Show AFFAIRS ABROAD I now looks as i the turmoil in South America might come to a close i no fresh complications set in Tho prosecution oL an archbishop in Franco augurs ill forthe tranquility of the republic The incidentitself may not justify jus-tify any such fear but the history of that country has been that whenever a popular disturbance is on hand the church dignitaries are first made the scapegoats In the United States the expulsion of a religious order or any society would be revolutionary in France it is the first move of a liberal government In several European capitals Thanksgiving Thanksgiv-ing day was observed with considerable ceremony England The English Liberals have not yet ceased 50 congratulate themselves over the victory vic-tory at South Dorset where the Conservative I Conserva-tive majority of 1000 was tnrned into a i minority of 1200 The Liberals regard it i as an indication of the feeling in agricultural agricul-tural districts throughout England The Conservatives blame their defeat on the mechanics and claim that the agriculturists agriculursts I are still soundly Conservative Mr Smalley says The one thing clear about the whole matter seems to be that Home Rule had little l to do with the result Mr Lambert who wins is a tenant farmer who has nursed this constituency with care for some years His opponent Mr Buller was a good candidate but came on the I scene at the eleventh hour An archangel would have a poorchance in such circumstances circum-stances The nursing of constituencies is I now reckoned tho true secret of electoral uccess The other secret is to appeal to I class interests and to local interests This was done with success in Devonshire where few electors know or care much L about Home Rule The government has done much for the agricultural laborer but the Gladstonians promise to do a great deal i more when they come in and promise is I more than performance with tie English voter He knows that what he has got out of this ministry cannot be taken from him He believes that another ministry would do still more i it got the chance and in politics gratitude is a lively sense of favors to come Hence that Gladstonian victory which is but one more step toward the general demoralization of politics now imminent in England The Standard of course uses South Molten as an argument lor dropping Irish legislation next session and rushing t through a measure for which the English voter really cares There is much to be said for that view from an electioneering point of view but neither the Conservative press in general nor Conservative orators on the platform are disposed to adopt it There are many signs that the Gladstoni ans with one eminent exception think hat Home Rule is played out lor electoral purposes They keep it on the bill of fare but the dishes they really recommend to the voter are of a different sort The emi neat exception is Mr Gladstone himself To him Home Rule is everything as it has been ever since he recognized the fact that a Parliamentary majority was not to bead be-ad on other terms He discourses at times tmes on other topics but from tho lips outward his heart is on disunion I he comes in I he must try once more to pass a Home Rule bill Nearly all his followers would drop iti they could Nearly all are likely to be elected on local issues or as advocates of local issues or as advocates of soda reform So weary are the English of the Irish question that the leading Tory organ cries out in anguish that its own government seems smitten with blindness almost re s embling the blindness of the Stuarts to facts so patent that any child would understand I erstand them The whold duty of the p olitical man and especially of the minister I t minis-ter is in its view to trump the Gladston I i an trick Hodge has got the power to turn his ministry out or keep it in and Hod o must be made to see that it will pay him better to keep Lord Salisbury in than Ib bring Mr Gladstone back Such are the high practices which aye now advocated in i t he highest quarters The appeal to selfishness selfish-ness is as strong on one side as on tho other The Liberal Unionist Programme This indicates tho trend of the Conservative Conserva-tive thought It is reflected in the remarks of Mr Chamberlain in a speech at Birmingham Birming-ham last week Tho programme according to the Now York Sun correspondent as i enunciated by tie chief rushlight of that heterogeneous mixture of outs contains three special and prominent planks which were not originally embraced in the Tory plan namely cheap laud transfer distri its and parish councils and old age it-s while at the same time it omits free education educa-tion and nil mention of Ireland two notable no-table features which wore included in the onstrvative caucus scheme I tis altogether probable that Mr Chamberlain knew Lord Salisburys mind on these points beforo declaring de-claring the new Unionist policy and that we have now therefore a tolerably complete com-plete statement of which the Tory manccu yres are up to date The fact or the matter mattr is i the Conservatives are grown desperate over tne desertion of them by the rural voters in favor of the general improvement in their condition long ago decided upon and elaborated by the Liberals and they are prepared at this stage of the game to sacrifice sac-rifice many of their long ctienshed convic tions against legislation for the welfare of nelare the people rather r than see themselves ob literated as a country party which seems to bo their destiny Therefore the farmer is likely to get tho transfer of land in Enl land placed on easy terms by one party or the other the scheme of parish councils In addition to tho ministerial project of dis trict councils must bo swallowed by the Conservatives notwithstanding that this tends to annihilate the power of the local squires and parsons In a word the Tory party has never passed through a more bitter period of purgation of old ideas than it is now undergoing the unwelcome process pro-cess being forceauponitby enlightened ed course of the Liberal party llnrrjing on an Eluction Alarmed by their defeat in South Molt on I the Tories are hurrying forward ores the East Dorset election with unprecedented hustejin the hope that the Liberaicandidate will not have time ts canvass the constituency and convert the waverers I will be the shortest short-est county contest ever known the date fixed for the poll being only three pol weeks from the day of the late Tory members death but the Liberals have not been discouraged dis-couraged thereby A victory will be harder to win than in South Moullon because there are fewer Liberal abstainers to bring back In 1SS5 when the Liberals won 83d9 votes were polled and the malorltv w sHJ7 In 1S80 a Tory was elected by a majority 97of 053 and 7079 electors recorded their votes The coming conference of the represen tatives of the rural voters with the Na tional Liberal club is Jaof becoming a meeting of the first importance in the political contest in view of the new course of the Tories Each county will send a proportionate number of farmers and agricultural la borers as delegates Mr delegates Gladstone has been supervising the arrangements and has personally revised the personaly program which was drafted by the executive of the executvo National Liberal Federation The farm voters appear to have very quickly attained at-tained a keen preception of their value asa as-a preponderating factor in the next general gen-eral election and will not be satisfied with anything less than state aid in tho creation of a class of small land owning farmers which will enable laborero also to become owners of ground in a small way The United Kingdom alliance and the Liquor Veto association have been immensely im-mensely reinforced by a number of wealthier supporters and are making arrangements ar-rangements for a double set of subac Np tions to create a great election fund to further fur-ther their special purposes Franco to AJJoIlslvLawym Fees According to a dispatch in the New York Mail and Express the French government is about to make a serJo attempt to dem ocratise the law or bring legal processes within reach of the people of all classes 1M Brissan has prepared n bill to enable poor people to have recourse to the law for a mere trifle in the way of expense by levying a merely nominal fee upon a prosecutor prose-cutor where small sums are in dispute Tho total legal charges in these cases would be only 1 ppr cent of tho money sued lor and nothing need be paid before entering the action the government taking the chances of recovering tho fees from unsuccessful un-successful plaintiffs Naturally the lawyers law-yers strongly oppose this bill which means a good deal of work for them and a considerable con-siderable reduction of their emoluments in proportion to the totM of work done Rumors About M de Gels Visit Tho Russian prime minister M de Giers was in Paris Nobody knows exactly exact-ly what he was there for but some of the 1 more enterprising Parisian correspondents I made a grand coup in getting the menu of the dinner given to the Czars minister by I President Carnot at the Elysee l de QJ ors also dined with 11 Ribot the minister I minis-ter of foreign affairs A select company i had been invited to be present Nothing known yet as to what passed between theo j I tw the-o ministers M de Giers returned from I Pars by way of Berlin where he met i Chancellor von Caprivi During his stay in Paris he spent some time with the Roth thschilds presumably discussing with Ro-th em the matter of loans and the French loan in particular La Pate says that it understands that a i FrancoRussian alliance exists ver bally and that M do Giers the Russian miCa nister of foreign affairs and President mi-Ca nnot haa only to arrange two points in j this alliance which wore up to the time of I M do Glens arrival still unsettled This I understanding the Pate declares was ar J I ranged during the recent visits of the Rus I sian grand dukes to President Carnot In j I i addition the paper says that there are only I two points of the alliance which yet remained re-mained to be defined and that these wero I settled at a conference held by President Carnot M de Glens M do Froyciuet president of tho French council and minister min-ister of war and M Ribot minister of foreign affairs The wide diversity of comments on the visit of 11 do Giers to Paris shows how little is known of its object The French in their hope and pride wore convinced that the Czar hud sent his chief minister to I Paris t conclude a treaty offensive and de fensive Any other result would be a deep I disappointment to them But they are puzzled about the subsequent visit to Ber lin and the journals are inclined to take up the theory of courtesy as the sole motive of the astute minister The Czars Domain As had been anticipated the Czar Issued a ukase forbidding the exportation of wheat from Russia The effect of this decree is uncertain Its first result was to increase the price of r whoat in all the centres of trade in Europe and it is not believed that it will in any way relievo the famine in the provinces of the empire Tho reports which come from the stricken region are most distressing Tales of starvation of tho desertion of children and wholesale suicide are more frequent I every day Relief is afforded by tho government gov-ernment but is reported to be wholly inadequate in-adequate to the situation I Is almost impossible to get definite in formation concerning the Russian loan but the impression deepens that it has been a total failure In Germany it is stated by I the Kreitz Zettung that the government instead in-stead of declining to indicate what the bankers ought to do definitely intimated I that the guarantees offered by Russia did not suffice to justify official approval of German credit being ventured in the loans I I is understood that diplomatic ap proaches through Count von Schouvalotf the Russian ambassador at Berlin on the attitude of the a government received an equally decisive rebuff The fiasco which the French syndicate made of the last Russian loan has enormously enor-mously increased the financial difficulties of Russia 11 Vishnegradsky has been I forced to relieve the syndicate of eight out of the twenty million pounds sterling of fered Thogublic official denial that tLe Rothschilds have taken over five million tve miion pounds is party true Bonds umountin to eight millions have been placed in the Rothschilds keeping with no respoasibility attached to their future issue through the firm and the French syndicate is relieved of a burden of six million pounds terlng which the Russian treasury hoped to receive i I re-ceive Thus Russia instead ot having real d sixteen inillluns on the loans obtains ob-tains only nine millions Tne refusal of the German government to permit bankers to bolster up theRusslan credit ends for a long time to come the chances of Russia borrow ing l money abroad and strengthens the chances of peace An Official Statement A statement published by the St Petersburg Peters-burg Official Messenger on the condition of the imperial finances and its relation to tho famine was telegraphed here as an authoritative author-itative declaration aiming to minimize the dangers of the situation The statement begins by announcing that the stocks cf grain after the prohibition of export will be sufficient for tha population until tho next harvest AS the people in tie agricultural cultural districts depend on tho sale of grain they will find the position embarrassing embarrass-ing i and tho government has therefore assigned to them GOOOOJJOO rubles from the cash reserves in the treasury It is said taut the treasury reserves amount to 220 000000 rubles which sum is sufficient to meot the redemption of the debt for the current year and all the expenditures included in-cluded in the budget and still leave a cash balance equal to tne needs of 1892 A falling fall-ing off in the revenue is admitted but the Official Mcsscntjcr declares that this will not substantially influence the equilibrium brium of the budget It is denied there is any liklihood that the treasury will be required to purchase gold abroad unless such a course is necessitated by a flowing back of Russian securities to Russia Rus-sia The gold reserve amounts to a total of 80500000 rubles in the treasury and 120000000 rubles in the Imperial bank besides be-sides 75000000 secured by the recently issued is-sued provisional credit note These totals do not Include the receipts from the last loan The sum of the Official Messengers statement state-ment is that Russia has plenty of grain and abundance of money for too time being be-ing This is reassuring to the Russians who are under the scare of famine This class includes Count Lyof Tolstoi the great Russian social reformer who has published an energetic demand that the government declare without delay whether the stock of grain is sufficient to last through next summer Count Tolstoi advocates tho purchase of corn in America Amer-ica in time to protect the country from famine and the terrible social disturbance that is certain to attead such a condition of affairs Tolstoi contends from his own personal calculation that tho stock of grain will not be sufficient and that the government reply guaranteeing enough to feed the people until the next harvest if falsified will load to a revolution in which Tolstoi says ho will aid Count Tolstois daughters Latiore and Marie haye opened a free refectory for the famine stricken near his chateau Al those persons who are in dire necessity here got a good meal but they are forbidden forbid-den to take food away with them the count forseeing that i they were allowed to carry food away they might barter it for drink A fresh instance of the hostility entertained enter-tained in St Petersburg for the German element has been given An order wa issued today forbidding that persons b a authorized to practice as lawyers in the Baltic provinces unless they be of Russian extraction barred Many Germans are thus de A New Cabinet In Spain At a recent meeting of the cabinet Seno r Silvola minister of the interior oxprosse d his desire to resign giving as his reaso dn for this action the fact that all the polit clans of Spain seemed to approve of th e programme announced by the Conservative ed Conserva-tive party Even the Reformists sa d Senor Silvfcla had accepted the conserva tlve principles |