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Leader (1850-1860), 4th September 1852, Edition Country of 2, Page 13, OUTRAGES ON WOMEN The Society for tho Pr...

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    • ^tthiir Mnim
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      Ar01309

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      _*»***< vo • ——?

      = - Saturday , September 4,1852

      = - SATURDAY , SEPTEMBER 4 , 1852

      ^Tthiir Mnim

      _^ tthiir _Mnim

      There Is Nothing So Revolutionary, Becau...

      There is nothing so revolutionary , because there is nothin g so -unnatural and convulsive , as the strain to Veep things fixed when all the world is by the very law _ofife creation in eternal progress . —Da . Abnold . .

      What Then? Pabliambnt Is To Meet In Nove...

      WHAT THEN ? Pabliambnt is to meet in November—the new parliament . " What then P" asks the politician , thoroughly _blas _6 . Bnt Lord Derby—or rather Mr . Disraeli , is then to disclose his policy . " Well , what then ?" _Nothing can move him . To the blase politician there is but one thing that comes with a welcome —news ; and just now there is no news . Of free discussion he has had a surfeit , except in religion and certain questions of the moralities , and Absolutists might profit by the experience ; the Englishman is fairly sick of all discussion , save in religion and the said moralities . Those subjects still hare some interest for him ; but every other he has discussed until he is sick of it all .

      Discussed enough to prevent aetion . As to the thing , discussed , none but enthusiasts can feel any interest in subjects so remote ; and there are no enthusiasts left in the field of public affair _^ during the vacation . r ' When the poet Thomson was asked why he did not get up . in the morning , he answered , " Young man , I have no motive "; the very reason why no English party can get up any stir .

      We see events pass by us in their unbroken procession as things that concern us not . The politician , like the fated German dreamer , sees his own funeral pass by , and is but an unconcerned spectator of his own public decease . , Were England an inn , and we but lodgers , its affairs could not concern us less . We pay the bill , and think it large ; but only fussy , vulgar people remonstrate . Mr . Hume and Mr . Cobden tell us that it might be retrenched ; but what then ? Mr . Hume and Mr . Cobden are mauvais ton .

      Tremendous _vaticinatdrs , who see into millstones , London fogs , causes of things , and other inscrutable substances , declare that if matters go on as they do , without any real Government , but only by hap-hazard , there is a chance that the inn may be broken up , or pass into other hands . But what then P There will always be some inn ; and it hardl y matters of what sort . They givo vory good _entertainment at Vienna ; and even Louis Napoleon can do something creditable in that style .

      But Lord Malmesbury is Foreign Minister , and alread y we are in a sort of diplomatic hot water with various foreign Governments , so that Peace is in danger . Surely that will touch tho cold Englishman P Not a jot of it . Peace has lasted so long , that ho believes in it , just as he does in tho Thirty-nine Articles , or anything that has lasted from [ his ] timo immemorial . Hut , even if it should not continue , he is half tired of it , and doesn ' t care . Napoleon is going headlong to the Empire ; but what is tbat to England P Italy

      cannot lor over enduro Austrian torture . Well , who cares—except Gladstone P There are , indeed , practical matters to demand our attention . Por example , Australia is calling out for emigrants , and threatening to separate it nioro convicts bo sent ; yet more convicts aro sent , oven by honest Sir John Pakington ; and twent y thousand _omigranta-that-would- bo aro waiting to ao , and can't tret passports from tho

      j't'tlo office under the Colonial Office . Well , what then P who cares P If wo lose the colonies , I akmgton will be responsible . If tho poor emigrants can ' t got their tickets , thoy must wait : it 18 _/ '"" iigton _' _s affair . Ilio railways are amalgamating , and aro intending to defraud thc public by combination against the consumer . Well—whoso affair is « a _"x Pt tlvo railway companies P Let alone , _» nd all _Wih como ri h _£

      Lot alone , indeed , and tho Cholera will como . _flttw Tk * 18 - ° U iiB tour _~ _Era © roum , War' Dtmtzig _, J £ onigsborg , _hayo already

      What Then? Pabliambnt Is To Meet In Nove...

      been touched in its itinerary : Sunderland should come next . Well , we all know that : any fool can trace the usual course of Cholera . But , remember , we have still our towns and ho « o _es unprepared for it—we have still drains that _dt > not drain , water which is not " the simple element , " churchyards which are depositories of death amidst , the living :. we are still helpless to undergo Cholera I And what then P

      The Immortal Spark In Protection. " No S...

      THE IMMORTAL SPARK IN PROTECTION . " No surrender , " was once the motto for the Protectionists , and , however the leaders of the party , trading in the interests of their own adherents for their own purposes , may now be disposed to give up the cause which they entered office to sustain , the Protectionists themselves will still be bent on attaining the substance of that for which they have so long fought . The Eree-Trade journals are hallooing before they are out of the wood . They are now talking of the Protectionist party as of one whose relics they are despatching fast and fiercely , under the

      auspices of Mr . Disraeli and Lord ! Derb y ; but the party will not be so easily killed . There is a real truth wrapped up in the fallacy bf Protection , and the truth itself will survive all the odium that the fallacy has invited . The consummation of Eree-Trade has onl y removed some of the difficulties that obstructed the truth that lay in Protection ; and-the day is approaching when the residuary Protectionists will be obliged to shift their grounds from the old abandoned dogma to the extracted truth : they will be obliged to leave the wreck for the still serviceable longboat .

      The Ship-owner ' s Society is preferring its demands for justice , and the Times , combating-the arguments , is obliged to admit that some portion of the demands is " not unreasonable . " For example , the Ship-owners contend that , as they are exposed to the competition of the world in trade , they must be allowed to use the competition of the world in manning their ships , and be no longer restricted to the employment of British seamen alone , in a certain proportion . The Times is willing to concede that demand ; it thinks "there is good reason to believe that

      many of the evils complained of oh board merchant-ships , arise from the protection , by legislative enactment , of British seamen from foreign competition , and the endless insubordinations which are sure to follow from such a monopoly . " Thus tho Times would expose the British seaman to foreign competition , as a means of beating him down in his bargain with his employers . The Times would concede a restriction which prevents our merehant navy , nursery for our armed marine , from being maintained solely by foreign pupils in _sailorship , and would thus hand over to

      trade the control of our marine . Viewed politically , such a concession is a reduclio ab absurdum ; but it will scarcely be viewed as such by a public already prejudiced in favour of tho dogma from which it starts . One of tho arguments , however , which tho Times employs—an old favourite with tho freetrade public—would be sufficient answer to thc position . " Tho principle of free trade , " writes our contemporary , " is to trust to tho principle of self-interest to provide tho ship with all things necessary to complete tho voyage in safety . " Now there is ono branch of shipping in which tho principlo of self-interest was trusted , and in

      which it failed in a manner tho moBt egregious and disgraceful . Self-interest was left to cater for _omigrants to North America , and it waa found that it treated thoso emigrants as pigs themselves would not havo been treated . Indecency and _disoaso rendered the emigrant ship controlled by no better genius than self-interest , a perfect hell upon tho waters ; those who wore not contaminated wore outraged ; and the cargo was landed on the other shore of the Atlantic in every stage of moral and physical suffering . The nuisance at last

      became so flagrant , that it attracted public attention : common sense , and common decency , obliged tho Legislature to interpose ; and now , compulsory laws regulate tho conduct of emigrant ships . Tho rosults have been very satisfactory * : the food is now for the most part wholesome ; tho lodging accommodation is tolerable ; the customs of the ship , the inevitable customs , no longer outrage every fooling of decency . But those advantages are obtained by an intervention which wholl y violates tho dogma of Eroo Trade . We porceivo , therofore , from this practical oxporionce

      The Immortal Spark In Protection. " No S...

      that the principle of Free Trade , as it is stated by the Times , is not sufficient for regulating the commerce between man and man . It is not sufficient for so distinct a matter as the bargain for a passage across the sea ; how then could it be sufficient to regulate so many political and social _collateralizes involved in the whole question of the shipping interest . If the Free Trade party should find itself sufficiently powerful to enforce its dogma upon that interest , as it has upon the agricultural , some of the evils which are to be anticipated would be sooner realized , because the field is more limited and more concentrated to the view , and we should then find that the true part of Protection would again assert itself .

      As we have said times innumerable , and may again say in noticing this most recent illustration , freedom of trade is an excellent thing in the mere process of exchange , but it will not suffice to regulate the other relations of traders as . men , as companions , as citizens . In every relation whatever there must be at least two parties to the transaction ; and free-trade cannot attain its most beneficial development unless the interests of both these parties are kept in view , and consulted by both . The interests will be best served when both .

      co-operate to the common object . This principle of concert in the pursuit of separate employments is the principle of economy which Eree-trade does not include ; but it is a principle which must be included in all great combinations . So important an interest as the agricultural or the shipping interest cannot be conducted under proper laws , if , in the framing of those laws , the principle of

      Concert be kept out of sight . Neither can those who are engaged in the interest obtain their full share of justice , until they know how to base their demands on right principles . When the ship-owners understand that they must demand proper consideration for their class upon the grounds of serving the interests of the public as well as their own—when they claim laws which shall include the interest of the consumer as of

      the producer , the interest of the passenger , and the freighter , as well as of the ship-owner , of the able seaman _aswell as of the humbler "boy "—they will put their claims in a shape which tne public cannot refuse to respect ; but then we should not see them claim to man their ships with ill-paid sailors , and abruptly to discontinue the employment of pilots .

      Outrages On Women The Society For Tho Pr...

      OUTRAGES ON WOMEN The Society for tho Provention of Cruelty to Animals has intervened to rescue the bull which M . Poitevin sacrificed in his tragic farce of Europa ; but what was the Society for the Protection of Women about , that it did not interfere for the rescue of another animated creature involved in that venture — Madamo Poitevin P Thero is , indeed , one reason why the society might scruple to interfere—she is a wife . The caprice with which society at largo selects the objects for its sanction or reprobation is remarkable ; but in nothing moro than the treatment of women . Certain cruelties to women aro

      forbidden by law ; but others are winked at . A man must not call a child into being and leave it to starve ; but iio may abandon the mother , as a woman , whatover tho deception by which lie has inveigled her . A man must not invade tho property of another man in his wife ; the law will protect tho yielding strength of the woman , and the constructive rights of the husband ; but if a woman bo quite without natural protector , sho must look after herself , for all the law cares . Even in tho case of her child , it is not she whom the law protects , but the ratepayer I As to tho cruelty of the _cjjiso—that is no business of anybody ' s . Thero is an Act of Parliament to prevent cruelty to animals ; but none to prevent cruelty to women .

      There are , indeed , statutes to prevent dissatisfaction to bishops and others by immorality as it may be exercised towards women ; and we put restraints upon questionable houses , or any other vast escapades ot the morality that offends . But tho thousand forms of cruelty covered by the privilege of the parent or tho husband , escape chock , if not animadversion . The husband , who pays his rent , and is " faithful" to his domestic relations , may break the heart of his wife , bo sho never so lovingly and gently inclined , and society must perforce respect him ; but if she should leave a homo of hate , site is it castaway , whom society camiot kuovv . Tho husband may moro flagrantly outrage justice , and yet , bo littlo

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 4, 1852, page 13, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_04091852/page/13/