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Leader (1850-1860), 7th June 1851, Edition Town of 1, Page 538, Untitled Article

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      Untitled Article

      be done . If any enthusiast demands the explanation on the spot , Palmerston " throws himself on the indulgence of the House " , vows that he only maintains his reserve " for the good of the public service , " and the House trusts him even as Quickly trusts Falstaff when he , with Palmerstonian playfulness , tells her to wash her face and withdraw her action . When all is over , Lord Palmerston produces his explanation ; thus he has just produced the explanation of what he has been doing at Rome —When ?—Now ? Oh no ; but what he was doing in 1849 ! We are now discussing the Papal aggression , and therefore now ia the time to explain the share he took at the time of the Papal abdication f

      And in its composition the Roman " correspondence" follows out the usual rule . Lord Palmerston edits it , and kindly gives it to the public at one halfpenny per folio of four pages . You buy the " Parliamentary paper "—you hope to get some explanation—you turn over its pages from end to end , and what do they contain ? Documents which have been published , reports of things the substance of which the journals have long printed , and " extracts" stating that Mr . So-and-so called on M . Such-a-one ; things which you knew before , or knowing , care not to know . But precisely the parts which you do require , those things which you really do want to know , read as follows : — ********************************************* ********************************************* ****************** »»

      Untitled Article

      CAPTIVITY OF LIEUTENANT WYBURD . When Lord Palmerston was taken to task for backing Don David Pacifico with the naval power of Great Britain , he replied with the proud boast of Rome in its glory , " Civis Romanus sum " , boasting himself that the English subject should be able to encounter his foes wherever he might be , with the powerful assertion of his citizenship . Don David Pacifico was a Portuguese Jew who had lived at Malta , had been plundered in a riot at Athens , and then sent in a bill for indemnities , crammed with the most sumptuous particulars , and winding up with a total of oriental magnificence . He haggled for his bill with the British navy at his back , and , if we remember , accepted a few pence in the pound as satisfaction in full . Powder and shot were wasted ; Greece was offended ; " English influence" was kicked out of Athens ; Lord Palmerston ' s favourite antagonist , Russia , remained as usual in possession of the field ; and when he was asked for an explanation he simpered , " Civis Romanus sum " .

      Sixteen years ago Lieutenant Wyburd , an English gentleman in the service of the East India Company , was sent on a diplomatic mission from Persia to the Khan of Khiva . For ten years nothing was heard of him : it was then said that he had died a prisoner in the hands of the barbarous Ameer of Bokhara . Three years later , however , the Khan of Kokan sent to the native resident at Peshawur intelligence that "Wypart" , an Englishman , had arrived in his State ; and the Khan offered to release him . Mr . Wyburd ' s sisters ask , why he has not been released ?

      The reply is , that messengers have been senttwo of them , —and they have not returned ; and the Company has directed the Governor-General " to take every means in his power " , &c . " But " , says Mr . Elliot , " if the Khan of Kokan did not intend to give Lieutenant Wyburd up , there would be the greatest difficulty in doing anything , except an army were formed for the rescue of a gentleman who , after all , might not be in existence " . Besides , as he adjoins , " Kokan is in the very centre of Asia ; inaccessible to any means of coercion " . To any means ? We doubt , that . 1 t cannot , be inaccessible to offers

      of ransom if they were properly transmitted ; nor even to armies and war , if proper alliances were sought , and adequate rewards pledged to any victorious tribes . Difficult it may be to penetrate so far , but difficulties an : ( lie test of power . Is not Ivlr . Wyburd to be allowed to say the same , " ( 'ivis Ilomanus sum " ? Is the boast , " lam an Knjjlislnnan " , to lie the privilege only of Portuguese : . lewtf and Ionian smugglers i * or is it to be uttered only on grounds where the success of Lord l ' alnierstoji is the injury of England and the advantage of . Russia ?

      Untitled Article

      " I'HACK" Tllli DUSTROYEU . No more dan ^ eroiiK or unwholesome doctrine , we most , devoutly bdieve , was ever promulgated than the . Peace doctrine , hh it in now under Htood ; and certainly no error was ever ( supported by

      minsionaries more earnest or more deserving of respect . We are convinced that its advocates do not see its full impracticability and fatal tendencies ; and we scarcely hope that they can be made to do so , because , to accept their faith at all , they must , we should think , be men who exclude actual facts and essential elements of human nature ; but if any such man can be convinced , we might expect to find him in our correspondent " Farewell , " who brings the question to a distinct issue . He asks— " Do the present circumstances of any European state warrant or require an appeal to arms on behalf of the down-trodden Peoples ?" To this question we might almost reply in the single word—Italy .

      Our friend should observe , that there is not a single Government in Europe which does not depend for its support on physical force ; a fact equally true from the most despotical , Russia or Austria , to the freest , England . Deprive either the Government at St . Petersburgh or Whitehall of its armies , and you would find , at a blow , that the rule of Russia would become national instead of personal ; while by the same process the immense bulk of the English People would possess , de facto , the sovereign power . It is the existence of a great army in this country which , at this moment , prevents the People from demanding , and exacting , a closer attention to their interests . And so it is

      throughout Europe . The difference between the Governments that rule and the Peoples that are ruled is , that the physical force of the Governments is organized and active , that of the Peoples latent and rude . It is desirable to keep that fact in view , because it is the great * ' piece de resistance /* not only for those who incline to discuss the Peace doctrine , but also for those who so rashly and incompletely get up revolutions : it marks out what Peace men and Revolutionists have to do .

      Now , we do not see any process by which a downtrodden people can achieve its independence , freedom , and happiness , material as well as moral , except two—one , to convert that Government to more enlightened views of popular rule ; the other , to substitute for the despotical governors , new governors already primed with the right ideas . Will " Farewell , " in the promised answer to his own queries , explain to us any grounds which he may have for thinking that the ruling class in Russia or Austria can be converted to popular or even national views within any reasonable time ?—within any time

      to which living interests can extend , and jurists have supposed that to be two generations onward , the day of our grand-children ' s maturity . On the other hand , there is some hope , though as yet we have made but little way , that the leaders of the People , in each . country , can be made to appreciate the two striking differences in the physical force available to them and to the oppressors . First , the organization , which makes an army not exceeding hundreds of thousands capable of keeping- the millions down . Hitherto the plan has been either to overlook that great fact or to execrate and deplore

      it : henceforward it must be studied . Secondly , the superior organization of Governments , in their civil and military departments . This enables them to conspire together against the Peoples , the Peoples remaining disunited and unallied ; hence the standing armies belonging to the despotic Governments of Europe can all be concentrated to chastize and scourge any one People that seems uneasy under its oppression . Hungary , Italy , France , little Hesse Cassel—that most meritorious and ill-used of states —have all been examples . Hitherto that fact has been deplored and execrated : it should be studied by leaders of the People , by the People .

      This peculiar renult of the division of employments , which places standing armies at the disposal of governments , has had a most serious effect on what ought to have been the progress of nationsit has rendered governments independent of their own nations , irresponsible , pledged to support particular clansen ; and hence the progress of nations has been hitherto only the progress of certain Classen , behind who . se frontage of prosperity tho condition of the People has been stationary , if not declining . It , \ h ho even in England , where tho

      privileges of governing are kept to certain very limited classes as manifestly as they were in Venice - only that , as there has been no " cloning of the Grand Council " in England , the ruling classes are perpetuated , not only by marriage , but by recruitment , and therefore it does not require so much form to bo included in the Golden Book . But the privileged class of aristocratic Tory Venice , an compared with the population , was wore ? numerous than it is now iu Knghuul . The conHequeiicc i « that the Government baa ceanud to be national

      Nationality has ceased . The first foreshadowing of the Peace doctrine was , perhaps , that stroke of Police " improvement , " which disarmed the People for the sake of quiet streets : the perfecting of the process thus begun is a state of things in which the armed Englishman belongs to an exclusive class , governed by separate laws , owning a separate control , and officered by the ruling caste or its dependents . Englishmen are split up into sections ; and numerpus civil orders are all so degenerate , that many declare spoliation of the Empire preferable to war , while some of the middle class , —said to be "dominant , "—are afraid even to use the word

      " national . " We are not inventing or even exaggerating , but simply stating a fact within our own knowledge . England has all but ceased to be a " nation , " bound together by love of soil and race , by mutual sympathy and faith ; it has all but become a " workshop of the world "; its population is divided into many classes , all competing with each other , seeking separate rather than joint interests , avowing the worship of the new idol , the Selfish Interest ; its working millions mistrusting everywhere , and alienated from all the three great elements of political power—intellectual cultivation , wealth , and organized physical strength .

      The question is how to get out of that state of things ; and we hold that a mere missionary conversion of those who are exalted by the present system , who uphold it in all their political actions , who have showed their animus since 1848 either by leading or subserving Reaction , is a process hopelessly tedious . There is another branch of this great Peace question which we will not now discuss , but only describe . Among human faculties is the

      propensity to conquer physical obstruction ; under a true organization of society , that faculty might be directed against the obstructions of rude nature ; but such direction must be imperfect under a social disorganization like the present . Before the day of that Peaceful war , we must recognize and develope the principle of Concert . Meanwhile , if we thwart or stunt any strong human faculty we incur punishment for our audacity . Amongst us , civilization tends to withdraw men and women from the

      free exercise of their faculties among the elements , divorces them from muscular activities , congregates and confines them in towns , teaches them effeminate habits ; and we have lived thus far in the age of the world to see the people of England , at least immense masses of them , growing pale , feeble , and stunted , the parents of offspring inheriting that degenerate condition , those degenerate tendencies , and pursued by vices of which they dare not talkj ! We charge that result against Peace .

      Untitled Article

      ASA . WHITNEY S RAILWAY . A sequel to the paper which we gave last week on British North American Railways is this week supplied in an account of the plan proposed by Mr . Asa Whitney for a railway from Lake Michigan to Puget ' s Sound on the Pacific coast . The scheme is sanctioned by the United States ; the elements of it « success are known ; the only thing wanted is the concluding formalities . The paper in another page will give a full explanation ; all classes should read it—the working man not Ipsb than the capitalist ; for it relates to one of the great means of conquering nature to the uses of mankind .

      Untitled Article

      ORIENTAL NAVIGATION . One of the most remarkable instances of commercial enterprise successfully carried out , both as regards the public and the speculators , is presented by th » Oriental and Peninsular ( Steam Navigation Company . At their half-yearly meeting , last week , we observe that the dividend , frae of income tax , amounted to 8 per cent . The report was altogether very satisfactory . It set forth tha steam communication with India and China was ex- tended , that , the fleet was augmented and the speed in _ creased , that the auxiliary screw-propeller was adopted , that the rates of passage had been reduced , that the north coast of China service had been resumed , and a further tender made for the Australian contracts . This success , because it was deserved , the company being tl > c first to set tho example of what might be done with good vessels and wise administration .

      Untitled Article

      Tim Oniritoir an Oiihtaomb to Piumirksh . -That tho state church in this country i » maintained for political rather than Hpiritual purpowes , tho strong attachment to it , chc'riuhed and evinced by the aristocratic section of society , might be taken an miflident argument . Of Christianity apart from an establishment—ofthatnystem of truth which enforces self-government , love to men , and piety to ( Jod , simplicity itself will not nuepect them , uu a vlnuu , of being much enamoured , ltoligiou they cue-hew , whilst , without exception , they are devoted advocates of the church . They are wise in their generation . —Mtall ' a Nonconformist ' Sketch-Book

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      538 Cftr & tan ex . [ SAtuftDAY ,

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), June 7, 1851, page 538, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1886/page/14/