something to be done, and that is the only thing that can be done. The Maritime League for the restoration of England's naval power points the way. A motion was announced at the opening of the session by Mr. BUTLER-JOHNSTONE for the abrogation of the Declaration of Paris. That motion has to be supported, and there is no part of the community who should be more anxious to do so than the habitual supporters of the present administration. Mr. DISRAELI has always showed himself very amenable to Parliamentary action, and if the reputation of their chief be dear to his followers, they have to show their determination no longer to endure that England should be unable to enforce upon other nations that which is necessary for her own protection, because one man, without authority, signed away in a foreign capital those rights without which it is impossible for her to do so.

MATERIALS for study in reference to the coming debate on the Declaration of Paris are asked for by many. We would recommend the Maritime League to have the speeches of the Prime Minister carefully looked through, in order that every word which he has spoken on the subject may be extracted and printed together. In these oracular sentences will be found united succinctness and comprehensiveness. They will serve for the understanding of the subject and also of the Minister.

The most important thing he has ever said on the subject is not, however, contained in a speech, but in a letter in answer to one of the Foreign Affairs Committees, who had addressed him respecting words he had used in the House of Commons: "Lord CLARENDON, the Minister of a triumphant country, at the Congress forfeited all the maritime rights of England." They asked Mr. DISRAELI if there were any, and if so, what means of resuming those rights. To which he replied that he had the matter under consideration. This was on the 25th of July, 1866.

The Only Way to Defend India.

(From Vanity Fair, April 1, 1876.)

AVE IMPERATRIX !

WHEN under the above heading we commented upon the first debate on the Royal Titles Bill, we sounded a note of alarm which has since re-echoed throughout the country. Most emphatically we disclaim any intention to insinuate that we suggested the arguments which have since been marshalled in such an overwhelming array against a measure likely to be a turning-point in the history of England, or that any other journalist or any statesman was inspired by us to oppose the assumption of this illomened title of dignity. For it is manifest that the thoughts to which we then gave expression existed in the minds of the people at large. We now attempt to direct those thoughts onwards to their logical sequence.

It would be sheer waste of time to discuss the various debates in the Houses of Parliament. The question is now narrowed to a very small limit. It may be stated as follows:-Her Majesty's councillors have advised her that there is danger to her Indian possessions from the Emperor of Russia'a conquest of Tartary, and have told her that by assuming the title of Empress of India she will plant a standard of defiance, and that by daring the rival Emperor of Asia to advance farther,

at his peril, she will securely guard for ever and a day that neutral zone between the British and Muscovitish dominions, the idea of which occurred to some English statesman of transcendent genius. That neutral zone, we all know, is shrinking, and has shrunk, like the Peau de Chagrin in BALZAC's novel, and now bars the advance of Russia to Afghanistan about as effectually as the sand barricades of children do the rising tide.

Hear what Mr. DISRAELI himself says on the subject:-" What was the "gossip of bazaars is now the conversation of villages. You think they are ignorant of what is going on in Central Asia. You think they are unaware that Tartary, that great conquering Power of former times, is "at last conquered. No! not only are they acquainted with the con"quering Power, but they know well the title of the great Prince who has brought about this wonderful revolution The announcement by her "Majesty in a Royal proclamation that she adopts the title of Empress, "will signify in a manner which cannot be mistaken that the Parliament "of England is resolved to uphold the Empire of India."

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Ridicule is allowable when serious argument fails, and we are justified in quoting the analogous charge of DOGBERRY to his watchmen:

Dogberry. You are to bid any man stand in the Prince's name.

2nd Watchman. How if he will not stand?

Dogberry. Why, then, take no note of him, but let him go.

How if this title of Empress, and this resolution of the Parliament of England, will not stop the advance of the great Prince who has conquered Tartary?

How if the directions laid down by PETER THE GREAT, and acted on ever since, "We must advance as much as possible towards Constantinople and "India; whoever shall reign there shall be master of the world," are the formula of the great Prince? How if this annexation of Turkestan, this Herzegovina insurrection, that repudiation of the Treaty of Paris, and that establishing a naval force in the Black Sea which Lord GRANVILLE So complacently accepted; how if all this prove most absolutely and distinctly that he is bent on moving onwards? and how if this new title, plagiarised from primers and almanacks, will not make him stand? Are we then to take no note of him, but let him come on?

There have been Ministers who would have answered that question. There has been a CHATHAM-there has been a PITT. There has been an English people who would have created such a Minister if one did not exist already. But we have fallen on evil days, and little sign is left of a spirit to understand difficulty and anticipate danger, and to take that course which has not the reality but only the shadowy semblance of difficulty about it.

There is one answer, and one only, to the menace to the British possession of India which the Russian conquest of Tartary is held to be by every man who dares to look the danger in the face.

That answer is the restoration of the Right of Search.

There is no man who in his heart of hearts will deny this, however much he may equivocate and prevaricate with others to save himself from being pressed to take action in the matter.

The argument is as simple as a rule-of-three sum.

Russia requires immense sums of money for her expeditions in the Far East.

She has no means of getting money except by the sale of her raw produce in foreign markets, which produce has to be transported by sea to the port of sale.

To stop her trade is therefore to stop her means of acting against India.

During the Crimean War she did not suffer in her trade, because the Right of Search was suspended, and she sent her produce in neutral ships

to be sold.

If England exercised the Right of Search, England could seize that produce, and take it out of any ship that was carrying it.

Russia would have no more money, her expeditions would be stopped, and India would be safe.

Let us imagine Mr. DISRAELI's speech as a CHATHAM would have spoken it if he were addressing a nation as jealous of its maritime power as the Englishmen of CHATHAM's day were.

Would it not have been thus?"The announcement to the people of "India that Her Majesty will, if necessary, exercise her rights of naval "warfare against the great Prince who has conquered Tartary and is "advancing to their frontiers, will signify in a manner that cannot be "mistaken that the Parliament of England is resolved to uphold the "Empire of India."

The Declaration of Paris, which is supposed to bar the exercise of the Right of Search, has not the force of a Treaty. It has not been sanctioned by the QUEEN in Council; it has never been ratified by her nor by the Houses of Parliament. The right arm of England, it could no more be surrendered by the unratified acts of Lords CLARENDON and COWLEY than could the QUEEN's own title to the Crown of England.

Furthermore, the Treaty of Paris itself has since been ipso facto repudiated and abrogated by Russia.

To proclaim that the Declaration of Paris, which is no part of the Treaty, is null and void, would be only tantamount to saying that, in case of aggression on her and on her allies, England will be prepared to use her naval strength. It would not even be a threat; in no sense could it be as offensive as Mr. DISBAELI's words have made this new assumption of dignity. To adopt an imperial title in avowed rivalry may or may not be considered as an insult; to assert an old right cannot be justly looked on as an offence.

Her Majesty's Ministers, in making the QUEEN into an Empress, have confronted no ordinary amount of unpopularity at home. Is it only in face of the great military Powers, who desire to put down the maritime strength of England, that their hearts fail them?

"Who speaks of England since the Declaration of Paris ?" said Prince BISMARCK; but if Her Majesty by a simple Order in Council disavowed that suicidal act, would not England's voice be as potent as it was up to the fatal year of 1856 ?

Take the converse of the picture. Imagine the great Prince who has conquered Tartary advancing to Merv, from Merv to Herat, entering Afghanistan, and "annexing strip by strip of it," to use the words of the Times of August last-to use those of Sir H. RAWLINSON," the machinery "of agitation in Afghan territory, the inflammable and virulent class exposed to Afghan intrigue set on foot by Russian propagandism, simultaneously acting on the seething, fermenting mass of Mohammedan "hostility in India,"-imagine a conspiracy of native Princes organised by the same propagandism-will a proclamation signed "VICTORIA, Empress," be sufficient to stop it?

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What troops has the Empress to send to reinforce her army in the East in sufficient numbers to stamp out the insurrection instantaneously?

For stamped out instantaneously it must be, or the Indian markets fail; the mills stop at home, with the result of a discontented and fanishing population, and utter ruin of trade; not to speak of the opportunity afforded for the Colonies throwing off allegiance, for a German occupation of Holland, and for that final solution of the Eastern Question indicated in the formula which links India and Constantinople together as giving the empire of the world.

These are not the visions of alarmists-they are things sure to happen, and within a given time, unless the right of cruising at sea be again asserted as the means of stopping invasion by land.

The alternative is this: the QUEEN must be real QUEEN of the ocean, or nominal Empress without power and without dominions in the East.

Lord Palmerston's secret and posthumous Charges against Mr. Urquhart.

Letter from Lord PALMERSTON, dated Carlton Gardens, July 24, 1852, to his Brother the Hon. W. TEMPLE, British Minister at Naples.

"We have lost some good men in this new Parliament, GEORGE GREY, CARDWELL MAHON, GRENFELL, and several others; but then we have got rid of some bad ones, GEORGE THOMPSON, URQUHART, and the like. I do not reckon ANSTEY among the riddance; for though he came in to impeach me, he has latterly become one of my warmest friends and supporters. The fact is that URQUHART and ANSTEY were brought in at the election of 1847 by LOUIS PHILIPPE's money, that they might be set at me and demolish me if they could. URQUHART's seat at Stafford and AN STEY'S at Youghal cost many thousand pounds, and neither of them had any money to throw away; and I happen to know, in a very curious way, that those two, and a third man, an ally of theirs, and the editor of the Portfolio, WESTMACOTT, got from Louis PHILIPPE, for their attacks on me, something not short of 60,000l., first and last. That same King was a mean fellow, true son of EGALITÉ and true grandson of the Regent."

The above is such a precious document in reference to the character of the writer that we print it at once, though we must postpone any comment on it to another occasion.

Address from the Ulemas and Primates

of Bulgaria to Mr. Urquhart.

EXCELLENCY,We have had the honour to read in Turkish your letters to the Committee of Newcastle (letters of the 19th of November, 1875), with reference to the actual condition of the Turkish finances, explaining the dangers of that debt into which we have fallen, and indicating the remedy by which we may be saved from falling into that yawning pit.

Those letters, full of wise counsels, contain the true salvation for the Ottomans, for every sentence is the eloquent expression of truths by which the heart of each of us has long been tortured. When we read them we shed tears, we thanked GOD who had placed upon the earth a

man so full of wisdom and knowledge, who does not spare his knowledge for the enlightenment of the world, and we prayed to GOD to give him a long life.

The Greeks erected a statue to Lord BYRON, who fought for them against the Mussulmans.

We Mussulmans, who are forbidden by our laws to erect statues, we will do better; we will engrave all your wise counsels in our hearts, and in those of our children. At a time when the Ottoman Government has thus fallen before its enemies, you take the trouble to enlighten it by your good counsels, and you enter into a struggle for it against both its adversaries and its false friends.

Understanding all that we owe to you, we have considered it our duty by this writing to express to you how we and all the members of our families put up prayers for you and your success. Words are wanting to express the degree of our gratitude, and it only remains to us to ask you to pardon the deficiency of the terms in which our thanks are conveyed.

Trusting that your indefatigable work in reference to our Government and to our people may never cease, we beg you to believe us, Your most humble servants, (Here follow the seals.)

The Andrassy Note.

THE character of this document is elsewhere pointed out in this number. It is compared with the Mentchikoff Note which the Porte rejected at the cost of a War with Russia, and it is shown that in accepting the Andrassy Note it has done worse than had it accepted the Mentchikoff Note. In the Memoir on the Perfidy of Russia it is also shown that by it the perfidious plan of Count BEUST, proposed in his Circular of 1867, has been carried into effect without any one being aware that it has been so. His plan was a Congress without Turkey, in which her affairs were to be settled, and when a project had been agreed on in common between the Powers, a project which was to provide for the wants of the different populations, it was to be presented to the Porte for acceptance. It is obvious that this is exactly what has occurred, with the exception that the formality of an avowed Congress has been omitted and that the plan was first arranged between three Courts and then presented to the other three, France, Italy, and England, for acceptance.

It was with good reason that the formality of a Congress was omitted that would have been doing the thing openly before the face of the world; it would have been impossible to conceal what had occurred. Whereas now it is concealed above all from those whom it most concerns; namely, from the Turkish people.

Mr. DISRAELI told the House of Commons that the Government had adhered to the Note because had they not done so the Porte would not have accepted it, and that then England would have been responsible for the consequences. When he uttered those terrible words he did not know that the consequences-the fatal consequences --not of rejecting, but of accepting the Note, have only been averted