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    not safely be accepted as the chief motive even among- trading bodies ; it cannot save them from temptations to fraud— from evasions of duty among merchants—from adulteration such as we recently described among traders—from the universal disposition to undersell and to compensate abated price by a fraud upon the consumer or somebody else . If the charge advanced against the Dock Company is true , it discloses extensive and alarming rottenness in our trading system . If it is false ? Why , then , it discloses something scarcely less shocking . True or false , the most

    sweeping laxities have taken place in the supervision of the Customs ; the Department itself now says that there have been wholesale embezzlement of * ' samples , " wholesale shifting of goods , and wholesale manufacture of " waste , " under the very noses of its officers . If the charge is true , the Department has been guilty of systematic neglect of duties , which is , in fact , ample proof of grossly demoralized condition in the Department . If the charge is false , it is an attempt to cover the laxity of the officials by imputing crime to a public body of respectable merchants .

    Such is the condition to which we are brought by the morals of what the Times calls " our boasted competitive system . ' * That system is shaking itself to its centre , from its summit to its foundation , by its own internal struggles and discords . We wish to know what is to become of the boasted integrity of our merchants and traders , whose bond used to be their word ?

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    GOVERNMENT PLEDGES . To understand the full force of the protest against the continuance of transportation , let us see what it is in the region of its completest development : Van Diemen ' s Land is still the favoured portion of the Australasian lands blessed with the system , to which Lord Grey clings so fondly . As far back as 1838 the horrible evils of convictism were brought before the House of Commons by Sir William Molesvvorth . The committee appointed to inquire into the condition of the penal settlements laid bare a mass of iniquity that few

    could have recognised as possible in humanity , ltevelationetoo appalling to be alluded to , poured in on the members in a scorching torrent of hot iniquity ; and measures—feeble , halting , half-hearted measures—were then taken to divert , but not to stop , this torrent . Assignment was exchanged for the ticket-of-leave system ; and for a time Captain Maconochie's grand philanthropy in Norfolk Island converted , what had been worse than the lowest hell , into a colony of en-ing , but improving , men . But party intrigues and personal enmity interfered with the progress of this brave man ; and all other measures to the . relief of the colonists were either

    quashed or neutralized . Protests , petitions , prayers were alike unavailing . Australia and Van Diemen ' s Land were still the great prisons of England , tenanted by " vast hordes of criminals ) , with nothing but their keepers ; " and their resources still went to fatten our criminals and to dig the grave of their own prosperity . At last , in 1847 , the Home Government , through Mr . Gladstone , signified its intention of forming a new convict establishment in North Australia , for the purpose of relieving New South Wales and Van Diemen ' s Land from a

    pressure that almost annihilated them . It would be an endless task to give the Blue Book and the number of each despatch from which we draw our information : it is sufficient to way that the Parliamentary papers and Blue Books from 1847 to 1850 , contain every fact that wo Khali state , and every authority from which we quote . These intentions were confirmed by the " royal sign manual . " A few months sawa change of Ministry and the WhigH in office . Lord Grey writes to the then Governor , Sir C A . Fitzroy , and intimates the resolution of the Government to abandon the new establishment in North Australia , together with their revocation of the royal letters patent . Not long after thin , he writes to Sir William Denison , the ; Whig Governor , in these words : —

    " II ; is the intention of her Majesty « Government to stop , altogether , the transportation to Van Diemen ' s Land , of male convicts at all events , for the space of two years . " The samo resolution was announced iu Parliament ; and several high-sounding phrases and liberal promises deluded the unknowing into the belief that . Lord Grey was in earnest , and the Government disposed to honcttly and truth . Sir William Dcnison repeated this fair-seeming promiwo to the Tusinaniaps , throwing them into convulsions of gratitude him ! loyalty . Ilis announcement was made the first week iu February , 1 H 17- On the

    tenth of that mouth be wrote twice to Lord Grey , imploring an immense influx of convicts as the only means whereby the country could be saved . Pledges , royal words , philanthropic principles , moral sentiments were speedily forgotten ; ship after ship laden with convicts anchored in the bays of Tasmania j and ship after ship of free emigrants , which the Government had promised to send out in counterbalance to the convicts , passed those bays to anchor in others where there was more influence and more wealth . The vacillation of the

    Colonial-office was equal to its untrutbfulness . At one time the population of Norfolk Island waa to be transferred to Tasman ' s Peninsula ; at another Norfolk Island was to be regenerated by the lash and the bayonet . Now the panacea of convictism was the ticket-of-leave system . Now the payment of £ 15 was to reform the criminal and make him whole and free . Everything most contradictory and most quackish emanated from the Colonial-office , and almost all experiments were tried but those of earnestness and sincerity . What has been the result ? In Van Diemen ' s Land at this moment ,

    the convict population is rathe * more than three * fourths of the whole ; the male conviflts somewhere as seven to one of the female ; and the press and speakers at public meetings affirm that ninetenths of the crimes committed in the colony are committed by the convicts . This is the result of solid panaceas and Whig half-heartedness , and this is the working of the famous ticket-of-leave system —a system that even Sir William Denison » Government tool as he is , faintly repudiates as injurious

    and illusory . Its effect on the minds of the convicts is most extraordinary . As soon as they are landed , comparatively free men , they are filled with the wildest notions of wealth and luxury , and reject , as too mean for acceptance , wages beyond the brightest dream of an industrious and a virtuous English labourer . This is so notoriously the case , that it has been make the subject of Government despatches , and the golden visions of imaginative criminals have been made to lighten the usually dull contents of official communications .

    The present specific ia worthy of its antecedents . All convicts wishing to procure their tickets of leave , and to obtain conditional pardons , are required to pay to the Government a certain sum , proportioned to their original sentences , as thus : —Men transported for seven years must pay the sum of £ 7 10 s . in one year and a half ; men transported for ten years , £ 10 in two years ; for fifteen years , £ 15 in three years , &c . &c . To ensure the payment of this sum , no convict is allowed to paas into the hands of an employer until he , the master , shall have guaranteed £ 5 yearly to the Government . This scheme shows no contemptible

    genius of finance and finesse ; for it is practically a tax paid by the colony for men whom it loathes and repudiates , and morally a compromise by gold for crime . It has been directly and decidedly protested againt by the colonists . In public meetings and newspaper articles it has met with the severest reprehension , and its transparent falseness exposed . We make no doubt but that a firm attitude on the part of the Tasmanians will obtain them relief from this , as from all other obnoxious burdens ; for a Whig Government is notorious for its tyranny to weakness , and its submission to opposition . With the example of the Cape before it , Van Diemen ' s Land need not fear . It has but to follow that precedent .

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    Landlord . — 1 " truth whether we look for director indirect service from landlords , we look in vain . In vain we try to discover on what pretence they extract from us a rental of £ 50 , 000 , 000 per aninfm . Unlike the profits of the capitalist , it is not the payment for the UBe of capital , for this wtxtt and i « advanced hy the cultivator . It ia not for labour ; they touch no tool nor plough . It ia not for their agricultural knowledge ; they exceed them » elve 8 in patronizing it . Kent iu the least justifiable of the many drum * , which , united , condemn the labourer of the wealthiest country in the world to live as thoHO of tho poorest ; the peasant of the most civilised nation to fare worse than those of the wont retrograde . —Uola ' a Social Science .

    KniToniAi . Oomtmjmicnts .- —Tli « editor of a Oalwny paper , describing the qualification * of the conductor ot ' u rival publication , huiiih up in tho following off-hand milliner : — " Hut why waste ho much Npaue with such a worthiest * nubject , wlio » e conduct i « ; m notorious «« he in hiuiHelf despicable— a poor , worn-out coxcomb , composed of paint and patches—and although hid day * are dwindled to the shortest Hpan , h » o * n » tlU dem-and to anything — (> -ven to the discharge of the last honourn of tho * Drop / That , to be sure ., would con »« •• any lo him , f <| r he wan characterized for keeping a ' « ood ( Iron ' when hv had tho ' ShebrenhoiiHe ' « om « year * ago iu this town . This Ibh * . iKltufitsioii in made with evident , tvluctnnee ; but , for Hue vigorous expression , the pnragro « t » i completely takes the wind out of the Hails of our Trannutl mticconlrinporaricR .

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    The death of Audubon , the great American naturalist , in his seventy sixth year , will be heard with a sigh by all who have read his incomparable work . He was truly a Naturalist ; to live in the wild woods and patiently watch the habits of the birds was with him a passion , and the ardent enthusiasm he felt in his subject gave to his writing a freshnes * and a glow which had the effect of genius . To read him was like living in the woods .

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    Fanny Kemble is at this moment in Paris , where she is to deliver her Shakspeare Readings ; and we have no doubt will gather " golden opinions from all sorts of people . " There is a large , an enormous public of English alone j then , also , * e must add thereto the Parisians ambitious of literary culture , who for some years past have been talking incessantly of Le vieuse Will and Great Williams ( a 8 Sue called him " ,, but who as yet have not gone much beyond " That is the question / 5 and

    the Hamlet , which the great Dumas condescended —at leisure moments- ^ -to rewrite and mak e " logi-. cal . " Beyond these are a few honest students of Shakspbarb who have a genuine love and a genuine knowledge of him—although it may he difficult to persuade Englishmen that a Frenchman can understand "the Swan . " From these three sources Fanny Kemble may fairly calculate on large audiences . Were Macready to go to Paris he would attract immense crowds ,. They know him . well and admire him .

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    Some weeks ago we announced that Lam abtink was engaged upon a Histoire du Directoire as a continuation of his Girondins , and we recounted the magnificent offer he made to one of our own publishers respecting it . That he did contemplate such a work we are well assured ; and as a proof we refer to the fact that Lkcou , the Paris publisher , twice announced it in his catalogue , specifying the extent and price of the work—4 volumes 8 vo . at 20 franca . Since that , ( iiunier de Cassagnac has taken up the same subject for

    feuilieton publication , and Lamaktine suddenly retires from the field , and announces iu lieu of his work on the Directory a Histoire de la Rest aura lion , in 8 vols ., 8 vo ., price 40 francs , the first volume of which is to be ready in April . The statement of the Literary Gpzctte , in it « Paris correspondence , that Lamaiitine receives two thousand pounds a volume , we believe to bo wholly fabulous , and contradicted by the entire condition of Literature in France ; liis original agreement waa 12 , 000 francs for four volumes . We have reuson to know also that Lamartine \ h not actually engaged in writing both hlHtorieK , the " Restoration" being substituted for the " Directory . " While on tint ) subject of history let uh mention that M . Elian Rkonault has undertaken to continue the . Dice Ans of Louit * Blanc ; ( a bold attempt !) in the shape of ISHistoire de Unit Ans 1 H 4 O-4 H . We hear also that Loihk Vjakoot , the hunlmnd of the incomparable Fides , ba « written a Uifitoire des A rubes el des Mores d \ Espa <) ne .- tho

    excellent tnumltitor of Don Quixote ought to produce a striking work on this magnificent nuhject . Lovcrw of nwxhirn literature will welcome (» Koitr » K Sand ' . i new ( lranie ( Hmtdie—of which we . will speak at length on howc other occasion . Lovers of curly literature will be glud t <> hear that M . wk Vilmcmkkui ;* :, who has ho of Urn earned their

    gratitude , \\ m mm trannl »» to < l the t ' othne des Harden Bretons du VI . Siticle . But that \ h of insignificant interwtt rompnreri with the work just edited by K . II . von df . u Ha < jkn , entitled Ctcsummtabenteucr . lluudert AUdeatsche JCrtahluntjm : Hitler-und PJ ' uJ ' eu-M ' tiran titadt ^ und fiorfyeschivhtm . A work which stand ? in somewhat the snuv relation to I'icti mi a .- ; tin ;

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    Feb . 15 , 1851 . ] 1 & 1 &t SLiafret * - ' _ . . - . i —« -r ^

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    Critics are not the Ugi 9 iators , but the judges and pqlioe ofSerato-e ? ' Aey dS not make Jaws-they interpret and try to enforce them . — Edinburgh Review .

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 15, 1851, page 151, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1870/page/11/