1 1 strong in which to denounce which should be dear to a those reckless and selfish agi- commercial country, and this tators who do not scruple to insidious attack on the social appeal to them in England, fabric and our well-ordered and to light a flame which Constitution which should be means war to religion, war to doubly dear to us all? all? Mr culture, and war to capitalised Chamberlain, in his letter, wealth in all its forms, war to hopes the House of Lords the acres of the landlord, war will see their way to force a to the profits of the tradesman. general election, when he has For whatever they may say no doubt what the answer will themselves, that is the con- be. All members of the Unionstruction which the people will ist party are not equally sanplace upon their teaching. We guine, and it has been suggested do not anticipate a Jacquerie. that the Lords, by throwing We have too much confidence out the Land clauses only, in the character of our artisans might escape the odium of and peasantry to fear any such rejecting what is thought to result as that. But if the be a popular Budget. One struggle which the Radicals answer is, even were there no seem anxious to precipitate other objections, that the Lords ever really began in earnest, in so doing would lay themthe seeds of animosity and selves open to the charge of hatred sown all over the king- selfishness by rejecting only dom would produce a poisonous those clauses which were incrop, not to be rooted out, if jurious to their own order, and ever, for many generations, leaving the rest of the public and changing Great Britain to take care of itself. An ininto a cankered and unhappy fluential weekly paper contends country. We hope when the that no such charge could be appeal to the people is made, sustained, and no more it could. as it must be very shortly, But it would be made all the that they will be urged to same, and swallowed at once consider not only the iniquitous by the more ignorant part of character of the Budget itself, the constituencies. It does not but also the violent and tyran- seem to us that such a half nical means by which it has measure would have any effect been pushed forward, and the in disarming the hostility which criminal attempt to enlist it is the business of the Govpopular feeling in its favour ernment to inflame to the by setting class against class, uttermost. It is far better by preaching the doctrine that that the House of Lords should private property is a public simply decline to pass such a wrong, and that its owners are measure till an appeal to the robbers and usurpers. people has been made. Such action could not be called opposing the will of the people, when it simply asked them what it What steps then are to be taken to counteract this open attack on economic principles WE had sighted Cap St Jacques shortly after midday, and thereafter had come to anchor under the lee of the three rounded hills, which are the only landmarks of the sort visible anywhere in the flat landscape of Cochin - China. There we had anchored to await the tide, grilled by a vertical sun, and with nothing to look at save a smooth white floor of sea, and the big, square, ugly French buildings which disfigured the foreshore. Later we had begun to make our way cautiously up the zigzag VOL. CLXXXVI.—NO. MCXXIX, -The End. of the Saigon river, every turn of which seemed about to lead us back again to our startingpoint-the three isolated knolls at Cap St Jacques. There are eight-and-forty miles of this river to be traversed between the mouth and Saigon, though the distance as the crow flies cannot be as much as a dozen miles. No attempt has been made to abridge the journey by means of canals from point to point in places where the stream forms one of its innumerable figures of eight; hardly any attempt even has been 2 R |