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    ¦piMit Iffara.

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    Untitled Article

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    HOW TO REDUCE THE ATtMY ESTIMATES . Fourteen millions a-year expended on fightingapparatus , besides twenty-eight millions of interest on Public Debt , also mostly for fighting ! It is a large sum , and we do not wonder that Mr . Hume and the oeconomists generally object to it . Forty millions a-year , mostly for fighting , past and future ! And the case is made the worse , when we remember that the fighting was in the cause of Absolutism , which the People of this country detest . We are paying some forty millions sterling , annually , for fighting that has been done , or maybe done , on behalf of Austrianism . The People of England should understand that . There is , indeed , another use in the expenditure—we pay part of that towards maintaining " order" at home and in the colonies .

    One word on this " order . " In the colonies it means bad government , and grumbling silenced . At home it means suppressing the riotous paupers of Ipswich when they are systematically reduced to be paupers by the deliberate had farming . It means checking the People , if they demur to obeying laws made for the interests of classes—if they demand too loudly a share in the suffrage . Rosewater

    politicians express much dislike to " physical force ; but never did Government stand more nakedly on physical force than ours . The scandalous exhibitions of contending factions and triumphant impotency in the late Ministerial crisis could not be carried on , —Government would fall into contempt and destruction , —only that a Standing Array secures an absolute impunity to any scandal which the governing classes permit to each other .

    Mr . Hume and the Financial Reformers in Parliament would not be coughed down and worn out if they dealt with the question at the right end : the vote of money is but the ultimate symptom ; the causes of the expenditure are political . The Peace Party makes the same mistake . It is unquestionably better for England and the world to be at the mercy of Lord John Russell and Mr . Fox Maule rather than Prince Schwarzenberg and Radetzky , of Queen Victoria rather than the Archduchess Sophia : and unless we would place England at the mercy of foreign Austrianisrn , she must be

    defended . A Standing Army has been justified on the score of ( Economy accruing from division of employments , which sets apart a hundred and fifty thousand men for the lighting department . But at what expense in cash ; at what infinitely vaster cost in political disorganization ? The People , disarmed , becomes incapable of defence , not only against , the invader , but also against its own defenders . And the soldier , segregated from society , deprived of civil rights , becomes the slave of martinets—the slave of the lash , t . he helpless victim of organized discomfort .

    It is not hy cutting down votes that you will reduce that evil , but by radically altering the relation of the army to society . Mercenaries must , be used , in modern times , for foreign war ; but for domestic war , or lor preserving " order" at home — arbitrating in doubtful cases between the possessors and the claimants of paramount power in the country—the People should supply the force . Devoted to trade , we hare lost the habit of arms ; which an cll'eininate policy has still further discountenanced . A militia is a mockery of an army

    But about three years back , Frederick Hill , Inspector of Factories , suggested the modi ; of establishing a National Reserve Force , which should not have the two grand objections to a Standing Army , —cost , and alienation from 11 le People ,- and yi ; t should he stillicient . In the details of the ingenious plan we do not concur ; in the principle we do . It wa . s to enrol residents , selected for fitness and character , in a military force ; to leave them free at most times , but to p lace ; them under military regulations so far as regards drill tiuutK and active service , jind pay in fi them for the time thus consumed . He

    reckoned that a force of a hundred thousand men , well picked , well drilled , and well equipped , might be provided at a cost of £ 900 , 000 . Say that it were twice as much , and you must still save by reducing the numbers of the Army at home ; moreover , you would then altogether redeem the country from its subjection to a Standing Army of mercenaries , the tools and slaves of arbitrary officialism . That is the end of the matter to which the Reformers should address themselves—that is the mode of dealing with the Army estimates , instead of the annual farce now performed in the Commons ' House of Parliament , the principal characters by those old favourites , John Russell , Fox Maule , Hume , Cobden , &c , assisted by the military gentlemen in town .

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    THE HIGHT OF ASYLUM IN ENGLAND . A word which was in Turkey and Switzerland interpreted in ohedience to the right of the strongest awaits now a new , and perhaps more unbiassed , definition in England . Lord Lyndhurst and Mr . S . Wortley think that the right of asylum has been abused by Italian , Polish , and Hungarian refugees , and would move , consequently , that Government be invested with the summary and discretional power of depriving the said refugees of the benefit of that right .

    Now , the question does not by any means lie on the fact of Mazzini or Klapka ' s being or not guilty of a breach of that international law which binds England to her foreign allies . We must merely decide whether these aliens be amenable to the laws of this country , upon the offence being proved against them , or whether they are to be subjected to the arbitrary and irresponsible control of the Secretary of State , no matter how prejudiced or inconsiderate , no matter how flagrantly unjust the proceedings of this high functionary may be against them .

    Now , we firmly hold that as the slave that sets his foot upon English soil becomes , by that very fact , a partaker of English freedom , so the alien that seeks shelter upon these shores is , from his very landing , entitled to English justice . It is already sufficiently hard for the foreigner ( who is made to pay taxes the moment he hires the meanest hovel ) that he should be deprived of the active right of

    English citizenship ; but even admitting that he should have no share , direct or indirect , in the making of our laws , there is , at least , no reason why the protection of those laws should not be most amply and unconditionally extended to him . Take away from England the pride of her fair dealing and equal justice , and tell us what the Italian or Hungarian should come to breathe our " fog and coal-dust " for ?

    The enactment of the Alien Bill is an undignified and unpopular measure , even in self-defence . No one knows it better than Lord Lyndhurst and his Conservative colleagues , who did not shrink from the meanest and dirtiest espionage at the Post-ollice , rather than brave public opinion by an open and constitutional , however exceptional , and , in our opinion , hatefully tyrannical , measure . I ' -ven for the , sake of internal tranquillity the enactment of the Alien Bill is tantamount to a

    pitiful avowal of sheer impotence and improvidence on the part of the Government . Nothing more humiliating , nothing more dangerous , than the admission of the insufficiency of ordinary laws . It is as desperate" a measure as that of the head of a family abdicating his parental authority , by calling in a constable to keep the peace among liis riotous children .

    Hut , we are told , foreigners , being houseless and unknown , have endless means of evading or otherwise ; setting the Jaw at de / iance . We do not admit this ; we give our police greater credit for omniscience ; hut tliis is not what , we contend for . Let the law be made as far-reaching as maybe needful . ; but let then ; be one law only , and applicable to every human being breathing the air of these islands . Nothing can be said more decidedly to belong to tin ; barbarism of antiquity than these , same disabilities of alienism . Is not the Pole or the Hungarian " a man and a brother ? " Wh y Hliould the Minister , or the ( lueen herself , have it in their power to dismiss him unheard , without being taken to task if they acted from unjust prepossession , from ignorance , from casual or wilful misinformation , calumny , or conspiracy ? Hehold , the Itight Honourable the Minister for Foreign AflaiiH in hobnobbing on a glass of Tokay at the hospitable board of the Austrian Kmbassy . In the heal of convivial festivity , his Austrian

    Excellency throws out some hints of great swarms of " men of action" coming up at Mazzini ' s beck to blow up the Crystal Palace , to break into the Royal Nursery , to perpetrate we know not what other dire mischief of the same nature . Over the very last bumper the crafty diplomatist produces a few coupons of the famous Mazzini loan , as a conclusive proof that the mine stretching all the way to the Vatican onl

    from Piccadilly y awaits the application of the lighted end of Mazzini ' s cigar . Whereupon shall her Majesty's Secretary of State , still all flushed with his Excellency ' s liquors , proceed at once to the Foreign-office , and issue a warrant for the ignominious expulsion of a man whose offence , for aught that has been proved to the contrary , may go no further than being found tranquilly smoking the terrible cigar aforesaid ?

    Oh ! we are told , the Minister is a just and wise , a cool-headed , deliberate person ! Granted ; but are we for all that willing to consider him > infallible in what concerns ourselves , to place our life and liberty , our honour and property , under his absolute unchallenged control ? Shall a man of bright intellect , of high character , merely because he was born abroad , be treated with a harshness and indignity which would raise the very stones against the Minister , were he to apply the same measure in the case of the most arrant felon , if this latter happened to plead that privilege of English birth which renders his person inviolable , even by the highest authority within the kingdom ?

    No , no ! too much has been made of the selfish and exclusive pride of a Briton ' s patriotism . Let impartial justice and true English fair play be henceforth our national glories . Let his Austrian Excellency seek redress before English judges and juries . Let him be told that it is high treason in this country for a Cabinet Minister to meddle with judicial administration . Let him be told that the refugee is our guest : that his misfortunes and our duties of hospitality give him sacred titles which can only be forfeited by guilt , most flagrantly , most thoroughly proved .

    As "to the alleged offence of these refugees we shall be expected to say but little . Two men are fighting in the streets under my windows : the one of them that is worsted takes shelter in my house against the fury of his overbearing foe . My house becomes his castle . However strong my feelings in his behalf , I shall not allow him to shoot his adversary from behind my window . But can I , with any justice , prevent him from issuing forth again into the streets , when he has recruited his forces and spirits , and again trying the chances of combat ? Is the refugee my guest or my prisoner ? or have I any control over him beyond my gates ? or , although I clearly could have shut my gates against his coming , have I any right to oppose his exit ?

    Men are wrecked on our shores by political storms , men of lofty intellect , in many instances , more often of high , generous character . There is no earthly thing , even to their life , and , what is dearer than life , they have not cheerfully staked upon what was to them a sacred vital cause . Are they , because we do not close our harbours against them , because we do not shoo $ , them down as they land—for so far after all does our boasted hospitality reach , and no further —• are they , as Lord Lyndhurst would seem to expect ,

    to give up the one love , the one religion of all their life ? Is the British Channel to be a river of Lethe to wash from their heart and soul all memory and hope ? No doubt they will conspire—they do con-Kpire . Conspiracy—a more or less open but Unrelenting war against the evil they have left behind is a duty as heavily incumbent on them in England as it ever wan in Italy , in Hungary , —nay , more heavily ; for now the die is cast ; the war is loudly declared ; their friends look up to them , and their enemies are on their guard against them .

    But , we are told , the international law ! Well , that law forbids us to allow our guests to fire at their adversaries from , behind our windows . So far as it lies in our power , so far as our lawn empower us to watch their movements , the refugees shall not be allowed to muntcr upon our nIioi'cs , to use our muskets and steamers for a descent on the coasts of our neighbours . They may give us the slip now and then . Such things will happen in the best regulated families . But that is no reason why we should put ourselves out of our way , why we should remove the God Terminus of our English law for the accommodation of people who know but too well how to take care of themselves . Mazzini conspires . So also Klapka : it is at least

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    There is nothing so revolutionary , because there is nothing so unnatural and convulsive , as the strain to keep things tixed when all the -world is by the very law of its creation in eternal progress . —Dr . Arnold .

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    SATURDAY , APRIL 5 , 1851 .

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    318 ® l ) e 3 Lt&iltt . [ Saturday

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), April 5, 1851, page 318, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1877/page/10/