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    No. 275, June 30, 1855.] TELE LEAB1B. G$...

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    THE SUICIDE OF COMMERCE. Commerce has co...

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    The Austrian Debate. ¦Lo Ud Ciaeendon's ...

    perveraeagility to the Vienna Conferences , and finds a new explanation-of Austrian policy . And his explanation is tMs * —that Austria ' s policy is—expectant . The Earl believes that , "if while these negotiations were pending , Sevastopol had fallen , we should either have secured peace with Bussia , or obtained the active co-operation of Austria . " From the confusion of this logic we infer , that the Emperor Francis-Joseph at first

    sympathised with Turkey and the Western Powers ; next , that he was estranged from , them—that " his feelings greatly changed , "—through manifestations of opinions over which the Cabinet of England had no control , and which were not permitted in France . Thirdly , he affected to expel the Russians from the territory they had seized , and only waited for their discomfiture in the Crimea to coerce

    them , if necessary , by arms . One of these contradictory phrases confutes the other . To us it appears that Austria adheres to a distinct line of action . She raised her military forces at an enormous cost to a formidable efficiency . She stationed herself upon the Danube—the long-sought object of her ambition—she maintained her armies in a threatening attitude while she demanded concessions from

    . Russia at Vienna—concessions for herself , not for Turkey , which she abandoned . Russia acquiesced , and after a last pretence at negotiations , which Lord Claeendon admits to have been a sham , the imposing panoply of Austria dissolves , and the flower of the Czab ' s troops , which had been detained upon the Gallician frontier , march southwards to press upon the " Western Allies .

    If there be a logic in human policy , this proves , not that Austria has been irritated by England , but that she has been drugged by Russia . Count BuoT ; has declared so much . Xet Turkey b . e guarded , he suggests , by a tripartite treaty . Let the Sultan open the Straits when he is in danger . Austria , meanwhile , will continue to occupy the Principalities , and Russia agrees to ratify the privileges of her neutral ally on the Danube . Is there more than this in the speech of the Earl of Clarendon ? The infatuation of the

    British Government consists in its regarding as an advantage the maintenance in the Principalities of an Austrian army large enough to enforce martial law , but too small to menace Russia . Lord Lyndhurst put this with perfect clearness to the House of Peers . He demonstrated that the diminution of the Austrian forces in Gallicia afforded a corresponding opportunity to the Russian generals ; and ho hinted at the secret and sinister understanding on this subject which may bo supposed to exist between the Cabinets of Vienna and St . Petersburg .

    Lord Clarendon , on the part of the Government , gave no explanation on this point . His nerveless speech was the- shy and sickly plea of a helpless applicant affecting to prize evcu . the negativo duplicity of an equivocal ally . Incapable of dealing with the question , he glided over its surface , 11 uttering about tho writings and speeches that have wounded the susceptibilities of Germany , forsooth !—as if tho Germany of Courts and Camarillas were tho German nation— excusing the retreat of Austria from her engagements ,

    alluding vaguely to future terms of peace , and trying to show that llio presenco of an Austrian division on tho Danube was of importance to " tllo Allies . He did not utter a word to satisfy the nation an to the tenure by which tho Austrian Emperor holds hin ground , or as to the condition of tho provinces which his barbariiuia scourge . He confounded n gratuity which that potentate lias received with ft service roiulercd . It iB necessary to insist on this distinction . It may " be well that Austria should

    arm her legions , as it has been pretended , to extort .. concessions from Russia , and disarm , as-soon , as these concessions haste been obtained . She thus fulfils her own policy , and leaves Russia free to fulfil hers . Rut it is as silly as it is false to represent this conduct as serviceable to the Ottoman Empire or to the Western , Powers . Lord Clarendon did not even attempt to meet the powerful and comprehensive statement of Lord LrNDHDRST with a reply . He simply -exhibited himself and his colleagues as the voluntary dupes of a Power whose ambiguous neutrality in London is lawless domination at Bucharest .

    No. 275, June 30, 1855.] Tele Leab1b. G$...

    No . 275 , June 30 , 1855 . ] TELE LEAB 1 B . G $ B

    The Suicide Of Commerce. Commerce Has Co...

    THE SUICIDE OF COMMERCE . Commerce has come to the criminal court ;; the banker takes his stand in the place of the felon . It is no young house of commission agents , but one of the oldest and most respected houses in the metropolis that thus represents commerce in that tribunal . "We have never been among the adulators of trade ; the old boasted soundness of the English commercial world was not quite sound—the plain , downright , pay-your-way , solid man of business had his virtues , but

    also his narrownesses ; and he it was who paved the way for the vices which have sapped the very life of commerce ; have poisoned it with depravity until it becomes criminal . If there is anything real in the world , it ought to be trade , commerce , " business . " It deals with solid , tangible things ; its laws are simple , its results are palpable , personally appreciated ; yet commerce , as we have said before , partakes the same unreality , the same hypocritical smoothness of surface over a disordered interior which it has been our

    business to expose in reference to many other sections of society . " With what object have we insisted upon the uniform characteristic of these exposures ? Has it been in the love of decrying oxir fellow-creatures ; in the pleasure of exposing sore places , and of making human fallibility feel its shame more - bitterly ? Quite the reverse . " We know that our purpose in persevering with that great task has been by some misinterpreted , but by many more it has been clearly understood . We

    know that the body of the English people , high and low , is more " genuine" than the artificial product into which it converts itself , called " society ; " that its real motives , its fiesh-and-blood sympathies , are more healthy , and in the long run are stronger than its factitious requirements and convenances . But it is precisely because we know man to be bettor than the best disguise which he puts on , for the purposes of the " world , " as it is called , that we urge him to throw off the disguise ; that we point out its shocking nfFects on himself and on all that he holds

    dear . The man , we say , is better than the tradesman , the clergyman , the aristocrat , the representative of any class ; and if he will but look boldly into Ms own experience , he will liud that the basest practices which ho thinks necessary to get on in the world , bring with tliem their own penalty , and are indeed useless and profitless . Thero is no part of society in which the reality is not diaguiscd by the unreality . In this free country we have a majority of men who are bound by laws , in the formation of which they have ' no voice . Tho Church , as wo have shown over and over again , ia

    thronged with dissenters and unbelievers , who conceal thoir non-conformity for the salto of tho pay and position . The aristocracy , which ' professes to bo so elevated by hi # h birth , wealth , and refined training , in delected in cheating at cavda ; a ViJ'MKks runs away from fraudulent turf liabilities ;

    a . GoEflDOir ist . before the . polieancourts for making away with securities ; zu Baronet stands in the same -place on the same ( charge ; and ntaw commerce seems to convict itself as the most unreal among all these disguises and artificial creations . It will be almost a safe rule for the Englishman not to- believe anything that he sees . What was once genuine , may now be spurious . If he sees a man preaching in the pulpit , let him not be sure that that man is not a Papist , a Unitarian , or an Atheist ; for such things are , and we can point to individual instances , — - which are not solitary . If he sees an " Honourable" welcomed in

    the highest society , let him not be sure that the man is not a swindler or a blackleg . If he sees a peculiarly well-ordered domestic circle , let him watch the proceedings in the courts matrimonial or testamentary . If he sees a British merchant , let him not be sure that he has not before him a dealer in flash goods ; if a banker , that he is not an . embezzler . " We have from time to time made out the case against the peculiar sustainers of " our civilisation" in other circles of society ; our business now is with the "banker and with the trader .

    There is no country in the world that should serve the purpose of the commercial enterprise better than England . It is the spoilt child of fortune ; and this season of all others is nearly the brightest that commerce could desire . The war is kept aloof by the power of our marine ; we have opened up communication with every centre of population in the world ; commerce has procured its great measure of free-trade , —the monopoly of the landowner has been destroyed ; and

    while this country , at the present season , smiles with a growing harvest everywhere of the finest promise , we have the same cheering reports from abroad , and especially from America . We are suffering from the failure of a past season , but there is every prospect of plenty . By relieving the labour-market , emigration has caused an actual rising of wages ; yet the rise is not more than Sufficient to relieve the poor-rate , leaving to commerce still an abundant supply of handlafcour . Markets more widened , therefore ,

    either at home or abroad , machinery more perfect , roads of transit more open , commerce could not have . Yet in the very midst of this prosperity , while constructive enterprise of various kinds is still opening new investments , and laying tlvc foundation for future successes , commerce brings bankruptcy upon itself . It is not that it is unprotected . It has laws to restrain the swindler ; and policemen aid to protect the quiet entrance to the bank . But it is the banker himself who enters into the stronghold of the establishment , and carries away the property . It is the merchant himself who tampers with

    securities , and competes with the ordinary swindler in . unlawful acts . Go wherovor you will into trading society , you find some element introduced foreign to the very nature of the trade . Manufacturers become petty dealers in provisions , competing with the village " shop , " by forcing their workpeople into the truck system . The same nmnuiacturers compete with another branch ot trade , and becoming their own agents , assist to American

    heap up that glut in Australian , , and . Indian markets , which put the lust groat general check to our commercial proaponty . Tlio retail tradesman hardly sells an article which it * not adulterated , and tho conduct ot traders has entirely destroyed faith in the wares they Hell , Merchants profess to be very exact in their dealing , but from the cases of Daniiu . Mitchell Davidson , aud Cosmo AVjUiam Goicdon , wo find n » . existing practice of strangely dealing in ma *

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), June 30, 1855, page 11, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_30061855/page/11/