Hopkins ital Schulze-Delitzsch Sturtevant An Introduction to Political Economy Scribner, Armstrong&Co. 967 959 967 THE PENN MONTHLY. JANUARY, 1877. TH THE MONTH. HE Conference on the Eastern Question has met after adjourment, having carried its deliberations so far as to find out what each of the Great Powers exactly wanted, and what each would concede. The diplomats at this point have ceased negotiations, in order to ask definite instructions from their governments. The Russian programme, it is definitely known, contains a demand for the occupation of Bulgaria; and it is also definitely known that Turkey will not-indeed, no Sultan dare-concede this. The only remaining questions are those of diplomatic tactics. Can England induce Turkey, or persuade Germany to induce Russia, to yield consent to some feasible compromise? Or failing that, and war on which side will Austria-Hungary be, either by reason of its instinctive preferences, or by virtue of diplomatic pressure from without. following, We are still of the mind that war rather than compromise is the desirable outcome of the present entanglement. Any disposal of Bulgaria which does not either place it under a government like those of the Danubian Provinces, or else hand it over to a foreign army of occupation, would be a crime against humanity. But if war should come, we are by no means so certain of Russia's speedy success, as we are desirous of it. Never, since John Sobieski raised the siege of Vienna, have the Ottomans been in such a fighting mood as at the present time. Moslem fanaticism has not been so near red-heat for centuries, as is seen both by the outbursts in the great cities, and the really good fighting on the Servian frontier. On the other hand, Russia has overcome the financial difficulty which stood in the way of her warlike preparations. On appealing to her own people for the needed loan, she received bids enormously in excess of what is required. For here also the fire of religious zeal has been awakened in no ordinary degree. Her priesthood, by excited and eloquent appeals from the pulpit, and by the display of pictures of the Bulgarian massacres, have aroused all classes in "Holy Russia” to a new crusade, and the war is for once forced upon the Czar by his people, rather than proposed to them by him. As regards the Christian champions of Turkey, Russia contemplates no attack upon them; if England is to fight, England must declare the war. The English opposition to the Islamite policy of the Ministry is taking a definite shape. A Parliamentary Committee which was created last session by a sort of Liberal Caucus, has called a National Conference on the Eastern Question, a sort of outside Parliament to give expression to the real views of the English people at this conjuncture, when the regular organs of utterance have ceased to perform their functions. THE final vote in the German Parliament on the abolition of the iron duties, shows that the Junckers have made up their minds to ignore the interests of the manufacturing districts. Bismarck, as we anticipated, urged at least a postponement of the measure, and there are indications that the people of the intellectual centres of Germany, notably Berlin, were of his mind. Ten of the most prominent journals came over to the Protectionists. But the squirocracy marched straight forward to their purpose; and from the beginning. of the present year, the iron industries of Westphalia will be exposed to those methods of "industrial warfare"-the official English phrase-by which rival industries are destroyed in time of financial depression, so as to leave the field clear for English capitalists when times improve and prices rise. One effect of this will be, to create a marked division of interest between the Germans of the Rhine Valley and of the few large cities where manufactures are centered, and those of the more Eastern districts, where agriculture is the chief employment. The manufactures of Elsass and Lothringen complain that the new tariff is far worse for their interests than that of France, under which they once lived. This is to be regretted, for nothing is so fatal to political animosities as prosperity, and nothing so fosters and deepens them as adversity and distress. THE greatest recorded destruction of human life that has been owing to a single disaster, has occurred in British India, and yet hardly a ripple of interest and compassion seems excited by it. The lands along the upper coast of the Bay of Bengal are of alluvial formation, and are steadily encroaching upon the bay through the action of its northward currents in piling up breakwaters of sand and gravel, and that of the great rivers in bringing down vast volumes of loam from both sides the Himalayas. The site of Calcutta was, in the Mohammedan period, a part of the bay, and even since the English occupation of it, its distance from the sea has been decidedly increased. The districts thus formed are intersected by streams and canals which are the usual routes of transportation, and the land at no point rises more than a few feet above the ordinary water level, so that they suffer much from inundations. But they are densely populated by an industrious and patient class of ryots. One such district, containing an area of three thousand square miles, and inhabited by a million and a half of people, has been swept by three successive waves of an inundation reported to have been twenty feet deep. These were driven upon the district by one of those sudden cyclone-storms which are the terror of Asiatic waters. Of course, every one who could not climb a tree was drowned, and the loss of life is estimated at two hundred and fifteen thousand, a number only equaled by the report of the slain in the battle of Chalons. How so many escaped, seems a mystery, and it is feared that the vast multitude of corpses will breed a pestilence by their putrefaction. At the same time, famine has broken out in several provinces of India, so that the new Imperial rule has had but an inauspicious inauguration. FOR the first time in our national history, the Thanksgiving and Christmas which followed a Presidential election have core and gone, and the New Year has opened upon us, without removing the uncertainty as to which of the two candidates has been legally elected, and will be inaugurated. Mr. Hayes has, indeed, the bet |