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1106 THE LE A P E tt. ffl°- 4 97- Oct. 1...
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We should like to see such an agitation ...
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LANDLORDS RIGHTS AND OUR DUTIES. Lobd'De...
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THE KINGDOM OF UPPER ITALY. Week af ter ...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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1106 The Le A P E Tt. Ffl°- 4 97- Oct. 1...
1106 THE LE A P E tt . ffl ° - 97- Oct . 1 , 1859 ^
We Should Like To See Such An Agitation ...
We should like to see such an agitation flourish , and therefore we hope it will not be made the vehicle for the promulgation of views that the bulk of the Liberal party will disapprove , lo > be successful it must be national , and Messrs . Cobden and Bright will do harm if they try to give to it an exclusively Manchester aspect . Above all * it must not be made a substitute for an appeal on behatt ol parliamentary reform . Its true position is to help the larger movement by furnishing convincing proof that great social and industrial interests are concerned in obtaining a good measure as the sequel to that of 1832 . -
Landlords Rights And Our Duties. Lobd'de...
LANDLORDS RIGHTS AND OUR DUTIES . Lobd'Derby has taken a bold and unusual course . Some * time ago one of his tenants on the Doon estate , in Limerick , was murdered , and as the murderer has not been found out , his lordship has evicted every one of his tenants from this estate . He suspects that they have harboured and countenanced the murderer , and he adopts this mode to punish them . His conduct finds at least one stout defender in the , metropolitan press . Ihe eviction , " says the Times , " is the withdrawal of a benefit to which the tenant had no natural right . ^ It is not carried into effect to procure more skilful tenants and higher rent , by making the land more productive , it is "to vindicate law andjustice His lordship ' s conduct is admitted to be " rough work , " " wholesale work , " a " most awkward , clumsy , barbarous imitation of justice . " The noble lord is supposed to say , "I grant this , but it is " the Only tool / have for putting down the spirit of murder , and vindicating the rights of human life . " It is supposed that in other countries the people have a knowledge " of refined and accurate justice , " and they " obey the law " and help to carry it into execution . In Limerick , on the noble lord ' s estate , " society will not give up the criminal ; " it stands in the way of " legal justice , " and on - " public and moral grounds" the eviction of the tenants is defended . The public are bound to scrutinise closely both the deed and the doctrine . It is done in the name of righteousness ; it is defended in the name of law ; it will find many to praise , and some to imitate it , but it threatens to be the germ of much present disorder . . It has frequently happened in many countries , and it continually happens now in the United States , that the multitude , impatient at the slow progress of the law , when some great state or other crime is charged against an individual ^ take the matter into their own hands and tear him to pieces or roast him alive . Like Lord Derby , they have an instinctive horror of crime '; the law does not get hold of a supposed criminal , and they , forming a " Vigilance Committee , " pounce on him and put him to death . They , at least , as the rule , believe their victim to be guilty ; Lord Derby knows that some of his victims must be innocent . Violence is their tool , eviction is Lord Derby ' s , for putting down " the spirit of crime and vindicating the rights of human life . " Why should Lord Derby , any more than a mob , interfere with the execution of the law , and take it on himself to punish crime P The law decrees no punishment to the Doon tenantry for not hunting down a mur- ' derer . How dare Lord Derby decree it P Exactly like Judge Lynch or Judge Mob , he makes the law ordains a punishment , and carries his own deoreo into execution . It is nominally for righteousness now ? another time it may be avowedly for whim , Those who approve of his conduot would alter their opinion were " sooiety " in Limerick the legislator and judge , and Lord Derby the victim . Then the | law would be thought all-sufficient ; and all Eunishment , oxoopt what is ordained—especially , a asty punishment without trial and conviction for an act not punishable by law—would be stigmatised as monstrous cruelty and injustice . Lord Derby Beta a terribly bad example to the mob ; he practically denies , by his conduct , the sufficiency of law , and seeks for Justice beyond it . . In Limeriok , « society " has tho misfortune to differ from Lord Derby . Perhaps , too , it differs from -sooiety in England , It has a much more intimate knowledge than he or than artjoiety iu , England can have of all the domestic and , neighbourly relations of tho man murdex * od , wad it declines to exert itself to detect tho murderer . " Sooiety" there may have a strange taste and a perverted conscience—we defend neither ;
Dutbothhave been formed under the landownership of Lord Derby and the dominion of the English law By now evicting his tenantry he brands the law , and impudently enforces his own opinion against the opinion of " society . " The only jury to decide between right and wrong is society ^ and for Lord Derby to punish society because it differs from him , is really to coerce its conscience , which the Times says is a terrible Oppression . We must all deeply regret that " society " in Limerick or Tipperary has such a conscience , but the landowner , under whose administration it has been formed , has of all men the least right to punish Because he is the landowner , Lord Derby , with the approbation of-the Times , assumes now all the power which in the middle ages belonged to the chieftains in Tipperary and in the Highlands . He does not indeed hang men after their fashion , he only starves them into submission without subjecting them to trial . " The land , " however , is the landlord ' s own ; the possession of it is a " means of power . " He uses it " to vindicate law and justice . The " tenant has no natural right to its benefits ; " he enjoys it by the bountyof the landlord , who may evict and starve him when he fancies that " law and order and justice require the eviction . Doctrines more perilous to the landlord ' s possession , put forth to defend a species of Lynch law , were never propounded . What natura right has the landowner to the land ? None whatever . The right to own land is a conventional right—a right supposed to be for the general benefit , and , therefore , ordained by the law , and guaranteed by the people , whose power guarantees and enforces all law . When this conventional right is used to starve men into submission to the will of the landowner , and effect what the landlord supposes the law ought to effect , the people may and must ask themselves whether they will continue to guarantee and enforce such a mere conventional right ? The land naturally belongs to the whole people—to one as well as to another—who permit it to be made private property , because this is supposed to be for the general welfare . If all its advantages , however , are to be usurped by such men as Lord Derby , and the possession guaranteed by the people be used only to debase , degrade and injure them , they may justly conclude that the sooner they act on their natural right , and resume possession of the soil , the better for their own safety and for the general welfare . We , at least , will not lend our voice to enforce that law which gives Lord Derby the powex ' , though it be used to detect a murderer , arbitrarily to evict and starve all who live by cultivating the land guaranteed to him . We observe that Lord Derby ' s advocate continually confounds and contrasts law and justice . He speaks of legal justice , and implies the existence of illegal justice . Sometimes law and justice are the same , and sometimes they are antagonistic . Such a confusion on very important matters in the minds of our public instructors must be obliterated . Justice , according to Home Tooke , is that which is ordered ; and law , we all know , is , also , that which is ordered—ordered by Parliament , and ordered b y the judges . No reasonable being now , however , doubts but that society , as a part of the universe , has a Moral Governor , one and the same for all , and what He orders is justice : what the Parliament and the judges order is j ^ wyand not jjustioe . We are continually finding out what He orders , or what is justice ; to find it out , indeed , is the end and aim of all research . For this we treasure up experience ; for this we make observations ; for this we use all our senses , and dav ^ after day wo learn that the law of Parliament is not what tho Moral Governor of the universe orders , and is oontrary to justice . Whether tho law which guarantees the Doon estate to Lord Derby , which the people are denounced if they do not enforce , be ov be not consistent with justice , is tho important point which has been brought into question by Lord Derby and his defender 5 but which " sooiety " cannot and will not allow them , or any clique , or any class , exclusively to settle . The bold aot of Lord Derby has startled the people into an investigation of landowners' rights , and the people ' s duties towards them and the law . It is a ray of light suddenly shot into a dark corner , where lies the buried evidence of crime long ago committed . What will be tho effect on tho national mind and fortune , time only can show .
The Kingdom Of Upper Italy. Week Af Ter ...
THE KINGDOM OF UPPER ITALY . Week af ter week rolls on , and still the same uncertainty prevails with regard to the settlement of the Italian question . If Napoleon III . does not take care he may possibly find that he ' has outwitted himself in inflicting this suspense upon the people and friends of Italy . Having , from experience , learned their aptitude for self-o overnment , the Italians may perhaps not be inclined to submit to be governed by others when the moment arrives destined by the Emperor of France to see them again placed in leading strings . In vain do the political adherents of Austria endeavour to . prove that the proposed annexation of-the Duchies and the Legations to . Piedmont is nothing'less than spontaneous , the result of coercion , or at least deception , practised upon the middle and lower classes of those districts . Facts and results belie their assertions . The dictatorship lias already lasted long enough to have lost the charm of novelty , and yet the greatest respect and affection continue to be manifested towards those -who act in the name of Victor Emmanuel , or borrow the prestige of his title as a national ruler , to support their temporary authority . The Legations have just made the same formal offer of union as Tuscany , Modena , and Parma , and the Kin ;? of Sardinia accepts the annexation conditionally , just as in the previous cases . It is said , though " with what amount of veracity is difficult to determine , that according to a clause in the treaty of offensive and defensive alliance between France and Piedmont , the latter , in the event of a successful termination of the war , was to be enlarged to a kingdom of eleven or twelve million subjects . This would be almost the exact number of the population to which the Sardinian' States would amount if . the proposed annexation took place . "Will it be permitted , or will it not ? That is the great and interesting question which every one is asking of his neig hbour at the present moment . It seems clear enough that this was not the " idea" for which Napoleon III . undertook the war in Italy . Will a State of Central Italy be formed with a Napoleonu' prince at its head ? Doubtless the question will now be definitively settled within the course of a few days , and we may , therefore , waive the further discussion of the matter ; but we would earnestly urge upon the Italians themselves and their noble leaders to act as if they were certain of success m their praiseworthy efforts to become a united people , and to be prepared to manifest a steady and resolute opposition to all attempts to coerce them . We are told that if the Central States would take back their rulers , Austria would be willing to give up Venetia . Nothing could more clearly prove how intimate is the connexion between the rule of the banished Sovereigns and Austrian tyranny . The renewed control and influence which Francis Joseph would enjoy throughout the Peninsula by means o * the restoration of the petty princes , would be such as amply to compensate him for the material loss ox the Venetian territory , which he holds un . le the positive right conferred by the treaty ol . 18 ^ Let the presently emancipated peoples ot Untioi Italy beware of voluntarily placing . then Jolve * once more beneath the yoke of Austria , whether -xlircctljr or indirectly . They may bejj J that after the events of the past six >" onthsu . ui bution in no measured form or amount vonia do their portion . They are at present gai ned y good , wise , and moderate men , forming tno Sappiest contrast from the hot-headed , foo brained republicans and demagogues , who have during former seasons of political , transition ^ inado the Peninsula a very pandemonium , Hi » t » hard to find the happy medium *?™?™ ^™ ot and apathy . A little more ^ promptitude wo connoj but thinkf would be justifiable and . ^"" WjJ , . under existing circumstances . We know g provisional rulers and statesmen have a a cu part to play . Most of them , as men o latent , reputation , and standing , are very naturally ^ from committing themselves to any eouwo which may compromise themselves or the countly inc affairs take a direction contrary to the one , wuiui they wish . Some of them , we know , have' ^ Jj pw . missions , and are labouring onerget cally , to i * sacrifice of personal comfort and p hysical we . » being , in undertakings which they have tlie tunes conviction will never result in suocoss . lll 7 f themselves deeply indebted to the twpoi oi Franco for his assistance against Austria , ana con
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 1, 1859, page 14, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_01101859/page/14/
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