But now in dismissing the Assembly to the provinces, and speaking with a special view to the elections of the Councils-General which are immediately to be held, M. Thiers deliberately revives the sleeping controversy, and does so in magniloquent terms which, from so cunning a brain as his, are worthy of more attention than they have received:

"It is in the intimacy of our homes that the country will be able to tell us what it thinks, what it wishes. And then, gentlemen, let us speak in all frankness. There are at the present moment for our country the greatest imaginable interests at stake. We have to settle our present and our future lot, and it is necessary to know whether it is to be in accordance with a past tradition, the glorious tradition of a thousand years, that our country is to be constituted, or whether, abandoning itself to the torrent which in the present day precipitates human society towards an unknown future, it is to put on a new form, and thus peacefully pursue its noble destiny. This country, the object of the

passionate attention of the whole universe, is it to be a Republic or a Monarchy; will it adopt

one or the other of these two forms of Government, which at the present time divide all nations?"

a make-weight in a scale which seems to the new President for the moment too light, than as a serious invitation to get up a real monarchical movement. M. Thiers is trimming his sails. He observes that the stimulus to the Conservative party caused by horror of the Commune is a little failing him. He thinks it not unadvisable before the rural demonstrations come off to rouse again that deep-seated French caution which dreads the unknown. He would like to restore the equilibrium between the monarchical and republican forces in the country. Whatever else that may effect, it can hardly help conducing to the power, and lengthening the reign, of the present President.

From The Examiner.

IRELAND.

tors" is to examine them honestly, and see, not only how much truth and wisdom they contain, but also what force they have irrespective of any considerations of truth or wisdom. It should be remembered that patriotism is always a thing of sentiment much more than of logic, which can only be very inadequately tested by deciding whether it is true or false, wise or foolish, and that this is likely to be especially so in the case of Ireland. If disloyalty appears to be all but universal among the Irish just now, we cannot hope to make them loyal either by argument or by abuse, either by harsh treatment or by contempt.

Most of the Irish, however, with Mr. Martin, vehemently assert that they are not disloyal, and as vehemently repudiate any wish to throw off their allegiance to the centre of authority in the British Empire, which, by a time-honoured euphemism, we call the Throne. They accept the fact that Ireland was conquered, seven centuries ago, by an Anglo-Norman king, just as Englishmen, if they think anything at all about it, accept the fact that England was conquered a century earlier by a Norman duke; but they still refuse to be governed by Anglo-Norman institutions, or what they deem to be such, just as the English long ago successfully refused to be governed by Norman institutions. They are no more willing to be incorporated with the conquering community than to be ruled as an alien colony or colonial possession. That great advantages have come to them during their seven centuries of forced connection with England, and even, to some extent, as a direct conse. quence of that forced connection, they readily admit, and they have no wish to sever the connection that is of such long standing. But they do wish to alter it, and place it on what they deem an equitable and honourable footing, one that will enable them to work out their own schemes of national development without either the tyrannical or the benevolent interference of their fellow-subjects in England. This may be a mistaken and even a mischievous demand; but it is the demand of the Irish Nationalist party, that is, of eight or nine-tenths of the Irish people; and there are good, though they may be deplorable, reasons why it should be listened to.

IN a letter in the Times, Mr. Martin states with admirable clearness and brevity, the purpose of the Home Rule movement in Ireland, of which he is, if not the noisiest, perhaps the ablest and most influential spokesman. "I desire," he says, "that the constitution of King, Lords, and Commons should be restored in Ireland by the removal of the English usurpation of the Act of Union. I desire to see the Queen exercising her constitutional function in Ireland, and governing my country through a free Irish Parliament. I try to do my duty as an Irish subject, I desire that the Queen should begin to do hers as Sovereign of Ireland. That is what I understand by loyalty to the Throne. But let no English commentator flatter himself that by loyalty to the Throne I mean allegiance and subjection to him and his countrymen." The great majority of the Irish people hold those sentiments, and the sentiments are none the less powerful because they find new and violent expression nearly every day in some such action as the welcoming of the French deputation in Dublin, the fight between the people and the police after the Phoenix Park meeting, or the oratorical excesses that are preliminary to Mr. Butt's election for Limerick. They will not be put down by scoffs and misrepresentations of the sort that are now current in the English newspapers, or even by the more generous re- The reasons are grounded on the fact proaches that are uttered here and there; that, if benevolent theories for the English and the best way to prevent them from government of Ireland have lately come becoming far more offensive than they al-partly into play, they are only modern and ready are to most "English commenta- partial substitutes for some twenty genera

erous spirit which cherishes such notions as these;" but neither abuse nor lamentation will serve instead of argument; and we are bound to say that all the argument is on Mr. Martin's side. His statement of the case is borne out by all our Parliamentary history, by the measures which have been passed, and yet more by the speeches that have heralded their adoption.

tions of tyrannical facts. That the policy willed it. There is undeniable truth in of England towards Ireland has been, till the objections which Mr. Martin, in the quite recently, one of stern and unjusti- name of the Irish Nationalists, makes to fiable tyranny needs no showing. Feudal our tyrannical and our benevolent legisoppression lasted there long after feudal- lation alike. "We have made up our minds ism was muzzled, if not exterminated in in Ireland that your policy towards us is England; and in so far as it has at last adopted and regulated entirely from conbeen abolished, it has been replaced by a siderations of your own selfish interest sort of rule which is even more galling and convenience. Whether you take than feudalism to native patriotism. Feu- measures to strike terror or to soothe and dalism might be tolerated on the score of conciliate-whether you keep us in obeits antiquity, especially as the Irish are dience' by brute force, or coax us with shrewd enough to see that with age better things' (by which you mean parhas come infirmity, and that what Mr. tial redress of some of the wrongs you Martin calls "loyalty to the Throne" and have inflicted on us), we believe that you "the rightful constitutional exercise of consider exclusively your own security, the Queen's authority in her kingdom of your own material profit, your own naIreland" are now little more than power- tional reputation in Europe, your own less phrases. They are quite willing to temporary convenience." The Times deretain, now that it is impotent, that tra- clares that charge to be "something more ditional royalty which sorely afflicted absurd, more extravagant, and more unthem when it was a formidable reality; truthful than even the coarsest form of but seeing that England has virtually national antipathy;" and the Pall Mall thrown off the dominion of monarchy, Gazette laments over "the poor, ungenthat Englishmen have acquired the substantial right to govern themselves, they distinctly refuse to allow Englishmen, who have usurped the functions of royalty in governing England, also to usurp the functions of royalty in governing Ireland. They might accept benevolence, as they formerly had to accept tyranny, from the kings of England, who were also kings of Ireland; but they decline to accept either benevolence or tyranny from self- The only answer that has been made, governing Englishmen when they claim or that can be made, is unfortunately of to be the governors of Ireland. That, as very little value. Ireland, it is said, has we understand it, is the view taken by its full share of representation in the Imthe Irish Nationalists; and, if there is any perial Parliament, and Irish members soundness in it, it is not strange that they ought to see that justice is done to their should take it. And is it not sound, at country. The mere propounding of such any rate in part? The Irish Church Act a statement proves, or goes far to prove, its and the Irish Land Act are instances of worthlessness. It implies that there is an the benevolent legislation which England can adopt for Ireland, though the merit of benevolence is lessened by the fact that these measures, if welcomed by many on the score of their simple justice, were only passed because the majority who voted for them did so solely on party grounds; or, if for any other reason, as a mere matter of expediency, as temporising devices for getting rid of Fenianism, and amusing the people of Ireland. The real temper of English legislation for Ireland appears in such measures as the Westmeath Coercion Bill of last session, which the House of Lords, at the instigation of Lords Derby and Salisbury, would have liked to make far more tyrannical, and which the House of Commons would also have gladly made more tyrannical, had Mr. Gladstone so

antipathy between Ireland and England. If it were not so, why should Irish members have to see that justice is done to Ireland? The Yorkshire or Lancashire members are not elected to see that justice is done to Yorkshire or Lancashire. Their constituents know that, whatever justice they may receive, will be secured for them by Parliament as a whole, and that neither special Land Acts nor special Acts for the Repression of Crime will be passed for the benefit or the intimidation of any particular localities. Laws having reference to England and Scotland are made in the interests of the whole community, and all its sections share, or are supposed to share, in them alike. Whenever there is special legislation or discussion, as in the case of the proposed Scotch

Education Bill of last session, its purpose much more thorough healing of that diis to assimilate the institutions of various vision than can in any other way be atdistricts, not to create differences. But tained, it ought to be granted.

From The Examiner. AFFAIRS IN TURKEY.

Vizier's successor-must be especially embarrassing in the present critical position of the Ottoman Empire. It is true that the occasions when the Ottoman Empire is not in a critical position are so singularly rare that it might seem almost a matter of indifference what particular time misfortunes might select for their occurrence. Putting aside, however, the new difficulties which have arisen in the

all our law-making for Ireland is made on the supposition that Ireland needs to be treated by itself, and that law-making is effected by six hundred and fifty members of Parliament, of whom only a hundred are Irishmen. How can these hundred see that justice is done to their country, THE fate which has simultaneously if the other five hundred and fifty have a deprived the Porte of the services of preference for injustice? If Irish interests the Grand Vizier, Aali Pasha, and of were as identical with the interests of Mechmet Kypriuli Pasha-perhaps the Scotland or England as are the interests only statesman fit to be the Grand of Staffordshire with those of Cornwall, or the interests of Liverpool with those of London, there would be no need of special legislation for Ireland, and we should hear nothing of Irish Nationalism; but every one knows that they are not identical now, and that a long time must elapse before they can be so. Ireland is far more of a colony than Canada or Victoria; but Canada and Victoria have their local Parliaments, subject to the control of the foreign relations of Turkey since the reCrown, while Ireland is governed by the sults of the London Conference again gave British Parliament, and the votes of its rep-free play to the march of Russian influresentatives therein are entirely swamped by the votes of Englishmen and Scotchmen. Therefore Mr. Martin, as spokesman for his countrymen, says to us: "The evil, the grievance, that the Irish people lay to your charge is, not the measures, cruel as they generally are, by which you keep us in subjection, but the subjection itself."

ence in the East, there still remains enough in the internal situation of Turkish affairs, and it so happens especially at the present moment, to make the loss of a bold and capable ruler a matter of unusual importance. Probably there never was a time when the disjointed dominions of the Padishah could less afford to do without the keenness and vigour which have uniformly characterized the late Grand Vizier and which, in a country where, below the throne, all ranks are equal, raised him from the humble calling of a hamal, or water-carrier, to be the sovereign of his Sovereign and the master of the State.

Whether the Irish would be better governed by an Irish Parliament, competent to make its own laws, and subject to Imperial control and regulation, is a separate question, and one with which England has nothing to do. It should be enough that the Irish demand such a local Parliament, and though the demand appears now only In the provinces of European Turkey, in public demonstrations to which no legal the Christian difficulty has again come value can be attached, and in the choice to the front with every sign of that of members to fill the chance vacancies in terrible exasperation which forty years the House of Commons, no one can doubt ago rent desperate Greece from the tyrthat it will be made very distinctly in- anny of the Moslemn. For months past deed at the next general election. Surely a subdued agitation has pervaded the disit will be well for our legislators to take a tricts in which the Christian subjects of statesmanlike view of this certain future, the Porte still continue deprived of that and of the present indications of it. Sure-autonomy which their more fortunate coly, too, it will be well to consider whether religionists in Servia and Roumania have it may not be better to accede to the de-succeeded in finally obtaining. In Bulgamand than to foment disaffection by such ria, the Herzegovina, Albania, and even policy as found favour in Parliament Bosnia, the movement in favour of partial fast session, and is intemperately advocat- or total independence has displayed new ed by the leading English newspapers. forces and led to some unforeseen combiThe establishment of a separate Parlia- nations. It is notorious that the policy of ment for Ireland would afford painful evi- Servia seeks the annexation of both the dence of the division between the two Herzegovina and Bosnia, and that repreislands, but, as it would give promise of asentations to this effect have been made

at the Court of Constantinople. The tion to remove every cause of legitiquestion of race naturally enters largely mate discontent; but in the meantime into the situation, and in some territories circumstances were occurring which prehas produced so deep an effect that Mussul- cipitated a terrible collision. The Turkish man, Greek, and Catholic Slavs have been forces, confident in their new strength, found to declare their resolution to discard gave themselves up to the ostentatious differences of creed in everything which display of their ancient and contemptuous concerned their common nationality. As hatred for the Giaours. The little rebetween the Turkish Government and the straint which their officers seem to have Christian populations, the difference of been able or willing to exercise over them creed is still the insurmountable obstacle. failed entirely at the affair of Griza. In A Government which can only cease to be consequence of a collision between some intolerant at the cost, in its own eyes, soldiery of the Nizam and the inhabitants of committing sacrilege; a Government of the little village of Griza, all the male which is more an Established Church than population of the hamlet were put to the an Established State, must find it practi- sword, and, more horrible still, fourteen cally impossible to reconcile its pretensions Albanian women were murdered with reas the True Belief with the independent volting barbarity. The bloody battle or rights of a great and growing Christian massacre of Skutari was the climax of the population. Recent events in Albania mutual animosity and rage. A division have demonstrated this fact anew in a of the Turkish army, fully equipped with

tragic manner.

breech-loaders, artillery, and mitrailleuses, The complaints against Ismael Pasha, attacked a body of four thousand Christhe Governor of Albania, had for a long tian Albanians. The battle was long and time fruitlessly appealed to the attention desperate. For five hours the fierce sons of the Turkish authorities. It was not of the mountain, with their antiquated until numerous and powerful Albanian firelocks and rude hanjars or cutlasses, clans the Albanians are as clannish as maintained the contest against troops suptheir fellow-kilts in the Scottish highlands plied with the best appliances of European -announced their intention of taking the warfare. Swept down from afar by the law into their own hands that some heed volleys of unknown engines of destruction, began to be given to their protestations. their heroic daring only exposed them to Unfortunately the sort of heed that was useless slaughter. When at length they vouchsafed them was not of a character to retreated to their hills, they left the tend to their satisfaction. The heads of ground cumbered with the corpses of a three of the most influential tribes were fourth of their number. On the side of thrown into prison, and matters promised the Turks not a hundred men had fallen. to go on as before. The relatives of the The events at Skutari have only inflamed imprisoned chieftains had no mind, how- the courage of the mountaineers. On the ever, to let matters go on as before. They 26th of August, a week after the battle, took up arms, a proceeding considerably the Albanian chieftains met in council at facilitated by the fact that every bold Mellassija, and unanimously resolved to mountaineer habitually carries his arms continue the struggle. The soldiers of on his person. Frightened refugees to the Porte, as brave it must be confessed Skutari, bringing the news that all the as ferocious, may despise the resentment passes were beset by the insurgents, and of ill-armed and undisciplined hillsmen, that an attack on the city was meditated, and count on stamping out the insurrecrudely awakened the Divan to a perception in fire and blood. But it may well tion of the troubles which awaited the be that Albania does not stand alone. Turkish tenure of Albania. There fol- Already, it is with difficulty that the fearlowed some customary measures of con- less Montenegrins, the thirty thousand ciliation. Eighteen regiments of the Black Mountainers, are kept from turning Turkish regular army, or Nizam, were their new weapons, the modern rifles with despatched to Albania under Mehemed which the disinterested affection of Russia Aali Pasha; and, pending the arrival of has armed them, against the detested enethis immense reinforcement, the revolted mies of their faith and race. The HerzeAlbanians were assured of every consider- govina and Bosnia are in a ferment. The ation. We can hope that these assurances hundred thousand warriors of Servia have were made in good faith. Unfortunately, every sort of military armament and munievents did not cease from taking the tion, from bayonets to forage, in perfect worst direction. On his arrival, in-order and ready for instant service. A deed, Mehemed Aali declared his resolu-signal would be sufficient to throw Euro