SIDERING the turmoil and bad spirit which Home Rule debates inflict on quiet going, reasonable people, itis not encouraging to find the Spectator saying that the struggle "may go on for many, years, ably as long as the States' Rights dispute in America. The Spectator does not agree with the speakers of the first rank who take it for granted that the Irish struggle will be ended at the next general election.' More likely it will go on for years to come; at election after election Home Rule, though a slowly dying cause, will be the pivot round which the voting will turn." It supports this view by some historical instances.
The American War was fought out in four years; but the States' Rights dispute lasted fifty, and is still the ultimate dividing-line between American parties. The Poles in the Prussian Diet have remained a party since the Constitution was granted; the Bohemians have claimed their "rights" in the Austrian Reichsrath for twenty years or more; and time seems rather to increase than domini the separateness of Dutch and English citizens atthe Cape. The Irish are among the rust persistent people in the world; and althotigh the present position of Irish Home-rulers as the subsidised proteges of a party among their own colonists cannot last, they may maintain their separate and quasi-hostile position in politics for more than a generation. We do not say they will, for we have a genuine confidence in reatness of the political. effect often wrought by a revolution in tenure, and we do not forget how completely Irish economic prosperity is bound up with that. of Ireland's only market; but they may, and if they do, there is no course for Englishmen except to display a pertinacity—if possible, a silent pertinacity—equal to their own, and to wait on from Session to Session, Parliament to Parliament, generation to generation, until the end is reached. The Irish will not rise in insurrection, the English will not sanction revolutionary methods; and so the struggle may last like tat of the wave and the clit This dismal look-out is nevertheless the one which the Spectator says Englishmen generally, believe their. nation "is est qualified to face. A very interesting article on the Italian Colonial policy, in which good deal of light is thrown on the aims of the advancing southern power; the King's handling of the foreign p large migration of Italians, especially to the South American states, and the burning desire of the nation to possess a country which its colonists shall be avowedly its own subjects. This explains its desire for Tripol, and is the popular apotosy for the recent entrance into Abyssinia, and it will ultimately lead to the occupation of one of the islands of the eastern Archipelago, This we fancy means one of the islands more or less near this part of the world, or it may be merely the supposed hankering after Rhodes, which the writer of the papers on the Foreign Policy of the present time pointed out. But the Spectator thinks that Ttaly should, by strictly legal processes, get the Argentine Republic into her hands, or repopulate Peru; or she might even acquire a dominant influence within the Empire of Brazil. This advice leaves the Monroe doctrine and American feeling, altogether out of sight, Having recent! dealt with Jewish pauperism in London, the Spectatur dea ith the wealth of the London Jews, which it shows, on figures supplied by the leading organ of the Jewish contmunity, is proportionally larger than the wealth of wealthy gentiles. Thoge who care anything for the subject will find information in the article.
The Saturday takes up the recent revelations of the Austrian-Russian agreement as to Bosnia and Hezegovina, before the last Turkish war and, after giving the following account of what is said to have then taken place, says that if the German story of the negotiations is true, Austrian statesmen must in later days, have deeply regretted their short-sighted encouragement of Russian encroachment The latest controversy between the official German press and the Moscore Gazette possesses some historical interest. According to the statements of the North German Gazette, which are confirmed by the explanations ten: dered on the part of Count Andrassy, the understanding that Austria should occupy Bosnia and Herzegovina was established before the Turkish War. It is also stated that, Prince Bismarck was not at the time informed of the transaction, and that he is therefore not responsible for the virtual annexation of the two Tin The disputants are perfectly capable of ravinees to Austria under the Treaty of Ber-defending their respective positions, and the issues which they raise have no immediate bearing on English policy; but it may be worth while to recall events of ten or twelve years ago, which were at the time not a little perplexing to political observers. The distur.'
knees which began in Bosnia in the year 1875 were naturally and correctly attributed, in whole or in part, to Russian intrigues' but much surprise was caused by the sympathy and encouragement which were offered to the
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.