The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1879-01-18
The Distress i'm England-Gloom II
Europe and Gloomy Opening o
the New Year.


letter printed elsewhere is gloomy enough.
All the radiant triumphs of Lord Beacons-
feid ia Berlin and Afghanistan are buried
Under ne fog of season of commercial
distress such as has not been known
Tor q &, neration. Nature conspires to
darAen he prospect, for we are told
that Chl stmas found England wrapped
in he bleak and sombre embrace OF an
Arctic winter. The sections where the dis
tress falls most severely are the sections
most interesting to America, because they
are the manufacturing districts, where
dwell the workers in iron and cotton and
clay, to whose labors England is indebted
for so much of her wealth and Europe for
so many of the comforts Of her civilization.
We wish we could send our cousins across
the sea effective sympathy. There is no
American whose heart will not be stirred
by these scenes of sorrow in many an
English home. When distress falls upon
other lands there is no heart more readily
touched than the heart of an Englishman.
We trust that the new year will bring COM
fort and peace to the millions who know not
comfort and peace, and that the cloud now
resting upon England will soon rise upon
sunny scene of renewed prosperity.
Nor is the gloomy outlook confined to Eng
land. Germany is in trouble. The Empire
which was to have been the example of free
dom to all the world is under tyranny as
severe as that of Louis Napoleon. We have
to go back to the Third Empire, or Sicily
<0E ,>I
those enforced in Germany against the So
cialists Papers are stopped, books are sup
pressed, clubs are dissolved, needless talk
ers are imprisoned, suspicious persons are
banished and the Empire is environed witha
barrier Of distrust and military ascendancy.
And all because two madmen tried to shoot
the Emperor. In America, when Kearney
began his crusade, he was allowed to wander
as he willed from the sand lots of California
to the chambers of the White House, to say
what he pleased and abuse any one he dis
liked. No one interfered. The reporters
were put on his path, his blasphemies were
gibbeted in cold type, and Kearney skunk
back to his kennel amid the scorn of the
very people he claimed to lead. But Ger
many for her Kearney madmen has only
the bayonet and the letters. And so
we see an Empire which did not
hesitate to grapple with Austria, throttle
France and defy Europe, in a state
of trembling hysteria over the writings
and sayings of students and fanatics
More than oil, Germany cannot find money
for her armies Her French indemnity is
spent Every form of taxation has been
exhausted. She must have more and more
money, and her Chancellor, the first states
man of modern times, proposes scheme
of protection as severe as in China. At q
and growing prosperity, proposes to throw
off the severer forms of protection and trust
for commercial success to her own enter
prise and skill, Germany goes back to the
medieval times aud proposes to surround
her commerce with Chinese wall.
This is all very sad, and in other nations
the prospect is no less dismal. It is whis-
pered in England that Bcaconsfeld will
fall back upon the Corn laws, for which he
fought SO bravely against Bright and Cob
den, and recommend retaliatory measures
of protection against his own colonies and
the United States. In Austria the antag-
onistic elements which compose that pecu-
liar Empire threaten to fly apart and seek
more congenial centres of attraction. Ital-
ian Austria Graves Italy, German Austria
longs for the Empire, Slavic Austria awaits
the Car. Italy, poor and opp ressed with
taxation, vast army and an ex-
pensive navy, confronts bankruptcy,
and her king-one Of the best of
the kings lives under the assassin's
knife. Stories of brigandage come from the
southern provinces, and as political phe-
nomenon brigandage is only another name
for poverty and anarchy. Russia wants
funds and goes around from capital to cap
ital for money to keep the wolf from the
door. Spain is on the verge of another rev.
olution, md the young King is said to be
as tired of his throne as was Amadeus be-
fore his abdication. The ancient loyalty Of
the Spanish character has vanished, and in
its place we have an uneasy, grumbling
political feeling which may break out at any
moment into the volcanic flame of republi-
canism.
Alone among the nations France stands
beautiful and serene. There are no clouds
upon her house. Her volcano burst ninety
years ago. The lava, the rocks, the ruins,
have all been covered by the gentle infu-
ence of time, and the fields once black with
revolution are green and comely with peace.
France has had her day of SORROW many
dovs If transgression and sorrow She has
learned patience and wisdom. Her influ-
ence grows more and more every day. The
Republic which was once SO despised, and
against which kings banded, is now
the most powerful influence in Europe,
and kings come to her feet and