Current:

Leader (1850-1860), 14th June 1851, Edition Town of 2, Page 558

Page 558
Page 10
10 of 24

On this page

  • Text (4)
  • Transcript

    • 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.

      Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

      Untitled Article

      press , sets Croat against Italian , Italian against Croat , and encourages Viennese dissipation . Hence England cultivates well-bred patronage , middleclass , selfish , trading , timid quietism , and disunion of all classes . And the government of every country between those extremes cultivates the debilitated state of nation most facile or most favourable to itself . For their better safety , whatever may be the different institutions or customs with which the separate governments separately conform , at home , yet amongst each other they conspire for the one paramount object , —to uphold the

      governing families and gentlemen , and to keep down Peoples . In that process Diplomacy is their agent . The Governments of Europe combine their armies , as Austria , Prussia , and Russia are now combining for special objects ; as France , Austria , and the Roman Government combine against the Roman People . Any people—though the struggle may be a hard one—yet any people , when sufficiently moved , is stronger than its own Government ; but not always stronger than the united armies of the royal

      families and departments of Europe . To be stronger than the united armies , the Peoples must unite , each providing work for its Government at home , and so defeating that combination of armies . " With such an alliance of the Peoples , the revolution of 1848 would have been successful ; and our bureaucrats expected it to be so . The Central Committee has begun that work , the Holy Alliance of the Peoples ; and we know that they will find friends in all countries .

      But the other idea , that of Association , was not less necessary . In most of the European countries the nobles have had their Magna Charta , their Golden Bull , or other statute of rights ; the middle class have purchased influence and official subservience , if not in all countries "their Reform Bill ; the working classes alone remain , unenfranchised , statuteless , powerless , and crushed down by competition ; and they know it . So well do they know it that they are , in three leading countries , France , Germany , and England , actively engaged in

      discussing or even shaping the social reorganization for themselves . Labour is asserting itself , its rights , its wants , and wishes . And any popular party not recognizing the principle now growing dear to the People would neither win nor deserve the confidence of the masses . To obtain that confidence it was necessary that the Ministers for the People should hoist the standard of Association . As we understand this last manifesto , the next revolution will be one to give hopes to Industry , since it will strive to establish among national institutions the great principle of Concert in Labour .

      The manifesto justly says that the alliance of Peoples for the essential interests of the Peoples as opposed to the conspiracy of armed governments does not weaken the independence of any one nation , its peculiar habits of thought , or its natural bent , but leaves each to act for itself within its own bounds . We have always felt the practicability of this alliance , and now we witness its first commencement .

      Untitled Article

      THE WORLD'S RAILWAY . Two objects of universal interest would be accomplished by the execution of Mr . Asa Whitney ' s plan for connecting the Pacific and the Atlantic oceans by a railway across the United States . The first and most valuable to Europe and America would be the settlement of the waste lands of the West by the surplus population of Europe . The second would be the opening of the most direct , the cheapest , and most expeditious route for the commerce of Europe , and Asia , and Australia .

      We confess that the first object is the most attractive for us , and that if HOC ) miles alone of the railway were completed its results would be sufficiently advantageous to the world . That extensive settlement would follow the construction of this portion of the line we have not the slightest doubt . Human experience in America has not proved a more striking fact than this , that population and settlement follow road-making , as the harirm . t lu - » PnnUO / lllinWW < lf t . lltt HI ><*( 1 -t . l I Ilf > . 'I'lui f 01 " - veHt is a of the seed-time . J ho

      forconsequence mation of the Erie Canal added two hundred and fifty millions of dollars to the agricultural value of New York , as assessed for taxation , to say nothing of its influence upon Indiana , Illinois , Ohio , Kentucky , and the West . Mr . Whitney ' s railway would create , as it inarched along ten miles at u stride , farms , villages , cities , and states in a { v , w years . And this would almost entirel y consist of an emigrant population , who would therefore be so many millions not only rescued from want and the miseries of uncertainty ,

      but actually placed in an independent position as landowners and land occupiers on the railway which their labour had constructed . A belt of civilization would stretch from the Atlantic to the Pacific , and form a connecting link between Europe and Asia . An entirely new consuming population would arise , composed of those very men who now glut the European labour-markets , devour poor rates , and subsist on alms . ' ' , .

      In a commercial point of view we can conceive nothing nobler or more extensively useful to the world than the prospect this project opens up . Not only are the distances between the great commercial depots nearer than by any other route , but the charges of freight and carriage would be cheaper than by any other route . Panama and Suez , at the best , would only be portals or channels between ocean and ocean ; and it is doubtful whether ships of any burden could even approach within some miles of the coast at Suez ; whereas the broad and well-watered prairies of Western America , by furnishing a field for settlements equal to nations , would open new markets for the products of India and China and the manufactures of Europe . This

      alone would make the railway a valuable acquisition ; but , coupled with the emigrational benefits before mentioned , it would be inestimable . Mr . Whitney was invited to set forth his project before the Geographical Society on Monday last ; and the paper he read , in addition to his able letters published in the Morning Chronicle , amply demonstrate not only the practicability hut the necessity of the railway . But , as far as we can j udge , most of the gentlemen who spoke in opposition to it did not clearly comprehend how it could be made . Apparently they could not separate the idea of a

      railway from a dividend-paying concern ; and it is necessary to get rid of the dividend notion entirely in trying to understand Mr . AVhitney ' s plan . At the meeting we have mentioned , Mr . Robert Stephenson gave it as his opinion that "the only difficulty as regarded a long railway , was a commercial one , " and he contended that the " commercial question outweighed almost everything adduced by Mr . Whitney as to distances : for as regarded navigation , it all depended on the amount of money charged for conveying goods from one place to another , rather than on the number of miles . " In

      illustration , he asserted that , even if the Isthmus of Suez were swept away , East Indian commerce would still go by way of the Cape of Good Hope . Captain Fitzroy , in maintaining that the shortest and most expeditious , as well as the cheapest , route to the East , Australia , and China , was across the Isthmus of Panama , spoke in the face of facts . He also pointed out an apparent discrepancy in Mr . Whitney ' s statement respecting the engineering difficulties , the reply to which is to be found in the letter to the Times , April \ 7 . Mr . Whitney stated , said Captain Fitzroy , that for 800 miles the line

      would pass through a level country , and that then there was an elevation of 7000 feet , an insuperable obstacle to the construction of a railway . Besides which he thought the prospect of commercial remuneration was very remote ; and also that , however valuable the project might be to the United States , it could not possibly be of any use to Europe or the Asiatic world . The Reverend Mr . Nicholay took a narrow national view of the project when he said that the line ought to pass through British territory , or otherwise the whole profits and advantages would accrue to the United

      States ; and Colonel Lloyd betrayed an unworthy distrust when lie objected to placing the whole of our commerce at the mercy of the United States . Major Carmichacl Smyth and Mr . Vignolles took a comprehensive view of a project which , as they avowed , ought not to be regarded exclusively as a route for existing commerce , but also as affording employment and facilities for the settlement of the people ; and , they might have added , by furnishing a route for the new commerce which must spring up in the territory through which the road will paws .

      The full answer to these objections is to be found in our exposition of Mr . Whitney ' s " plan of means" printed in the Leader of last week , and in the paper on the Halifax and Quebec Railway in the number of the week before . The project is not a speculation . The railway would be given to the world , and tho tolls charged , would not be to provide for dividends , interest of loans , or state taxes , but only to pay for the bare working of the line . The railway itself is not a commercial enterprise . Mr . Whitney would depend for remuneration entirely upon the surplus proceeds accruing from the sales of the land . In reply to

      Captain Fitzroy it may be urged that Mr . Whitney has himself traversed and explored t he proposed route , estimated the difficulties , and concluded that they are far from being insuperable . Neither the route by Suez nor that through Panama would , as Mr . Whitney states , compete , or in any way interfere , with his railway . The Atlantic and Pacific Railway , therefore , must stand or fall upon

      its absolute , not relative , value . Only it is important to mark that while the Ship Canal throug h Panama would cost a great deal , and have to charge tolls sufficient to pay dividends on the capital invested , as well as to meet repairs and working expenses , the Atlantic and Pacific Railway would , as we showed last week , cost nothing , and have to pay no dividends , the profits arising from the line coming wholly from the sale of the lands .

      We regret to hear speeches like those of Mr , Nicholay , Colonel Lloyd , and Sir James Belcher . They betray a childish jealousy of the United States with which we cannot sympathize , and which it is mean in an Englishman to feel . Surely , Great Britain and her North American colonies would share largely enough in the blessings of such a railway , by the facilities it would afford for emigration , the new markets it would open for home and Eastern productions , and the additional importance it would give to the Halifax and Quebec Railway . Patriotism becomes selfishness when it would thwart a scheme of world-wide usefulness because that scheme cannot be made exclusively subservient to the aggrandizement of a particular nation .

      Population , commerce , power , wealth , have travelled westward for ages , and until the circle be complete , until the nations of the world meet and shake hands across the American continent , until the western shore of the Pacific be peopled by the Anglo-Saxon race , and the islands of the Pacific by the natives of the eastern continent , there will be a gulf in human progress , to bridge which will be a necessity . It has been the happy fate of Mr .

      Whitney to conceive the grand design , which , when accomplished , will furnish the means of international federation ; and we are confident that two thousand miles of railway over the North American Continent would do more to put down war , elevate and enlighten humanity , and link the nations in the bonds of services rendered and received , than all the meetings and all the oratory of European Peace Congresses could effect in a century .

      Untitled Article

      PRACTICAL WORKING OF THE CONSTITUTION AT ST . ALBAN'S . Some gentleman or gentlemen connected with St . Alban ' s is supporting three or more of the inhabitants during a visit to Boulogne . This is kind . The inhabitants were summoned as witnesses before the Select Committee of the Commons on the late election , but they prefer realising Sir Isaac Newton ' s autobiographical simile , and picking up shells , like children , on the seashore . Among other objections to any considerable extension of the suffrage it has justly been urged that you would repose the trust in a class quite incompetent to form a judgment on the merit of Members . St . Alban ' s furnishes a capital illustration . It is quite evident that the electors have had great experience in estimating Members ; they know what candidates are good for , and what they are not good for ; they have learned the art of " buying in the cheapest market and selling in the dearest" ; and , in common with other smaller boroughs , they perform the peculiar function of sending into the House of Commons men who might find a difficulty in getting returned for larger constituencies . Members for the small boroughs , say our high constitutional authorities , have always been our greatest statesmen ; and there is no knowing what would become of the country , its institutions , and greatness , if we were reduced to dependence on larger constituencies . It is quite evident that a larger extension of the suffrage without any special disfranchisement would quite swamp the St . Alban ' s constituency , and would totally preclude any such arrangements as those which we have been considering . No fear , however , if , entertained that Lord John RukhcH's threatened Reform Bill will make so great an inroad on the constitution and practice of tho country .

      Untitled Article

      558 SEtje Heaire t * [ Satukday ,

      Untitled Article

      PROGRESS OF ASSURANCE . T 1 IK METItOrOLlTAN COUNTIKH AND UKNHUAT , T . II'H AHSUHAN 0 K HOOIKTY . Thk system of combination for mutual defence and protection , whereby the interests of all are advanced without injury to individuals , m being

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), June 14, 1851, page 558, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1887/page/10/