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830 THE LEADER, [Saturpay , ¦ —-¦=——= — ...
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(! D)ini Cmraril,
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[_IN THIS D15PA11TMKNT , Jill AM, OJ'INI...
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rm . — , — ¦ •— ¦— _ i ¦ . ..,11 i/'Il t...
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SUNDAY IN GLASGOW. (To the Ml i tor of't...
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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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The Session. Theee Is A Remarkable Conse...
reform ? In 1830 , the reform of Parliament was said to be required to restore a balance ; to make provision for the representation of those vast civic communities which had risen up since the beginning of that war , which , nevertheless , we are told , ceaselessly , ruined England . A ' " Reform Bill was required , it was also maintained less publicly , to let the Whigs have their turn at power—the Whigs having sided with the middle class against the country class , and having , consequently , according to the Whigs , been kept down
by throne and peerage . But now ? The civic communities are triumphant : they have carried the repeal of the Corn Laws ; and they have got a representative Chancellor of the Exchequer who has put legacy duty on real property , land included . The Whigs have no complaint to make . Of the twenty years which have elapsed since the passing of that Reform Bill , which they drew up , they have been out of power only five years , —in those fifteen years having fully rewarded and enriched . their party and younger sons by Government patronage ; and , at this moment , no more Whigs
are left—Lord John Russell having , with their consent , destroyed them . On the other hand , there is no Tory party . Mr . Disraeli , who abused Sir Robert Peel for disorganizing it , has destroyed it . Hence a coalition ; hence , in consequence , the apparent infelicity of the period selected for a suggestion of a Reform Bill . A coalition Government , including nearly till the reliable statesmen of the day , represents the country : the House of Commons supports the coalition ;—therefore , the House of Commons represents the country . Why , then , a Reform Bill ?
There" is , perhaps , an argument left for the Reform Bill . The middle classes now overmatch , or are , at least , fully equal to , the aristocratic classes in the House of Commons : if they hav ' n't all their own way , it is simply because , little as Mr . William Williams would suspect so simple a reason , they are not entitled to have all their own way -the land and landlords being still a considerable portion of the wealth a / id intelligence of this country . But as between 1800 and 1832 there grew xip a groat
anti-aristocratic middle class , insisting , when it ascertained its strength , on practical power , so between 1800 and 1853 there has grown up a great , intelligent , wealthy working-man class ; and this class is in no sense and in no degree directly represented in the House of Commons . For this class , to introduce into the " lobby" a third community to struggle with land and capital , a reform bill may be necessary . But that can only be a theory . This class is not demanding a reform bill ; takes little interest in public affairs ; and would not appreciate the
contingent blessingcontemplated by Lord Aberdeen . It is a class which has lost its faith in the possible blessings to bo conferred by State interference—has lost this faith only a few years after the passing of the act which cheapened bread and emancipated trade ; and so completely is it understood . and felt that our orators , and journalists / and statesmen are not to appeal to the people , which won't listen , but to " . society" merely , which is interested , thut , notwithstanding the Coalition , nationality of aim and . style i . s the exception and not
tho rule in our speeches and leading articles , which aro addressed to mi audience , not to n nation . This class , which is no doubt tho democracy Lord Derby gratuitously undertook to put down---u St . George , who set out after news had arrived of the death of tho dragon will even bear patiently and unnmruiuringly the nogleet , not to say tho impertinence of Parliament , when its Interests » ro concerned . This is a year of « strikes . a year in which the working classes have been intensely interested in tho laws nfleetin < r combinations in
referonce to wages ; and yet this democracy has not uttered a word in complaint ; of 11 io insolence of the law lords in the Upper House , and the indillereneo of country ^ entleiiien nnd capitalists in the Lower House , in regard to thut Combination of Workmen Bill which Mr . Druminond adopted from Mr . JIuino , and which contained tho beginning of u candid politico-economical legislation towards tho artisan . With ho enduring u democracy , which seldom rends the debutes , which laughs ut corruption ami jokes tho bribed , and which doesn't want votes , not ovon being cntrcr ior their
market value , so flourishing is the enlightened democracy as to wages , why should a Coalition Government precipitate a reform bill ? The capitalists , who have most that they want , and the aristocracy , . which , not being led by Lord . "John Manners , cannot hope for allies in fustian-jacket members , must decidedly think that Lord John Russell is , as usual , energetic at precisely the wrong time . Because what may after all be wanted is not a reform of Parliament , but a reform of the country .
Nevertheless , a survey of the session cannot fail to suggest , that if Parliament is to be congratulated on what it has done , Parliament is to be condoled with on what it has not done .- The Budget was a great measure ; it manifested , in its author a really able man , inevitably the future Premier ; and its facile passage was honourable to the House of Commons . But though we are a commercial country , we cannot please ourselves with the belief that a session of nine months should be devoted merely to the gestation of a single financial measure . To test the completeness of the
" business" done in the course of a session , we should —alas ! for an enlightened and highly civilized country , the investigation would be disheartening—examine the prayers of the whole number of petitions presented , and then ascertain how many of all these alleged and probably admitted grievances have been redressed . Or , as it is the fashion in this constitutional land to sneer at petitions , we could go over the list of " questions of the day , " and observe how many have been settled , or even responded to . Reduced to such tests , sorry indeed are the results of the session , which lasted from the autumn of 1852 into the autumn of 1 S 53 . We
saw the Budget passed , and we saw the India Bill bustled through ; some customs reform ; a cab unsettlement ; a wife-mangier discouragement ; nationality in the mercantile navy put down ; betting-houses put dovvntoriseupagain ; afewgrosserlegalmischiefs partially remedied ; the voluntary principle adopted—for Canada ; transportation stopped—to Australia , not to Milbank : and that is all , literally all the results of nine months ' sittings . And of one in the list it is needful to remind people that the India Bill was the bill of a bureau ;
that there was profound British indifference to Indian misrule ; and that the bill only received the assent and approval of Parliament in the sense that Parliament staid away from all the potty committee discussions upon it . No doubt there have been other " subjects " before Parliament . To go back : there was much public advantage derived from tho debating-society sort of discussions which took place upon statute consolidation-and codification ; tests in the universities of Scotland and the proper curricula for tho universities of
England ; salt monopoly of tho honest East India Company in India ; tho smoke , filth , and pestilence of this enlightened metropolis ; landlord villanies in Ireland ; trustees' villanies in charitable institutions in England ; families' rogueries in the ecclesiastical courts ; bishops' rogueries in capitular and other estates ; JcranjeeMerjce nnd his amiable relative , PosfconjecM ' erjeo ; tho Baron do Bodo ; magistrate recklessness with county rates ; Mr . Keogh ' s veracity ; Lord John's sympathy with Jews ; Lord Ilotham ' s horror of M . P .
judges ( eliciting u great speech from Macauky ); that pure and honest establishment , tho Irish Church ; that excellent and charitable system of church rates insisted on by the Christian Establishment ; the tendency of lady abbesses to starve and beat young nuns ; tho honourable nature of tho Irish members ( as sketched by Mr . Duffy ) ; the liberality of Liberal Lord Palmei-nton , when foreign refugees have to bo annoyed nnd tortured to please Absolutist courts ; our Australian colonies ; tho virtues of tho Duke of Wellington ; the ignorance of this
enlightened Country , as admitted by every one in urging Lord John to go on with an education seheino ; and lastly , tho Keoundrolism of this enlightened country , as admitted by every one in tho course- of tho debates upon bribery petitions , cleo !/ ion committee reports , speoinl commissions , and new writs . Then , to conclude with , can there bo a doubt that the highest national gain has been derived , in the way of instruction nnd increase of national solf-respeet , from the repealed interrogatories of independent members , nnd tho ns frequont oxplicit
statements of Ministers , in regard to the conduct of Great Britain in her protectorate of Turkey against Russia ? Did not the whole of the negotiations , the manner of conducting them , the candour with which they were confided to us by out statesmen , and the happy and honourable issue , fully demopstrate that w 0 are a self-governed people , and . that we passionatel y insist upon the Christian policy of peace and good will in the East ? Yet , balancing the results of the session against the length of the session , is it not clear , gra . tifying as it has been to have our selected representatives talking on all these mighty points , that it would
have been better to have had less talk ; and if there could not be more actual work , at least less time about it ? However , it is to be remembered , that this has been a session remarkable for the disappearance of the orators . A coalition Government , which included all the great statesmen , included , as a necessit yfor this is a country in which , in addition to being a sage , you must bo an actor •—nearly all the great orators : and the Treasury benches are not often favourable to the graces of elocution , and to the exercitations of declamatory genius . And , unfortunately , the lucrative taciturnity of the crack debaters silenced by place and their awful sense of responsibility—which crushes even Bernal Osbornehas not been compensated for by the activity of the
Opposition . Mr . Disraeli has looked an armoury of daggers , but spoken seldom . " having no policy and no party he resorted to that wisdom so usual and so appropriate to men in a quandary- —he bided his time . Sir John Pakington rarely summed up to the jury , which he ever believes to be before him ; Mr . ' Walpole only once got a chance of delivering a sermon , and he was irreverently laughed at for his pains . As to Lord Stanley , he has passed the session—excepting a couple of evenings which he gave to India— -in the smoking roo-. n ; and it-is understood that he was making enquiries of the elderly Whigs left out of the Coalition , as to tho exact traditional meaning of Toryism . Lord Stanley , ingenuous young man , thought that if he was to bo a Conservative , it Was his business to conserve something —so he selected church-rates .
If fn a week or two we have not altogether forgotten the Session , placidly reposing in our constitutional recess , which was invented by our ancestors for good reasons , but is maintained by ourselves for none , wo shall remember it only for one feature : that it was the Session in which Parliament and people alike confessed —a confession apart from the question of Parliamentary Reform—that tho House of Commons is elected by a constituency two-thirds of which are utterly base and corrupt : the proofs of that baseness-and corruption being ample and complete . And remembering this remarkable fact , we shall wonder at the easy , happy ,
confidence we have placed so long , and are likely so Ion ;; to continue to place , in that assembly ; and we . shall ako wonder perhaps at our own profound conviction that we aro an enlightened nation , far away at the head of the world ' s civilization . But no doubt wo are very practical ; we aro content with our constitution ; n »« so satisfied with our self-government that we are rejoicing at the prospect of iiaving no control whatever over the Government until next February . Which nuist convince tho Emperor of Russia , just about to chango Iris tactics , that we aro an nstoundingly free country . A StkanokK '
830 The Leader, [Saturpay , ¦ —-¦=——= — ...
830 THE LEADER , [ Saturpay , ¦ — - ¦ = —— = — ... ¦¦ ¦ — -- : . : , . ¦ . - .- . ¦¦ , -.. _ _^_
(! D)Ini Cmraril,
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no learned man lml , will confo »; i ho . ^ ' jj pmlll . odby rondirufooiiLrovormoH , hin sonHO . M rWhK << ' | ( 1 "nil dim judgment , ulmrpcned . ](' , t . hen , it he 1 "' ° ' ; , ]„ or hnn l . o read , why ulumld it , not , at leant ; , b < : •'" ¦ '" 11111 hia lulvormiry l , o wntc-MrwoN .
Sunday In Glasgow. (To The Ml I Tor Of't...
SUNDAY IN GLASGOW . ( To the Ml i tor of ' the Trader . ) A hilt , —Your correspondent , ' " Ion , " has favours \ ¦ with a lonjr ami extraordinary letter , nnont tho "•"' peror stoainor . "
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 27, 1853, page 14, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_27081853/page/14/
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