The Potteries Examiner : — 1875-07-03 (Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England)

SATURDAY, JULY 3RD, 1875.  FOREIGN AFFAIRS.  It is hard to know, and difficult to understand what Spanish affairs are corning to. Contradictory tidings reach us from that well-nigh disorganised and distracted country. Adel:mists and Carlists both claim victories and advantages over one another. The new King's army, said to Ss twenty-five thousand strong, is reported to be hemming in and surrounding the Carlist tomes. Every day, it is said, a great battle is imminent. It is going, going, as the auctioneers say, but never gone. It reminds no of a couplet repeated by our old grandfather, a retired naval officer, when he was like the mouse in Vino—well tell our readers that queer mouse tale some day— " The King of France, with twenty thousand men, Marched up the hill, and then marched down again." Spain requires plucky generals to bring her troubles to a speedy and a definite close.  When we turn our iuspective tube towards Prance, we see the Parliament busy preparing for the expected dissolution lathe forthcoming autumn. The legitimists, or the old monarchial school, that suffer everything and learn nothing; the Orleanists, or king and constitution party; and the Bonapartists are rather wishful to put it off a little further towards next spring, fearing lest the Republican party, who have behaved themselves so moderately and judiciously, will find favour with the country, and be returned by au overwhelming majority.  - The fearful floods at Toulouse and Lyons have swept away thousands of dweilings and hundreds of human beings. Everthing, we are glad to know, is being done to befriend the distressed and afflicted sufferers from this woeful calamity. " The Lord reigns, let the earth tremble." We are reminded of the poet Watt's noble words— _ _ .  "The God that rules on high, And thunders when He please— Who rides upon the stormy sky, And calms the raging seas.' Liberal aid is rendered by the Government, and large subscriptions are being made to help them in " eir hour of dark trial and bitter adversity. These occasions serve as opportunities for the active and benign virtues planted in mans moral nature to discover and display themselves. May this not be one of the reasons why calamities and misfortunes are permitted, so as to afford place anti scope for the exeicise of compassion and benevolence. Let our readers ponder this. We have been so daring sometimes as to aim at inventing a scheme for a better universe than this one seems to be, but we have, on examination, found our theories and plans to be but folly and absurdity, and believe that what apppears to us to be but partial evil, is man's universal good. We trust that from Great Britain will flow forth a broad anti deep stream of generosity, than cementing still closer the bonds of brotherhood between the Briton and the Frank.  The Emperors again hare been meeting, and the daily papers, with their specials, have again been following them with eye and ear, to catch the dimmest glimpse or faintest sound of the private remarks of the bejewelled humbugs and their big-Wigs.  We next take a wide sweep and gaze across the wet. tering waivea of the western deep, to the hand of the brave and the free. They have been gloriously continuing their centenary celebrations of American indepen. deuce. South and North have grasped each others hands in friendship and brotherhood. We will say, "flail Columbia!" May her past be but as the quivering dawn to the effalgeut and meridian glory of her future national greatness and prosperity. Britania may well be proud of her eldest daughter, as yet the tallest and the stoutest.  We have not yet finished with Durmah, but we will not leave her until we have compelled the wily old monster, her crafty King, to give us hostages for peace. The only way to teach those barbarous chiefs and tribes that they must not murder our peaceful and scientific explorers is to give them a little masculine Christianity. Justice claims our allegiance as well as mercy.