themselves and on the tribes recognising it, and with the most beneficial results. But in 1870 it was decided to introduce the Punjab system in dealing with the too-powerful Belooch tribes of the Bugtees and Murrees, whose country, although within the borders of Beloochistan, lay partly on the Scinde and partly on the Punjab frontier. These tribes had become disorderly, and could easily have been reduced to submission by the Khan, had we supported him; but the Government of India insisted on dealing with them, on the Punjab system, as practically independent, and the result was not only to throw the Belooch frontier into ferment, but to embroil our own officials with each other and bring our whole frontier policy to a complete deadlock. The Bolan Pass was stopped, and in a very short time Beloochistan would have reverted to its pristine condition of utter barbarism and disorder. Fortunately, however, the Indian Government soon saw its mistake, and the Khan the evil of the advice on which he was secretly acting, and gradually during the past three or four years we have succeeded in re-establishing friendly relations with Beloochistan.

With Shere Ali our relations have unfortunately assumed a most ambiguous and even semi-hostile character; though it is, in fact, our interest that he should be absolutely independent. What we want are the best possible neighbourly relations with him, and a friendly treaty, such as Sir Herbert Edwardes negotiated with the Ameer in 1855. Special arrangements should be made for keeping the Kyber Pass permanently open to the commerce with Central Asia. It has, too, been suggested that if at the same time the Maharaja of Cashmere were allowed to occupy the Baroghil Pass the Chitral Valley would also be opened up to commerce, which would then have a second route besides the great Bamian Pass into Central Asia. These are practical details for the consideration of the responsible officials on the spot. But the security, however brought about, of the North-West frontier has now become a matter of concern to all Englishmen who have to face the problem of its pacification, for the year was not to close without some menace to its security; the political circles of India were disturbed by reports of agitation.

The English representative at Quetta is protected by an armed British force, and, whether the arrangement is wise or not, it is in strict accordance with our treaty rights. The Ameer of Afghanistan is said to believe, or at least to declare, that such a force is a menace to Candahar, which one school of Anglo-Indians, he must know, hold to be more important for the safety of our Eastern Empire than Herat itself. From these facts there is but a step to the report that Shere Ali, the ruler of Afghanistan, urges his neighbour of Khelat to demand the withdrawal of the small garrison, and proposes that, in case of refusal, they should jointly measure their forces against those of the Indian Empire. Thus the problem for solution is not an easy one. The armed and

fortified occupation of Quetta, no doubt, created a feeling of suspicion along the frontier, and it is as necessary to free the frontier tribes from their belief that English policy in that quarter is aggressive as it is to preserve order. But the urgent necessity to adopt some strong measures was made evident by the fact that within the brief space of one week a small frontier tribe-the Jowakis-had the audacity to make four inroads into British territory. On October 21 they attacked the village of Ghovizai, close to the main road, and killed and wounded several inhabitants. The following day they made an attack on the village of Togh, not far from Kohat. Next night they attacked the village of Kunmer, when they killed and wounded several of the inhabitants and police, and successfully carried off numerous cattle; and again on the 25th they had the hardihood to attack a Havildar's party of the 22nd Regiment, which was mounting guard over the Commissariat stores at Shahcote, only a few miles from Kerat; five of our soldiers were killed and six wounded. These repeated outrages roused the Government to action. On the morning of November 9 a field force, consisting of 2,100 infantry, with six guns, and a small number of cavalry, under the command of General Keyes, entered the Jowaki territory in three columns from Shadipore, Gambat, and Kohat. On the 11th Paiya was occupied after a faint opposition. The Jowakis were taken by surprise, as they had anticipated an attack on their principal village, Jammoo. They lost six killed and four wounded, and three were taken prisoners. Three of our men were wounded. Further fighting occurred on the 14th, when the enemy, who had cautiously crept round the hill in front of the Shadipur column camp, attacked in superior numbers a company of the 5th Punjab Native Infantry while it was protecting the camp-followers collecting fodder. The 5th displayed great gallantry, and the enemy was completely routed. A later expedition met with similar success.

CHAPTER V.

Canada and Lord Dufferin-Australia-Queensland-New Zealand-New South Wales Convention with Egypt-Treaty with Dahomey-Trade- Review of the Year-Church and State-Political History of the autumn-Mr. Gladstone in Ireland-Lord Hartington in Scotland Liberalism of the Scotch Universities Mr. Bright and Mr. Chamberlain Speeches of Ministers-The Queen's visit to Lord Beaconsfield-Summoning of Parliament-Opinions of the Press. THE interesting events of the year in Canada were connected with the farewell speeches and progresses of Lord Dufferin, who, during his period of office as governor, had won golden opinions from all sorts of men, had done much by personal influence and example to

consolidate the relations between the Dominion and the Mother Country, and promised to win for himself a name as a statesman on his return, and to introduce a new element into the oratory of the House of Lords. His great qualities as a speaker were more conspicuous than ever during the year; tact and humour, courtesy and kindness, and eloquence of a high type where eloquence was required, spoke clearly of the good Sheridan blood from which Lord Dufferin springs. His visit to the far west of Canada was especially interesting, and the home-staying world read with a new interest and surprise his glowing accounts of the great tracts of lake and plain and river which there stretch conterminous with the vaster domain of the United States. In one of his speeches he quaintly commented on the relations between the greater and lesser neighbour in a simile of the stalwart lover and the coy maiden, willing and unwilling to be wooed. At the same time, too, he brought to English notice, for the first time almost, the existence of two strange colonies in the heart of the Dominion, the Mennonites, a race of Russian emigrants, and the settlers from Iceland, who had nestled into that distant land, and were learning by degrees the arts and secrets of a civilisation other than their own. The Mennonite reserves are two in number-Rat River reserve, consisting of eight townships east of Red River, and Dufferin reserve, consisting of seventeen townships west of Red River. The first of these Mennonites arrived in 1874, and now they number 6,340. They make excellent settlers, and are distinguished for their good conduct and cleanliness. The Icelandic colony is in the territory of Keewatin, on the west shore of Lake Winnipeg. Their chief village is called Gimli (Paradise), where some 268 Icelanders settled in 1875. In 1876, 1,156 more came into the territory.

At a farewell banquet given in his honour by the citizens of Winnipeg, in Manitoba, Lord Dufferin reviewed the history of the Dominion, and specially traced the progress of the State of Manitoba, which, he said, might be regarded as the keystone of that mighty arch of sister provinces which spans the continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

"It was here," he said, "that Canada, emerging from her woods and forests, first gazed upon her rolling prairies and unexplored North-West, and learnt as by an unexpected revelation that her historical territories of the Canadas, the eastern sea-boards of New Brunswick, Labrador, and Nova Scotia, the Laurentian lakes and valleys, corn-lands and pastures, though themselves more extensive than half a dozen European kingdoms, were but the vestibules and antechambers to that till then undreamt-of Dominion, whose illimitable dimensions alike confound the arithmetic of the surveyor and the verification of the explorer. It was here that, counting her past achievements as but the preface and prelude to her future exertions and expanding destinies, she took a fresh departure, received the afflatus of a more Imperial inspiration, and felt herself no longer a mere settler along the bank of a single river, but the

owner of half a continent, and in the amplitude of her possession, in the wealth of her resources, in the sinews of her material might, the peer of any power on the earth. Alluding to the Marquis of Salisbury's well-remembered suggestion of the geographical misconceptions that are often engendered in men's minds by the smallness of the maps they have consulted, he said that to this cause probably might be attributed the inadequate idea entertained by the best-educated persons of the extent of Her Majesty's NorthAmerican possessions, or the capabilities they possess of affording happy and prosperous homes to millions of the human race. But, in contemplating the vistas thus opened to our imagination, we must not forget that there ensues a corresponding expansion of our obligations. For instance, unless great care is taken, we shall find, as we move westwards, that the exigences of civilisation may clash injuriously with the prejudices and traditional habits of our Indian fellow-subjects. As long as Canada was in the woods the Indian problem was comparatively easy-the progress of settlement was slow enough to give ample time and opportunity for arriving at an amicable and mutually convenient arrangement with each tribe with whom we successively came into contact; but once out upon the plains, colonisation will advance with far more rapid and ungovernable strides, and it cannot fail eventually to interfere with the by no means inexhaustible supply of buffalo, upon which so many of the Indian tribes are now dependent. Against this contingency it will be our most urgent and imperative duty to take timely precautions by enabling the red man, not by undue pressure, or hasty or ill-considered interference, but by precept, example, and suasion, by gifts of cattle and other encouragements, to exchange the precarious life of a hunter for that of a pastoral, and eventually that of an agricultural people. Happily, in no part of Her Majesty's dominions are the relations existing between the white settler and the original natives and masters of the land so well understood or so generously and humanely interpreted as in Canada, and as a consequence, instead of being a cause of anxiety and disturbance, the Indian tribes of the Dominion are regarded as a valuable adjunct to our strength and industry. In conclusion, Lord Dufferin said: In a world apart, secluded from extraneous influences, nestling at the feet of her majestic mother, Canada dreams her dream, and forebodes her destiny-a dream of ever-broadening harvests, multiplying towns and villages, and expanding pastures; of constitutional self-government, and a confederated empire; of page after page of honourable history, added to her contribution to the annals of the mother country, and to the glories of the British race; of a perpetuation for all time upon this continent of that temperate and well-balanced system of government which combines in one mighty whole as the eternal possession of all Englishmen, the brilliant history and traditions of the past, with the freest and most untrammelled liberty of action in the future."

The award of the Halifax Fisheries Commission, the most important event of the year in Canadian annals, has been treated of in our American history. The Commissioners, with some dissent on the part of one of them, awarded to Canada five-and-a-half million dollars in satisfaction of the balance due to the Dominion under the mutual concessions settled by the Treaty of Washington for twelve years therefrom. It was agreed by that Treaty that terms of mutual compensation should be fixed by a subsequent Commission, liberty being meanwhile granted to the citizens of the United States to fish in Canadian waters, and liberty to the Canadian fishermen to fish off the coasts of the United States down to a certain degree of latitude. The Commissioners for adjusting the terms of compensation, as we have said, came to a decision in which M. Delefosse (the President) and Sir Alexander Galt concurred; Mr. Kellogg, the third Commissioner, representing the United States, dissenting from their award on the ground that the privilege of fishing on the coasts of the United States has not been adequately valued. "There seems," said a writer on the subject, "to be no great probability that his representation of the case will guide the ultimate decision of the Cabinet at Washington. The award will most likely be paid, and the Authorities of the Dominion will accept it. But the decision of the Commission does not clear all grounds of dispute for the future. It applies to only a temporary period. It omits questions (at least, we have no authentic information as to whether or not they have been finally dealt with) relating to those Canadian waters back of headlands, the entire coasts of which are in the possession of Canada. The award, therefore, necessarily falls short of the demands of the case, and leaves open issues which may lead to future dispute. The Colonial Office, we trust, will seek and obtain the concurrence of the Government at Washington in some arrangement which will be final. It is not to be concealed that concessions will have to be made by both parties, but the probability is that the fruit of such concessions will be of far greater value to those who make them than any probable amount of gain to be derived from the privileges conceded."

A general election in Australia absorbed all minor issues in the old battle between Free Trade and Protection, and returned a House, a third of which consisted of new men, pledged to support the policy of Mr. Graham Berry, the Protectionist Minister, as against his chief opponent, Sir James McCulloch. Mr. Berry's policy, as disclosed during his brief tenure of office, was a simple one; it consisted of two parts-Protective duties to satisfy the working men, and taxes upon landed properties to crush the squatter interest and to break up the great estates. "For the last two-and-twenty years," wrote a Melbourne correspondent to the Spectator, "that is to say, ever since the discovery of gold brought out a democratic population-we have had a land question lying at the root of all our public contests. Before that time the