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OUR NATIONAL OUT-LOOK FOE 1860. The open...
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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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' ... . . ¦ ¦ ' . : ¦¦ ' . ' ¦ "S ¦ ¦ . ' ¦¦ Jan . 7 , I 860 . ] The Leader and Saturday Analyst , 3
Our National Out-Look Foe 1860. The Open...
OUR NATIONAL OUT-LOOK FOE 1860 . The opening days of tlie decade on which we are entering , are more than usually cheerful and calm . ' Out granaries are full , our workshops busy , and our poor-rates lighter by a . good deal , than they have often been at Christmas-time ; Manifold manufacture may not be driving what it loves to call " a roaring trade ; " but capital and labour have , for the most part , as much to do as perhaps is good for them : and save the shipping interest , we hear no branch of mercantile enterprise complain . Money is abundant in the City ; the bullion caves , where timid opulence alone ventures to indulge in sleep , are filled with golden hordes ; and credit with its paper wings nutters complacently round the
mighty store , showing but . little disposition to take any distant flight in quest of tempting prey . A certain heaviness in the air , and u dark rim of clouds in the horizon whichever way we look , lowers the pulse of pecuniary adventure , as well as of political hardihood . It is , indeed , one of the most curious facts in our experience , as it will be to the future chronicler one of the most puzzling riddles , that during the autumn and winter of 1859 , without a quarrel with any neighbour , or tangible cause of one with any nation nearer than , the Chinese , the uppermost thought in the heads of our ruling classes has been how to get tens , or , if possible , hundreds of thousands of men rapidly organized , armed , and drilled . .
On the surface of society , there have been all the symptoms of perplexity and panic Imminent danger has been asseverated loudly by great naval and military authorities , and more than absented to by the heads of civil administration . No sufficient reason or explanation has indeed been assigned for the precipitancy of preparation , or the show of misgiving ostentatiously betrayed ; but the civil servants of the Government in every department have been encouraged to enrol themselves in Volunteer Corps ; and the aristocracy and established clergy have everywhere been engaged in stimulatinginstant preparations for a life and death struggle . It is pretty clear , however , that
the nation at large has not been moved from its . proprietyby the undue and undignified excitement manifested by Its self-styled betters , Without catching the ague of their real or pretended fear . The people good-humpuredly have said—" AVell , we don ' t mind if we do arm ; we have always had a liking for the thing , and it certainly is not our fault if there be any danger now arising from the want of it ; , only let us understand clearly that this is no delusive effervescence got up for . some ' . political occasion , but a permanent return to the wise ways of better times , when every man paying scot and lot was trained to the honestUse of arms , and treated as a trusted citizen of the Commonwealth , in times
of peace as in those of anticipated war . " Nothing can be more creditable to the sense arid spirit of the community in general , than the sober and im-spasmodic manner in which men of all degrees and avocations have agreed to " fell into line" for the defence of the realm , whenever it should be necessary . \ Ve are concerned to be obliged to say that nothing can be more disingenuous or disreputable than the design , as yet imperfectly disclosed , of turning the opportunity of the Volunteer movement to class account . There is not a , man who really understands the spirit of his country , or is truly loyal to its safety and its honour , who does not loathe the insolent and selfish schemes esoterically cherished , for using the new organization as a means
of what is called , in the slang of the Upper Ten Thousand , " getting arms into the right hands . " Let these shabby plotters be assured that-the people are not ¦ and ' will not be duped by empty professions of no respect of persons , while , practically , the covert aim is kept in view of social preference and class exclusion . Men will not be deterred from doing their duty , or taking part in what may and ought to become a permanent institution , by a suspicion of such designs : on the contrary , they would stick to it , and thwart the treason . That voternu friend of the soldier , Sir De LAcyEvANS , thoroughly understands ourmeaning , as we cordially and thankfully appreciate his , in his recent letter to the captain of the Dover Corps— " If the stalwart and loyal , though of Immble means , be excluded from this voluntary arm a-
All parties profess loudly their desire to see the question settled . Both Whigs and Tories begin to have an uneasy consciousness that they have played the game of fast and loose too longs and that , from mere considerations of prudence , it were better now to have done with it . They feel somewhat in the condition of spendthrift traders , who , having easy creditors when first the * y failed , have been tempted to repeat the operation every two or three 3 ears , greatly to their own ease and advantage . As the usual period for breaking down is about to recur , there are not wanting ill-advisers to counsel resort once more to the dishonest expedient . It is not actually necessary , they urge , to put up the shutters , or abscond ; only let certain , bills be thrown back
Unaccepted , and another pause , as it is considerately termed , must take place ^—not an absolute stoppage , or smash , involving a final withdrawal from business , but jitst enough to wipe out existing liabilities , rind to ask with a bold face for fresh credit . On the part of those who have hitherto dealt with them so forbearingly , there is no bluster or threatening , but a certain something in their fixed and silent look intimates ' unmistakably that they have had enough of it , and will stand no more . It is indeed only marvellous to think how , for eight years , the gravest of all domestic questions should have been trifled with so unblushingly by all sections of the resistant class . Five-sixths of the governing body , whether in or out of Parliament , are confessedly opposed in heart to all further concession of the franchise—to all
real protection of the voter , and to all effectual reduction in the cost of election ;—morethan all these , they are notoriously averse to all disfranchisement of rotten or nomination : boroughs , and to every creation of large and independent constituencies . Far from wishing to disguise the fact , we conceive that the true interest of the peop le lies in clearly recognising it . Is is the want of such recognition heretofore , that has , in our opinion , led mainly to delusion and disappointment—for many have dozed on , and dreamt a deceptive dream of parliamentary , willingness to do them justice , instead of setting themselves about the business of insisting on its being done . Parliament , and the Court and oligarchy , with which it sympathizes , was just as hostile to any substantial increase of electoral power , or of a : . representative
accountability in IS 32 ; and the Court and oligarchy of that period would never have allowed Schedule Ay or . the Ten Pound franchise to become law , if there had been no weightier consideration in the case than the reasoning , or the will of the small minority of sincere reformers , who then had scats in the House of Commons . These were but the staff and the standard-bearersof the popular host , but it was the existence of t he host rather than any skill of its leaders , that exacted submission . And if the industry and intelligence of the nation now expects further concessions worth having , they must say so firmly and calmly , and without loss pf time ; for if not , we shall probably witness , in the course of the co ming session , either another wilful failure to legislate at all , or the offer of such a dividend as will only evoke popular repudiation and reproach .
Our foreign relations wear , upon the whole , a settled and satisfactory aspect . Europe has never been so much of our mind with regard to the policy of non-intervention , as at the present hour . Austria , indeed , " is still impenitent and unpersuadable ; but Austria ' s power of mischief to Italy is , at least for the present , paralyzed . The want of money compels her to continue the disbanding of her troops , and that at a moment when Venetia and Hungary are alike ready to revolt , and religious , disaffection is rife in' manyparts of her German territories . Protestant
, Prussia , anticipates without regret the dismemberment of the Papacy , and the consolidation of a free and reforming Italian State , ' carved to a certain extent out of the spoils of her old rival . The Government of Russia has enough to do in ropairing its recent , losses , combating the domestic ppposition of the nobility to the abrogation of serfhood , struggling with financial embarrassment , and urging onward the tardy completion of great Hne 3 of railway . The old antagonism between the Greek and Latin churches renders all -sympathy for the
pope in Huscovy impossible ; and should Hungary again rise to assert its legislative independence , Austria may think herself only too lucky if Kussian countenance and aid bo not given to the Magyars . Napoleon III . has broken irrevocably with the ultracatholic " party;— lu ' s pamphlet proclamation of human verms divine right will never bo forgiven : it is the solemn and deliberate republicntion , by the head of the first army in the world , thatthe people are the only source of legitimate power . lho courts of St . Petersburg and -Berlin gnash their tooth as they read it , and declare that " if they are expected to send envoys to , CoiM ; rcss , they ; imtsl' ; prot . est . th rough them formally against assenting to such a doctrine , but only in a discreet and riiplomutio way , Austria , Bavaria , Naples * and Home , tremble with ruge ns they con the omenist's pages endorsed by M , Guorronier , and Bigh lor tho days when Franco had a Bourbon for a king . M > strongs
ment , the high value and importance of the movement , as contributing to the national safety , will be seriously diminished . " Yet , Lords ' . EkCiio andGwbsvENOit , with the unanimous approval of their Belgravian comrades , do not hesitate to insist upon a uniform which is to cost J 37 9 s . 6 d . —by way of gonteel noticb , wo presume , that " no common fellow need apply , " Besides superfluous expense of uniform , there are many ways , of course , of practically imposing a money test : messes , brass bands , suppers after parade , etc ., b . eing tho most frequently had recourse to . Wo own we feel impelled to deprecate this sort of thing earnestly , and with all plainness of spepoh . beonuso wo cannot help connecting it with that other indisposition to act justly and fairly by the people in- regard to their civil rights . ! Wo are once more said to bo on tho eve of a Reform Bill .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Jan. 7, 1860, page 3, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_07011860/page/3/
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