NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE week has been a busy one, though the recess is not yet over. Mr. Gladstone has made two speeches, one on cenVetition and one on finance, and Lord Palmerston one on education at Romsey. A great battle has been fought in America, and the first Act of emancipation has passed both Houses of Congress. The French Government has ex- plained unofficially its plan for the reorganization of Mexico, and the Czar has consented to call a representative Assem- bly. Another grand volunteer review has been success- fully carried, through, and the Windham case has come to a final close. Perhaps among all these incidents the one which has excited most attention is the battle of Corinth. The battle, though obscured by the telegrams, seems to have been a simple affair. The Federal General Grant, with about 38,000 men, has been for some time posted at Corinth, on the left bank of the Tennessee, waiting for reinforcements. The Confederate General Beauregard has employed this lull to combine the fragments of Floyd's and other commands into a powerful army. With this force, which probably exceeded 60,000 men, lie attacked General Grant on 6th April, and nearly drove him into the river. The accounts are as yet contradictory, but it would seem that the Federals feeling themselves outmatched, behaved badly, and that but for the Illinois -regiments, the army might have been broken up. These men, however, kept up the fight till nightfall, and during the night General Buell arrived with his command. Next day Beauregard recommenced the attack, but was driven back, and retired in good order to Corinth, where up to the latest date he remained unattacked.
It must be remembered that all these accounts reach us from quasi-official sources. The Federal Government, true to the policy of all Governments thoroughly excited but directed by feeble men, have seized the control of all the sources of information. The telegraph is entirely in their hands. All letters written by paid correspondents are shown to the general in command. Newspapers are placed under 'a strict military censorship, and Mr. Russell, the Times correspondent, has been refused permission to accompany the army whose General had invited him. Officials, what- ever their other merits, have always a blind belief in the use of secrecy, and nothing therefore from America can now be implicitly trusted. The only course now is to compare the Southern and Northern accounts, and correct them both by the very ample though incoherent personal narratives which occasionally reach central Europe. If the telegraph has not extinguished the old energy of the English press, Mr. Stanton will soon be baffled. With hundreds of Englishmen and thousands of Germans within the army itself, impartial description must be pro- curable, though it may not be as readable as Mr. Russell's accounts.
Mr. Gladstone has made another of those dangerous speeches which so often lead his friends to doubt whether he is more to be dreaded as foe or colleague. Before the Man- chester Chamber of Commerce he, on Thursday, condemned our finance as extravagant. Our revenue had risen, he said, to the highest figure ever raised in this country, even in time of war, and yet could hardly meet the expenditure. The outlay was, he admitted, the fault of the nation' which forced peaceful and warlike improvements upon the Execu- tive, and the only hope was in a change in the national mind. The state of finance was not so sound as it was nine years ago, and he recommended in unmistakable terms that we should contract our scale of expenditure, and believed if the nation willed it, it would "take no long time to bring that result about." What is the use of a speech like this, except to create discontent at the taxation which Mr. Gladstone, by imposing it, proves to be unavoidable. We, too, look with dislike on the rapid rise in the national outlay, and with profound dismay on the tone in which expenses are now dis- cussed. But there is to us something almost immoral in denunciations like these made by the only man in England who can, if he likes, stem the tide, but who contents himself with marking its flow, and wondering when it will turn. If Mr. Gladstone thinks the navy too costly why does he not insist on reduction ? Instead of that he exerts a marvellous intellect to raise an unnecessary revenue by means almost objectionably free from annoyance. The train is going down the incline, and the guard speculates in beautiful English why some one or other does not apply the break !
Mr. Bryce, a first class-man and Vinerian scholar, was on Thursday elected Fellow of Oriel. The election is of un- precedented importance, as Mr. Bryce is professedly a Pres- byterian, although he has no objection to attend the services of the Church of England. As, unfortunately, the enactments of the University are less liberal in tone than the Provost and Fellows of Oriel, it may become a question some years hence how far Mr. Bryce will be able to comply with the requirements of the Act of Uniformity. Meanwhile the Col- lege of Arnold and Whateley has vindicated its old reputation for freedom of thought worthily, and the question thus raised can hardly fail to have important and salutary conse- quences.
The bill abolishing slavery within the Federal district has passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 93 to 39, a majority of nearly two-thirds, and is probably by this time law. This is the first unequivocal success gained by the abolitionists, and will have important results. It proves that the North is, at all events, willing to let the system of slavery end ; it will probably stop the South from entertaining a thought of compromise, and it will prevent the slaveholders, for ever from bringing their slaves to the capital. Above all, it releases the Government from the crime of tolerating: slavery within its direct domain. In the rest of the States they could plead constitutional disabilities, but in Columbia the only reason for slavery was the secret approval of men._ who were always pleading for human rights.
The idea of setting up a monolith obelisk in honour of' the Prince Consort has at length been abandoned. The com- missioners appointed by her Majesty to ,ponsider the project. have reported that only one monolith of the size required seems obtainable in England, and that one appears imperfect ; that the expense of cutting, removing, and erecting it in- volves a calculation for which they have no data ; and, finally, that they are doubtful of the effect of success. Her Ma- jesty, through Sir George Grey, assents, and requests the commissioners to suggest some plan by which "groups of statuary might be combined with some other design." Why not build a column of blocks of dark marble P Carried to a sufficient height such a column might be as striking and almost as durable as a monolith, while the statues might fittingly be arranged rosmd its base. We alwayc fail in such things, but nobody ever called the column is the Plaee Vendome insignificant.
The Volunteer Review held at Brighton on Easter-Monday seems to have been a success. Twenty thousand volunteers attended parade, and went through the evolutions arranged with a precision which delighted a General so accustomed as Lord Clyde to direct great masses of men. We have described the leading features of the scene in another column, but the lesson of the day seems to have been this—twenty or thirty thousand soldiers can be despatched by railway to any point of the southern coast in two hours, without disorder, and without fatigue. All the volunteers now have to do is to organize a volunteer commissariat, a point of the last im- portance, whenever they are out more than one day.
On Wednesday, Mr. Gladstone made, in Manchester, a great speech to the Lancashire and Cheshire Association of Mechanics' Institutes. It was, as usual, full of grace- ful thought and powerful language ; but its most remark- able feature was the avowal the speaker made of his sympathy with competitive examination. He even pro- duced a new and most striking argument. Competitive examinations, he said, besides forming the best check upon the "wakeful energies of human selfishness," help to correct the master evil of the age. Men no longer pursue knowledge for its own sake. They turn aside far too early to-grasp the more enticing offers of actual life, and examina- tions are needed to secure for whole classes sufficient induce- ments for culture. The only but sufficient answer to this is, that searching examinations secure the object desired as fully as competition. It is the competitive principle—the argument which assumes that the man who knows most is therefore the most efficient-.-against which common sense protests. Nobody wants inefficiency or ignorance in the public service, but nobody wants to see England governed by college tutors, or even by men who, like Mr. Glad- stone, would make magnificent rulers, were not their powers diminished by an over-refinement of culture.
The next mail from the States may be the most important received this year. The great expedition' commanded by General M'Clellan, is marching from Fort Monroe, through a peninsula, across which the Confederates have thrown up lines of entrenchment. The country is deep in mud, the position is flanked by a marsh and a river, and the Confederates have a general, Magruder, who, says the Tribune, "gets drunk, but who does not run," and they are bringing up every available man. On one side of the position, too, lies the Merrimac, repaired and ready for ac- tion, and prepared either to assist the army bypreventing naval assistance from reaching the Federals, or to attack the fleet. She is watched with the greatest alarm, and her presence, the existence of the Confederate earth works, and some reports from New Orleans have sent down funds in New York.
The Windham case has ended, and the unlucky victim is condemned to pay the whole costs. The Judges held that there was reasonable ground for the enquiry, and that the charges of the petitioner were not proven. Mr. Windham, therefore, has been fined twenty thousand pounds for having been accused by an uncle ofbeing possibly mad. It is fortu- nate for the credit of English justice that we are to have no more of these trials, in which the judges first order an enquiry, and then cast the victim in costs for having escaped an ordeal which they had sanctioned.
M. Michel Chevalier, in the _Revue des deux Monde.; attempts to explain_ and justify the French intervention in Mexico. Its object, he says, is to rear to the South of the United States a strongly organized power, which may prevent the unlimited aggrandisement of an aggressive 'race. The means to this end he finds in the creation of a monarchy. No dictation is to be used, but once the French are encamped in the capital Mexico will accept a_ sovereign who ought, he considers, to be a descendant of Charles the Fifth. This monarch, once elected, must be maintained, and as England will not assist, and Germans are out of the question, the Mexican guard must for some years be composed of French. The article is of importance, for M. Chevalier is a favourite at the Tuileries, and expresses, there is little reason to doubt, the Emperor's own idea. The plan seems to unite all the evils of occupation with none of its advantages, and will bring France into collision with the United States, with- out yielding her the resources which might be gained by a colonization of Mexico. Whether France will endure years of expense and bloodshed, the certainty of great odium, and the chance of a great maritime war, in order to secure a 'kr°. blematical throne for an unknown Austrian Prince, is even in these days of authority almost doubtful.
Lord Csaming has quitted India amidst a shower of ad- dresses, signed by all classes, except the inhabitants of Cal- cutta, who five years ago petitioned for his recal. The opi- nion of England upon his administration has been pretty decisively expressed. Lord Canning is not a man of genius, and wherever promptitude or inventiveness are required he will assuredly fail. But be is a man of the true aristocratic temper, with a patience which is in itself strength, and a strong comprehensive mind, which only requires time to de- cide on the policy which will command success. He would make a brilliant War Minister for Great Britain, provided we always remained at peace, or the theatre of war were so distant that he had time to make up his mind. In a long reign full of disasters he has only once been defeated. His plan for retaining the Company's Europeans proved a dis- creditable failure, an army returning to civil life rather than accept his conditions of service.
Russia is raising a loan, and is to have a new constitution. March, 1863, is the time fixed for final emancipation, and as the hour draws near the Government becomes more alarmed. The peasants, it is evident, will not pay for their lands, yet if they do not the existing fabric of society in Russia is dis- solved almost at a stroke. A new civil administration must be organised, unless the provinces are to be left without government, and re-organization requires a revenue the officials are unable to raise. In despair the Czar, it is said, has turned his thoughts to a parliament, and intends, on the 1000th anniversary of the Empire (August, 1863) to establish a constitution. He may do so with perfect safety, for he has nobles left who are wealthy, a large and improving middle class, and a people devoted to his person and dynasty. All he has to give up is the bureaucratic system, which brings the Emperors nothing, which his father tried in vain to reform, and which the first Parliament, whatever its nominal power, will undoubtedly cut up by the roots. The nobles intend to govern in the interior like English country gentle- men, and unless they are crushed en masse by the refusal of compensation they will probably carry their point.
