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the Ministers were supported now broke up. The Government was defeated by nineteen (44-25), and on such occasions the division list is generally an inadequate measure of the disaster.

The large number of seats vacant in proportion to the total number of the House formed the ruling feature of the situation and must be regarded as the key, throughout, to the conduct of the Ministers. Such conjunctures are so likely to occur under the new election law in the case of a small Assembly that it would seem desirable to agree to deal with them by some settled mode.

The debate, though not unrelieved by vigorous and effective speeches, was on the whole somewhat rambling and inconclusive; members travelling over the whole case for or against the Government, as though they had been on the hustings, with little regard to the specific question before them or to the successive phases of the situation. This was in favour of the Opposition, whose policy it was, under cover of a censure upon the Railway Act, to make a general attack on the Government, and against the interest of the Ministers, whose aim it should have been to to pin the Opposition to the only issue which it had ventured to raise, and on which the Ministers had it in their power to make a conclusive reply. A victory in debate is far from ensuring a victory on the division; but a victory in debate is worth having, and it appeared to be eminently so on this occasion.

The debate at times grew somewhat personal, but on the whole, during the main discussion, good humour and courtesy were well preserved, considering that the occasion was most exciting and that few of the members had undergone such a Parliamentary seasoning as has been undergone by a large proportion of the members of the British House of Commons, which, nevertheless, on similar occasions is not free from heated language and clamorous demonstrations. In the sequel, however, a scene of

lamentable violence occurred. There can be no hesitation in saying that the Speaker erred in attempting to make a personal explanation from the Chair. But, on the other hand, the right course was not to stop his mouth, but to wait till he had disclosed the nature of his intended communication and then to call his attention to the rule. The error was merely one of form, involving no practical injustice, while the occasion was one of a kind which appeals to the sympathies of all right-minded men. The charge against the Speaker's character, which he desired to repel, being anonymous, might well have been left unnoticed. It ought to be universally understood that an anonymous accusation can affect no man's honour, and that if he notices it at all it is only because he regards the repression of calumny as a duty owed to the public. But at the same time this age, in which we all contend so anxiously for position and notoriety, is becoming a little indifferent to questions of honour.

Scenes of violence are especially to be deplored in the case of a young legislature. The immemorial majesty of the British Parliament is comparatively little affected by occasional escapades, the discredit of which falls more on the members who are guilty of them, than on the institution. But the Parliament of Ontario has not yet had time to take root in the reverence of the people, nor will it ever take root, if it fails to cultivate the self-control which alone can entitle it to popular respect.

On this occasion, and indeed throughout the crisis, the want was sensibly felt of oneor two independent members, invested by their character and experience with authority to mediate between parties in the extremity of conflict and to enforce a paramount regard for the public service. But when the tenure of public life is so short, such members can hardly find a place.

In addition to the generally electric state of the Parliamentary atmosphere after such

a struggle, special exasperation had been created against the Speaker by the unexpected announcement that he had taken office in the new Government. This arrangement is said to have been partly dictated by the necessity of giving a representation in the Ministry to the district from which the Speaker belonged. A calamitous necessity! If local considerations are allowed to prevail in the election of members and the composition of Cabinets, farewell to our hopes of Canadian statemanship! What would become of the statesmanship of England if such local limitations were permit ted to prevail; if Mr. Gladstone were to be excluded from Parliament because he happens to reside in a Conservative district, and if in choosing his Cabinet he were compelled to have regard not to administrative capacity but to geographical divisions ? In a dark age of the English Constitution an Act was passed confining the choice of the electors to persons resident within the county or borough; but the good sense of the nation ignored the Act; it became a dead letter, and at last was formally repealed. If all the members of the British Cabinet were taken from a single district, nobody would be so foolish as to object, provided the appointments were unobjectionable on other grounds. In the United States, on the other hand, local considerations are allowed to prevail; in the election of members of the legislature the people cling to them with the most slavish tenacity; they greatly fetter the President in the selection of his Cabinet; and this is one of the main causes of the dearth in that country of public men known and trusted generally as statesmen. It is a peculiarity of the Ontario Parlia

ment very interesting to political observers, that it has only one chamber. Nothing happened in the course of this crisis tending to show that a second chamber was necessary or desirable. On the contrary, had there been two chambers, one popular and representing the present state of public opinion, the other less popular, and representing rather a past state of public opinion, with a majority for the Ministry in one and for the Opposition in the other, serious complications might have ensued. We might have had a dead lock like that which was produced in one of the Australian Colonies by a collision between two chambers. As it is, after a sharp and decisive struggle, a new Government has emerged, possessing apparently full control over the House, and legislation will quietly resume its course. The conflicts of parties are sure to be violent enough without adding to them the rivalries of chambers.

In the course of the debate many charges of corruption and of the use of improper influence were thrown out against the Ministers; but the only one brought to a definite issue was a charge implicating two leading members of the commercial world in an alleged conspiracy to force a member of the Opposition to resign his seat by bringing to bear on him commercial pressure. In this case the two gentlemen accused sent in a full and detailed correction of the statement, which was frankly accepted. On the subject of corruption, however, and the cognate subject of faction, we may find occasion hereafter to speak in a more general way, and with less risk of appearing to point our remarks against any particular Government. or party.

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Through travail sore, through sweat and strife and anguish,
We look from year to year for better days,
And, though with feverish pain we often languish,
Hope still our toil repays.

God sees the future; we see but the hour
That passes; we see but the lowly seed;
He sees the tree, the rich fruit and the flower
Ripe for His children's need.

So, as at first, beneath His forming fingers
Man rose in beauty from the flowery field,
Still His designs, though some may cry, "He lingers,"
Are, in their time, revealed.

He touches lips on which the smile of kindness
Long hovered, waking many a gentle deed-
They utter "War," and nations in their blindness
Rush forth to slay and bleed !

But lo! the fury past, they love each other
(Knowing each other) better than before,
And weep, as one, over each brave lost brother,
And meet as foes no more.

This now fair earth did once to wondering angel

Seem but a seething chaos, dark and wild; So oft war's tumult dire is the evangel

Of peace serene and mild.

So from the stern defiance and brave meeting
Of stranger hosts by that far Euxine sea,

Came thy late presence here, and that warm greeting,
With which we welcomed thee.

For then we learned to prize in one another,

The manly virtues of a generous raceJust now we grasped thy hand as of a brother, And joyed to see thy face.

Thou wast to us a type of that great nation
Thy father rules-of what it is to be
In the fair future of our expectation,

Happy, and good, and free.

Thou wast thyself. Upon thy first appearing,
We saw a form, a face, that won our heart;
We heard thy simple, friendly words and, hearing,
Sorrowed that we must part.

Now thou art gone, following the path of duty-
God keep thee in it, wheresoe'er it lead !
And may'st thou ever prize the moral beauty
That makes the man indeed!

Long will we here in Canada remember
Thy manly grace lost to us far too soon;
Long will the poor recall that bleak December,
And the good Prince's boon.

And thou, O sailor-prince, when in mid-ocean
Thou lookest to the faithful northern star,
Memory may bear thee, not without emotion,
To Canada afar.

MONTREAL.

TRANSLATIONS AND SELECTIONS

THREE SUMMER STORIES.

(Translated for THE CANADIAN MONTHLY from the German of Theodor Storm.)

BY TINE HUTCHISON.

[IN publishing this story, which will be followed by others of the same kind, we throw down the gauntlet to the sensation school of novelists, of which these stories are the very opposites. Rush through “In the sunshine" as you would through a sensation novel, in haste to arrive at the murder scene, and you will be utterly disappointed: read it with attention and forms of beauty will appear. It appeals, like other stories of the same class, not to the nerves, but to the taste and feelings. The reader will be the better, not the worse, for its perusal.]

THE

I. IN THE SUNSHINE.

HE starlings were holding festival among the top branches of the great oak tree, which stood on the gardenside of a large old-fashioned house; all else was still, for it was a summer afternoon between one and two. The garden-gate opened, and a young man entered, dressed in the white gala uniform of a cavalry officer, the three-cornered plumed hat stuck on one side of his head. He cast inquisitive glances down the various paths of the garden, then stood balancing his cane between his fingers, his eyes fixed on an open window in the upper story of the house, whence, at intervals, the clattering of cups and saucers and the voices of two old gentlemen in conversation, were distinctly audible. A smile of joyful anticipation played | upon his lips as he turned and slowly descended a short flight of steps. The shells, with which the broad gravelled path was strewn, grated beneath his long spurs, but soon he stepped more cautiously along, as if seeking to escape observation. Nevertheless, he did not seemed at all disconcerted by the sudden appearance of a young man in plain burgher's dress and powdered hair, who emerged from a shady by-path and came towards him. A friendly, almost tender, expression spread over both faces as they met and silently shook hands.

"The burgomaster is upstairs, and the two old gentlemen are busy at their back-gammon," said the new comer, as he pulled out a massive gold watch. "You have two full hours, so you can go and help with the accounts." With these words he pointed in the direction of a little wooden summer-house at the end of the path, supported on stakes and projecting over the river, which bounded the garden on that side.

"Thank you, Fritz; but will you not join us?" The young burgher shook his head. "This is our post-day," he said, as he turned and went towards the house.

The young officer had taken off his hat, and the sunlight played freely on his high forehead and black unpowdered hair, as he pursued his way and soon he reached the shade of the pavilion, which lay facing the sun. One half of the door was open; he softly crossed the threshold, but, the blinds being all closed, it was some time before his eyes, still dazzled by the bright sunshine, discerned in the dim light the figure of a young girl seated at a little marble table, and busily engaged adding up columns of figures in a folio before her. The young officer stood as if spell-bound as he gazed on the little powdered head, which, fluttering over the pages, moved from side to side as if in harmony with the stroke of her quill. After a short pause he drew his sword out of its scabbard a hand-breadth and let it fall again

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