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act; failing this there seemed no alternative but a continuance of the Dictatorship if any effectual Government of the country was to be carried on. Pi-y-Margall and the Intransigentes were on the look-out for their opportunity. Their strength in the Cortes was formidable; the Cartagenan insurrection was playing their game; the friends of order trembled at the prospect of their ascendancy. The President of the Republic and the President of the Cortes entered into negotiations. Salmeron desired that Castelar should dismiss four of his most trusted Ministers and admit four nominees of his own in their place. To this proposition Castelar returned a decided negative. The situation had come to a dead-lock, the air was full of rumours, and among these the prevalent one on the last day of the year was that a military pronunciamiento was in contemplation; that Marshal Serrano and the Captain-General of Madrid, General Pavia, and the army over which they both had control, were preparing in the background to solve, by a bold stroke of force, the political entanglements which seemed hopeless of arrangement by State diplomacy. How the crisis evolved itself must be left for the historical record of the succeeding year.

We leave, for another portion of our present narrative, the transactions connected with the steamer "Virginius," at Cuba, which threatened, in the month of November, to bring the Spanish Government into serious collision with that of the United States of North America.

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Over the two first of these countries the year 1873 passed very tranquilly, and without bringing forth any political event worthy of special commemoration. That PORTUGAL should have held on her course undisturbed by the vagaries of her excited neighbour Spain, was a strong testimony to the steadiness of her political temper.

The most animated debate in the BELGIAN Chambers was one concerning the repurchase by the State of the Grand Luxemburg Railway. In spite of the opposition of M. Frère-Orban and the Left, this measure had passed both Houses by the middle of March. The fêtes at Antwerp, in the month of August, were the occasion of a great popular demonstration of loyalty towards the King and Queen ; the more so as the Ultramontane party chose to stand aloof: for in Belgium, as in almost every other country of Christendom at this time, the clerical controversy was interwoven with the whole fabric of social and political life. When King Leopold II. reopened the Chambers on the 10th of November, he said-and his words may be taken as the historical summary for the year-" Calm and prosperous, the Belgium of 1873 may be proud of the past, and look at the future with serene confidence."

HOLLAND was less favoured than Belgium this year, having had to carry on a troublesome and expensive war against the Sultan of

Atchin, in Sumatra. By the late treaty concluded with England, the cession of the whole of the Gold Coast to the British State by the Dutch was balanced by a permission to the latter nation to pursue any course of conquest or annexation they might wish to undertake in the island of Sumatra. How troublesome a bargain the English had made for themselves was soon seen in the Ashantee war. The Dutch had no more reason to congratulate themselves, when having full of confidence despatched an expedition to coerce the Mohammedan State of Atchin, they were met with an opposition altogether inconsistent with the precedents of European conquest in the East. The Atchinese repelled the Dutch army with loss, and so far gained their end that the invaders had to retire and wait for reinforcements before renewing the war. This was in April. In the month of October another expedition was sent out; and the news received by telegram at the end of December was that General Van Swieten, who commanded the Dutch forces, had gained an important victory, and that a revolution had taken place in the State of Atchin.

SWITZERLAND.

The affair of M. Mermillod was still occupying attention at the beginning of the year. Notwithstanding the prohibition of the Council of State, that prelate continued to exercise episcopal functions under orders from the Pope. A Papal brief of January 16th announcing his appointment was distinctly repudiated by the Council, and the Cantonal authorities were desired to inform M. Mermillod that he must either resign his illegal dignity or quit the country. He chose the latter course; preached again at Geneva, and on the 17th of February was arrested by the police, and conveyed beyond the French frontier. From his place of refuge he continued to direct intrigues against the State proceedings. At Basle a diocesan conference was called together at the beginning of the year to enforce State authority against Bishop Lachat, the representative of Ultramontane claims in that part of the Confederation, and his deposition was pronounced. In April, great enthusiasm was created by a series of conferences held by Father Hyacinthe at Geneva, in which he advocated Church Reform on the basis of Liberal Catholicism, in co-operation with the Old Catholics. At the end of August the Grand Council of Geneva passed a Bill for the organization of Catholic worship, the chief provisions of which were that the curés should be appointed by the parishes (three for the city of Geneva); that the parish should be represented by five members in a superior council of thirty-one: that the curés should be obliged to take an oath to the Constitution, and were liable to suspension for four years if refractory in their conduct. The elections to these parochial councils and curés took place soon afterwards, and the proceedings passed off quietly. Father Hyacinthe

was one of the curés elected. When the year closed, a question was pending as to the right of possession of the Church of Notre Dame, between the Liberal Catholic and Ultramontane parties. Two other events attracted attention to the city of Geneva this year. One was the death of the eccentric Charles, Duke of Brunswick, who had long resided there, and the announcement of the splendid legacy of his whole enormous wealth to the city. In accordance with his desire, his funeral was on the 29th of August, celebrated with princely honours. The other event was the Congress of Internationalists in the beginning of September, the two rival sects of the Association, the advanced "Centralists," or followers of Karl Marx, and more moderate " Federalists," or adherents of Bakounine, holding their rival sittings at two different halls of concourse.

SWEDEN. DENMARK.

The two coronations of Oscar II., King of SWEDEN, on the 12th of May, at Stockholm, and on the 18th of July at Trondhjem in Norway, were the occasion of grand festivities. Foreign Powers were numerously and brilliantly represented.

In DENMARK the Spring Session of the Rigsday, or Parliament, was signalized by a Ministerial crisis. The Radical party having failed to upset the Ministry by their action on Bills proposed in the House, sent up an address to the Crown expressing want of confidence in its advisers, and claiming for the Volkthing, or Second Chamber, the exclusive right of determining the choice of a Cabinet. This was met by a counter-address of the Landthing, or Upper Chamber, claiming an equal share of power for that branch of the Legislature. The Ministers tendered their resignations, but the King refused to accept them, and sent an answer expressing his dissent from the pretensions of the Volksthing. The Radicals then attempted to overthrow the Government on the question of the Budget, but suffered a signal defeat.

When the Rigsdag reopened, in October, the contest began again. The Budget was again chosen as the battle-field, but before the debate began, certain members of the Opposition offered the Ministers the choice of dissolving the House. The Ministers again tendered their resignation, and were again desired by the King to remain in office. But on a Government defeat on the final vote on the Budget question, on October 17th, the King sent a Royal Message pronouncing the dissolution of Parliament.

The demand of the Icelanders for a new Constitution, though an event more important for Denmark than for the rest of the world, has a certain picturesqueness which makes it worth recording. The story of it is thus told :

At the great public meeting which was held previously to the opening of the Althing it was decided to send a deputation, consisting of three delegates, to the King of Denmark, to submit to him a

draft Constitution, the chief provision of which was that Iceland should in future be connected with Denmark by a personal union only, and be governed by a Yarl (viceroy) with three Ministers responsible to the Althing. Immediately after the close of the meeting the members of the Althing assembled at Reykiavik. Some of the followers of Jan Sigurdson, the leader of the Icelandic opposition, and founder of the secret society Pyodvinafelag, kept their seats when the usual cheers were given for the King, but no other disloyal manifestation was made. Jan Sigurdson was their elected President, and nearly all the Bills brought in by the Government were rejected. The draft Constitution was referred to a Committee, which on the 28th of July reported in its favour, and added a resolution to the effect that the King should be requested to approve the following temporary arrangement as soon as possible, and not later than next year:-1. That the Althing be at once invested with full legislative powers, and a new Budget be submitted for its approval once in every two years, on the principle that no tax or impost shall be levied in Iceland for defraying expenditure incurred by the Danish Government. 2. That a special Minister be appointed for Icelandic affairs, and that he be responsible to the Althing. 3. That this arrangement be valid for six years only, after which the entire Constitution shall be laid before the Althing for its approval.

The Crown Prince of Germany visited Copenhagen in August, on the invitation of the Crown Prince of Denmark; and his visit gave rise to some excitement in political circles, as surmise chose to place it in connexion with a conversation lately held by Prince Bismarck with Herr Kryger, the Deputy for North Schleswig in the German Diet, in which the Prussian statesman was reported to have expressed his willingness to consider the decrees of the Danish Schleswigans for reunion with their former nationality.

RUSSIA.-Khivan War.

CHAPTER V.

TURKEY.-Lahéj Expedition-International Tonnage Commission-Egypt.
GREECE.-Schemes of National Improvement-Laurium Mines.

NORTH AMERICA. UNITED STATES.-Credit Mobilier Scandals-Trials of Stokes,
Tweed, and Hall-Close of Forty-second Congress-General Grant's Inaugural
Message Purchase of Samana-Modoc War-Dissensions in Louisiana-Financial
Panic-Affair of the "Virginius."

MEXICO. Church Legislation.

SOUTH AMERICAN STATES.-BRAZIL.-BOLIVIA.-Peru.

ASIATIC AND AFRICAN STATES. PERSIA.-CHINA.-MOROCCO.

RUSSIA.

THE expedition undertaken by the Russian Government against the Khan of Khiva towards the close of 1872 met with a serious reverse. Colonel Markosoff, who was the officer in command, had nearly reached the city of Khiva when, presuming on the apparent absence of opposition, he carelessly allowed himself to be surprised by a body of Khivan light troops, and was forced to a rapid retreat. An Imperial Council was called in St. Petersburg on the receipt of this intelligence, and a vigorous campaign to conquer Khiva was decided upon, in spite of the dissentient opinion of Prince Gortschakoff, who declared himself opposed to any further extension of the Russian boundaries in Central Asia.

The negotiations that took place between Russia and England on the subject of the proposed Khivan expedition have found mention in another part of our volume. Here we are only concerned with the course of the enterprise itself.

The expeditionary force set out in two main divisions, advancing against Khiva from Turkestan on the east, and from Orenburg and the Caucasus on the west. It was subdivided into five or six columns, of which the principal one moved from Djisak, on the 15th of March, under the personal orders of General Kaufmann, who had been appointed Commander-in-Chief of the whole invading army. Having pursued its way along the northern confines of Bokhara, this column arrived on the 22nd of April at Aristan Bel, and two days later at Khalaat, where it awaited the junction of another force advancing from Kasalins, by way of the Bukan hills. This junction took place about the 12th of May, and the troops united at Khalaat amounted to about 5000. On the 16th of May the advanced guard of the force attacked the Khivans on the left bank of the Oxus or Amoo Darya, and the whole division crossed the river at Cheicharyk from the 18th to the 22nd. On the following day

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