The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1872-08-06 00:00:00

butt Condtl &pg.

TUESDAY, tUOUBT 6, 1872.

NOTES OF nix WEEK.
Parliament is working desperately hard to get
through with its work before the 12th, yet
numerous uninteresting and unfruitful digres-
sions seem to countered the benefit of extra-
ordinarily long sittings. It is • fact, however,
that about forty public Acts and one hundred
and fifty local Acts have already been passed
this session ; so that If tie session has boon the
failure it is sometimes set down to be, it is not
for want of variety of work or the number of
Ads of Parliament manufactured. The Premier
has given a promise that local taxation and
government shall occupy the attention of the
Ministry during the mesa The Cabinet is to
have something to digest. in retirment, and we
are to have a comprehensive measure next session.
Mr. Gladstone ventured to state the principles
on which that measure will begramed. They are
five : 1, The representative principle in all local
institutions; 2, Equality between landlords and
occupiers of the soil; 3, Equality among the
various classes contributing to public burdens;
4, Economy of administration, and 5, (emphati-
cally) not to weaken but to strengthen the
invaluable principle of localitelf-government.
The Prince of Wales on Wednesday visited
the American squadron in Southampton Water.
and was received by Admiral Alden, General
Schenck General Sherman, and others. On the
Cup Day the Prince, as usual, was at Goodwood.
liar Majesty has invested Lord Lyveden with
the ribbon and star of the Order of the Bath of the
first elan, and knighted Kr. G. B. Ailey, Mr.
Arthur Helps, and Mr. It. R. Torrens, ALP. for
Cam-bridge, one of the most eminent of returned
Australian politicians. Sir A. Helps has signal-
ised his knighthood by dedicating his sketch of
Mr. Brassey's life to her Majesty as that of •
model man of business and as an employer of
labour exactly attar her Mrjesty's own heart.
Mr. Brutality, we hope, is not the only employer
within the four seas of whom this can be said.
But of course the great charm of Mr. Brassey's
life is that he made • fortune of seven million/
off his own bat, and this, we presume, is why air
Arthur Helps writes. his life. He was • man of
almost superhuman energies, and, as one of his
own men said, if 1141 had been a parson he'd have
been a Bishop, and if he had been • prise-fighter
he'd have won the belt.

What we want now is a Braasey in the owl
mine to organise labour and to bring the output
of the pits abreast of the requirements of the day.
I At present everything in our coal mines is at
sixes and sevens, and Mr. Hugh Taylor. the
President of the Coal Trade Airociation, tells us
that, in consequence, the present production is
fifteen or sixteen million tons below the actual
demand! Taking the quotations of ooal and iron
ore to-day and comparing them with the quota-
tions current • year and a half ago, it turns out
that the supply of to-day, short as it is of the
demand, involves an increased ixpeaditure of
more than £60,000,000 • year. Here we have in
• nut-shell the explanation of the increased and
still increasing price of coal and iron, and unless
the men in the pita can be mesisted with ma-
chinery we see no hope of relief, for, according
to Mr. Taylor, the deficiency in the supply
arises entirely from the fewer hours that the men
work, and there is but small chance apparently
of the men lengthening their day even to increase
the amount of their wages.
The worst of it is that although we are paying
these sixty millions a year more for our coal and
and iron, we might as well, as far as the working
clamed are oconoerned, toss every farthing of It
Into the sea. The Bishop of Manchester says
all the extra wages paid in the North are spent
In drink, in dress, and in amusement of one
sort or another. Dr. Fewer is aghast at what
he sees in these Northern towns. "If he could
see that the prosperity of the working clangs of
this country was really improving them and
surrounding them with all those elements of
happiness which were substantial and enduring,
no one would rejoice more than he would. But
going about as he did, and seeing the reckless
way in which people were speucung their money,
he was perfectly alarmed "—alarmed for the
people themselves, and alarmed still more for
the country.
The butchers all through the country are as
much perplexed by the rise of prices as the rest
of us. Their profits, according to their own
amounts, are leas now than they were when the
tearket• were lower, and yet they have to bear
the whole of the brunt. The Manchester
butchers met in the Free Trade Hall to consider
whether they should shut up their shops for •
fortnight; but this was found to be impraotioable,
sad so they decided in the end to endeavour to
lessen the consumption during August and
September "by purchasing from the dealers ,
much less than the usual supply," and to ask
the Government to relax the restrictions on the
Importation of cattle. How is the rinderpest to ,
be kept out of our herds if the porta are thrown I
open I And if the rinderpest breaks out again
now, when the foot and mouth disease is turning
up afresh all over the country, we must expect
to see beef and mutton running up to 2ia pound.
This is hardly what the Manchester butchers
want. Yet with rlnderpeat raging in all the
Eastern provinces of Europe, with rinderpest
forming part of every cargo from Russia, this
must be the &at effect of relaxing the iestrio-
tions ; and we are glad to see that Mr. Forster
Is about to does all our Eastern ports against
Russian cattle and to put the rest into (leers/wee.
Even the Schleswig-Holstein cattle are not free
from taint.

What has 001318 over Dr. lAvingstonel Into
what bad oompany has he been thrown? He
used to be • grave and reverend senlor—his
facts all sterling metal, ungarnished, precise, and
guaranteed by a straightforward unpretending
style. If the volume of his former travels had
• fault, it was that it was not sufficiently fertile
in phraseology. People did, indeed, venture to
say that the traveller would have done better if
if he had been content to be the authority, and
instructed some clever author to write his book
for him. Now plain David Liviwitone appears
before us as • correspondent of the New York
Herald, and his letters are full of gush and quo-
tation. Hs has not forgotten his English or
missed the Meat slang."l wish to say • little
about the slave trade in Eastern Africa (he
begina). It is not a very Inviting subject, and '
, to some I may appear as supposing your readers
to be very much akin to the old lady who relished
her paper for neither births, death', nor mar-
riage., but for good, racy, bloody murders."
Strangely unlike Livingstone this. Much more
of the ring of America than Africa about it. As
he goes on, he talks of "women's rights"—there
is • good deal about women—" pretty, light.
coloured, and lovely," " so very sided& • "
others, "the hussie::," with faces like the " LOn-
don door-knackers —of " bloated aristocracy,"
of preferring to have had "my head shaved and
a blister put upon it" to accepting Sir Roderick's
oommission. Ho talks of " bogisphobia," and
of the people of the United States being " ino-
culated with common sense." The slaves are
"not traded for," but "murdered for." Some
are described as of the "bruiser" clam; others
"bulbous below the ribs." Then he talks of
"running amuck,"
,peing eaten, cud " converted
into • black man • refers to the "testy old
would-be-geographer" who "swore to his fancies
till be became blue in the face." Now, one of
two things is quite clear, either Dr. Livinptone
has been completely demoralised by living a few
months in the society of an American newspaper
correspondent, or, which perhaps is more proba-
ble, Mr. Stanley wrote the letter for the
discoverer he discovered.
The elaaticity of the French nation as
all Europe. That so soon after the destruction
of both army and Government, with only a
=nary administration, with an aged
t alirays in hot water, and an Assembly
never likely again to be elected—Franos should
command the millionaires of Europe, Is truly
amazing. Talk of Germany crushing oat the
French life The thing is demonstrated to be
an absurdity. Franos can command all she
wants financially. She asks • Went, and Europe
says take ten—one hundred and forty million
pounds sterling, and in two days fourteen
hundred million pounds sterling, an inemdmh,
amount, is placed at her feet This is at least
the way France can speak of it, Of mune it is
not exactly so • for when an investor wants to
lead tea thousand minds, and he gets wind that
offers will be six or sight times more numerous
than will be required, -be tenders sixty or eighty
thousand, expecting that only ten, Perhaps los,
will be accepted. But look at it as we may,
the confidenos reposed in the French nation is
perfeot. Even if England wanted to borrow so
much—which, the tavern la beard to say, Grid
forbid I—sha could not possibly have larger fends
placed at her diving though, to be sure, she
would expect to got all she wanted at something
below instead of above Ars per cent.
A Naval Volunteer faros b to be formed.
What, Indeed, have we been about that we have
Int valid keg Won ihs bons kart

seatizing population, around our coast., which,
NI the member for Liverpool said in the House
of Commons last week—and who doubts him?
—le as willing it fight in defence of them as any
Wimbledon Volunteer. At the instigation of
Mr. Graves, and under the countemincu of the
First Lord of the Treasury, we are to have a
Naval Volunteer Faroe. We want Volunteers
for the ;east, and Volunteers for possible sea-
service. The Admiralty are prepared to provide
the gun-boats, and the proposal must be promoted
on a grand scale, boldly recognised SI • new
movement, and, as we hope, viewed from the
Admiralty with none of the indifference the
Volunteer army is privileged to endure from the
military authorities. Half-a-dozen leading
gentlemen, standing in the position of the noble-
men who have identified themselves with the
Volunteer rifle movement, must come to the
front, and then our coast seamen—the pilots,
riggers, boatmen, and 150,000 fishermen of
whom the House talked, beside, • good many
yachting men—never more happy than when
Identified with the " blue jackets "—will combine
and form a Volenteer naval reserve force wort .7
, of Britannia.