The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1872-07-02 00:00:00

Arset Count11 Expresg. •
TUESDAY, JULY 2, utra.

NOTES OF TfiE WEEK.

The public mind has been greatly relieved to
see at last an end of the indirect claims, and no
subjoct has over been more gl olly consigned to
oblivion than this will be here, and probably in
America also. In the usAtter of form the
Americans hive had their way, and we have
had ours in substance. They preferred the
claims, declined to withdraw, and actually
misnmuvred to get thew considered by the
tribunal; while we all thruugh repudiated those
claims, and have in the end the satiafacilon of
seeing them put aside by an independent
authority. Our American friends have not
taken mu by their motion, and perhaps their
anticipatioM with regard to the damages to be
awarded on the direct claims will prove to be
a little too sanguine. But that is • matter for
future oonsider.ition, and sufficient for the day
is the evil thereof.

Parliament haa now no great distraction to
Interfere with its regular work, of which,
politically, though not intrinsically, the most
important teak at the present moment is for the
two Houses to arrive at • compromise in reaped
to the Ballot Bill. The Government are doing
their best to make such a compromise possible,
especially by providing for • possible scrutiny.
On this point Ministers were well advised to
maintain the principle of the Lords' amendment,
for they were supported in the lower House by
• majority of 382 to In, or moro than two to
one. On several other points, however, they
could not control the House, which all through
has done pretty much as it liked with the Ballot
Bill, irrespective of party considerations. After
Friday afternoon's proceedings, agreement
between the two lioussaseems less feasible than
it was made by Mr. Gladetous's statement on
Thursday; but, remembering how the Lords
gave way on many of their proposed amend-
ments to the Irish Church Bill, we do not
despair of seeing a favourable issue in this case
also.

Mr. Brnos has endeavoured, with indifferent
gnomes, to make progress with the Coal Mines
Regulation Bill- We may be quite sure that •
good deal goes on in • coal mine of which the
owner is totally ignorant. Perhaps he ought to
know, but he does not. He is at the mercy of
his manager; but the Government notwith-
standing adopted the principle that the em-
ployer must be held responsible. It was in this
spirit that clause 14 of the Coal Mines Regula-
tion Bill had been constructed, but • strong
feeling against it was developed in committee,
and the work "knowingly" introduoed, thus
making the matter easy for the employer, who
dare be am skilfully ignorant of what goes on in
the mine as Mr. Sam Weller in the witness-box.
Some owners, doubtless, will be very well satis-
fied to leave regulations that clash with Acts of
Parliament to their servants ; and if engines are
"manned by women," and boys are reckoned
by their size instead of their age, in spite of the
Act of Parliament, he will know nothing about
it, and thus fear nothing.
Tile House of Commons has also considered
and rejected a Bill permitting Nonconformist
minimises to oecuicually preach in the buildings
of the Established Church, if sanctioned by to.
bishop and the incumbent. They have also
elbowed out the Burials Bill.
_ . .

In reply to a deputation, the Chancellor of
the Exchequer has promised to communicate
with the Inland Revenue on the best means of
placing working men's clubs, as far as freedom
from Excise interfereuce was concerned, on the
same footing as the West-end establishments.
The French authorities seem as persistent in
shooting their Communist rubbish on our shores
as the Americans were in maintaining their pre-
posterous indirect claims. As Earl Granville
stated in reply to the Marquis of Olaurioarde,
on Friday evening, the French continue the
practise of making England • penal settlement
for their criminals, in spite of all remonstrance;
and on a recent renewed complaint of our Foreign
Secretary. M. de Reinuset "expressed ex-
treme astonishment at the representation theta
batch of twelve more expulses had just being
landed hare," and said that "if the statement
should turn out to be correct, he should be left
entirely without defence." Either the French
Minister is unciandid (which we hive no right to
suppose), or he can have no effective control
over the subordinate authorities. But, who-
ever is to blame, the nuisance is the same to
us. Apropos of Communist exiles, the Earl of
Malmeabury made • curious statement, to the
effect that M. Bocquet, who had been one of
the explases of 1848, had bowels a professor at
the London University, had returned to Paris
on the fall of the Empire, and had subsequently
been condemned to five years imprisonment for
participation in the Communist insurrection,
was now, having 'soaped from prison, reinstated
in his office as professor at the London Univer-
sity. If we treat Communist convicts like this,
we cannot complain vary consistently of their
being sent here.
Mr. Disraeli's great speech at the Crystal
Palace has been one of the chief topics of talk
during the week. The most Wring contemn of
his address was his allusion to "the tilde which
is at hand, or at least cannot be bar distant,
when Englishmen will have to decide between
national and cosmopolitan principles." The hint
at Communism was not lost on his audience.
Of course the Liberal party wants to know in
what respect the Conservatives can claim to hold
national principles in distinction from the
Liberals.

The efforts of the Conservatives, which hay.
been successful in so many recent elections in
securing the return of their candidates, failed
to place • Conservative in Parliament in the
plans of the Duke of Bedford, rho, as Mr.
Hastings Russell, formerly represented the con-
stituency, and for many years has uniformly
supported the Liberal party. Since his
appearance in the Upper House, by tits
way, he has on two or three occasions, voted
against the Government, which has not parsed
unnoticed. Bedfordshire has returned a Liberal
to Parliament by a small majority, and, SI the
Conservative preen maintains, by local misman-
agement and inattention. Aberdeen has re-
turned • Liberal to fill the place of the late
Colonel Sykes by slags majority.
There is no new phase to remark in the strike
and lock-out in the London building trade, but
we may mention that the determination and
confidence of the men seems to be increased,
wail° the masters ens not showing that bold and
united front which might have been expected.
Among working men, so far as can be learnt,
there as a stronger belief in the present success
of the journeymen builders than in the justice of
their demands. But while masters and journey-
men are waging the contest with as yet adequate
resources, those unfortunate neutral., the
labourers of the trade, are being ground between
the upper and the nether mill-stones. The strike
was not of their seeking, and they will get no
benefit from its sums. (except they share in the
reduction of time) ; but they are shut out from
their work, without any society funds to fall
back upon, and neither of the belligerent parties
will waist them. Taey had a meeting the other
evening Is Trafalgar Square, with the object of
, putting their case before the public, and they
certainly showed it to be one worthy of the con-
sideration of the benevolent. It is curious,
however, to find them proposing to establish a
union as • remedy for their present distress,
when they are utterly unable to subscribe for
tile support of such an institution. But unions
are the order of the day, now that it is seen what
they effect for the skilled trades. even the
dockyard labourers, who constitute the forlorn
hope of labour, and whose ranks are every day
recruited by social ruin and destitution have
had • meeting with • view to establishing •
union. The Black Country colliers have carried
their point for !sight working hours • day, and
the proprietors immediately indemnify them-
selves *gaunt loss by adding *• ton to the price
of coal. The new tariff comes into operation on
the let of July. The Amalgamated Union of
Bakers has instituted an agitation for twelve
hours • day with overtime and ultimate aboli-
tion of night work. lb, garden labourers at
Fulham and its vicinity have struck for an
advance of two shillings • week, and &cm of
strawberries are said to be rotting because they
cannot arrange about it with their employers
strike amongst the washerwoman has been
carried out in Kauai New Town, and one of the
demands which these persons make is that there
shall be "no man Labour." The only strike
that does not flourish is the counter-strike of
the Northumberland women against the increased
prices of beef and mutton and
The weather has not been as exhilarating as is
promised to be • few days ago: June hie
relaFeed into April, and we are amply as Ire
were before those three hot days and a thunder-
storm upon which we congratulated ourselves
as she inauguration of enonner. The sea has
been in seehisnesti win for iii. greeter Pan of
the week, eut the sten whisk Wm Wain ed