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    March 22, 1856.] THE LEADEB. 277

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    THE COLLAPSE OP THE ADMINISTRATIVE REFOR...

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    Our Hambubg Export Trade. The Charge Whi...

    education ; and the latest person accused of poisoning is a surgeon .. So , again , when Susannas Evans is inveigled away to Hamburg by a Belgian Jewess , we discover , first , that we have to make a compensation in kind for the crimes which we committed , in permitting Alice Leroy and girls from the Continent to be

    inveigled into this country ; and , secondly , that the . conspiracy to which Susannah Evans was nearly sacrificed was not an isolated case , nor one , it would appear , of a few cases ; but it was the example of an organised trade . Its character is well understood by our representatives in Hamburg , by the local police , and of course by the clients of people like the Belgian Jewess that carried the girls over .

    Now conspiracies of this kind are not to be carried out for nothing ; there must be plenty of money in circulation . The trade , therefore , must be supported by classes that are well to do . We have no statistics as to the number of girls that are thus sacrificed ; but we know enough to be sure that the outlay of money upon the <; lass per head must be large . It has been a rule amongst certain African slave-dealers of tropical America , that it costs less to transport a great number of blacks than to treat a few "with comparative care ; and regular calculations have been made as to the amount of had treatment which

    a negro will undergo . A negro , they will tell you , will last so long in a sugar plantation ; so much shorter time in a tobacco plantation ; but it will pay you better to carry over several negroes than to expend much upon a very careful treatment of one . Exactly the same kind of calculations are made with

    London omnibus horses . Five years they , reckon as the term , and if we had to import our horses , we should of course have to reckon the price upon the "basis of that five years ' duration . We know that there must be the same limit in the endurance of the poor girls who are taken to Hamburg to be destroyed .

    According to the police accounts , Colonel Hodges has expressed the opinion that so monstrous an evil will not be checked without the immediate interference of Lord Clarendon . This is a very delicate matter . Upon what ground can Lord Clarendon stand forth to rebuke the authorities of Hamburg , after England lias been convicted of a similar traffic ? He might say we have stopped the traffic ; but have we ? There is indeed one ground upon -which he could take a firm

    stand : it is the ground of hypocrisy . In this country we pretend to abolish and suppress such trades as that of the Belgian Jewess , although it is well-known that among the very class to which lord Clarendon belongs , Belgian Jewesses look for their clients . Lord Clarendon , however , would find hypocrites upon the other side of the water as well as upon this , and complicity in encouraging the traffic would by no means debar magnates from co-operation ia assisting overt acts to suppress it .

    Sir Robert Garden sent two policemen to Hamburg to rescue Susannah Evans — one girl out of many . A contemporary suggests a shorter mode of effecting the same object for a larger number of victims . It would be to enforce on board every out-going ship an inspection of emigrants for the purpose of ascert that

    aining they proceed abroad of their own f veo will . For our own part we can imagine a still shorter process ; it would be for the moneyed class of this country to withhold all kind of patronage and pay from Belgian Jewesses . If we oould succeed in effecting that reform hero , they might copy ua in Hamburg and Ostend ; and poor girls , Belgian or

    British , would cease to be carried over by-Jewesses or superannuated courrters de place to be cast away . Is it impossible to put that effectual stoppage on the trade ? Alas ! we shall be scouted by the Ll moral" classes for talking of such a thing !

    March 22, 1856.] The Leadeb. 277

    March 22 , 1856 . ] THE LEADEB . 277

    The Collapse Op The Administrative Refor...

    THE COLLAPSE OP THE ADMINISTRATIVE REFORMERS . The Administrative Reform Association , led by Messrs . Morley , Tkaveks , and Gassiot , and represented in its circulars by the Conservative , Mr . Beowne , have proposed a new alliance with the press . The Association is to supply the self-laudatory epilogues—the press is to supply the publicity . After the experience of

    a year , we do not see why the press or the nation should confide the interests of reform to this civic league . Its operations have never been effective , and its last manifesto is a specimen of inflated incapacity . The liberal party must , we think , decline to associate itself with a body of men , who are neither politicians nor reformers , who have committed a succession of blunders , and have given few proofs of sincerity .

    Their original constitution violated the principles they affected to maintain , and their last " address" is a wordy and feeble deception . First , in their associative organisation they fixed a high pecuniary assessment as the qualification of their Committee-men . They declared money equivalent to influence . They sold the seats of Committee-men for fifty pounds sterling . ' They invited none but wealthy men of their own class to compose their governing council . When they helped an '' Administrative Reformer " to a seat in

    Parliament , it was a person who could do no possible good in -that assembly , except by his vote , and who used his vote capriciously and inconsistently . They disclaimed all deep sympathy with the principles of political reform ; they elected a Tory Secretary , and implied , plainly , * ' This is not even a class agitation ; it is purely sectional , limited , superficial . " At their meetings things were done and said which "brought the entire movement into ridicule .

    The only occasion on which a gleam of vitality struck into this unwieldy weight of commercial influence was at Drury-lane , when the genius of Charles Dickens illuminated it for an hour , and when Mr . Layard lent it the influence of a new and rising position in Parliament . Before and after that evening the Administrative Reform Association was a pretence , a mistake , and a failure . In their ' recent circular , signed by Messrs . Morley , Travers , and Gassiot , and enclosed in a letter of recommendation from Mr .

    Samuel Brown , they claim the credit of all the finished and unfinished reforms of the day . First , they take the evidence of the two hundred officers who supplied the materials of Sir John M'Neili / s report as a " special demonstration" of their corporate utility . Then , antedating their labours— -or uttering an' unnecessary platitude—they record that Mr . Roebuck's motion was carried on the 29 th of January , 1855 , that Lord Aberdeen resigned , and that Lord Palmerston , " after half a century of active political life , arrived

    at the Premiershi p of this great country ; and , in spite of the utmost exertions of the proud oligarchies of England , his Lordship wielded that sceptre they sodmuch coveted . " Wlioso is this flourish ? Is it Mr . Gassiot's or Mr . Tkavers' ?—Mr . Morlky ' s or Mr . Brown ' s ? Cutfy could not have weltered in a deeper flux of indignation . With alliterative impetus , the circular regrets that , while " di & case depressed and death devastated " our army , Lord Palmeuston laughed ; but the administrative reformers met , and the Premier

    adopted a new policy . " A committee was appointed , many of whom ( of what ?) had never before been connected with any political movement . " Just so . They were inexperienced , and had , all their lives , pondered over , private " estimates" in their ledgers—apathetic , exclusive , and obscure . But the results came rapidly . " Only sixteen days after the public meeting , an order in council was issued , " establishing civil service examinations . "

    Within two months , Sir William Moleswortit , who had never been mentioned by the association , was appointed Colonial Secretary , and Mr . Rowland Hill , whom the Association recommended , was not appointed Postmaster-General . Was the Duke of Argyle Mr . Morley ' s candidate ? However this may have been , Ministers were docile in their law appointments ; and owing " to the demand' for administrative reform , " Mr . Willes was elevated to the bench . Is a " note of admiration"

    necessary ? Mr . Osborne ' s minute , with reference to the dockyard artificers , and the additional orders in council , were new corruscations of the radiating glory of them who talked at the London Tavern . But here a blighting suggestion interposes . Has Lord Palmerston taken the wind out of the sails of the Administrative Reform Association ? The chairman and treasurers protest , in , a fussy , puffy manner , " No . ' * Most effectually , we say , and we are not . " Government writers . "

    . Next , m a glancing way , Prince Albert is menaced with the displeasure of the reformers , apropos of the round-xobin of the Guards , which memorial being rejected without aiiy reference to Mr . Morlet , we do not see why it should be mentioned in the circular . But the aim of the allusion is at the Lion Rampant ( on a sign ^ -post ) of journalism , the mystic Englishmen whose roar is as the rolling of a tun , who insinuate that there are more things

    done in England by Prince Albert and the King of Hanover than they , or any others , " are aware of . " Again , the new Crimean Commission is to be open , not secret , because the Association willed it . " Under pressure of the Administrative Reform Association , " a committee : to inquire into the system of contracts has been granted ; and , among the results , we seriously hope that something may turn up to the advantage of certain gentlemen in the City .

    For the present yeai the work proposed is that which will never "be carried out , except by the proper impulse of Parliament , or under the pressxixe of an union of true reformers . Men who associate , and ask for the " test of merit and fitness , " in public appointments , and at the same time offer an indirect support to the false aristocracy by which this country is governed , will not be the fathers of reform . It is not for them , or for any other agitators , to raise a cry against " proud

    oligarchies , " or to deal in the denunciatory trash of old-fashioned Chartism . But , wherever corrupt influence exists , it must be struck at ; and the centre of corrupt influence is in Parliament , which cannot bo purified except by general measures of reform . We ask that the country shall be governed by its best men , upon the principles of public justice and morality . The Association tells us to " in " for improved methods of book-keeping ; for

    the propagation of scandals against Prince Albert ; for the removal of abuses from that official depth in which abuses arc continually deposited by the stream of Parliamentary influenco . Wo by no means imply that the gentlemen of the Association have not , for several months , given their best services to a public cause ; but the organisation they have established * has no capable leaders , and by filling up , without effect , tho gap of a great

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), March 22, 1856, page 13, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_22031856/page/13/