The Sun.
London, England, 1870-06-10 00:00:00

ME rROPOLITAN GOSSIP.

THITESDAT.

To-day we begin the third and final stage of the ses-
sion. According to present appearances, it will be long
and animated. The Government have made up their
minds to pass the Education Bill if possible. On the other
hand, about two score of Radicals wish to postpone
the measure until next year, in order that they may
have an opportunity of educating the country during the
long vacation, up to the secular ideal. This Mr. Forster
will do his utmost to prevent, and I need hardly say that
he will be supported in his resistance by Mr. Gladstone.
The Premier indeed has never been much in favour with
men of the Fawcett and Vernon-Harcourt school. They
have always dreaded his crypto-ecclesiasticism. But
that Mr. Forster who belongs to no religious
communion, who, I believe, has not even been
baptised, should manifest so decided a religious
tendency as is shewn in his bill, together with a
firmness in maintaing the religious element worthy of his
distinguished father-in-law, Dr. Arnold, has taken the
secularists by surprise. Dissenters are joining the secu-
larists in agitating against the bill, and are about to
hold a large meeting in St. James's Hall. Mean-
while, so far as meetings are concerned, supporters
of the measure out of doors are almost idle ; a
serious mistake on their parts, not to be compensated for
by the fact that they have, to the number of 350,000,
petitioned in favour of the present system, while only
30,000 have petitioned against it. It is expected that the
discussion upon Mr. Vernon Harcourt's amendments will
occupy four nights, and Mr. Glyn will whip vigorously for
the division that is expected to follow. The two other prin-
cipal measures before Parliament the advanced Liberals
will urge Government to pass during the present session.
The Elections Bill has not yet been read a second
time, and just before the recess Mr. Gladstone refused to
name a day for the reading. The University Tests Bill
has passed the Commons,4ind its enactment now rests
with the Lords. It is helieved that the Conservative
Peers will move that it be referred to a select committee,
and so throw it over to another year.
Mr. Lowe,who shares with Mr. Ayrton the pre-eminence
of unpopularity in the Lower HotAit, has just excited
great bitterness among a class of the community where
we should have expected more than usual sweetness ; the
sugar refiners. It is customary when a duty is reduced
to allow the holders of the goods on which the duty is
levied a drawback upon the stocks which they have in
hand at the time that the reduction is made. Mr. Lowe
has refused this concession to the holders of large stocks of
sugar, although they bought these stocks in the belief that
a reduction was at hand, and with the assurance that they
would be treated with consideration by the Government. Mr.
Lowe's unexpected, but characteristic cantankerousness
involves them in a fine of four pounds a ton, which to a
firm like Messrs. Alexander Hogg means a loss of nearly
three thousand pounds. Of course other purchasers, who
had no stocks and who have bought since the reduction of
duty was announced, are able to undersell Messrs. Hogg,
and these must therefore sacrifice the duty or fail to sell
their stocks. It is expected that Mr. Lowe will have
pressure put upon him by his colleagues, and will concede
the point.

Legislation with regard to betting is fully expected
during the present session, and great has been the conster-
nation among the professional betters. In fact their craft is
considered so seriously in danger that Mr. Sidney
Smith, perhaps the most influential and the most honest
of the tribe, has (acting presumably upon information
received from the Government) retired from business.
Mr. Smith did an immense commission business, having
for his customers the highest nobles in the land. It is
said that on the eve of the Derby his receipts were equal
to those of a large City merchant. His retirement is con-
sidered as the beginning of the end. The truth is th•
governing classes have been hit so hard during the last
few years that if they would not see their ancestral
estates pass away entirely out of their hands, they must
put an end to the system which is bringing some of the
noblest houses down to the ground. Hence it is under-
stood that while Government sees the impossibility of
putting down betting altogether, it will suppress the com-
mission agencies.

Mr. Childers and Mr. Baxter have already done good
service in exposing and stopping the system of bribes
given to officials in the Admiralty. It would be well,
however, if they were to inquire a little farther, and in a
direction which I think they have not taken hitherto.
For instance, let them ascertain how it is that one of the
most eminent engineering and shipbuilding firms in the
world has scarcely ever been able to obtain a Government
contract, although its works are situated in a part
of the kingdom where wages and materials are a great
deal lower than they are in the districts where
the Government orders have been executed. So well is
this understood in the trade, that there is one particular
firm peculiarly affected by the Admiralty, which some
time ago received the nick-name of " - shop," the
blank here standing for the name of an influential Ad-
miralty official, which it will be more discreet not to men-
tion. I am told by those who ought to know, that
when at length an order was given to the firm
first referred to, a proviso was inserted that
the firm was not to construct the portion of the vessel for
which it had attained its chief celebrity. In a word, the
firm was to build the ship, but was not to make the
engines. These engines were to be made by another house,
and they were of such an inferior description that they
were unable to work the ship, and the discredit of turn-
ing out an inefficient vessel was by the public, who
knew nothing of the circumstances, attached to the
builders. The coincidence was, perhaps, not wholly un-
designed. _ . .

It is high time that the attention of Parliament was
directed to the construction of our Indian railways. The
article in the Globe of Tuesday stated only the bare truth
when it said that the Indian Government purpose to spend
twenty years in constructing the line up the Indus
Valley, in order that the six millions which the
railway will cost may be spread over a lengthened
period. The absurdity of this arrangement will
be apparent when I mention that the line passes
through a desert, and will be almost entirely unproduc-
tive until it is connected with the Government system
of railways centring at Lahore. The pro-
posal to make the line to Peshawur on a
narrower guage than the rest of the Indian rail-
ways, for purposes of economy, is monstrous,
as it will be inflicting upon India, with our eyes open,
the evils which we have suffered in England through want
of sufficient information. And it must be remembered
that railways in India are military roads, and that should
the despatch of troops to the frontier be delayed at any
time by the necessity of changing carriages at Lahore, we
may sustain a most serious reverse that might threaten the
very existence of our Indian Empire. This is not the only in-
stance of most unwise economy. The bridges upon one of the
lines in India having been swept away twice by the flood-
ing of one of the tributaries of the Indus, the Indian
Government have been advised by the engineers for the
line in this country to lower the bridges, so that they
may offer no resistance to the flood, and
the water- may sweep- over them without doing