siderable in number, and able to hold together for the ends of opposition, though for no other. Prince Bismarck has just defeated: them on the question of education, but only at the cost of a prolonged struggle, in which on one or two occasions he only won the day by some thirty votes out of 400. He has won and deserves much applause for the extraordinary frankness of the language in which he exposed the manoeuvres of his combined enemies, and challenged them to do their worst. It is difficult to read the report of his speeches without some feeling of humiliation at the contrast between their honest daring and the timid, evasive, half-hearted language which politicians of our country are apt to use when called upon to grapple with hostility of the same description. And, considering the character of the nation which he addresses, their appreciation of courage and their love of truth, he may have chosen the most politic as well as the most high-minded course. Nevertheless, he has to deal on this occasion with a very different foe from poor vainglorious France. He has to combat men who unite in themselves the attributes of the Crusader with those of the Jesuit-men attached to their several dogmas of religion and nationality with a blind tenacity to which he has, on the part of his own supporters, nothing stronger to oppose than general aspirations after the public good, and political views too sober to tempt the enthusiast, too reasonable to be popular with the multitude. If he can hold his own, the combination opposed to him must in due time break up and each separate joint, though it may retain its vitality and its animosity, will be powerless by itself. But the coalesced forces, should they by perseverance gain one point in the quarrel, may improve it to his destruction and to the imper ling (for a time at least) of the great cause of German unity. Foreign nations may well watch the struggle with interest, for their own peace and freedom and progress are indirectly involved in the issue. In the meanwhile, it is melancholy for any one who still believes in religion as an agent for good in political affairs to see those who profess to act in its name engaged everywhere alike in impeding the several movements on which our most solid hopes are fixed-the cause of political unity in Germany and in Italy, the cause of administrative unity in Austria and in Great Britain, the cause of enlightment through education alike in Europe and America. From The Pall Mall Gazette. THE NEXT PHASE OF THE AMERICAN DIFFICULTY. -- SINCE last we wrote about the American difficulty, the debate elsewhere has been by no means idle. Treaty and Protocols have been ransacked for every passage unfavourable to the scope of the American demands though without much regard for those that tell the other way - and every fresh batch of American newspapers has been as carefully overhauled to discover therein the drift of the nation's temper. Much of this was lost labour. When we have taken out of the Treaty and Protocols all that is hostile to Mr. Fish's claims, there yet remains in them quite enough to make his answer plausible. If we can oppose the demands under the Treaty, he can sustain them by the Treaty. His standing ground for a fight is as good as our own; and when Mr. Gladstone made his speech and Lord Granville sent off his dispatch the only question really was, whether there was to be a fight, of what character it was to be, and how far it was likely to be carried. No doubt as to this much depended upon the temper of the American people; and therefore their newspapers were naturally scanned with some anxiety. To them we were able to look confidently for indications of the worst that might happen, for warnings of the worst; but it was not to be imagined that the American press would oppose the demands made by their own Government, or that the Government, having published those demands to the whole world, would voluntarily withdraw them. There are laws of necessity even in political affairs; and a month ago it was perfectly safe to predict the course that would be taken by the American Cabinet, with the support of the American people, whatever the newspapers might say in the meantime. The position of the American Government was in fact defined by our own. Their answer to Mr. Gladstone and Lord Granville obviously is, "You deny that claims for indirect damages stand good by the terms of the Treaty. We affirm that the terms of the Treaty sanction them; and we do not admit that a treaty is at any time to be interpreted according to the intentions of one of the parties to it, expressed after the agreement has become a law to both. Therefore we cannot consent to withdraw any part of our claims. There is the Treaty; and here are our demands; and yonder is the tribunal appointed to decide as to But whether these demands are justified by claims jointly submitted to the court. the terms of the agreement. The arbitra- we are ready to hear now what you have tors may reject or limit them as they to say in favour of demands which we please we admit their power to do so have never yet recognized as disputable, we deny yours. If, then, you refuse to and we are willing to see whether some allow our case to go to arbitration, that of arrangement cannot be made for detercourse is in your own choice; but our de- mining them." This we say, is consistmands remain, to be settled in some way, ent language; but whether it is good and at some convenient season." This, policy is again another question. If our we say, was the obvious answer of the Government resolve upon the sterner American Government - one that was course we shall at least be in no doubt sure to be adopted in effect, and one that as to the result. The quarrel will be left could be made with the absolute approval open, and its character will immediately of the American people. Moreover, it is become more precise and more determined. one that places us in a very disagreeable Our own belief is that the American Govposition. While we write, a reply equiva- ernment will never be satisfied, never lent in sense and spirit to that we have in- consent to a settlement of the difficulty vented is on the way to England. It will without some admission in principle that be many days yet before the message ar- the claim for indirect damage is warrantrives, but we know its scope and meaning able. Of this we have no doubt whatever. well enough to regard the second move in It is a long time since American statesmen the game as actually played, and may ac- came to the resolution, according as we cordingly turn our attention to the next read them, to insist on three conditions: one. This is for our Government to satisfaction in full for direct loss; admismake; and we may suppose that they sion in some shape of a right to indemnity have already come to some resolution about for consequential loss; and an apology. it. What is it likely to be? That is now It is an old policy with them never to the great question, but there are no means make a concession, when concession is of answering it with any degree of cer- forced on them by circumstances (as in the tainty. Generally the country knows Trent affair), without robbing it openly pretty well beforehand the course that and as far as possible of its significance; will be taken by its Government in any and never to retreat from a position once such troubles; but in this case there are formally taken up. The apology in this hardly any means of guessing what the case is generally regarded here as of little policy of the Cabinet will be. If we could importance: certainly no English Governaccept the language recently held by Mr.ment in our day would insist upon such an Gladstone as final, then we should be in apology when they had before them such little doubt; for what that comes to is, practical concessions as have been made to that no claim for indirect damage will be the American Government in this matter. admitted for consideration either by the since Earl Russell had to deal with it. Court of Arbitration, or by the Govern- But we are persuaded that if our Comment itself. And this is a very distinct, missioners had declined to place on record very clear, very tenable policy (all its those soft expressions of regret called the risks of course being accepted) and one apology, they would have come home with which would at any rate terminate the nothing in their hands but the bill for expresent discussion. But it may be we penses. And it may be taken as even do not know that our Government will more certain that after making a demand make a distinction between admitting that for indirect losses with so much formality, the disputed claims are good under the as admissible for computation under treaTreaty, and the policy of refusing to en-ty-agreement, nothing will persuade the tertain them in any shape, as a matter of American Government to admit that they principle, apart from the amount of lia- had not and have not a just claim to the bility involved in them. And no doubt consideration of that demand by an indethe distinction is a good one. It is quite pendent tribunal. It is vain to expect consistent to say, "The Treaty does not that they will stultify themselves in so admit these demands as matter for arbitra- signal a manner as they would do if they tion, and we never meant, and we have no abandoned the claim. Therefore we may reason to suppose you imagined we meant, fully make up Our minds to this: to include them: therefore we cannot al- if we reject the demand as in no way low them to go before the Tribunal, which, admissible, there is not only an end moreover, has no authority to interpret of the Treaty, but we shall stand exthe Treaty, but only to examine certain posed with its torn fragments in our hands to a far clearer and more distinct question, and we by no means affect to andanger of a downright rupture, or of fu- swer it out of hand. It is, however, one unless ture threatenings and revenge, than we that now lies before the Cabinet did before these unhappy negotiations it happens to have been already considWe cannot help were begun. But this is only a suppo- ered and dismissed. sition, our readers will understand sup- thinking, indeed, that it is not a new quespose the British Government accepts for tion for our Government. The facts of the sake of peace another little dose of the case can hardly be reconciled to comhumiliation, and declares that while it re-mon-sense and possibility, except on the pudiates the false interpretation of a treaty supposition that there was an undercurwhich would load the country with an impost that no nation would submit to "even at the point of death" (foolish bombast!) but does not mind yielding the principle in a limited amicable way, that would not entail considerable payments? Then, probably, the quarrel would be settled. For though American statesmen have talked large figures there is no reason to suppose that they are inclined to insist on them. The chances are that a lump sum such as their Commissioners at first proposed, a sum which should by implication apply to indirect as well as direct losses, would, if now granted, be accepted by the Americans in settlement of the dispute. Taken with the apology, and the recognition of their Three Rules of international law, such a result would not only satisfy but gratify them. This, at any rate is our belief. Nor do we suppose that the sum need be a great one: what is necessary from their point of view is, that it should in some degree apply to indirect losses, and so admit that in presenting them they were neither fools nor dishonest. But is an agreement possible on this (to our minds) only possible arrangement by peaceful means? This is a very serious -- rent of understanding all along that at DR. SCHWEINFURTH. -The African traveller | tunately, a portion of his collection was at that and botanist Dr. Schweinfurth has happily re- time already on its way to Berlin. Provided turned in safety to Europe, and though he has with a few necessaries at Seriba Siber, the headsuffered the loss of the greater part of his inval-quarters of the Egyptian troops, the indefatiuable collections and drawings, he has brought | gable traveller made a tour in a part of Fertit back a harvest of information and experience hitherto unvisited by Europeans, from Decemwhich places his journey among the most successful of modern times. After his great journey West of the Upper Nile, in the country of the Niam-Niam and Monbuttu (see Academy, vol. ii. p. 96), he made a short excursion from his head-quarters, the Seriba Ghatta, westward to Kurkur and Danga, positions formerly visited by Petherick, and returning, planned a much more extended journey, when a fire broke out in the Seriba Ghatta on the 2nd December 1870, which not only destroyed the station, but with it the whole property of the traveller. For ber 1870 to February 1871, during which he found that the Bachr-el-Arab is unquestionably the main stream of the basin which mouths in the Nile at the Bachr-le-Ghazal. Having been deprived by the fire of every instrument by means of which any mechanical reckoning of the distances traversed during this journey could be made, the explorer with an energy perhaps unexampled, set himself the task of counting each step taken, and in this way constructed a very satisfactory survey of his route. Academy. The CONDURANGO. I have read in No. 104 (Oc- acute, hard, with a curved extremity. tober 26, 1871) of your scientific and highly-corolla is campanulate, which is not the case in interesting journal, a few words on "Conduran- Condurango. The genus Nantonia has the go," the new Ecuadorian plant that has lately sepals striated and curved, which also is not the called so much general attention in Europe and case in Condurango. America to its supposed properties of curing cancer. The flowers of the Condurango have a calyx of five divisions, obtuse, ovate, and villose in The want of exactitude in the description of their inferior part, and of quincuncial præflorthe plant will doubtless give an erroneous idea escence. The corrolla is rotate, of five divisions, of it to your readers, and with the desire of lanceolate, hairy at the base on the inside, and effacing such errors as those published in the somewhat fleshy, with a membranous margin. "Andes" of Guayaquil, and in Bogota by Mr. Its æstivation is imbricated. The stamen has Buyon, to whom you make reference, allow me no appendage or corona; the anthers are termito present to you and your readers the botan-nated by a membrane, and the pollen-masses ical description of the Condurango twining are elongated and suspended. The stigma is plant, very useful, indeed, in some rheumatisms pentagonal and conical. The flowers are nuand secondary syphilitic disorders, but of very merous and disposed in umbelliferous infloresdoubtful medicinal properties in cancer, so far cence. as my own experience goes. As aforesaid, the Condurango forms a new The Condurango belongs to the order Asclep-genus. It is absurd to speak of Condurango as iadacea, 3rd tribe, which corresponds to Aclep-if it were the same as Mikania huaco. iadeo vera; 1st division, Astephanus, whose In the importance of the subject I hope to find characters are that the limb of the corolla is ample apology for asking room in your columns without scales, and the stamens without appen- for these few lines. A. DESTRUGE. dage or corona. Guayaquil, Ecuador, Dec. 13, 1871. This division comprehends only five genera, viz., Mitostigma, Astephanus, Hamax, Hemipogon, and Nantonia. In none of these genera can the Condurango be classed. The genus Mitostigma as a distinguishing character, has two long filaments at the end of the stigma, and this is not the case in Condurango. The genus Astephanus has the sepals acute, the corolla subcampanulate, and the stigma elongated; characters that do not belong to the Condurango. The genus Hamax has the divisions of the corolla hooded, and other characters not observed in the Condurango. The genus Hemipogon has the sepals of the calyx Nature. THE ATLANTIC CABLES. - The Atlantic cables of 1865 and 1866 show a considerable decrease in their insulation, although not to such an extent as to interfere with their use for the transmission of messages. This is, however, a matter of considerable moment, and the directors of the Anglo-American Telegraph Company have adopted the best means for ascertaining the exact condition of those cables. Public Opinion. END OF VOL. CXII. |