The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1866-04-24 00:00:00

NOTES OF THE WEEK.

I.—Tasaa was owes a monstrous French
play, either " Monte Christ*" or the
"Mysteries of Paris" dramatised, which took
all the evenings of a week to represent (pro-
bably including Sunday, according to Parisian
custom). At that the novelty of the thing
took, but somehow very few people could
bring themselves to sit out the whole week's
representation. The break of interest each
ei ening, and the intervention of daily pox-
suits, was too much for the audience, and each
night the attendance decreased. Well, it has
been something like this, or worse, with our
Reform debate. Adjourned debates always
flag in interest on the nights intermediate
betweea the first and the last. It is the
second-rate speakers who then disport them-
selves, and spin out the weary time; the men
of greatest mark open or close the debate.
If Mr. Gladstone and Lord Stanty tlid hot
exhaust the subject of the Government Bill,
it certailly has not been worth while to wade
through column after column of common-
place to get at the few points they left un-
touched. We can find few people who '
profess to have read the whole of the debate.
Of course the speeches of such men as Sir
!Minted Bulwer Lytton, Mr. Mill and sir
Hugh Cairns have been generally read; but
these have been oases in the desert of talk.
What has made this Reform debate drag
more heavily than usual, however, has been
the length of the adjournmenta. Prom
Friday to Monday, from Monday again to
Thursday, and Once more from Friday to
Monday, must destroy continuity of one's
interest, and accordingly the public are
as weary of the discussion as the tired-out
spectator of a pantomime, who keeps his seat
only to see the last grand scene- mr. Bright
and Mr. Disraeli have yet to appear, like the
gorgeous wind-up of a pyrotechnic display,
and scatter their glowing showers of oratorical
sparks. After their performance the Howie
will have no patience for the simple squibs,
credits a, or even rockets of minor speakers.
aird the debate will be merged in the loud
cries of" divide! divide !" It is the division,
above all, that w are looking for. People
have made up their minds that the Govern
ment will have a majority of a score or so
but they wish to see the affair well over, and
all apprehension of an interrupted sataion
and London seam allayed. Members of
Parliament, fashionable society, and West..
End tradesmen, all deprecate a dissolution,
and hope at least, to see the honour of the
Government saved. What becomes of the
Bill after, London does aot much care, and
the country at large is indifferent.

ll.—Taixawe has grievances besides the
Established Church (in our estimation its
only blessing) and tenant-right, and certainly
more practical ones, as regards feasibility of
removal at least. There is the grievance of
the present electoral system of rating, which
throws the burden of the relief of the rural
poor unfairly on the towns, and respecting
which a deputation has waited on the Lord
Lieutenant, urging the necessity of union-
rating as in England. Then, again there is
the currency question, on which Sir Colman
O'Loghlen moved the second reading of a
Bill on Wednesday afternoon, but was lain
to withdraw hia measure at the request of the
Chancellor of the Exchequer. Mr. Glad-
stone, however, unlike Lord Wodehouse, ac-
knowledged an evil to exist, and promised to
attend to the matter when he had time. But
Parliament will have enough to do with the
keform Bill and the estimates for this
Session po Ireland must wait "a little
year" before her turn comes to be served. It
is something, however, to have the reality of
grievances acknowledged; and if Irish mem-
bers persist, in a more leisurely session, what
cannot be got from English good-nature may
be
_granted because of their importunity.
Ireland never gets anyibing from the Imperial
Parliament without teasing it into ac-
quiescence.

Pmsanktra is going the round of
the Press, to the effect that "a further reduc-
tion of the Inoome-tax, and the abolition of
the duty of la. a quarter now levied on foreign
grain, are expected to be amongst Mr. Glad-
stone's propositions." We are not like Mr
Bright, an adviser of ths Government, nor, like
him, are we in their confidence; but we venture
to say that one of these prepliecies is very
unlikely to be verified, and the other im-
possible. The Income-tax ii.. fairly levied
pow as a rule, though there are of course
teeptittis, and it boo bola bgtatied tram

what it formerly was, that it is scarcely
possible Mr. Gladstone will voluntarily re-
duce a tax which is so productive and so easy
ofcollectioa, and against which as compared
with the Malt-tax there is really no clamour.
As to his abolishing the duty of Is. per
9uarter now levied on foreign grain, that duty
is not now levied. The duty was on the Ist
of September. 1864 altered from 1.1. • quarter
to ad. per cwt. We believe that, instead of
doing what is thus rumoured, the Chancellor
of the Exchequer is far more likely to remove
a number of very small customs duties which
now remain on articles of consumption such
as arrowroot, starch, meal, confectionery,
dried fruits, Ac.

IV. —ter Liar , we begin to fancy we ate • likely
solution of the Schleswig Holstein dispute.
Neither Austria nor Prussia would disarm first,
but the proposal for a simultaneous disarma-
ment will not involve the honour of either party.
It is thought that Prussia will be glad of the
chance to recede, for she has found no support
in or out of Germany, not even among her awn
subjects— if we except the rumoured alliance
with Italy, disgraceful to both nations, but
especially to the latter. It looks as if Italy
meant something when she comes to the official
counting, and (so to speak) weighing of bar
troop.; and certainly an army of some 340,000,
of whom nearly a quarter of • million might be
put into the field, is • temptation to take the
best chance that may offer for • long time to
seise Venous. But then Italy could scarcely
proceed without the soquiescence of Freon, and
the Kropseor hie studiously withheld his coun-
tenance. As for Auttris, of course she desired
ptace from the first, and sacrificed • considerable
amount of dignity for it, but she could not con-
cede anything. In regard to the actual matter
in dispute, it is now put by Austria in a fair
train for settlement. She wishes her troops and
those of Prussia to be withdrawn from the
Duchies, leaving the inhabitants to the care of
the Diet, while they shoos, their own future.
If this be even annexation to Prussia. Austria
accepts it beforehand. Nothiug oauld be • fairer
offer ; and it is thought that Prussia, in her pre-
sent isolation, must sonept It.

lfs.tr-rax discussion cropped out at
an inauspicious moment in the fitful pauses of
the Reform or Franchise Debate. Yet Sir
Fitzroy Kelly's motion was ooly defeated in-
directly by • miserable side wind, for we can
designate by DO other terms Mr. Mill's eccen-
tric proposition:to continue the Malt-tax, but
nevertheless to set apart the sir or seven
millions it produces for the reduction
of the National Debt, on account of our
approaching national downfall and beggary
from the exhaustion of our oral mines I Any:
thing more ansurti and intiousecinental we Cannot
tementber and if it be for incoherent utterances
like this that Westminster has returned her
philosopher, surely it is fit he should pair off
wth the next new representative for Colney
Hatch under the redistribution of seals. What
earthly connection there can be betwixt not re-
pealing our Malt-tax vow, and looking forward
to the exhaustion of our present coal seams,
"moms restricting it to 400 or 500, some to 800,
and others main to! 200 years (a= by our-
selves from Mr. Page's Geologlt.
, Only I week or id ago). so t insikpe‘aya2
our National Debt Immix, noboJy but Kr. John
Stuart Mill can possibly imagine—not even Mr.
Gladstone, although he took the hon. member's
insane diversion as a perfect godsend, and
promised to notice it in the Budget! Mr. Glad-
stone, we presume will, in his observations intro-
ducing the Budget, allude to the reduction of the
Nitiitnal Debt—not to the erhaustitto of the
doal mities—or it he does he will possibly be good
enough to remember that even Mr. Mill refers
to ths existence of fez thicker seams than any
worked at present, only at greater depths and
that neither he nor Mr. Mill oan tell what im-
provements in our t crude mechanism for
the saving of coal freoZty, the Mother of In-
vention, may not have devised long before the
end of the 400, 500, 800. or 1,200 years we seem
to have got to pay off our National Debt
Meantime what we, in the rural districts, would
thank these vapid financial philosophers to do is,
to natal our beer; and, by-the-way, Mr. Richard
Masud, of horgarton Priory, • firet-class,
model, country gentleman, has just suggested in
the Notts. &Sordid's, that we should change the
ttrtat at all events into a tel upon beer '
eir* this done, we should, as clearly aepears
from Mr. 11ilward's letter, have malt in the
first instance free for feeding purposes, and by and
by we venture to believe the natural instincts of
man and labour would demand a riddance also
of any remaining tax on beer. Mr. Milward
writes;

Tll4 vverers of barter will be again di-appointed, and
iilà obvious that the opposition of Mr. Oladatooe was
chiefly against the terms of Sir Fitsroy Lilly's motion.
If the question bad bean brought forward by Mr. Du
Cane or Mr. Mead I bare little doubt that the Malt Tax
would hare been changed for a tax upon beer. I bare
always advocattd this plan of plains rid of the tax. I
will assume that not any of the Imp meant ran be
spared, let the sax or nevem millions be still raised by a
tax upon beer, and when tb.r• is a surplus the duty
might be reduced. In Ibis manner it would fairly mine
In the same 'Magog as tea, sew and whi.lty but in
pre4nt stale It ought out to be diesemed with
refereoce to thee, artioles
_

The Melt Tax is enentially • producer's and not •
enesumeee questiou, and the argument in favour el its
repeal appean to me very aimple. I would 2.4 why one
article of Brant growilipr preloction l "sinned for an
prionneed Ist? It weird he quite IM negotiable to tax
boil, atbiie iron, or bricks ; nod besides thin, the inter-
farina with the manufacture of barley is almost as
utlectineable as the Tax.
lite Utopian w hers. of Mr. Neste and r. Mill is
most unreasonable ,of nurse Mr. Glanton• wes
to tell than that such • plan wan impossible —" thet
there would be wanking invidious in taking • par.
bean tax out of the eatemiey for unsettles and wrlttns
It aside for effecting permit-stay to. redactio• of the
National Debt." hot notwit, standing this deserved
rebuke. the amnaellor of the Exchequer designated
Me. Mill's speech a• "admirable and remarkable"
The opponents of repeal quote Mr. !Awes, as opening
the theory that malt would be vsltablia as food foe
rattle end Oink The aperient:its made by Mr. Lawn
nets nontishetory. We nine that the vain of malt
is food f'..r fettle and sheep is to mix with other feed.
and partieulaxls for lambs In the autumn, and it is as
nullilply that auyoue should ass it alma so tint he
should himself feed on butter, . and wenn.
RICHARD MILWAILD.

Thurgarton Priory, 801417;;11:i;eil 19, 1866.

In this there seems couched so mph shrewd
sense and Wand policy that we heartily cOntmend
it to die attention of Racial...is