the Russians into the Principalities merely because she had lost her suzerain rights. It is true that the secession of Roumania would afford a dangerous precedent for that of Servia and Montenegro, which countries Turkey holds by a similar tenure; but her connection with them will in any case be broken as soon as they are strong enough to strike for their independence. Moreover, the "sick man "shows no sign of recovery, and his illness has lasted so long that his final dissolution cannot now be far off.1

The position that would in such an event be occupied by Roumania is a fascinating, though somewhat hazardous subject of speculation. That she does not at present possess the elements of a powerful State is but too certain; and the development of such elements will require a long period of wise government, and of peace at home and abroad, which the present state of Eastern Europe does not justify us in anticipating. Prince Charles has begun his rule sensibly and modestly; but he has already shown a tendency to lend himself to aggressive projects, and his political inexperience and total ignorance of the country will make it difficult for him to avoid becoming the tool of foreign intrigue.

The only way of regenerating the Principalities as an independent nation would be to place their affairs in the hands of a man who would be thoroughly acquainted with the people; who would have sufficient firmness to put down abuses, and at the same time sufficient moderation and wisdom to give the Roumans a fair share in the management of their own affairs; who would not only give them free institutions, but see that they are properly used, and inexorably punish any infringement of the law; and who would bring with him Ministers who, like himself, would be free from local prejudices and jealousies—a man who, in a word, would make the nation, as well as govern it. But where is such a man to be found? Possibly some of these qualities may be latent in Prince Charles, and he ought to be given a fair trial. Should he fail, however, like his predecessors, it will be difficult to avoid the conclusion that the establishment of Roumania as an independent nation is a hopeless task, and that her manifest destiny is to be annexed to a strong Power, which would enable her to share in its political and material prosperity. If-as every friend of European peace and security should hope she escapes being united to Russia, it is probable that she will gravitate towards the Power that is in possession of Constantinople. This will not be, as some may suppose, practically the same thing. It has already been observed that since the Polish insurrection the feeling of the Slavonians in both Austria and Turkey has been as anti-Russian as it was pro-Russian before that period. The idea of panslavism still exists,

(1) This, of course, only refers to the existence of Turkey as a European Power. As an Asiatic Power she would be strengthened by such an event.

but it has now taken the form of the establishment of a panslavonic state from which Russia shall be excluded. Even the Czechs, who before the insurrection were the strongest advocates of a Russian regeneration of the Slavonic races, have withdrawn their favour from Russia, so much so that MM. Palacki and Rieger, the apostles of the Russian theory of panslavism, who were once their most powerful political leaders, have now lost much of their influence among them. There is, therefore, little danger of a Slavonic insurrection against Turkey in the interest of Russia.

What form the new Slavonic State which would rise on the ashes of the empire of the Sultans would assume it is of course impossible to predict. The mission of Greece in the East is a dream which has long been given up by all practical politicians; and whether the intriguing and ambitious Prince of Servia, with his sham liberalism and half-civilised population, will be able to gather round him the Slavonian races in his neighbourhood, is very doubtful. What the disorganised provinces of European Turkey will want is a bond of cohesion, which can only be afforded by a civilised and beneficent government; and this want no Power could supply so well as Austria, if she would only reconcile herself to abandon that ambition for predominance in Germany which has been all but fatal to her, and accept the by no means contemptible rôle of the Slavonian Power of the future. The task will be a difficult one, for it will require much self-denial and political tact to recover the loss of prestige and the internal disorganisation which have been brought upon Austria by the war, and the discontent which her neglect of their just claims has produced among her Slavonian subjects; but such a policy is the only means of saving Austria from utter destruction, and it is one to which every Power that has an interest in effecting a permanent and peaceful settlement of the affairs of Eastern Europe must wish success, for the establishment of a strong and at the same time unaggressive State on the Bosphorus would put an end once for all to the dangerous and complicated Eastern question.

ADAM GIELGUD.

PUBLIC AFFAIRS.

HER Majesty's Speech on August 10th dismissed her faithful Lords and Commons, to the great relief of her Majesty's newly-appointed Ministers. Not having had time to acquaint themselves with the current business of their offices, they were assailed with questions which they constantly found it very difficult to answer, and feared being led into avowals of policy before they had had full time to consider their position. Their predecessors had formed all the Estimates, and were responsible for the measures which in various stages of completion were before the two Houses of Parliament; so that all they could do was to carry forward the work of other men, which they had not had the opportunity of preparing, but for which they became responsible if they pressed them upon the House. Their plan, therefore, of course has been to transact only the business which was absolutely necessary, and to get rid of Parliament as fast as they could.

A session has ended, eventful for nothing but a change of ministry. Social reforms have been postponed that a great question might receive its solution; but no settlement has been arrived at, and wearisome but not useless debates have only resulted in proving that on all sides there is an admission that some electoral reform is needed, but that the great majority of the nation do not wish it to be too extensive. With the exception of the unfortunate scenes at Hyde Park, all the reform demonstrations have been conducted in a peaceable and orderly manner, and although all persons of note, except Mr. Mill, seem studiously to have avoided them, there has been a good attendance of the working classes, and many who have not taken part have watched them with great sympathy and interest. It is highly desirable, as Mr. Mill said, that the inevitable changes which must accompany the progress of society, should take place without violence. Such has been our happy mode of advance in England, and we must be inferior to our fathers if such ceases to be the case. The peaceful development of the country has proceeded now for nearly two hundred years without any violent changes. The crown had to yield a portion of its power to the great families in the last century; the great families had to share their influence with the middle classes at the time of the great Reform Bill, and now the middle classes are called upon to grant to the working classes a greater share in legislation than they have hitherto possessed. But this change, the necessity for which will go on increasing every year as the working classes get richer and better educated, has nothing terrible about it, and with good management might have been effected this year. The country is evidently in favour of moderate reform, and as the late Ministry, from not being able to keep their party together, failed to carry out the wishes of the country, it is already whispered that the new Ministry intend to try their hand at a Reform Bill in the next session. The Conservative leaders who advised a similar course in 1859 are again in power, and if Lord Derby and Mr. Disraeli then disdained merely the function of a drag-chain, they will probably now make a manly effort to meet the real wants of the country.

It is lamentable to see how many important measures have been postponed owing to the reform debates and the change of government. "The massacre of the innocents," as the abandonment of bills at the end of the session is called

in Parliamentary phrase, has this year been unusually large. The commission "for inquiring into the employment of women and children" had revealed some frightful details of misery, and degradation, and stunted growth in large rich districts, especially where there are mining and iron works, which yield millions to rich proprietors. These abominations in the land have now been officially known and reported for two years, yet nothing has been done to remedy them. The Bill tardily proposed by Sir George Grey on the subject has been abandoned, and another year will now elapse without improvement. Again, the report on our public schools showed disgraceful deficiencies, with vested interests standing in the way of necessary reforms. This bill has been twice brought in and twice abandoned. Eton for another year will remain an aristocratic nursery of idleness where the proper stimulus for honourable exertion seems wanting, and the boys can no more learn than they can play cricket; where the rich tradesman who sends his son to learn aristocratic habits has rather Lord Dundreary placed before him as a model than Sir Philip Sidney or Lord Falkland, or any other honourable exemplar. There is another subject forcing itself on public attention which has had to be postponed. The government of this vast city of London is in a most anomalous condition. The rich, who become so from the labour of the poor, live entirely separated from them, so that West London and East London are synonymous with boundless wealth and most abject poverty; but the poor are left to bear their own burdens in their own parishes, without assistance from those their whole lives are spent to enrich. The consequence is the frightful treatment of the poor which has been revealed in the last few months, and has made so deep an impression on the public mind. The poor are ill-treated in the workhouses, and they are forced into the workhouses by diseases and bad habits engendered by bad lodging, bad water, insufficient schooling and want of religious instruction. They are deficient in all these requisites for decent life because the well-to-do people have migrated to pleasanter parts of London, and left them all alone and uncared-for. The remedy is to improve the government of this huge city, to make each portion of it feel that it is a part of the great whole, and to allow none to escape their fair burdens. This great subject requires an able and persevering Minister to deal with it, for the present local administration of London is expensive and unsatisfactory, and in the hands of those who will pertinaciously resist change. Mr. Mill brought forward a Bill on the subject, which he abandoned, and Mr. Walpole and Mr. Hardy have a fine opportunity of proving their business capacity if they can organise a wellordered and economical local government for this vast city, which is as populous as many a small State.

One of the Bills most to be regretted was the Tenure and Improvement of Land Bill (Ireland), which proposed to put the relations of landlord and tenant on a better footing in that unhappy country. The great difference in this matter between England and Ireland is that in England the landlord generally makes all improvements and charges the tenant for them, whereas in Ireland, where the landlords are poor, the tenants make the improvements with their own capital, and then sometimes, or often, get turned out without any compensation. This is one cause of the bitter feeling between landlord and tenant so often found prevailing in Ireland, and this Bill wisely proposed to give some kind of protection to the tenant, by providing that if a tenant made improvements to which the landlord did not at the time object, after due notice was given to him that they were about to be made, he could not then turn out his tenant without granting him compensation for them. This seems so fair a

course, that it is difficult to understand how this Bill can have caused such an outcry among the landlords in Ireland. It is popular among the tenants, and the strong opposition to it in our opinion shows its necessity. It simply makes law in Ireland, what good feeling and a sense of justice make custom in England, and if the Conservatives oppose the measure next year, when it will assuredly be brought in-if they refuse to adopt it, they will be leaving one of the worst evils in Ireland unremedied, and perpetuating discontent. Ireland continues, as it has been, the great difficulty to every ministry, and one of the last acts of the Session, agreed to almost with mournful unanimity, has been to suspend there again the Habeas Corpus Act. There is a secthing discontent, not only among the lowest, but the middle classes, which may any day break out into acts of violence, and which will continue till the land, church, education, and other questions have been settled on a just and impartial basis. A wise Conservative Government could more easily deal with these questions than a Liberal one, because they have more influence with the Protestants, from whom the chief opposition arises. Until in some way or other we become reconciled with the Irish people, Ireland will be a just reproach to us in the mouths of foreign nations; our free institutions must be in continual danger of suspension, and we must remain at the mercy of a foreign government, when our own discontented subjects threaten our own distant possessions.

The lamentable outbreak in Jamaica has likewise been the subject of discussion during the last days of the session. It was very proper that the report of the special commission sent out to inquire into the whole subject, and so ably presided over by Sir Henry Storks, should be brought to the notice of the House, although the question is so complicated that it is difficult to see what action can be taken upon it. All agree in commending Governor Eyre for his conduct during the first days of the outbreak, all agree in condemning the cruelty of himself and his subordinates after the outbreak had been suppressed. There can also be no doubt of the illegality of his proceeding in forcibly taking Gordon from a place where martial law had not been proclaimed, to a spot where he became amenable to it, and then taking advantage of this forcible abduction to try him by court martial and hang him. The report of the commission also says "that the punishments inflicted were excessive; that the punishment of death was unnecessarily frequent; that the floggings were reckless, and at Bath positively barbarous; that the burning of a thousand houses was wanton and cruel, and that among the sufferers were many who were neither directly nor indirectly parties to the disturbances."

All these occurrences are deeply to be regretted, but when it comes to the question as to punishing our authorities in the colony for an excess of severity in most trying circumstances, very great deliberation is required. No doubt they would have been most deeply blamed in England had they not taken very energetic measures to put down the disturbances; the life of every white in the island would have been sacrificed, and probably it would have been much worse in the end for the blacks themselves. But it is not so easy in an emergency to act with just the proper amount of energy. The boundary where necessary severity ends and cruelty begins is difficult to trace. After all, the proper thing was done, and the revolt suppressed, and if there was error it was on the right side. If we are to remain the possessors of a great empire, and hold peoples in subjection, we must make ourselves feared; and we have had an example in Hayti that a very little laxity may lead to frightful results. If we yield too