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Maboh 10, 1855.] TtfE LEAPEB, 229
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THE NEW CZAR AND HIS CONSTITUENTS. Alexa...
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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Transcript
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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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Warnings. It Is Becoming More And More U...
than ever . Every one , to be sure , knows . that the doctor has been called in ; but the worst sores are shown only when " strangers have been ordered to withdraw from the gallery . " When they return neither the senses nor the imagination will be able to tell that the ceremony was required . There is a great deal of dangerous selfdeception in all this . Eyes that look at our state less
complacently than our own are beginning to discern —and flash with joy as they discern—the envious wrinkles which announce decay . Let their discernment be a warning to us . States cannot grow old with impunity , or seem to do so . Luckily the analogy of their existence with that of the human body is not perfect . What seems to be age may be disease or lassitude ; at all events , in an extreme case , there is a Medea ' s cauldron in which youth may with certainty be found .
A very useful traditionary opinion has hitherto existed abroad , that our governing classes , though they may be selfish and shortsighted in domestic affairs , have a grand continuous system of foreign policy , which each party inherits as it gets possession of Downmg-street . This opinion is the basis of a certain dread of our power , and confidence in
our prosperity , which makes our alliance courted even by those who hate us . No one has more friends or flatterers than the longsighted man believed to be going up in the world by the strength of his own wisdom . He is supposed to see landmarks ahead which others cannot discern , and every one clings to his skirts for safety .
Those who , by sad experience , know ^ England better , have always known that this profound and Machiavellic policy , supposed to ~ -b ~ e characteristic of our aristocracy , is a mere myth . Such of our governors as think it worth while to look beyond to-morrow ' s division , make a great effort and carry their minds forward to next year ' s budget . Further , so far as public affairs are concerned , all is blank to them , because all is indifferent . They have been brought up in the school of expediency—have been expressly taught that
when a leak in the ship can be caulked , it is absurd to call the cai'penter . Things must _ . bekeptquiet : . Jbhe passengers must not be alarmed . There is no hurry : perhaps the storm will abate : there may be a port near at hand . At any rate we have time to think of the future—therefore it is proper to go to sleep . Luckily we have a better guarantee that the policy of England shall be liberally adapted to its interests than this fabulous testament , supposed by foreigners to pass from the hands of Lord John Russell to
Lord Aberdeen , from Lord Aberdeen to Lord Palmerston ; to be utterly forgotten by those statesmen when out of office . We have an enlightened , and , when it pleases , an irresistible public opinion ; that is to say , a conviction founded on the reading , the experience , and the instinct of every man in this country , which will not suffer the elderly persons , who have passed tkeir lives in the formation of the comfortable committees
called Administrations , to perpetrate moro than average absurdities , or to be guilty of more than ordinary caprices . We require a certain conformity to reason in the conduct of our public characters , just as wo require a certain decency and gravity in the deportment of our clergymen . But evou if , in return for the permission to meddle in our affairs and provide for their families , they vouchsafed to help us out of any monstrous scrapes , and did not make it a general rule to drag us into alliances with governments the principles of which we detest , there would be little ground for gratitude and wonder .
On the other hand , certain symptoms , which the country cannot fail to have perceived , begin to suggest that we must not always be content with this negative excellence . We have just lost a fine army ; and may very soon lose a fine colony or two from the obstinate determination of our governors never to ward off a blow till they have felt the smart , never to apply remedies to a disease until it is past cure , never to shut the door till the steed be stolen . We believe
that we shall scarcely meet with a single contradiction when we " say , that no measure of general importance has been proposed by any Minister within these seven or eight years , which has not been a weapon of party warfare or an ungracious concession to public opinion . If any member of a cabinet were " young" enough to propose to his colleagues that they should take steps to ward off a danger that may present itself within a quarter of a century , he Would be accused of
ignorance and presumption , and quietly got rid of . The business of government is merely to keep the ship afloat with all hands at the pumps , for out of complete safety may spring mutiny . The chief cabins , it is true , must be kept dry and snug . What matter if the steerage is wet to the bone ? For our parts , we are uncomfortable at being compelled to keep the sea with such commanders , under whose antiquated inexperience the slightest fall in the barometer may be fatal .
Most persons who have read the history of England for the last hundred years with attention , have become convinced that we are sowing the seeds of nations and empires over the whole surface of * the globe—^ in other words , that we are founding colonies which must some day become independent . Indeed , there is not a single rational politician who would refuse acquiescence to this principle . It might be supposed , then , that one at least of our Ministers , before the hour of danger arrived , would have thought of establishing
some machinery according to which in the fulness of time—without any fratricidal wars —our grown-up colonies might be released from dependence and allowed to shift for themselves . The idea , however , would be scouted in official circles , where men , with their eyes fixed upon precedent , think it absolutely " nel ^ 8 sary"th 1 St" ^ t"th " e '" " d'"of "this " century or the next England * must issue , breathless , bleeding and beaten , from some great Australian war—to recommence the same series of sanguinary absurdities in another direction .
It is not , perhaps , the province of a " ribald press" to suggest a national policy . Our duty—and we have certainly quite enough to do—is to abuse the Government and to point out how they always contrive to handle the greatest questions in the meanest way , to select the most incapable officials , and commit the most disastrous blunders without quite bringing us to the verge of ruin . We shall , therefore , merely hint , by way of illustration , that a country governed
by men of comprehensive minds would not remain for a day in an anomalous positionwith a dozen colonies or so rapidly approaching a period when the consciousness of their own strength must induce them to throw off our yoke—and with a traditionary imperial policy which must compel us in that event to send out expeditions , conducted or not with Crimean incapacity , against them—humiliation and defeat appearing with certainty in the distance .
It is common to hear it said— "Oh , if a colony really shows that it is worthy and capable of independence , wo shall not bo so mad as to endeavour to put it down by force . " But what test or worthiness and capacity should we apply ? Until our armies
had been slaughtered or driven to capitulation , we—that is to say , our governorswould certainly confound a revolution with a contemptible riot . Wo one who knows human and Ministerial nature can doubt that . At any rate , to grant the independence of a revolted people without striking a blow — -however wise and humane might be the step in itself—^ must of course be injurious , if not fatal , to our prestige . On the Continent—where news of the brush at Ballarat and the rising at the Cape has been received with prodigious delight—it would certainly be said that our generosity was sheer weakness and senility .
Why not make it part of the imperial law that when a colony has become sufficiently important to receive a constitution , it shall be informed that the mother-country has contemplated the possibility of its some day wishing to walk alone ; that such a step , however , must not be taken in a hurry , in a moment of pique and impatience ; that certain formalities must be fulfilled : that those
who wish to remain in the actual state must have a complete chance of expressing and maintaining their opinion ; that the presumption in such a case must always be in favour of the status quo ; and that therefore the colony , by its representatives , will be required at three different times , by a majority of two-thirds , to express its desire of separation ? Impatient agitators might be ready to adopt this machinery if the voting took place at sufficiently near intervals to be under the influence of the same passions ;
but every precaution should be provided against precipitation . There is no harm in making youth wait for the enjoyment of its fortune ; and it would not be absurd , in so important a matter , to require that a second generation should ratify the decree of the first . There is nothing that so shocks the liberal mind as the claim of one set of men , at a particular moment , within twenty-four hours , to vote away , not only their own freedom , but that of their posterity . Even if they sell themselves to the number of eight millions , that circumstance weighs nothing in the balance : we remain equally revolted . On the other hand , it seems extravagant that
some local and temporary quarrels should irrevocably separate—a- young community from the community that has sent it forthfostered and protected it—especially as many of its members will continue to yearn for the old country beyond the protection of whose shadow they had no intention of advancing . Our idea , therefore—which we put forward in a moment of temporary disgust with " ribaldry "—is both conservative and liberal , bold and prudent ; but because it unites these opposite qualities , we arc obliged , in the interest of our reputation as sagacious journalists , to say that we lay it before our governors merely as an example to avoid .
Maboh 10, 1855.] Ttfe Leapeb, 229
Maboh 10 , 1855 . ] TtfE LEAPEB , 229
The New Czar And His Constituents. Alexa...
THE NEW CZAR AND HIS CONSTITUENTS . Alexander the Second inherits a policy from his father . Ho is the hereditary representative of that conquering spirit , and of those barbarian forces with which Nicholas the First terrified half the civilised world . Necessity had its share in the acts of the late Emperor , and will havo its share in the acts of his successor . The new sovereign must embody the genius of Russia , or give place to one who will . A y ielding temper in a single ^ man —thouffli that man be imperially anointed , and reckon sixteen crowns of fallen kingdoms in tho Kremlin—is not enough to compose a perturbed society , or to allay tile general discord of Europe . The Russian Government has been described as despotism tempered by
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), March 10, 1855, page 13, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_10031855/page/13/
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