is won.

In a social point of view the issue is more doubtful. A peasant proprietory, in place of the territorial nobility of the old regime, holds, it is true, the greater part of the land of France; democratic principles pervade the code, and the sentiment of equality has a strong hold on the people. It would probably be impossible, even for an Emperor, to restore primogeniture or to create an hereditary house of Peers. On the other hand, the representatives of the old aristocracy have been recruiting their wealth, drawing closer the bond of their union as a class, and regaining not a little of their social ascendancy. That the passion for rank and social grade is far from having been eradicated from French bosoms all the shrewdest observers declare. Dynastic claims and rivalries will probably now recede into the background, and whatever struggle remains, will be one between aristocracy and democracy waged beneath. the forms of the Republic. Not a little influence will be exerted on the issue, by the course of religious opinion and the amount of force which the Church is able to bring to the aristocratic side. We have given up the idea that political progress can be carried on apart from the social, economical, and intellectual movements of our complex humanity.

In the social sphere, however, all over the world, though chiefly in monarchies under an oppressive military system, there are heavings and rumblings of a new revolution, which, if it ever comes to the birth, may make the French Revolution itself seem com

paratively superficial. The Pope, that old custodian of the crumbling mansions of the past, is merely doting when he calls Communism the offspring of the Protestant Reformation, and when he denounces it as a violation of the social order typified by the hierarchy of heaven. But he does not dote when he describes it as a widespread, formidable and even portentous phenomenon of the

time. In Russia, under the name of Nihilism, it assails the whole existing order of things religious, political and social, not excepting the relations between the sexes. Its savage enthusiasm, and at the same time its lack of wisdom, are shown by attempts in several countries to assasssinate the chiefs of the established system, and the dread of its advance is evidently impelling rival potentates to patch up their diplomatic quarrels and combine for mutual protection. A few years, by developing the strength of the movement, and disclosing its real dimensions, will enable us to say whethe it is merely a speculative phase of the discontent arising from transient causes such as overtaxation, conscription and commercial depression, or whether it bodes radical and lasting change.

All doubt seems to be removed as to the prevalence, not only of fraud and intimidation, but of murderous outrage in Louisiana and some other Southern States during the late elections. The policy of conciliation honestly tried by President Hayes has failed, and the South remains solid in its political opposition to the Republican Government and unchanged in its determination to defy the law. The practical result will probably be the re-election of General Grant as the representative of the militant republic and of a sterner policy towards the malcontents of the South. It is a necessity to which good men will resign themselves with bitter reluctance; for Grant will bring back with him the machine' and the machinists; and when the hour strikes for his return to power and patronage the knell of administrative reform is tolled. It may be hoped, however, that experience has at least taught him that if government cannot be carried on by law it is better to employ directly and openly the requisite amount of force than to put political intrigue in the front with the military

force in reserve. The present condition of the South is, partly at least, the work of the carpet-bagging politicians, who were the agents of Grant's last government. If a State refuses

to allow the laws of the Union respecting elections to go into effect, the best course surely is to disfranchise that State for a term of years.

The conflict between the North and the South was called a civil war; but the subjugation of the South by the North, in fact, resembled less the victory of one party over the other in a nation than the conquest of one nation by another. The relation of the South to the victor is rather that of Ireland to England or of Poland to Russia than that of the vanquished to the victorious party after the war between the Catholic League and the Huguenots in France, or after the English Revolution. The hostile elements are locally distinct; the defeated element forms a compact mass by itself, with its own monuments and its own memories; the grass may grow over the graves, but the dust of the conquered does not mingle with the dust of the conqueror. Military trophies preserved by the North attest the half-international character

of the war. Then there is the negro difficulty, ever irrepressible. Still between the Northern and Southern States there flows no Irish Channel; the white race on both sides of the line is the same; the filaments of reviving union may spread through the middle ground of Virginia to the states which socially, as well as geographically, lie more remote ; and trade and manufactures, raising their heads in New Orleans and other southern cities, may form an interest connected with the commercial North, devoid of unproductive sentiment and adverse to chivalrous disorder. The advantages of union, both political and economical, are so immense and so apparent that it will take a great deal of bad feeling, and even of social an

tagonism to countervail their attractive force.

If the political outlook of our neighbours is clouded, their financial and commercial outlook is much more sunny. The Republic has glided, without shock or friction, into sound currency. She might have done the same years ago if Repudiation would have held its tongue, and Party would have kept its reckless hands off the vital interests of the country.

There

is now no fear of a relapse; commerce, contracts and the ideas of the people will all adjust themselves to the sound basis, and form its effectual ramparts for the future. Well might the flags be hoisted in New York when the price of gold ceased to be quoted and that greatest and worst of gambling hells, the Gold Room, was for ever closed. American trade has gone through much tribulation, but a mass of commercial rottenness has been cleared away; hard pan as well as hard money has been reached; and unmistakable signs of reviving prosperity appear. Such is the opinion of most competent judges, free from any tendency to paint things too favourably for the Republic. No such tendency assuredly can be laid to the charge of the London Times, which winds up an account of the marvellous progress made in reducing the debt and interest by exclaiming, 'If the Americans can accomplish these things in hard times, we are almost afraid to ask ourselves what they will be able to do in the period of prosperity which, as Mr. Hayes and Mr. Sherman are agreed, is opening before them.'

General Grant, in the tour of glorification, by which he is collecting the suffrages of the world in support of his candidature for the Presidency of the United States, has received by way of variety a slap in the face from the Cork City Council, who have not forgotten his attempt to make capital by an onslaught, in a Presidential message, on the Catholic Church. But in

Ireland, if one shillelagh is waved against you, another is sure to be waved in your defence. In answer to the 'insult' offered by the Cork Council rings forth a loud war whoop of sympathy with the great Orange Republican who had shot dead sixty craw-thumping Papists who, instigated by Italian priests, attempted to stop an Orange procession in Broadway.' Such are the fruits of the tree in its native soil; and they can hardly be said to have been improved by transplantation.

Poor Ireland will never find a leader! She had a leader in O'Connell; she has not had one since. Smith O'Brien had the enthusiasm but not the strategy. Isaac Butt has the strategy but not the enthusiasm. That Parnell and Biggar are sincere, nobody doubts, whatever may be thought of their obstructive policy, and naturally they do not want to be the chessmen of a mere tactician, whom they probably suspect of playing his own game. But who can tell at what end the sincere Home Rulers are driving? Some of them mean legislative independence, which would end in entire separation; what the rest mean they seem hardly to know themselves. Then their ecclesiastical and political tendencies pull hopelessly athwart each other. If they have a cause it must be that of oppressed nationality. Yet they league themselves, under ecclesiastical pressure, with the enemies of an oppressed nationality in Italy, with the enemies of an oppressed nationality in Bulgaria. They go in for Ottoman despotism, with the British Ascendancy men and the Jews. They support, as a body, in Parliament the Imperialist and military Tories, who, when they once fairly get the upper hand, will make short work of the Irish nation.

The results of the recent attempts to apply the Dunkin Act, seem to indicate that the Prohibitionists should pause and reflect before they continue

the agitation. This may be said without prejudice to a full recognition of the goodness of their aim, of the magnitude of the evil against which they contend, and of the value of the crusade as a proof of the existence of moral enthusiasm among the people. Unless the movement succeeds, it will do harm in more ways than one. It will deaden and suspend voluntary effort by the delusive hope of State interference. It will drive the publicans to league together in self-defence, and weld them into a compact political body, exerting an influence, which is sure to be noxious as well as powerful, over elections and general legislation. In England, the grasp of the Licensed Victuallers' Association is one of the most dangerous of those which are on the throat of British liberty.

Voluntary effort and voluntary associations-the old-fashioned Teetotalism, and the Bands of Hope-have done much good. The Bands of Hope especially are allowed in England to have been very effective, both in guarding the young and in training up missionaries for the cause. But it may be doubted whether any good has been done or is likely to be done by prohibitive legislation. In the United States prohibition is not the cause but the effect and the sign of temperance ;. the Anglo-Americans as a race are

a

very temperate people; opinion among them is strongly against drink; and it probably gains little or no additional force from the laws, which on the other hand somewhat loosen public morality by leading to evasion.

We come back always to the same thing. Sumptuary legislation cannot be enforced in a free community. The Czar Peter might have compelled his subjects to give up brandy as he compelled them to cut off their beards. He needed no aid from public sentiment to give effect to his ukase. But in a free community your law without public sentiment is a dead letter.. Prohibitionists may be ready to call.

upon the government for vigorous measures, but not one in ten of them would himself help the police in interfering with the private habits of his neighbours. Mere self-indulgence,

however injurious to the man himself, is not an offence against the State, and people in general cannot be induced to treat it as if it were. Some persons hold tobacco to be 'slow poison;' others hold meat to be the same, as, if used in the excessive quantities in which many people use it, undoubtedly it is. Suppose the anti-tobacconists or the vegetarians to be any where in a majority, will it be their duty to close by law the shops of the tobacconists and butchers? If we want to change the diet or the habits of freemen, we must do it by argument and example. The end will not be so quickly attained as it would be by the ukase of the despot, but the work will be the more genuine, more lasting and more truly moral.

Of course anything may be done for the salvation of the State. If drink were proved to be a plague among us which only exceptional legislation could stay, everybody would consent to exceptional legislation. Perhaps strong measures may be necessary in England, where the licensed victuallers constitute a gigantic propaganda of evil, pushing its malignant influence, with the overwhelming force of vast capital, and widely ramifying connections, into every corner of the land, so that two or three cottages cannot be built near each other without at once bringing down the pest upon them. But in Canada all cool-headed observers say that the evil is declining, and that the habits of the present generation are better than those of the last. That there is an increase of moral sensibility on the subject, the existence of the Prohibitionist movement itself proves.

Punish drunkenness if it leads to indecency or outrage. Punish the drunken offender doubly, for the offence itself and for having voluntarily put himself in the way of committing

it by drowning his power of self-control. Apply to taverns, as they are notoriously apt to become scenes of excess, such exceptional regulations as public order may require. If a man is a confirmed drunkard, treat him as a lunatic, and take his wife and children out of his hands. In all this you will have the support of public sentiment, particularly as your law will be the same for rich and poor, whereas Prohibitionism, whatever its theory may be, practically draws a line between the rich man, who buys his liquor at the wine merchant's, and the poor man, who buys his liquor at the tavern. Much may be done also in the way of counter attractions; the coffee rooms, which Thomas Hughes, among others, has been active in es tablishing in England, have been very successful there, and seem likely to be equally so here. Even the substitution of wine or beer for whiskey would be an immense gain. Whiskey, such whiskey, at least, as our people get, is the real demon.

To the two evils, already mentioned as attending a futile agitation, may be added two more, the stimulus given to hypocritical intrigue among the politicians, who flirt with temperance for its votes, and the demoralization of the liquor trade itself, which must arise from branding it as the trade of poisoners and making it the object of a social persecution. At present many of our hotel and tavern keepers are very worthy men, who hate excess as much as any one and do their best to prevent it, from right feeling as well as because it drives, decent customers from their doors.

A seizure of heterodox books at the Custom House, has caused reference to be made to the Act authorizing such detention. It is found that the grounds therein specified, and by which, of course, the action of the Custom House is limited, are immorality and indecency. The book, the seizure of which raised the question,

was a volume of lectures by Col. Ingersoll. It is an attack on all religions, notably on Christianity, the violence, petulance and occasional bad taste of which need all the excuse they derive from evident honesty of purpose and genuine desire to liberate the world from the bondage of what the writer takes to be dark and cruel superstition. But to say that the work is immoral or indecent in the obvious sense of those terms, would be absurd. The moral tone is decidedly high, and of indecency there is It would seem, therefore, that the officers of the Customs, no doubt with the best intentions, exceeded in this case their duty as prescribed by the Act.

not a trace.

Nothing can be more natural than the desire of orthodox and devout persons to restrain the circulation of heterodox works, which must appear to them unspeakably worse than the most noxious miasma or the most deadly poison, inasmuch as they kill souls. But the caustic definition of orthodoxy and heterodoxy is well known; and it may be added, that the heterodoxy of one age is the orthodoxy of the next. Voltaire and Rousseau themselves, as decided theists, are orthodox compared with much of the philosophy, it might almost be said with the dominant philosophy of the present day. Col. Ingersoll's most rampant passages cannot be more shocking to Protestants than was Protestantism itself when first promulgated, to the liegemen of the ancient faith. Besides discrimination is impossible. The scepticism of the time is everywhere present: it pervades not only Renan, Strauss, and Comte, but Tennyson, Browning, George Eliot, and half the poetry or light literature that lies on our drawing-room tables. It pervades the writings not only of Radicals but of Conservatives, of the Conservative Taine, the Conservative Matthew Arnold, the highly Conservative Greg and Sir James Stephen. The popular periodicals are full of it.

Is an

embargo to be laid on the Contemporary, the Fortnightly, the Nineteenth Century, and the North American Review? Or are the Customs to be entrusted with the duty of separating the tares from the wheat? Are they to cut out the articles of Mr. Harrison aud Professor Clifford, and to leave those of Mr. Gladstone and Cardinal Manning? Does not the fact that these four men use the same organs for the expression of their opinions, show most signally that perfect liberty of discussion is the law of our age?

Thoroughgoing repression, the repression by which Protestantism was stamped out in Spain, and entire freedom of thought-such are the alternatives to which the world, after many attempts to strike out a middle course, has found itself finally reduced. The rational part of the world has decisively chosen freedom of thought, and thinks itself justified by experience, which shows that gunpowder is less destructive when exploded in the open air. The other part of the world has its congregation of the Index, which, being a learned body and giving its whole attention to the work, is, at all events, a more trustworthy authority than the Customs. By half measures of exclusion you only betray your fear. At the same time you lead your clergy to repose their confidence in the protection of the State, instead of preparing themselves to do their duty by dealing with the difficulties of the day, and affording men new assurance of their faith. All sincere and thoughtful liegemen of Truth, in short, have made up their minds that perfect freedom of opinion best serves her cause.

A distinction may perhaps be drawn between heterodoxy and blasphemy, and it may be said that, though we cannot prevent heterodoxy, blasphemy, like obscenity, ought to be put down. That offensive attacks upon the cherished beliefs of others are culpable is certain, and every right minded man will discourage them, whatever his own opinions may