VERY Monday some new pretender to public favour Conscious of th e parallel between a literary and a com- There is, then, in the very name of this Review, an implied purpose sufficiently distinct to gain for it, by a mere casual introduction, an acknowledgement of being, in the language of modern politicians, "the right thing in the right place." Its conductors are thus all the more justified in their anticipa- tion of success, when this fitness in name, and time of appear- ance, are but useful adjuncts to the performance of a high political function, and to the expression of a policy which, though without a faithful representative in the press, is yet thoroughly national and most truly popular. This Review will date its commencement from a period when the tide of a general Conservative reaction had hemmed within limits too narrow to be useful the political sentiments of many of the leading members of the party. The Conservative journals have chosen to confine themselves to the circumscribed range of partisanship, regarding their party merely as a jealous Opposition, and thus becoming rather the advocates of poli- ticians than the exponents of a policy. It is the fundamenta- error of certain Reviews also, that they are simply stored with We aspire to the unoccupied position of interpreters of of giving life and vigour-to the Church. A Protestant opponent of Romanising influences. It desires to see the Church practically national; and regarding it as composed of the clergy and laity undivided and inseparable, it will support a wise admixture of lay agency in the management of its Free from the misguiding influences of party spirit, this Review will not seek to dispossess the Government of Lord of the present day is built should be an honest, enlightened, AMERICAN WAR AND SLAVERY. and well-conducted press. We, in our place as public teachers, at a singular crisis. promise to abide by the convictions we have owned, and we now appeal to the public on their part to assist us in guarding, improving, and extending that constitutional system of government which has produced among us more than is elsewhere, or ever was, of well ordered liberty, and of national happiness and prosperity. MR. GLADSTONE'S FINANCE. E take our first view of the Great American Civil War New Orleans, the repeated successes of the Federal arms seem impossible for the Southerners to retrieve the losses sustained in Kentucky, Tennessee, and on the sea-board of the Eastern States. But a nation is not defeated in battles; and the Confederate people have shown, and continue to show, a spirit of resistance which must be recognised as national. The planters stack their cotton-bales for parapets along the river-face of Memphis, or burn them in the face of the armies approaching Richmond from the North. Their women contribute gold and silver ornaments, household plate, and all the vanities dear to feminine nature, to make a fund against the THE HE debate of Thursday night proves how extensive is the realm of modern finance. On this occasion it comprehended not only the past and present fiscal policy of Mr. GLADSTONE, but under the ingenious manipulation of Mr.rial and not moral influences to decide the struggle, it would DISRAELI stretched far away through the dominions of our nearest ally, spreading itself over the unannealed Italian kingdom, absorbing the narrow confines of the POPE's authority, and then crossing the Atlantic, claimed as its peculiar province the warring States of America. All this arose from the remarks of Sir STAFFORD NORTHCOTE on the second reading of the Customs and Inland Revenue Bill. It may be that the member for Stamford, who is rather more addicted to arithmetical than rhetorical figures, was surprised to find that he had opened a channel through which so many subjects could flow. He may have re-invaders. The bells of the churches and the gongs of the gretted that the right honourable gentleman whom he had announced as his seconder should after an accidental absence leave him so soon alone with his financial policy, and soar away into the distant regions of foreign affairs. If so, we cannot join Sir STAFFORD in his regrets, but we shall be omitting a duty if we fail to thank him for having provoked so clear an exposition of policy 'from both sides of the House. He at least has been consistent in his exposition of Mr. GLADSTONE's financial schemes. Mr. DISRAELI did not exaggerate the result of them when he stated "that there were not five members in the House who had a clear conception of what the financial state of the country really was." Mr. GLADSTONE in his character as a financial wizard may receive this as a great compliment to his dexterity. But we agree with Sir STAFFORD that it is not satisfactory to the country, and inasmuch as his comments ended without a substantive motion; as all that he has stated had for its object to prove that Mr. GLADSTONE had dealt imprudently with the national resources, and had left us with the sinews of war tightly strained in time of peace; we think he has every reason to be satisfied with Mr. GLADSTONE's admission, “that for the last three years we have been maintaining the national expenditure by the exhaustion of temporary resources." We do not deprecate a debate of this nature as any waste of Parliamentary time although we question if a mere querulous complaint is a dignified policy on the part of a powerful Opposition. If Sir STAFFORD and his friends had, last year, contented themselves with recommending the substitution of the war duties on tea and sugar for the Paper-duty, and not voted directly for their repeal, at the time when they ignored the existence of a surplus, Mr. GLADSTONE might now be in the enjoyment of the tax upon paper, and would certainly be without one of his best weapons of defence. Mr. GLADSTONE revels in the results of the French treaty, and mounted on his wine hobby it might be supposed that he had made all the street pumps throughout England to run with claret. He would assume to possess a patent for the principle of commercial treaties which by no means belongs to the party with which he is now associated. The "virgin state" of Income-tax, which Mr. DISRAELI rightly considers so desirable a condition to be regained, is, we fear, lost for ever, and from henceforth ways and means may have a simplicity of origin which will please the Manchester party better than ourselves. If plantations are melted down into cannon for BEAUREGARD and Meanwhile, the indirect consequences of the strife press more and more heavily upon the nations which are its unwilling spectators. The congested trade of Lancashire begins to show signs of impatience and inflammation, and France is less and less tolerant of the protracted struggle. The journey Monday, May 12, 1862.] THE MONDAY REVIEW. of M. MERCIER to Richmond may be taken as a sign of the anxiety of foreign ministers; and although that journey has been disapproved by the Emperor, it was not because it had pacific designs. He has given Mr. SLIDELL no official reception, but he has caused him to be viewed by the Cabinet of Ministers in a manner too marked to be misunderstood. In fact, the cry is peace-the weary struggle is provoking Europe and the best intelligence of America herself into TYBALT's impatient exclamation, "A plague on both your houses." It grows more and more clear that the contest must be a prolonged one, and less and less possible for the embarassed industries of the world to regard it in silence and suffering. The time has come, then, that it should cease, though the difficulties in the way of mediation seem well nigh insurmountable. They might, perhaps, be overcome if England and France were of one mind upon the terms of mediation. Their interest in the matter is one, and their united voice could hardly be disregarded. In all probability the strife of North and South will eventually be settled between London and Paris, and possibly at no great interval of time. It is true that the North has not abated one jot of its pretensions to subjugate the recalcitrant South; but neither has the South relaxed at all in its now sworn resolve to become independent. If the North, too, has the advantage of victories, she is exhausted beyond parallel by the effects of the war, which taxes her resources even more heavily than the South. As it is a crisis in the military history of the contention, so is it also a turning point in its political aspect; and we must look for decisive incidents. 3 ceived such assurances of loyalty both to his person and of their cause. We lament that Mr. DISRAELI has assumed for the Conservative party a policy upon this question at variance with their general sentiments. We regret that the Conservative journals have ran round and round the difficulty, hesitating to follow their instincts merely from fear that they should be found supporting the government of political opponents. And although the redemption of this misapprehension on the part of the right hon. Member for Bucks would have given us sincere pleasure, yet we have studied his We cannot accept it as recent exegesis of Italian affairs without discovering any signs of amendment. Leaving aside the paralysis of commerce, we question only if the war has paramount interest with cis-Atlantic watchers. That great question, the emancipation of the slaves, presses constantly into the foreground. Forced, in self-defence and by self-interest, to be honest, the Government of Mr. LINCOLN In has passed bill after bill to purchase the freedom of the negro, and concluded a special slave-treaty with this country. any intervention that takes place, the consideration of this subject must stand first. England at least will agree to nothing which rivets afresh the fetters of the slave, while she will certainly be as far from demanding anything like speedy and abrupt manumission. But, in any event, a vast number of freed contrabands must shortly be let loose upon What with those already escaped to the United States. the Federal armies, those which will be freed by purchase and convention, and those left ownerless by the progress of the war, the disposition of them will be a great problem. Indeed, we must not forget that whatever be the issue of this strife, its effect upon the slave population generally is yet to be an exposition of our English foreign policy which the made known. The Southern journals tell us nothing; but it Conservatism of the country will endorse with its approval. it is idle to suppose that the echo of this great struggle, with its Mr. DISRAELI laboured to show that the interests of England hopes and contingencies for the negro, has passed over him without awakening emotions that will not be easily crushed. Every- and France in Italy were precisely identical. By first dething tends to show that one certain, if only eventual, result claring that economical reform was to be obtained only by of the civil war, will be a general surcease of slave-labour. subserviency to NAPOLEON, he then suggested that we should trim our views upon the Roman question, and upon all the What, then, is to become of the slaves? It is a great and knotty question, answered by some of themselves in a curious Italian questions, in order to sail smoothly through the petition lately presented to the Senate of the North. The free coloured" ask therein to be deported to Central channel of events in company with the EMPEROR. For this America; where they may acquire those rights of citizenship cause he was prepared to call the annexation of Southern Peace for the Italy an affair of "mere detail," and to use the moral force which are denied to them in the States. unhappy States-once United: relief for England, France, of England to sustain "the independence of the PorE." We and all the world, injured beyond endurance by their from the same standpoint. The POPE is a power in France, madness, and a future for four millions of enslaved negroes: deny that England and France can view the Roman question which he is not, and never will be, in England. It is forIf the EMPEROR sinthese are the momentous questions which occupy the time. tunate for Italy that this is the case. cerely intends to further the wishes of the Italian people by withdrawing from the occupation of Rome, the policy which this country has adopted will be his greatest support in a step which, it must be allowed, is beset with difficulties. It was one of the ideas nurtured by that NAPOLEON, whose shade-if we may credit his nephew-yet watches over the fortunes of the BONAPARTE dynasty, that the POPE was to be treated as a potentate who had 200,000 soldiers at his beck. The EMPEROR may desire to get clear of this Papal incum IF ITALY. F the key-stone of our foreign policy is as Lord PALMERSTON has said, the alliance with France, its surest test is to be found in our conduct with reference to the affairs of Italy. We are somewhat fortunate in the political situation which exists, when we, for the first time, enter upon the subject. A recent debate has put the country in possession of the sentiments both of Government and of the ostensible leader of the Opposition, while in the Peninsula the KING has re |