THE

PENN MONTHLY.

MARCH, 1879.

IN

THE MONTH.

N 1848, Jules Grevy led a small party in the National Assembly in their resistance to the establishment of a Presidency of the French Republic, predicting the results which would follow if the office should come to be vested in a man of no honesty or of no patriotism. In 1876, he took the same ground in the formation of the present constitution, and defended it with arguments drawn from the history of the intermediate decades. In 1879 he is President of the Republic himself, and the first occupant of that office of whom it is certain that he will be faithful to the trust which has been reposed in him.

Marshal Macmahon's resignation grew out of his stubborn opposition to the reconstruction of the army by the removal of unfaithful commanders. To resign was just the advice which the reactionary party must have given him. Since he would not oppose the wishes of the ministry and the legislature in other matters, and since the army was the only institution upon which the Monarchists retained any hold, he could be of no further service to their purposes if he allowed the army to be reorganized. Rather he would, in their view, be making the Republic respectable by his prestige, and keeping in abeyance those dissensions and extravagances to which they look forward as the ruin of the Republic. And for once, Madame Macmahon and her friends appealed to some of the strongest instincts in the soldier's breast. The men

to be removed were his own companions in arms; his consent to their removal would be a fatal blow to his own standing in the eyes of that public for which he cares the most, the military public. Nothing was left for him but a quiet resignation and a graceful submission to the inevitable. And the submission was graceful on its public side; he was among the first to congratulate his suc

cessor.

The third term in the problem of French politics, M. Gambetta, seems to have played his part during this crisis with more of cleverness than of candor. He led for a time the opposition to the Dufaure ministry, and then as suddenly saved them from defeat on their offering even an unsatisfactory compromise, which his more honest partisans could not accept. When the Marshal's resignation was certain, he laid his plans to have M. Dufaure put in his place, accepting him for the same reason for which a conclave accepts an aged and feeble cardinal as the best pope, in the hopes of a new election at no distant date. Failing in this, he hastened to the support of M. Grevy as soon as it was evident that no one else could be chosen. His subsequent election to M. Grevy's position as President of the Chamber, means that he puts himself in training to become M. Grevy's successor in the other Presidency also. Upon this one man depends the future of the Republic. If he can retain his hold upon the Radicals, without adopting their crudities and extravagances, the Republic will live. But if he fail in either respect, it will forfeit its hold on the rural constituencies, and France will once more be divided into two hostile and evenly balanced camps, neither of which can show any quarter to the other. And the dangerous question, on which Radicalism is likely to shipwreck the Republic, is that of the Church, and especially its relation to education. If the moderate party among the priesthood can be made to feel that atheism and republicanism are not two names for the same thing, and that the new order of things is not hostile to the institutions which they value more than any other, the result will be peace and permanence. If not, we shall have one more chapter in the history of French vibrations from extreme to extreme, from Voltaire to Marie Alacoque and back again, which has been going on ever since France rejected the Reformation.

In the absence of important news from Afghanistan—where the occupation of Candahar and the reverses suffered by the British

at the hands of the mountain tribes are the only events-comes the intelligence of a severe reverse suffered in the war with the Zulus of Southern Africa. It will be remembered that the English authorities some years ago effected a forcible annexation of the Transval Republic, inhabited by the Dutch colonists, on the plea that the Republic was manifestly unable to sustain itself in the war with these Zulus, at whose hands it had recently sustained severe defeat. It was urged that the outcome of the war then pending would be a general outbreak of all the native tribes against all the European settlements, and, to prevent this, England took the management of the matters into her own hands. This was not an auspicious beginning, and the subsequent steps of British policy have been anything but wise or just. In the treatment of the native tribes, the insolence of superior power has been more prominent than the justice of a higher civilization. At last a demand for changes in the Zulus' laws and the dismissal of their army, was presented as the ultimatum, and when this was refused, the war was begun with a force altogether insufficient for the purpose. As the Spectator of February 1st. stated the situation, just after the outbreak of the war was reported “on one side an army of 40,000 Zulus, fairly armed, trained to obey, and flushed with victory and vanity, and on the other, 6000 English soldiers, supported by a considerable body of undrilled European yeomanry and 7,000 doubtful natives. These are long odds, and......we do not wonder that men more familiar with Natal, and experienced in old Kaffir wars, should regard the prospect with considerable anxiety. The Spectator hoped for the best, because it was confident that the superior strategy of the English would enable them to administer a crushing blow at the opening of the campaign, and thus break the spirit of the enemy. But the facts reverse the prophecy. An English detachment has been entrapped, surrounded, overwhelmed by superior numbers, and shot down to the last man. The Zulus are wild with the excitement of victory; great quantities of guns, ammunition and other military supplies have fallen into their hands, and no colonist, Dutch or English, feels his life worth a year's purchase. For these Zulus are the bravest and the most warlike of African races, being, in fact, simply the northern branch of those Kaffirs, who for years coped with the undivided strength of England; and they seem to have a king who knows how to lead and

how to fight. The authorities have found it necessary to disarm by force all the native troops.

Just at present, the problem of reinforcing the English troops in Natal is no easy one. The little army which holds the greatest of Empires in safety, and its subject races in obedience, is needed in many quarters. Some have to keep a bold front on the Mediterranean; others are plunging through the frosts of Afghanistan, or are garrisoning an uncertain India. There is hardly enough left to garrison the great posts, and some of them must be left unoccupied if regiments are to be sent to Natal. The newspapers talk of orders being given which will bring the force up to what it was before the disaster, but we have seen that this was altogether insufficient before, and it will be still more so now, when the Zulu army will be more confident and larger. Unless a defensive war of posts is intended, it is hard to see what can be done with the troops now available.

one.

THE "Condition of England Question" is once more an urgent Scotland, indeed, is even worse off. The failure of the Glasgow Bank has inflicted suffering on all classes, and great multitudes have been reduced from wealth, or an easy competence, to penury, and often to absolute want. It is not to be wondered that the exasperation at the conduct of the bank's directors is excessive and unreasonable. Nothing short of their solitary imprisonment for life, or transportation to a penal colony, would have satisfied the popular feeling. But the law has been fairer, as well as gentler, in its treatment of them. It could not find these men guilty of robbing the shareholders, when in no instance had they misappropriated the funds entrusted to them for their own use. Their wild and ruinous acts of management were honestly meant to save the bank, which was ruined before it came into their hands; and, in the eyes of the law, their only crime was their preparation and publication of false statements as to how the accounts of the bank really stood. For this offense-a very grave one, of course-they have been sentenced to brief terms of imprisonment with hard labor.

The Glasgow Bank went down because of transactions with houses in the American and Indian trades, a fact which shows the

general drift of things in England. The American market especially, they are coming to see, is finally lost to them. Mr. Mackenzie of Dundee, in a paper in The Times, shows that our market for cottons is rapidly closing to English producers, since only the very fine grades are still imported in any quantity, and even those are now beginning to be made at home. He attributes this change to the rapid advances made in methods of production, and to the sobriety, intelligence and general excellence of our working classes. Within a given period the American workman has doubled his rate of production; while the Englishman has not increased his by one-fourth. He further shows that the export of our cotton goods to Europe now affords us a moderate but steady profit, and is likely to attain considerable dimensions. He believes that the only effect of the adoption of Free Trade would be to enable the American producer of cottons to cheapen his product still farther and give him a better hold on the markets of the world.

More recently, a government contractor for hardware supplies has been called to account for furnishing American locks for the use of the English government. In his reply he shows that he only acted on those principles which every Free Trader regards as final. He bought the American article because it was the best to be had, and cheaper than any other. He calls attention to the fact that in hardware, tools, and machinery, America has quite distanced England, through the number and the excellence of new inventions. In England an inventor can hardly get anything out of the usual line of production, made for his use, and, if at all, only at an extravagant price. The patents issued by the government are merely a costly registration of claims, without any real security. In America the patronage of inventors is competed for; their requisites are furnished at low rates and with admirable adaptations; the patent system is both cheap and effective.

The export of American cheese to Europe has not only brought the Swiss producers into a state of despair, but has inflicted severe competition on the English producer. American cheese of better quality than that of Cheshire, is sold in London at a lower price, and the English producers confess that they must change their system and improve their methods, if they are not to be shut out of their own home market. 'The price of meat has been seriously