Instead of defending the assailed power, they will occupy its capital in the interest of the rest of Europe, as whose self-constituted representatives they now pose to an admiring world. Anything more stupid and insular never dubbed itself a policy. It would be a public confession of the essentially selfish motives which prompt the English patronage of Turkey, and nothing would be more in keeping with it than an announcement that the occupation was also to secure the English holders of Turkish bonds.

Just because we regard the English nation as at heart thoroughly right on this question, as really desirous of dissolving the league with hell and the bond with death in which Sir Stratford de Redclyffe entangled them, and the present ministry would keep them entangled, just for this reason we forecast their defeat in any prolonged encounter they may have with Russia. The bravest people have in the long run no chance when they are not sustained by any faith in thegoodness of their own cause. It is for this reason that war is after all a just, as well as a stern, arbiter in distributing the destinies of nations. Victory runs in the great lines of justice and right, or else the history of the world, instead of exhibiting an orderly and steady progress to a higher and better order of the world, would present a mere weltering and disorderly chaos of events without meaning or purpose, as Schopenhauer and his school describe it.

Austria remains one of the uncertain elements of the European problem. The Magyar half of the empire desiren either the accession of new Slavonic provinces nor the creation of new Slavonic States, nor the aggrandizement of the great Slavonic empire on the East. And the peculiar, double-yolked organization of the Empire, in which Hungary has is many respects a co-ordinate power of decision, renders it impossible to say on which side the armies and the diplomatists of Vienna will bring their power to bear. The most likely result will be the neutralization of the nation's influence as a European power in regard to all the questions in which Austria is most directly interested. Such a result was foretold by far-seeing critics at the time when the present duplex arrangement was adopted. Whatever be the advantages of federalism, it is manifestly unsuited to the union of two countries, where each retains its right of independent decision, but can go no further than to produce a dead-lock in case of disagreement.

Germany is not thinking of war; she is studying the economists to ascertain why it is that with all the conditions which should have produced national prosperity-plenty of hard money, low duties on imports and the like—she is poor and despondent. And she seems rapidly to be reaching the conclusion that the reductions of her Zollverein tariff, both contemplated and actual, are mistaken steps which must be retraced as speedily as may be. Herr Rouleaux tells her that that is the lesson of our Centennial exhibition, and that free trade is very rapidly ruining the quality of her goods by involving her in the great race of competition towards "the winning post of cheap and nasty," as Carlyle calls it. Count Bismarck has given the Protectionist party to understand that he will offer no opposition to the repeal of recent legislation looking toward free trade, although for the sake of consistency his government will take no initiative in the matter.

This ministerial change of policy is chiefly due to the withdrawal of the influence formerly exercised by Delbruck, a skillful and plausible champion of the free trade policy; and as the junkers and landlords who control German legislation have not reaped the golden harvests they looked for, they will probably not resist a proposal to restore full protection to manufacturing industries.

THE silver distress seems likely to have the effect of producing a virtual breach of intercourse between England and her East Indian dependencies. In the latter, as throughout the greater part of the world, silver is the only circulating medium, and several attempts to introduce gold have utterly failed. During the last twenty years the Indian Government has followed the policy of erecting great public works-railroads, canals, irrigation schemes-which have been paid for by loans in the London money-market. This has absorbed a large part of that accumulation of capital which the English people seek every year to invest, but it has saddled the Indian Budget with a great outlay for the payment of interest. Formerly the balance of trade was very steadily in favor of China and India, so that both countries absorbed every year quantities of European and American silver in addition to the goods they purchased. Until the Indian Government's demand for gold in London and sale of bills on Calcutta began to exceed this amount, no inconvenience was felt, or rather the course of trade with the East was greatly

facilitated, since all debts with the East could be settled by bills of exchange instead of by the export of silver as formerly. But from the day that the Indian Government's offer of bills of exchange on Calcutta exceeded the mercantile demand for them, the price of such bills began to decline, and silver to rapidly depreciate. That depreciation however had been going on previously, for the policy of wholesale borrowing for Indian public works has been closing the chief avenue of outlet from the silver-producing to the silver-using populations of the world; with the effect, of course, of pulling down its market-price among the former, while its purchasing power among the latter, we are told, is not at all affected.

As regards trade with the East, the new state of things greatly favors those who import Indian or Chinese wares, but is a heavy tax upon merchants who export to those countries. It amounts to a high protection of the Bengalee manufacturer against his English competitor, and has therefore greatly stimulated the growth of Indian manufactures, especially cotton and jute, and more recently of iron. Hence the fierce outcry of Manchester and Dundee against the slight duties imposed by the Indian tariff upon their wares, which are all the more grievous because they raise twenty to twenty-five per cent. by imposing a bare five per cent. ad valorem.

To remedy this, some English financiers gravely propose that India establish a gold currency and get rid of her silver—a measure which would involve a wholesale confiscation of native property, without conferring any benefit upon them. The Council at Calcutta, however, have come to the conclusion that they have done mischief enough in burdening the peninsula with the cost of vast internal improvements, of which hardly one even approaches the payment of interest on its cost. They resolve very wisely to borrow hereafter in the Indian money market, if at all; to add nothing to their English debt and as far as possible to purchase in India itself all the supplies needed for the government. The wisdom of this last step will be seen when we state that the iron rails for the construction of the Indian railroads, were one and all conveyed from England, although India has millions of tons of iron lying on the very surface of her soil, and both she and China contain vast and valuable coal beds.

"Of all human weaknesses, prediction is surely the most gratuitous." That the election of Mr. Tilden, even if he received the

vote of Indiana and New York, was not certain, because the solid South" was not so solid as it seemed,-what seventh son of a seventh son could have foretold us this? Yet, as it now appears, the electoral votes of South Carolina-which elects a Democratic Governor -and probably of Florida and Louisiana will be cast for Mr. Hayes, giving him a majority of one in the whole electoral vote.

By the ordinary calculations of both parties, Mr. Tilden's election seemed certain on the night of the election, and it was not until twenty-four hours later that the news from the South turned the scale. During the suspense which ensued, and which lasted longer than on any similar occasion, the temper of the two parties was of course very different. The Republicans, passing from despair to hope, were in good humor with the turn of affairs, awaiting the result with the assurance that nothing worse could happen than what they already regarded as having happened. The Democrats, on the contrary, passing from sweet certainty to dubious expectation, were very naturally in an ill-humor, and used the language of denunciation and threatening much more freely than the circumstances called for. But hard words break no bones, and the conduct of all parties and of all sections of the country has been excellent. It has been evident from first to last that whoever receives the formal decision of the constituted authorities in his favor will be peaceably installed as President.

It may indeed seem unjust to cast the electoral vote of a State for one candidate, when the whole number of ballots deposited on election day showed a majority for the other. But where fraud and intimidation is proved in regard to any district, and the duty of rejecting its vote upon such proof is imposed by the law upon the supervisors, then its votes are as utterly null and void in law, as if those who cast them had remained at home. This seems likely to be the course adopted in Louisiana.

PERHAPS it would be a change for the better if the polls were kept open for a week, or on two days a week apart, instead of a single day. In that case it would be possible for the national government to receive an appeal from citizens who had been prevented by intimidation from voting, and to come to their assistance with military aid.

Throughout the present election the part played by the army and by its commander-in-chief, the President, has been most satisfactory

to all impartial observers. The outcry against the use of troops in several districts of the South has been seen to be altogether unfounded, besides being an insult to our officers and their men. There is not even a charge made that in any given case any citizen has been deterred from voting by the use of military force. And indeed the army is the one and only arm of the Government service which cannot be employed for partisan purposes, as it alone consists of men of both parties. For instance, at one time during the excitement growing out of the recent election, the troops in South Carolina were in command of an officer who served in the C. S. A. army, and whose political opinions have undergone about as little change as is consistent with his present loyalty to the United States.

Gen. Grant's order to despatch troops to Florida and Louisiana, on the news that the vote of those States was still in question, gave another occasion to alarmists, and was even described as unconstitutional. But the petty army of the United States is at the disposal of its Commander-in-chief at all times, and the Constitution imposes no restrictions upon his power to send it whithersoever he pleases inside the national territory. The restriction which the objectors had in mind was that which forbids him to increase its amount by calling out the militia, unless he is appealed to by the Governor of a State. And in Florida and Louisiana, as everywhere else, the army has simply been the best available substitute for what we shall have some day, a national police.

"HOIST with their own petard" would be the rightful verdict on the Republican party if Samuel J. Tilden were to occupy the Presidential chair. They carried Reconstruction of the Southern States on the basis of negro suffrage in the firm confidence that every Southern State in which the negro had the majority would become and remain the appanage of the party. And now they can count on the vote of just as many States in the South as the Democrats have in the North, and within ten years after Reconstruction a President is all but elected by Southern votes. They have failed in a selfish and unprincipled policy, because that, like all such policies, brought them into conflict with social laws which are as invariable in their operation as the law of gravitation. One such law is this, that the really strongest element in society does and always will govern it,