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whole populations . For the " Black and yellow , " or constitutional party , has disappeared—puffed out with the extinction of Count Stadion ' s constitution . In the provinces the excitement is even greater—a 8 at Prague , Lemberg , Baden , and Olmiitz . In all the provincial towns the Government thinks it desirable to keep artillery continually traversing the streets with lighted matches , as a display of power , and a hint to the more impatient people . Even the peasantry are dissatisfied , although Government was careful to accompany the revoking of the Constitution with a proclamation that peasants would retain the
privileges secured to them by the revolutionnamely , the emancipation from feudal services and the like . But they have to reimburse the proprietors for the loss of those services ; their taxes are doubled ; and they are eaten out of house and home by soldiers quartered upon each man in proportion to his means . Thus they do not feel much benefit from the measures of Government ; and they are by no means contented . Nay , the very officers of the army , deprived of rewards apportioned to their services against the revolution , and kept down by Imperial favouritism , are said to share in the general discontent .
Under these circumstances it is not surprising that the loan should flag . But that is not all . The exchanges are entirely in the hands of agents ; the Royal Family itself is said to have bought and sold with great tact in a market where the precious metals are at a high premium ; so that somebody , at all events , derives a benefit from the actual state of affairs . Still , confidence is not restored to commercial houses . The officials have
lately been about , according to a recent practice , asking small loans to cover current expenses ; but they have not been successful . Somehow , even commercial men were able to perceive that the abolition of the constitution destroyed the guarantee for any loan at all : if a borrower is " ' responsible alone to Ahniglity God , " what chance has a mere creditor ? Still more , when that exclusively , responsible Sovereign is already a gentleman in difficulties . The Imperial Court cannot conceal its embarrassments : the verv ' * court , furnishers , " or tradesmen
and oulfillers , not paid for some tune , begin to weary of importunities for more credii . And the amusements ofthe august polen'afc , like the military displiiy which is to take place in Lomlv . idy- — politic enough in its way perhaps as ; t . show of power and amusement for the soldiery , and a pastime instructive to the lialian Princes — is an expensive game . Say 1 hat it costs no more than £ 100 , 000 or £ 130 , 000 * and it will be a large bum out of a straitened exchequer .
A \ ciy straitened exchequer . One of the few remaining innovations originating- with the involution , is the public statement ofthe finances , and the Imperial treasury confesses a deficit of o' 8 , , S , ;(; , oi 7 florins ( about . £ 6 , 885 , 000 ); but the . statement is ni ; ule by ollicers not responsible to the public ; and it is well known tint it . may be taken much higher—say at . £ 10 , 000 , 000 sterling . To this should be added tlie liability of repaying to Russia the f > , (» f >(> , 51 H iloiins advanced mi account of the Hungarian war , to be delrnycd in three yearly instalments ; vhereof the fust is said to have lieen paid on tlie \\ 1 st of July last .
Tn reviewing tlie finance of the Austrian Government some items are very instructive : the war department is set down at . ]( KJ , , 'J (> 2 , ( 50 (> florins ; public education ( all under Government provision ) , at 4 , i ) l <) , 77 (> florins ; Gendarmerie , at 5 , 505 , 40 ( 1 florins : live to / our in favour of the gendarme over the schoolmaster . But the Gendarmerie is important : apart from itn police duties , in which its
cleverness Iran made it more hated than Metternich ' . s old police , it . has a very exalted function . Formerly the Emperor had a body guard , German , Hungarian , and Italian , splendid in uniform , accoutrements , and horses ; but now no Hungarian or Italian will serve : and so the King has for his body guard a corps of—gendarmes . Of course they must be finely dressed for a service like ( hat ; which schoolmasters need not be .
Not the least damaging circumstance for the loan in the pretext on which it is asked : it is said that the money is required to buy up a part of the paper money now afloat . A laudable object ; but unluckily the pretext has been used before , and while it has n been fulfilled , it has been the harbinger of a bankruptcy . In INK ) , in 18 N , and J 81 ( > , there was a creation of paper money for the name purpose—to buy up a former paper currency and place it on a belter foundation . Now , these paper currencies never have been bought up ; the
paper is still in circulation—and a very nasty circulation it is . Notes are current for little fractional sums , such as 6 kreutzer , or 2 M . Notes for 60 kreutzer are divisible into four—and the quarters are in circulation . Gold and silver are becoming rarities : a peasant with silver pieces of 20 kreutzer for buttons has been a gazing stock—a rural Esterhazy with a diamond jacket . The rustics think it good policy to pass on the worthlesssuspected , and ever-sinking paper ;
, and hence a certain " briskness of trade" which delights easy ceconomists . The peasant holds it good thrift to spend that stuff as fast as possible ; it is some good to get anything in return for it . The very names of the different kinds of paper are a history in themselves—there is the * ' anticipation money" of 1811 , the bank note of 1816 , treasury money , anticipation money of Hungarian revenue ,. ditto of Italian revenue—in short a Babel confusion in the denominations of the old
and floating debts . It is no wonder , then , if the mere talk about paper money—especially anything so transparent as the talk about buying it up—is regarded as an official declaration of bankruptcy . Nevertheless there are classes who support the Government , even in its finance ; and they act on logic of a certain kind . They admit that it is sharp practice ; but they reckon that Government can go on for ten years ; and in the meanwhile
they can realize their own property , and make all snug for themselves . They are justified in expecting that the final crash will be deferred as long as possible ; for the longer the present state of affairs lasts , the more the stockjobbers will make ; stockjobbers being a class which includes august and influential persons . Probably it is right to calculate that they may defer the crisis for ten years . The Austrian fundholder may consider his property safe—for that period !
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OUR PEACE IMtlNOIPl . K Picacic is a blessing which we long to secure for the- world ; we , long to break through that incredibly transparent self delusion , by which Peace in spoken of us existing for Europe , and guaranteed to England . Is Naples at peace ? Ask William Gladstone .. Is the RusHo-Austrian Alliance at peace with England ? Ask the Sultan of Turkey . Is Hungary , deprived of her historical rii / htH , and
kept down by alien arms under an usurper ia Hungary at peace ? Ask the conscience-stricken Georgey , —whom Russia is to send again into Hungary as the military commander for Austria ! He will know . We do not share the delusive maxim , " Prepare for war , if you want peace "; but we do hold that a nation that wants Peace must prepare to repel War . The process is just the reverse of that employed by modern Governments . Standing Armies are an instrument for making war . They are the great impediment to peace , the great
instrument of tyranny . Ihey are an instrument which Governments can always turn against their own Peoples . They are an instrument which Governments do turn against their own Peoples , Every country of Europe is kept down by a Standl ing Army . Collectively , Standing Armies form an instrument at the hands of the combined Governments of Europe . Europe is now held in military possession ; and yet is left more exposed than ever it was to an irruption of Cossacks , Croats , and other Goths of modern times .
Standing Armies are a very costly instrument . On shore and afloat , they cost England about fifteen millions yearly ; to say nothing of the 400 , 000 maintained in India . The expense of military affairs is mainly attributable to Standing Armies . This military thraldom is destructive of freedom , of education , of industry , even of trade , such as it might be if the Peoples were free and unfettered .
To abolish Standing Armies you should nation * alize them—restore the soldiers to citizenship , from which they are unjustly debarred . Nationalized armies are not instruments for making War , but for repelling War . They need not be hordes of denationalized idlers , supported at the national expense . Patriot forces are forces composed of real citizens , with " a stake in the country . " No free nation can be secure of peace that has not a patriot force capable of repelling War . War is hideous , the crime of crimes , and the
misery of miseries ; abominable , in proportion as it intrudes into the home of Peace . The nation which permits War to be intruded within its frontiers , and carried among its women and children , incurs a disgrace and a shame . No brave nation , conscious of its national pride and tlie sacredness of the trust rep-os-ed in it , will be satisfied when it has the means of repelling such intrusion at its frontiers . JVo truly brave nation will see another assailed by a stronger , without being moved to aid that nation in defending its nationality , its homes , its women and offspring . This feeling is the true motive to '' the comity of nations , " which is the real guarantee of Peace—the mutual assurance of Peonies .
Thus earned , Peace will be truly smiling , as poets fei ^ n it . Thus secured , by a freedom of Peoples , it will not be marred by internal discordthat war of industry which is more mortal , it less revolting , than the outrage of the invader . Of true pence- we cannot have too much . It- is the fair weather of society—the summer that brings forth all the best fruits which man can grow . And it is in the name of Peace that we protest against submission to the insatiable war-monster Despotism , or the craving intestine parasite , the Avar of industry , which eats into the vitals .
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MOltK OOJ . I ) . Tun Fable , which teaches that renl trensure is to be eajned by digging the rarlh , not to find gold , but to promote fertility , has befn accepted us a trutli time out of mind ; and yet a new field of gold is no sooner discovered , than multitudes ruah to labour in it . Why ? Hecausc the process of exchange , in which we witness the use of gold , is brief und easy compared with the process of production ; and we forget that the process of > rjvduction in necessarily implied as a preliminary . <• ° makes us master of the . exchange ; and we forget that go miiHt itself be worked out . We know , indeed , that it » so ; but the habit of our eyes is to see gold endowed wi omnipotence in its mere existence ; and habit is m « r
powerful than reuson . . But " native " gold , which needs bo little working out , —docs it not command the power of exchange , Wltl ' ° the previous toil of elaboration ? Not if it is untt J multiplied : it then loses its own mastery exactly m p portion to its increune . ¦ + In this gold differs from real wealth . First , because doea not administer directly to life : you cannot cat g i nor drink it ; itmakeH bad clothing , bad »«*»»* ; •" " the bent of building materials . It is not the thing y need , nor that on which you primarily employ your ^ duBtry . It in the indirect incentive to the industry others—varying in force , and , therefore , in cert ainty-
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872 fflfttf yLtbtlt t * [ Saturday ,
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AN "IMPOSING" ARCHBISHOP . An Archbishop of Westminster riding into his undiscovered See , mounted on an invisible Papal Bull , resplendent in full pontificals , was no doubt an imposing object to the faithful ofthe Province of Canterbury : not so much from his rank and office as a Cardinal , a Prince ofthe Church , claiming the sole jurisdiction over all baptized souls , as for his being not only an unacknowledged , but a great virpaid Arehbishoj ) . Hut . wlr-jt shall we say of a Primate- who " hardly imagines that there are two Bishops , S : c , who would den ) r the validity of the orders of cter ^ y , solely on account of their wanting the imposition of Episcopal h : > nds" ?—¦ We , indeed , may rejoice in so important an accession to the ciMise of a truly free and truly Catholic religion . It , is ju . ^ t possible that we may agree with our Archbishop in his naive testimony to the value of the laying on of Episcopal hands . But if the Establishment of which the amiable John Bird Stunner is Primate , be a Stale-paid Church , and not a » i ; ere voluntary association of godly men , and if the Church has " something which the meetinghouse has not , " then we are bound to echo the words of our earnest ecclesiastical contemporary the ( 'hronicfa , and to add— " It maybe quite true ; but still a Bishop is not the man to say it It was not for this that he became a Bishop— it is not for this that he sits in a chair of state , and bears a name of awful import , " ike . &c . No , indeed I we may add , it was not to bit in chairs of state that Bishops were invented . But so subtle is the distinction between honest y in private and honesty in public life , that here is a good , mild , amiable , Christian map , who has been " laying his hands" for we know not how many years on we know not how many heads with all the solemn accompaniments of a most awful rite , now confidentially hinting in what sense he has been " imposing " upon them , and upon us , and upon himself ! According to his own estimate , is he not on a level with Jio ' swain Smith , upon whom no man ever "laid hands" except the Policeman ? May we not say , therefore , that the Primate of all England in a truly " imposing " Archbishop ?
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 13, 1851, page 872, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1900/page/12/
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