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SPIRIT OF THE PRESS.

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SPIRIT OF THE PRESS. THE GLOUCESTER ELECTION. The Times thinks we may extract some consolation froir the peacefulness of the election at Gloucester, but the more quiet we make it out to have been—the more free &om pressure and the bias of undue influences--the more striding must the result be as an indication of future fior-rugh elections. Who, then, is safe? is the reflection that will occur to many minds. To have beaten your enemy at a former contest in the proportion of 19 to 15 has usually been held to be a certain promise of future victory, but we find even this advantage is an insufficient security. There are, however, many constituencies wh re the sitting member has no such start in the race. Men goi^in because they were 20 or 30 ahead of their com- petitors in constituencies where the number of electors voting on each side exceeded a couple of thousand. These are considerations that make men grave. Not that we apprehend any reactionary movement in the sense of a desire to reverse recent legislation we believe, on the Contrary, that the leaders of the Opposition are verv glad of \vhat has been done, for it has removed difficulties out i f their way; but it is wise to be prepared for a period of comparative inaction, for a certain slackening of the progress we have of late been able to maintain. The elect'on of Gloucester following close upon that of Bath is at least a warning to the members for cathedral cities aivl watering places in the South and West that some s.?c-t;on or other of their former supporters is dissatisfied with something the Ministry have done or left undone, and they will ^probably be put upon their mettle to discover what is the cause of this withdrawal of conri deuce. This has been a bad week for the Liberals, says the Standard. On Tuesday Bath elected a Conservative to the seat so long filled by Sir William Tite, and on Thurs- day Gloucester disposed in a similar way of the seat va- cated by the retirement of Mr. Price. It is blow upon blow, and the last blow is the hardest. These two elect- ions transfer two Liberal seats to the Conservatives, counting as a gain of four votes on a division. But no one can fail to see that the significance of the double triumph is but feebly expressed in the mere numerical i g:1in which they bring to the voting strength of the Con- stitutional party. These two important 0 constituencies, which have been faithful to the Liberal cause for so many years past, are adding point and emphasis to the t'Mchiiig of the great bulk of the contested^ elections of the last three years. They express the voice of the country in their repudiation of Mr. Gladstone and the party which maintains him in power. It is impossible to -en put any other construction upon the almost unbroken series of Conservative triumphs which have illustrated the election warfare from the moment Mr. Gladstone had snewn himself in his true colours. The Liberals suffer with their chief. Whether their candidates come forward as independent Liberals or as Radicals, they are regarded aj more or less identified with Mr. Gladstone, and the same sentence falls upon all alike. Who can doubt that tlie judgment recorded against the Minister and his party at Bath and Gloucester is a foretaste of that which awaits them at the general election ? Conservative stock, says the Telegraph, is rising in the political market. Not yet up to par, its supporters have been able to diminish the heavy discount to which it fell five years ago. The Liberal candidates have been hand- somely defeated at Bath and Gloucester, and we are quite ready to admit that these borough victories under the ballot and by agency of household suffrage constitute a remarkable political event. It is not wisdom to underrate opponents or ignore facts which shew some change in the opinion c temporarily governing constituencies. Whatever may have been the causes of failure in these two instances, there the failures are, and it behoves the Liberals of Eng- land to take due note of them. We are not likely to be far wrong in attributing something of Conservative suc- cess to the hostility aroused by the Licensing Act, some- thing to the alienation of the Nonconformists, and more to the wearing out of an impetus which, produced in 1868, has given the country such a full harvest of wise legis- lation, practical economy, and administrative reform. Sufficient time has elapsed to create a flourishing crop of diverse opinions, and so large a mass of work has been done that the less earnest and strong may well have grown tired. Yet, whenever any large question again stirs the British nation deeply, and the two great appliances insure a full representation of prevailing views, we shall once more hear lamentations 0 e:' the famous educational process of 1867, and the bless- in.; in disguise forced upon the Conservatives in 1872. At present we frankly acknowledge partial defeat, but we are now, as always, prepared to rest the final issue upon the great principles which form the backbone of Liberal politics and Liberal Administration. The work they have done cannot be undone, and should those who denounce the ample results of five years' labour in the service of the Commonwealth succeed in obtaining power they will have to respect accomplished facts, and pro- long th? line of Liberal progress. The thoughtful judgment of the country, says the Globe, has long been maturing on one question, but it re- quired assurance on another. It is known and deplored bicteiiy that the Liberals prostituted policy to selfish pur- poses to obtain power, and that they have done so ever since they came into office. But would the Tories, if they had the opportunity, resort to the like selfish ex- pedient ? The wisdom of Mr. Disraeli on a recent memorable occasion has supplied the most conclu- sive answer to this sinister suggestion, and we are already reaping the fruit of his judicious management of our party affairs in the action of the con- stituencies. We may be pardoned some exultation over the two signal victories of the last few days—they are so complete and so significant. But our sincerest satisfac- tion arises from the fact that these returns attest the removal of the only misgiving that lingered in the mind of the country, and, that being at an end, m re such triumphs as those of Tuesday and Thursday will inevitably follow. The signal proof of Tory honour and honesty, and the evidence of Tory moderation, given by the refusal to snatch at office the other day, has convinced the country of Mr. Disraeli's patriotism aii sincerity. The constituencies feel that to returning Tories to Parliament they are preparing to wrest the administration out of the hands of_ adventurers and place it in those of statesmen. It is this conviction that is producing fruits like those of Tuesday and Thurs- day. MR. CHASE. The death of Chief Justice Chase, says the Daily New.?, removes another member of that celebrated Administra- tion which conducted the American Civil "War to its suc- cessful issue. Though Mr. Chase did not, like Mr. Stanton and Mr. Seward, who both died before him, remain in office till the actual close of the war, his place in the history of the United States will be chiefly determined by his three years' administration as Secretary of the Treasury. Mr. Chase, like Mr. Seward, belonged to that cultivated class of American statesmen to whom the highest office in the Republic has almost always been denied. He seemed, indeed, during the chief part of his life not to be ambitious of the Presidency. In 1868, however, Mr. Chase seems to have altered his mind, as in that year he certainly put forth every effort that ingenuity could suggest to obtain the nomination of the Democratic party. We would willingly draw a veil over this one blot in an illustrious career. But it was Mr. Chase's last appearance in the field of politics, and, ably as it was managed, ended in a humiliating defeat. He would have been the most formidable antagonist General Grant could have had and had the Convention aominated him, the whole aspect of American politics might have been changed. It was probably Mr. Chase's opinion that the change would have been for the better by the satisfaction which a Democratic victory would have given to the South. The whole circumstance is, however, derogatory to his fame. He retired with dimity from a false position and from that time till his sudden decease was no more heard of in politics, but confined himself strictly to the duties of his important office as the official guardian of the Constitution of the United States. LOCAL TAXATION. The Pall Mall Gazette says that small as Mr. Stansfeld' plan is. it contains enough to aggravate some of the anomalies—perhaps the inherent anomalies—of our local taxation. What will be the practical effect of the new exemptions from rateability ? The proposal is that public parks and fortifications, though they will become technically liable to rates, shall not in practice, or only partially, be rated, while dockyards, State workshops, and public offices will be rated and will pay rates like any other property. The sole ground for the distinction which we can find alleged in Mr. Stansfield's speech is that a part of this Govern- ment property contributes to increase pauperism—an assertion only partially true of dockyards, but manifestly not true at all of a good many of the Government estab- lishments now to be rat>.d.^ The only distinctive feature of the new scheme B. Its capriciousness. The State will r,.y a great part of the rates of Westminster, and of certain parts of Portsmouth and Devonport, at the very moment when the distinction_ between the general taxpayer and the local taxpayer is insisted upon as funda- mental, essential, and eternal. The simple truth is that the distinction between Imperial and local taxation resides, so far as it is a reality, exclusively m the management in the has STS&Sf & nery, he has inevitably added by triflm^ ,,„0nr. to the confusion of the system as a whole. i • doubt that on the principles usually accepted ^ie .<■<- sion of the liability of the State to local taxation m respe of its offices and dockyards ought to have been couple with the establishment of a special and, perhaps, ex.c.eP" tional constitution for the area3 of taxation within which the public property is situated.

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