and is only half-convinced by its own spite.

A rumour has been floating about, which we have discussed elsewhere, that the Russian Government has been putting forward new claims, and especially one for the neutralisation of Afghanistan, the only basis, it is declared, for a "permanent peace." The truth of this rumour is denied, and on Thursday night Lord Kimberley stated that the Russians had not proposed to send an Envoy to Cabul, and declared that he and his colleagues maintain the principle always maintained by both parties as to Afghanistan, namely, that the country should be "outside the sphere of the influence of Russia." That is most satisfactory as regards the position of the Cabinet ; but it does not prove that the possibility of the neutralisation of Afghanistan has never been put forward on the Russian side. It is just what her diplomatists would like, if only for the endless difficulties its discussion would create. For example, if we do not " protect " Afghanistan in a most definite way, we have no right to prohibit the sending of a Russian Embassy to an independent capital ; yet if we do not prohibit it, we make invasion certain. The Afghans would kill M. de Lessar as they killed Louis Cavagnari, and then Russia could not help capturing Cabul. As yet, however, the project is only matter of conversation.

It is difficult to understand the policy of the French Government, unless it is desirous of creating a diversion for Russia. The British Foreign Office, as M. de Freycinet acknowledges, behaved with the utmost moderation and courtesy over the incident of the Bosphore Ey yplien. The moment Lord Granville understood that the law had been violated, he requested Nubar Pasha, as is shown in the despatches, to restore the printing office which had been seized, and to apologise to the French Consul-General for the nominal "violence " with which the French Consul had been treated. He even declared that as the British Government shared the responsibility for the suppression of the paper, ‘. they

do not hesitate to associate themselves with the regret which they have requested the Khedive's Government to express." Lord Granville was at the same time given to understand —or, as he puts it, " had reason-to believe"—that the Bosphore would not reappear until arrangements had been made for a general law upon the foreign press in Egypt. _Nevertheless, the Bosphore reappeared on Tuesday, before any such law had been considered, and resumed its old tone. The original seizure was a blunder; but this proceeding, which must have been authorised by M. de Freycinet, can only be intended as a public mark of unfriendliness.

Riel having been captured, the Canadians are discussing his probable fate. The English colonists, it is said, are anxious that he should be hanged ; but the French colonists, to whom he belongs by birth on one side, desire a mild sentence. It is quite possible that be may never be tried at all, as he exhibits symptoms of insanity ; but if he is tried for treason, and convicted, his sentence, which must in the first instance be death, will depend upon the Executive Government. There is no moral objection to capital punishment in such a case, as Riel tempted his followers to die in a hopeless cause ; but it is always inexpedient to execute a rebel who descends, as every rebel should, fairly into the field. The object is to secure submission ; and to refuse quarter is not the way to secure that. On the other hand, too lenient sentences provoke the soldiery into refusing quarter. There is a serious question in Riel's case as to his treatment of his captives. If he murdered any of them he ought to be executed, if only to teach future insurgents that if they expect privileges when captured, they must respect the laws of war. Riel's friends, however, deny that he murdered anybody, and allege that his threat to do so, which is undoubted, was only intended to secure time for his followers to escape.

What is the meaning of these telegrams about Sir C. Warren's acceptance of a British Protectorate over " Khama's country," and about Khama's claim to sovereignty up to the Zambesi ? If they are true, we have virtually annexed, or at least become responsible for, another huge slice of South Africa, stretching from Bechuanaland north to the Zambesi, indefinite on the West, and touching the Matabele country on the East. We simply cannot believe it, and assume some large error, as to boundaries ; but the bulletin-makers not only affirm it, but declare that large tracts are to be filled with settlers, and that Khama's reason for eagerness is his fear of the Matabele, whom we shall, we suppose, have to conquer. Surely we have enough on our hands without seeking subjects North of the Transvaal. If the report proves true, we shall begin to believe that Britain grows without the consent of her statesmen, and in the teeth of Parliament.

Another debate on the Vote of Credit was raised on Monday. by Lord Randolph Churchill, who endeavoured to show that the " sacred covenant " of March 16th never had any existence, and was, in fact, an invention of the Premier's. What he did show was that Mr. Gladstone, when he made his speech of March 13th, which did not contain the passage about the sacred covenant, was relying on a report from the British Ambassador ; and that Lord Granville next day telegraphed an inquiry which elicited from M. de Giers the pledge not to advance unless the Afghans made a disturbance. It was this, and not any previous assurance, to which Mr. Gladstone appealed as sacred ; and it is this which is formally admitted by the Russian Government in consenting to submit the Agreement to an arbitration. Yet, so great is the influence of assertion, even from Lord Randolph Churchill, and so strong is party feeling, that the Tory papers are repeating like parrots that there never was any sacred covenant, and that Parliament was cajoled out of eleven millions—an assertion which even the Russians never ventured to make. On the contrary, they affirm that the Agreement existed and was never broken, General Komaroff having advanced only under pressure of a necessity contemplated in the Agreement itself.

The Duke of Argyll is angry with Mr. Gladstone for thinking that this Empire is already overweighted with its responsibilities, and cites President Lincoln's abolition of slavery to show how a great ruler should let no consideration of that kind deter him from committing his country to great responsibilities. According to the Duke, President Lincoln assumed the Presidency with a clear conviction that Providence had called him to the task of abolishing slavery, and he consequently abolished it in the face of tremendous risks. The truth is that Lincoln resisted for eighteen months every kind of pressure to abolish slavery, and, when he yielded at last to the pressure, it was as an act of retaliatory warfare that he abolished slavery, not in obedience to any providential mission. Nor was the first abolition general, though it proved so in fact; it was a punitive measure against the Rebel States.

Lord Salisbury made a speech at Knightsbridge on Wednesday which would have been a very creditable speech for him, if he had only been able to control the anger with which he has read the remarks on his extraordinary folly in drawing his analogy for the untrustworthiness of Russia from the feelings with which we regard bankrupts and swindlers. Lord Salisbury, however, had brooded over these reproaches, and they had made him more wrathful than ever. But this time his wrath took the form of that savage irony for which Lord Salisbury is hardly less celebrated than he is for his invective. " We have ascertained by experience that the Russian Government is animated by the most sincere desire to fulfil all its pledges, but is, nevertheless, the victim of a terrible necessity, and this necessity we are bound to study. It is very unpleasant having a neighbour with a necessity, and when we study this necessity we see that it operates in two ways. It operates to induce the Russian Government to give a series of assurances ; it also operates to induce the Russian Government to advance steadily in the direction of India, and the curious part of the matter is that the assurances which are dictated by that necessity are directly opposite in direction to the steps which that necessity imposes. Well, while rendering the most absolute homage to the high-minded motives by which the Russian Government is guided, it is evident that we have to look upon the action of this necessity just as if we were looking upon the action of some natural law." That is a sort of irony which will not render it much easier for Lord Salisbury to negotiate, if ever he should have to negotiate, with Russia, than did hie pleasantry in seeking analogies for Russian policy in the conduct of bankrupts and swindlers.

For the rest, Lord Salisbury made his usual and now almost stereotyped attack on the vacillations of the Government in the Soudan ; and then he made the highly original remark that, in his opinion, "some years would have to pass before the people will forget that it was only the persistence of the Opposition which wrung from them [the Government] a fair, equable, and thorough reform." That strikes us as almost worthy of Lord Randolph Churchill, though we would not wrong Lord Salisbury by supposing that he even approaches the supreme contempt of that young nobleman for facts. After doing all in their power to discourage any sort of Reform, after refusing to pass the Franchise Bill in the House of Lords, and bringing about a violent agitation against the House of Lords by so doing, the Tories now say that because at the last moment they agreed to concert with the Liberal leaders the general heads of a durable reform,—a concert to which the Liberals had long invited them in vain,—they extracted a sufficient enlargement of their proposals from the hands of a reluctant party. You might just as well say that because a prisoner, when he is arrested, walks quietly home with his captors, he has forced the police to let him walk with them, instead of being dragged along the streets.

Lord Randolph Churchill has shown no sign of shame for his disgraceful letter to the Times of Thursday week concerning Lord Granville. Indeed, in presiding at St. Stephen's Club on Wednesday, he was as airy and bold as if that letter had been a new feather in his cap ; and perhaps a new feather it was,—the most bedraggled of all in that very bedraggled plume. He endeavoured to show that it was most unconstitutional to renew any portion of the Irish Crimes Act without special evidence to prove the treasonable condition of Ireland, and, indeed, spoke in a sense which appears to indicate his intention of lending aid to the Parnellites in the coming struggle. He said he had endeavoured to the best of his ability to study. the history of his native country, and that he did not think any one who had done so could call to mind any period when England had so many foes, open and secret,—a silly remark, which shows that Lord Randolph Churchill's abilities do not help him in the study of history. It is hardly possible to recall a single anxious period of our history, ranging from seven years ago to seven hundred years ago, when wehad not many more foes,.both open and secret, than.we have now

Lord Randolph also made a special attack on Lord Derby, whom he called "apolitical rodent,"—by contrast, we suppose, to the political carnivora to which he himself belongs,—and also this renegade Earl." And then, in order not to -be outdone by Lord -Salisbury's celebrated "bankrupt or swindler" speech, he said that Sir Peter Lnmsden, " whose adversary had tricked him, lied to him, and deceived him, as only a Russian can," bad had the mortification of seeing that adversary-specially rewarded by the Russian Government. He dwelt on the singular disinterestedness of the Tory Party, as illustrated by the fact that Lord John •Manners had twice come down to-a division at the peril of his life, and that Lord Galway had travelled all night to be present at a division without neglecting his duties as Commander of the Yeomanry ; and he augured for a party whose members will go through such tests of loyalty as this an early and brilliant victory. For our own parts, the willingness of that party to back Lord 'Randolph Churchill in his moat scandalous performances seems to us an augury of singularly evil omen.

The Lords have altered the -Registration Bills for theworse in two-respects, and the Commons have accepted the alterations. The Lords have insisted on introducing politics into the Universities by qualifying undergraduate voters of full age in Oxford and Cambridge, simply because such voters had been qualified in Dublin, where the system of education is -very different. And they -have insisted on disqualifying a -great number of thoroughly independent voters in England -and Scotland --by making the-receipt of medical relief a disqualification for a vote, though it is not to-be a-disqualification in Ireland. 'The-result will be that medicalrelief will be freely pressed upon the-poorer inhabitants of many a union, just in order to disqualify them for a -vote. But the Lords were probably required by the principle of their existence to carry both amendments, simply because the majority of the undergraduate voters will probably be Conservatives, and the majority of electors disqualified by receiving medical relief will probably be Liberals. As to the former amendment; it is rather concerned with the infinitely little, and is of no moment. As to the latter, it is an amendment of very.great importance, which will disqualify in all probability scores of thousands who would otherwise give independent votes.

A. very successful-public meeting was held on Wednesday at the Mansion House, in aid-of the national memorial to the late Mr. Fawcett. It is intended to expend about 2400 on a memorial tablet in Westminster Abbey; next to found a scholarship tenable by the blind at any University or Ladies' College ; and thirdly, to devote the surplus to the Royal Normal College and Academy of Music, at Upper Norwood, for the training of the blind.

Mr. Acland carried on Wednesday, without a division, the second reading of his Pluralities Act Amendment •Bill, the object of which is to enable the Bishop to assign out of the value of a living a sufficient salary to -secure the services of an efficient curate, where the incumbent is non-resident or inefficient, or for any cause does not discharge his duties as he ought. The measure, though referred to a Select Committee to look into points of detail, was received with unusual approbation, except by the few bigoted Disestablishment men, who got up to maintain that there is only one way of reforming abuses in the Church of England, and that that way is Disestablishment. That line of contention seems to us as foolish as it is bigoted. If there were anything in it, the reforms which were long ago passed to remove the scandals of pluralities, must have been perfectly nugatory because they did not take the direction of Disestablishment. A reasonable Nonconformist might fairly maintain that Disestablishment would, in his opinion, lead to a more complete and thorough reform than any other measure; but it is childish to maintain that it is impossible to improve our Established Church without disestablishing it. It would be just as reasonable to maintain to a man suffering from toothache that it can be of no use to him to pull out his decayed tooth unless you can also so restore his constitution as to remove all the tendency to decay which there may be in his teeth.

J. G. Cunningham and H. Barton, the two American-Irish accused of causing the -dynamite explosion at the Tower, were on-Monday convicted, and-sentenced to penal servitude for life. They were accused of treason, and had a most patient and exhaustive-trial, during which the circumstantial evidence left no doubt in the minds of the Jury and the Judge that they were -guilty. In-fact, the only conceivable theory of their innocence would be that they were dynamitards, and were preparing explo

sions, but did not cause this particular explosion ; though one of them, Cunningham, knew of it and went to the Tower to watch it. That theory is too far-fetched for juries. It is stated by a writer who pretends to exceptional information, that while Cunningham -was a mere instrument, Burton is a• man of importance, who founded a society of " Avengers " of his own.

Yesterday •week Mr. F. Fergus, better known as "Hugh Conway," the author of "Called Back," died at Monte Carlo, in a relapse after an attack of typhoid from which it was hoped that he was steadily recovering. Mr. Fargus had made his great mark by the sensational story to which we have referred, which was ingenious in plot and full of animation, but which had little other-merit. The story, however, which is now appearing in Messrs. Macmillan's English Illustrated Magazine, " A . Family Affair," shows that he possessed ability of a very mach higher kind than any which he manifested in " Called Back " or "Dark Days." That story,—which is, it is stated, left in a finished condition,—is full of humour and force, and contains the promise of a very considerable novelist. Mr. Fargus was quite a young man, and it seems probable that we may have lost in him a writer of a calibre approaching to that of Mr. Anthony Trollope.

That.part of English literature -which concerns itself with reflecting the minds and characters of children, has had a -severe loss in the premature Aleath of •Mrs. E wing, in the maturity of her powers. -Stories like "Jackanapes," "A Flatiron &era Farthing," "-From Six to -Sixteen," are the products

of genius rather than .talent,and be read and re-read as longoat least, as cameos continue -to be admired. And Mrs. Ewing's loss will be felt most deeply where she was best known, –where not only her genius, but her character was known. An

i ate friend describes her conversation -as almost unique, "-everflowing withfun of all. kinds," and as entering with rare sympathy into the humour of -others. She was a woman of no common knowledge and of no isommon modesty ; as full of goodness as of imagination. And the children of England have hardly lost more by her death than their elders ; for stories such as hers, though children are their subject and children are the principal audience, are eagerly listened to by all to whom the -human character in its most tender and delicate forms is a subject of wonder and interest.

The Lords are doing a singular, though, we believe, a just thing, upsetting by statute a decision of their own Committee of Privileges. We cannot enter into the history of the famous Mar case; but its essence was the question whether there did or could exist two Earldoms of Mar, one immensely old and one comparatively modern. If so, the former belonged to Mr. Goodeve Erskine, and the latter to the End of Kellie. The Committee held that the elder Earldom had been extinguished, and that only the younger remained. The decision created extraordinary irritation among the older Peers of Scotland, who held that there had been a clear failure of justice, and this opinion was confirmed both by Lord Cairns and Lord Selborne. A Bill, introduced by Lord Rosebery, was therefore read a second time on Tuesday, amid a chorus of approval, which will, in fact, restore the old Earldom by a law, an occurrence entirely without precedent in the history of such matters.

Mr. A. K. Connell on Wednesday read an extraordinary paper on the Indian wheat trade before the Statistical Society. His contention was that in facilitating the transport of wheat the Indian Government was injuring the native cultivator. Formerly he stored his grain, which thus acted as a reserve against famine; but now he sold it, whereby the reserve was reduced and prices made dearer than of old. The cheapest insurance against famine was the storage induced by the want of a foreign market. Mr. Connell has a genuine sympathy with the natives of India, which induces us to notice his lecture ; but his main thesis is mere nonsense. The Indian cultivator does not give his wheat, but sells it for things that ho wants more. If that is injurious, then all commerce is injurious; and the duty, not only of the Indian Government, but of the American Government, is to prohibit the export of wheat altogether. Why should useless stores of wheat be good for the Punjabee ryot, and bad for the farmer of Minnesota P Does Mr. Connell really suppose that if the export of coal from England were prohibited, Englishmen would be more prosperous P