"Is there no love in this wide world?' The stricken woman cried. No, not a tear nor prayer to bless The infant as it died. "She turn'd her from the little grave, The page was spotless still. "Hers was a heart which years of grief Had trampled to the dust; But, like a phoenix from the flame, I saw the lamb would be among I knew the furnace must be hot To purify the gold. "Now stands she on the dizzy cliff:- Thou wilt not break the bruised reed, Shed o'er the path of grief aud care One beam of earthly bliss!" That fill'd the realms above. A rushing, as of mighty winds, Had they but met in earlier years, The fiat had gone forth: and who Shall question His behest? HIS will is sometimes hard to bear; POLITICAL REGISTER. Creoles. They cannot pretend that they have a better claim to the soil than the original Indians, if any nation exist still in that position, with their independence defended and maintained from the first day when the Europeans under Columbus, Cortez, and their successors, entered the American soil, until the present hour. THE past month produced some important move- || Spanish descent, mixed with a few Indians and ments in political affairs, which may extend their influence over a long period of time, and produce great results on the world. A difficulty exists in classifying events that affect different nations under a single head; and, therefore, we throw all that we have to say on foreign affairs into one narrative. The Eastern question, for example, directly affects Austria, Russia, and Turkey; immediately On the long narrow neck of land that separates after them, and in an equal degree, Britain and North from South America, an Indian nation has ever France; and next, all the nations that may come maintained its independence, under the protection in the way of the states named. The Roman of, and in alliance with, this country. They occuquestion is of the most direct importance to the py a long strip of coast, lying northwards from the people of Rome and France; next, to all the Ita-mouths of the San Juan River to the British terlians; and, after them, to all nations professing Christianity. The tobacco and bad letter writing business between France and the United States only affects these nations in the first instance, and is unlikely to go farther than the waste of post paper, postages, and diplomatic time. The dispute between this country and the United States, regarding the Nicaraguan Canal, directly affects all the world, and may become a very serious complication. Contrary to the usage of the press, we take it first, therefore, in our monthly history; because, unless our Ministry abandon their duty, or the United States be under reasonable keeping and honest restraint, this affair, now only in the germ, will produce most serious consequences. Nicaragua is one of the central mushroom republics of America, that rise one year to fall in the next, or some early subsequent season. The people of that State, under whatever name for the time being they may choose to be called, are of || ritory of Victoria. Their chief or king has always been in terms of intimate alliance with this country. The connection has resembled that formed with Tahiti, which ended so unfortunately for the monarch of that island; although with the ruler of the Mosquitoe coast our political relations. have been always more intimate, as they are of longer permanence than with Tahiti. We acknowledge many transgressions on the part of this country, in dealing with the aborigines of distant lands; and yet we claim for our nation the highest place in point of humanity and morality in our transactions with them. The Indian tribes on the Mosquitoe coast form an example. We have never assailed their independence, and never will; but that fact will not hinder us from preventing any attack on them by other powers. The river of San Louis flows from the Lake of Nicaragua into the South Atlantic. It enters the sea on the Mosquitoe territory, and the Mosquitoe State claim the privilege of being consulted in any arrange ment that may be made regarding their own waters || and territories. A scheme has been devised in New York, for the construction of a canal from the mouth of the San Louis to the Pacific, by the river and the lake Nicaragua. The waters of this lake approach the Pacific, and the projectors expect to overcome any difficulties that may arise in realising their scheme. Many parties consider the plan practicable, but who do not believe that it should be left to the United States to execute in their present monopolizing spirit. We cannot avoid an expression of the wish that one-half of the time, talent, life, and money expended by Great Britain, for near two hundred years, in attempts to discover an impracticable North-West passage, had been employed in cutting a magnificent canal through this connecting link between North and South America, which would have formed a practicable Western passage to China, which the North-West- || ern route never could be, because, if open from land, it must be closed by ice. The construction of a canal by this route may be the best existing means of opening a communication from the Atlantic, in the vicinity of Jamaica, with the Pacific. A railway has been proposed across the isthmus; but the cost would probably be greater than that of a canal, while the delay and expense of transferring cargoes would be saved by the formation of a ship canal instead of a railway. The work is more likely to be executed by parties in this country than by any individuals in the United States, if it offers inducements for the expenditure of money; but under any circumstances, the Mosquitoe State is not less entitled to compensation for its part of the requisite territory and water way, because it is Indian, than the demi-Spanish Government of Nicaragua. As usual in all such cases, the United States and their Nicaraguan ally deny the right of the Indians to any part of the land required by them. The right of the Indians to any land whatever is always denied by these parties when it suits their purposes to appropriate their neighbours' possessions. In this case they will be compelled to do homage to honesty, a very unusual event in their transactions. The commercial interests of this country are deeply concerned in the negotiation. The New York Herald says, that if the canal be made by Britain it will be a British monopoly, and if made by the States it will be an American monopoly. According to this authority, it must be a monopoly to some party, and would be made so in the possession of their friends. In British management, it could be a monopoly neither to us nor to them, but be open to all nations on equal terms; because in our colonial and foreign trade we have no monopolies. The interests of the world require security for the freedom of this proposed navigation to all nations upon equal terms: the generous remuneration of the people through whose possessions it may be cut, without preference, and especially without the triumph of a miserable claim by a small inland Spanish republic, or, as is oftener true, of these South American States-a Spanish anarchy to appropriate powers or property never acquired by arms, by treaty, or by purchase, merely for the convenience and gain of New York speculators; for the Nicaraguans are innocent of the means or the energy necessary to do the work. The present United States Government mean, we believe, to retain their own possessions, and to improve their value by expanding their produce in an honest and || upright manner, but they stand above an unsettled mass of adventurers, ready to attempt any project, however unjust, backed by the squatting genius of the people. This class was efficiently represented by the late Mr. Polk, so famous for his buccaneering plans and monopolising sentiments. His assurance that European nations should no more be allowed to interfere on American ground, or colonise American wastes, was repeated by the United States agents in Nicaragua a month or two since, with all the confidence of the originator, who talked in the White House at Washington as if his ancestors had dwelt in America since shortly after the flood, instead of his grandfather's father having farmed not over-successfully in Ulster, on the family's route westward from Pecbles. No American state, except the Indian chiefs and people, can possess the slightest right to priority in occupation of unappropriated land. The "democracy" of Britain still pay interest on no small portion of the debts incurred in settling the original American colonies; and the capitalists of this country receive no return for a great part of the money with which their public works were constructed; yet they talk as if by non-payment they had established, like the dog in the manger, a right to the hay which they canuot use. They resemble that wrangling cur in more than one respect. We hear daily, even to a sense of sickness, that they are an energetic, pushing, successful race; but their energy may have run wild, for they trample down, but do not use properly, the gifts of God. No other nation of European lineage possess equally large regions of the earth in the same advantageous circumstances, and draw out of them so little produce over what merely satisfies their own wants. The old state of New York appears, from the statistics of its agriculture, to be less successfully cultivated than Upper Canada, which has not yet been settled for a longer period than the lifetime of a single gene ation. Sixteen bushels of wheat are sometimes taken from an acre that should yield from thirty to forty, while the land is scourged, and so wasted, that in many quarters years occupied in the expenditure of skill and capital would be requisite to render it again fruitful; yet sloth and conceit are contented and constrained to go farther west, and squat for the destruction of another range of the earth. This people, placed in circumstances where they could not fail to achieve much, have done the smallest good that any similar portion of their race could have managed to accomplish, and their best cultivation is to be found in those districts where the rough German dialect is heard around the cottage hearths. They have assumed an air of comfort, and obtained plenty in the world, for the same reason that the Alleghanies are high, and the Mississippi deep-and because they could not help it. Being through their own press, and all other native agencies, the most de termined egotists on earth, they have been petted || home, when orders reached him to depart. M. Poussin very sensibly disappointed the Washington official, and deprived him of a speculation, by rePossessed maining at his post and in his house. of less fire in his nature than the last British ambassador at Madrid, he pocketed the passports and the insult together, and kept his drawing-room furniture. The negotiations on the subject are not yet concluded, but they will terminate in a manner more worthy of the subject than a war between the two republics. The Pope and M. Theirs have reached a common understanding regarding the fate of Rome, which has been adopted by the French National Assembly, the President, and his cabinet. The President has credit in the world for endeavouring to resist the policy pursued in this alliance. M. Thiers has unfortunately prevailed; and the French army, which went to Rome, avowedly from friendship to the Roman people, remains to subject them under the tyranny of foreign despots, and an alien. The Pope is neither a Roman nor a freeman, but a foreigner allied with the despotic powers, and their agent in crushing out the soul and marrow of Roman patriotism. The interference of the French for this purpose is not the worst sin committed by them in the case. Its defence in the National Assembly is still more objectionable. The President, in a letter addressed to Ney, and published some time since, expressed his determi nation to demand from the Pope, and to obtain, substantial securities for Roman freedom. The The incident, that the Atlantic opening to the best canal route across the Isthmus, belongs to a still independent Indian state, should please all nations; for thus, with advantage to commerce, a revenue may be secured for this people, sufficient to aid effectually in eliciting the resources of their country, and assist in placing them hereafter above the risk of aggressions from motives of either avarice or ambition, and resembling those by which|| Pontiff, in reply, published his motu proprio, which they are now threatened. The quarrel of the French representative at Washington, M. Poussin, with the United States Cabinet, is one of the most trashy kind. A Frenchman at Vera Cruz has some claim on the United States, founded on a tobacco transaction; and another Frenchman resists the claim of a United States ship of war for salvage incurred dur ing a storm in the Mexican Gulf. Quarrels of this nature are surely the proper subjects of mediation and arbitrement by commercial men. The Frenchman's claim to the tobacco can be adjudicated by two merchants from Havre and New York; and if the New England officer be entitled to salvage, the shipowners of Boston and Marseilles could award the sum. M. Poussin being an idle man, of diplomatic pretensions, commenced to write long letters on the subject, and one or two pas sages were deemed impertinent by the critics at Washington; who, instead of seeking satisfaction in their own persons, and exposing their own bodies as fair and full marks for M. Poussin's bullets, did what might have led to the shooting of many more valuable persons-they sent M. Poussin passports, or, in other words, invited him to be gone. These documents reached the Frenchman at an unlucky moment. Some Washington Sub-Secretary must have longed for M. Poussin's sale by auction, in the hope of picking up cheap French furnishings, on which no duty had been paid, for the unfortunate man was engaged in making himself comfortable at serves nothing. It contains, indeed, the assurance of an amnesty to all those persons who seem not to require forgiveness, and excepts all who stand in need of political pardon. It promises municipal institutions on the basis of a suffrage to be defined by the Pontiff; and a council to be chosen in the same, as yet, undefined manner, who are only to be consulted on financial affairs, and who are to be endowed with the power of giving an opinion, but no other authority! The French National Assembly, acting under the advice and influence of M. Thiers, have accepted the terms of this document, and promised to garri son Rome for the Pope until he has purged liberty out of the ancient city. One gentleman, M. Montalambert, gravely said that the Apostle Peter was the first Pope; but one can hardly avoid thinking on the curious feelings that Peter would have entertained if he had been asked to proscribe any party; and if he had been carried into Rome on the shields of a French army. Rome, pagan and political, murdered the Apostle-and Rome, political, has suffered since then the doom of the offence by dark deeds done in the Apostle's name, The French intervention is now justified in the Assembly, by the plea that the Romans must obey the Pope for the benefit of Christendom, and that France must defend the Popedom in all quarters, and employ its arms to extend the power of the Church. This alliance is the grand exhibition of evil originating in an unsound confederacy between Church and State. The Church uses the State and the State uses the Church; but in the end both powers will be cheated. The Roman transaction || affairs. The condition will be necessarily rejected; has done more to elevate Red Republicanism in so, if the abandonment of the claim rests on that France than any other recent cause. Heretofore basis, nothing has been yet done, and the affair it was the guilty passion of the rabble-now it hangs in uncertainty. Meanwhile, our Mediteris the dark revenge of outraged principle. In ranean fleet is placed at the disposal of Sir Stratmonths past it was confined to the operatives of ford Canning, and will be employed to defend towns, and now it has extended to a higher class. Constantinople from attacks by sea. The French In its former struggles it appealed to the barricades, fleet has been ordered to join, and would doubtnow it employs the ballot-box, and successfully em- less act with the British Admiral for the same ployed it in recent elections. M. Thiers, who once object. The most formidable attack on Turkey moved the expulsion of the Jesuits, will not con- would, however, be made not by sea, but by sent to occupy his present position long. He must land. The Austrians and Russians have no nauascend or descend. Allied with the Legitimists, he tical force in the Euxine and Mediterranean that seeks the restoration of the Orleaus family; and could cope with the combined British, French, if he seek not that change with caution, he may and Turkish fleets. They might not even be able accelerate a revolution more dreadful in its accom- to meet the last, and would have no chance of paniments than any that has occurred during the success before either of the two former. The present century. Russians have a large Baltic fleet, and they might be able to command the services of the Danish and Swedish fleets; but Baltic ships have to sail far, and encounter many dangers, before they can reach the Bosphorus. Turkey has, therefore, nothing to fear by sea, but is more vulnerable by land. The Christian population of European Turkey are probably Russian in heart. The Ottoman army is This The end of the Hungarian struggle has nearly been made the commencement of a greater contest. The Hungarians and Poles who escaped the German and Russian swords, by crossing the frontier into Turkey, were disarmed, and encamped beneath the celebrated border fortress of Widdin. The Turkish Pacha promised them protection, until || numerically unable to cope with the Russians alone, orders respecting their disposal might reach him from Constantinople; and the Sultan and the Divan agreed to extend towards these men that protection which is usually bestowed in foreign countries on political refugees. The Koran enjoins hospitality to the unfortunate; and obliterates all the antece. dents of Jew, Christian, or Heathen, who may enrol himself amongst "the faithful," so styled. The Hungarians were evidently desirous merely of the political shield, and had no wish for the religious assimilation. The former has been conceded; but Austria and Russia joined in de manding the surrender of the refugees. Russia sent a special ambassador with the Autocrat's message, and both powers professed to consider a refusal of their demand equivalent to a casus belli. The Divan were alarmed at the position of affairs, especially as Russian gold was basely employed in exciting rebellion amongst the Christian population of the Turkish Empire, and symptoms of hesitation were apparent amongst the Turks. The advice of the British and French ambassadors was sought in this dilemma of the Ottomans; and both diplomatists, but especially Sir Stratford Canning, urged the necessity of refusing this insolent demand. The Austrian Government required, evidently, little persuasion to induce a retreat on their part from their position. They would have willingly hazarded a war with Turkey, if they had not seen that success must only aggrandise Russia, already too strong for them. Even over this difficulty they might|| have climbed; but war with Turkey meant also war with Britain and France-the renewal of hostilities in Italy, in Hungary, and riots probably at Vienna. The risk is too great for Austria, weakened already in finance and in men; and we can easily suppose that the Czar was not warmly supported in Vienna. A rumour is current that he has abandoned the claim, on the condition that The Emperor Nicholas has lost, in the meanEngland shall interfere no farther in Eastern ||while, the pleasure of hanging General Bem; but VOL. XVI.-NO. CXCI. and especially with the Austrians and Russians 3 L Sir Joshua Walmsley and Mr. George Thompson have been on a crusade to Scotland in favour of these principles. The Finance Reform Society gained many converts until its leaders seemed satisfied with the small results offered by Sir Charles Wood, and people felt that very little economy was to come from merely throwing working men out of employment. The refusal of many members of that body to support Mr. Drummond's motion, for a reduction of the high The their tracts and speeches. The reform needed is in that class of salaries whose happy recipients have recently increased their incomes, while seeking their country's good, by 25 per cent. grossly wasted money paid in our naval dockyards and other public establishments might also afford parings for the Financial Reformers. Economy is a just demand-but let us not forget the fact, that an evil day cannot be staved off by anything likely to come from this source. It is a small relief when compared with the substantialities to be had from that chief and a number of his Polish associates ||tional Suffrage and Finance Associations have have abjured and denied the faith of Christianity,commenced. and adopted the Mahommedan creed, that they might be enabled to join the Turkish service, and be secured against any submissiveness that might be wrung from the Turks in their case. Neither Divan nor Sultan can surrender them now. Mecca would resist the insult. The faithful would defend the faithless to the last minaret of their mosques, although despising the men and their motives. The circumcised renegades buy physical life too dear by moral death. Nicholas has gib-class salaries, was a recantation practically of all beted them effectually before the world. Better for Bem and his coadjutors to have chosen the gallows for an hour than the pillory of history for all time. In this crisis at Widdin, the Christian world may rejoice that Kossuth lived to vindicate their faith in the eyes of its foes. This great man unhesitatingly preferred death to dishonour-the hope of his religion to the extension of his life; while his influence contributed to break the snare that was coiled around many of his followers. He chose the better part; and his choice resulted in his personal safety, that of his fol-currency reform-reform in the laws affecting lands, lowers, the preservation of their honour, and the vindication of their religion. The Christians have to thank M. Kossuth for more than any other European statesman has been called to do for Christianity in late years. Tempted with the alter-small earning. natives, death or infidelity, he said nobly, Death! and his Hungarian followers joined the responsea better response for Christianity than has been chaunted in all cathedrals for ages. The best Christian choir, for the credit of our faith, was assembled at Widdin. They taught the Turks and the world that Christianity was not in all minds, as in Bem's, a convenience, but a reality, that men grasped firmly, lived for and by, and could perish rather than abjure. The Eastern question is not yet to be considered settled. Time will pass on to the day when it must be arranged otherwise than by diplomacy, unless an intervening day divide the Russian Empire, and disconcert Russian projects. The idea of annexation with the United States spreads in Montreal, because the citizens smart under the withdrawal of the seat of legislature. The intelligence per last mail contains nothing more important. At home the Irish farmers have formed a resolution against the payment of rents. Practical communism flourishes there, although the influence of the Pope is greater than in any other European country; greater than in Rome, than in Italy, than in France that fights for him; or, possibly, even than in Spain, that would fight if it could gain permission. and similar measures-which we can expect from this source. By all means let it be obtained. Small gains are better than none; but a fourpenny bit may be a loss if a man toils a whole day for this The suffrage movement is a different matter, though used, we fear, in this case by many parties, like the boots in which labourers descend into sewers, merely to carry them through the mud. Suffrage theories are tedious, when all our arguments are merely hard hits and heavy blows at the yielding air, which waste our strength, and hurt nobody else. The men of Birmingham now, as before, take a practical means to an end. A forty shillings' freehold qualifies in England, and in these good times, few artizans can avoid doing anything towards its attainment, and at the same time persuade us that they are deeply concerned in the possession of a vote. If we had that same forty shilling freehold in Scotland, we should add one hundred thousand electors to the voters in three years, and the next Scotch representation would be better and wiser for the addition. The Scotch reformers should aim at this change, in the first instance. They should seek equality with England. Our county votes are now founded on nothing less than 200s. holdings. If they were brought down to 40s. the difference would be very marked, and the country would gain more morally, than politically, by the change. When they have reached 40s. why stop with land? Why not take funded or other property as a qualification? Why not encourage Life Asurances by founding votes on policies? After a very few annual premiums have been paid of them, the most fastidious conservative may be sa tisfied that the assured has an interest in th country. Are they afraid that poor rates shou diminish too rapidly? Do they dread the acq sition of property by the working classes? Is this In Britain the conjunct movements of the Na-reason for fear or trembling in the promulgation The extensive removals of crop and cattle are, of course, opposed to the precepts of the priests, and demonstrate the existence of a power above them-one that cannot excite our admiration. Frequently the labourers are not the persons who gain by this proceeding, but the farmers, who are not in destitute circumstances just yet. |