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352 The\ Leaderrm^Saturddi/ Armh/st. [Ap...
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A NEW THEORY 01? EUROPEAN PUBLIC I^AVV.f...
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*Wlinl>im/h Jlcviow, No. 225. Article, "...
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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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Btcitaxxta's Glory. Rnile Argument Of Th...
the conditions of obtaining it what they may , they are sure ; to be fulfilled . The number of paupers , of pensioners , and even o criminals , is well known to be always in proportion to Refunds on which they ^ can ' subsist . What we may call the loose or available wealth for depredators in the metropolis keeps in existence a number , very little variable , of pickpockets and burglars . In spite of the short lite ot the Sheffield grinders , the men decline to tise the moans of defending themselves from the grit , because , if they liveil longer , the difficulty of ~ ettin « - a living would be increased . * The complete answer , however , to all apprehensions of want of men now in the navy is to be found in the-iacfc , that a body quite as large as the whole of our seamen was required only a few years ago to make our railways , and immediately navvies sprung into existence . Capitalists never want labourers of any description . It is only necessary for them to beckon , and the multitude crowds forward to obtain whatever the capitalist has to give . The Government is the greatest ot all capitalists . It has for the national defence the whole national property at its command , and it is only necessary to defer to the usages of civil life to obtain any number of labourers it chooses to hire and pay . . ' . -. , . . It is a great mistake , founded in complete ignorance , to suppose that the Royal Navy has Only experienced a difficulty in getting men since 1846 . The difficulty has existed upwards of a century and has increased in proportion as civilization has advanced , and the discrepancy between civil and naval discipline has became glaring It was as ' irtteat when the number of emigrants was three himdred thousand a year as when it was seventy thousand . . * or . forty-five years the Admiralty has had the means jn Us power , by adapting the usages on board ship to the usages of civil life , and by embarking and educating only blue jackets in our ships ^ of war , keeping the marines as a reserve—to provide men for the fleet and prepare against all emergencies ; but through this long period the Admiralty has lieglected this duty , and relies , as the -present Prime-Minister still relies , on the power which it has nominally and legislatively kept in its hands to seize the seamen when -it wants them . To exercise this power is now become impossible , even in war ; and the poor Admiralty * with its huge bounties wasting the pxibhc ^ TOney and its unsuccessful scheme of a reserve , now lies more stranded and helpless than at any former period . Soldiers enough , marines enough , officers enough , and abundance to spare , it can get ; but seamen it cannot get , and never will get , till the House of Commons ^ publishes ' ¦ the names of the flogging captains , and takes from the Admiralty the power to flogi as it has takenfrom the judges the power of immoderate hanging . The new schemes hayefailed , like the old schemes ; and they all will fail till it makes Service in the navy agreeable to - the youthful population of our maritime country . This population must change its character—must lose its facility of moving , from conntrv to country—must lose its love of . liberty , and its knowledge of the " anthorized barbarities practised on board our men-ot-warmust lose its energy and courage—must become what it has never yet been , the mere slave of power—before it will freely and voluntarily submit to be imprisoned and scourged for lower wages than seamen can get with good treatment in other services .
352 The\ Leaderrm^Saturddi/ Armh/St. [Ap...
352 The \ Leaderrm ^ Saturddi / Armh / st . [ April 14 , 1 S 60 .
A New Theory 01? European Public I^Avv.F...
A NEW THEORY 01 ? EUROPEAN PUBLIC I ^ AVV . f COUNT MAMIANI is amongst the best known'of those Italian patriots who have incurred at times the reproach of beingmoderates , but now enjoy the full beneHt of their adherence to a constitutional and cautious policy . Everybody who is acquainted with the eventful history of 1843 will remember linn as the minister of Pio Norio , when the holy pontiff , after the assassination of Rossi , granted n liberal administration to his subjects in the few days preceding -his'flight to Gaeta , and in later years he has ¦ played a conspicuous , if not a great , part in the proceedings of the Piedmontese Parliament . He now occupies the post of ^ Xinpster ot Pubho Instruction in the Sardinian kingdom , no long-er , sinpe the annexation of the Legations , the country of his adoption but of lus birth , and as a member of the Cavouv Cabinet has hud his share in the eventful policy by which the new kingdom of Italy inaugurated its foundation . Mamiimi is , moreover , well known as a writer of considerable ability , and wo ubould . be , therefore , disposed to receivo with every favour his treatise JD ' uii Nuovo Diritto JEwropeo , of which a translation h ' na just boon offered to the English public by BIr , Jeffs , The book , however , does nob fulfil the promise of its tjUo ; bq far from being a scientific examination of the great sources of public law , and the establishment upon that basis of n , now and better code , or the log-iqul deduction , from already admitted principles , of a new rule of cOnduet for states , applicable to their existing relations , xt is merely a bulky pamphlet upon intervention , or rather non-intervention , the object of which is to show tlrot it is quite right for other powers to interfere on behalf of nations , but very inexcusable to do so on behalf of princes . Wo are far from denying that tho treatise has its value . It is useful ns a vindication ot tho right of nations to tho enjoymout of liberty , a literary demonstration of thati right of Italy to indopendonoe which she has established by that far more irrefrngnblo argument , tho sword . Ib has its looal utility fts an ingenious argument in favour of tho legitimacy of the French intervention on bobnlf of Sardinia , and a conolusivo illustration of the
iniquity of any intervention on behalf of the Pope . In fact , it is a cood party pamphlet , and if it had presented itself as such , We shbuld whilst scarcely allowing it to be sufficiently interesting to warrant translation , have cordially recognised , its merits . Unfortunately it pretends to be an essay upon the most serious errors of the existing European law , and a development of the essential and directing- principles upon which it is to be corrected , the result bein ~ the establishment of a new law , to which - . Europe is to bow ,, and before which all old doctrines are to pass away . It is no suck " thin ~ , hut , as we have said , a pamphlet in everything but bulk ; one of tlfe most verbose and inflated pamphlets , too , that it has -eyer been our misfortune to read . Count Mumiani tells us that Griistavus Adolphus , wiser in this than Alexander , took the treatise De Jure Belli et Pads , instead of the poems of Hornet , to lay beneath his nightly pillow . " We don't see that poor Alexander had any choice between Homer and Grotius ; but , leaving "the phrase to every one's own interpretation , we think we can assure Count Mamiani , that no great commander will ever put his treatise under , his nightly pillow unless , in distress for a bolster , he should pillage some public library . . The object of the treatise , then , is to prove that every state is , self rulin" and as such has an internal and external autonomy , Which is violated by any interference upon the part of other nations . Non-intervention is therefore the absolute rule applicable to all disputes between subjects and sovereigns , except the subjects belong to another race , or have never been assimilated with the conquerors ,, in which cuse any nation has a right to assist them against their oppressors . In other words , intervention in favour ot liberty is ri"ht , but in favour of despotism it . is wrong . This claim of an autonomy for every people is not very new , nor is there _ any thing particular in the arguments by which it is supported . It is more to the point , however , than the rest of the book , which is taken up . with the iisiial popular indictment against the Congress of Vienna , and M . Mamiani ' s own views of what a congress should be and how a treaty should be inade . The Congress of Vienna and its settlement of Europe is , of course , fair game for . the publicists of revolution but we cannot say that it meets with that ; fair play from them which is due , we are told , even to his Satanic majesty . Its arraigners treat the Congress as ' -if it had been guilty of every suppression o £ freedom , and as if the world had been enjoying , before the adoption of its " final act , " a law of perfect liberty . Why , there is scarcely one oppressed nationality which can be said to owe its fetters to that Congress . Venice had been suppressed beforei Napoleon , the Liberator , had given it to Austria . Hungary and Poland date their grievances from a time long anterior . The Congress of Vienna has faults enough to answer for : it looked . to . the fancied interests of the sovereigns instead of those of the peoples ; but the latter don fc owe to it all their misfortuneg , and would not get what they most want by its general repudiation . ' . For future congresses M . Mamiani gives an elaborate recipe .. AH the sovereign States are to be invited , and however smaH are to have equal voices with the Great Powers . The sovereign is not to be taken as the state ; the people are to be consulted , and them views represented as well as his . How this is to be done we are not told . Then colonies and tributary people ought at least to be asked their opinions ; and the conclusions of the Congress , as of every special , treaty , are to be heralded by a solemn enunciation of principles , something like , we suppose , the interminable " whereas" which precedes the resolutions of half-a-dozen American " wire pullers . ' It we add that when two States have been righting , the winner , however unjustly provoked , is not to recoup herself for tho cost she has been put to , and that the peace is not to be concluded until a neutral power has been asked for its opinion , we give , a-fair abstract of the author ' s practical suggestions . When wo further add that the whole tone is arrogant and flatulent , that the writer keeps tolling the reader how closely scientific } is his reasoning , and how great arehis discoveries , that nl " L writers before him , although well-inpiuung men enough and intelligent for thrir age , are farthing rushlight a compared with such u shining lump as himself , and that ho introduces a host of imaginary opponents whom he pounds to a jelly with the greatest easo imaginable , we give our readers a very fair idea of Count Maintain ' s theory of international law . # That is its general character ; there aro some htty pages wliicii stand out in special relief for their power , lucidity , and point , J . jio two chanters to which wo refer , " Armod Intervention lor Keli < "ion / ' and ' Church and State , " in which the author discusses and ° rofutos tho pretended right and duty of Catholicisin to interieroon behalf of tho Pope , ns well as tho general relation oi CatlioliQisin to tho State , arc very well worth reading . Wo cannot but suspect that they wore written twelve years ago , as against tho then intervention of France , so strongly do they contrast in thoir lucidity and power with tho garrulous declamation of the old man of to-day . A few words aro duo to tho translator , Wo have not tho Italian original by us , and cannot judgo of thy fidelity of his version . Ho ia entitled , however , to tho credit of being oven a greater master oi the verbose and flatulent than his exemplar—if , indeed , Counts Mamiani h not indebted for a great deal ot his stilted stylo to liis admiring translator . In a most unnooossarily long" prolaeo , wliioii he has dated tho " Ides of March , " and had bolter have deferred to . the Greek Kalends , ho has contrived , to talk more . fustian than w © have over aeon hoapod up in thirty pages . It waa a pity , bocauso ho " evidently could do butter , and is , according 1 to his own showing , » iu onoug'h toUnow bettvr ; for he has judgod it noooasary to let tnu world know who he ia , and , as tho vanity is harmless , wo will-jusp state for his benefit and that ot our readers , that ho was born m Uio county of Devon , waa a child capable of political improfluiona in J . 0 ' > - >
*Wlinl>Im/H Jlcviow, No. 225. Article, "...
* Wlinl > im / h Jlcviow , No . 225 . Article , " Mortality in Tmdes und Px-ofesslona . '' + Rights of Nations ; or , tho Now fcaw of Kuropo ( in States , appHQd to tho AflMrs of Italy , liy Count Mamiaw . Trftuslatod irom tho Italian , inacaiteaywiehtfio auflxor ' s » aaiti 9 na fti » a corrections , by Woomi Aotost . Lowaon ; w . Joft'a ,
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), April 14, 1860, page 12, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_14041860/page/12/
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