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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.
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WHAT THEN ? Parliament is to meet in November—the new Parliament . " What then P" asks the politician , thoroughly blase " . But Lord Derby—or rather Mr . Disraeli , is then to disclose his policy . " Well , what then ?" Nothing can move him . To the blase politician there is but one thing that conies with a welcome —news ; and iust now there is no news . Of free discussion he has had a surfeit , except in religion
and certain questions of the moralities , and Absolutists might profit by the experience ; the Englishman is fairly sick of all discussion , save in religion and the said moralities . Those subjects still have some interest for him ; but every other he has discussed until he is sick of it all . Discussed enough to prevent action . As to the thing discussed , none but enthusiasts can feel any interest in subjects so remote ; and there are no enthusiasts left in the field of public affairs during the vacation .
When the poet Thomson was asked why he did not get up in the morning , he answered , " Young man , I have no motive" ; the very reason why no English party can get up any stir . We see events pass by us in their unbroken procession as things that concern us not . The politician , like the fated German dreamer , sees his
own funeral pass by , and is but an unconcerned spectator of his own public decease . "Were England an inn , and we but lodgers , its affairs could not concern us less . We pay the bijl , and think it large ; but only fussy , vulgar people remonstrate . Mr . Hume and Mr . Cobden tell us that it might be retrenched ; but what-tkoxt-P -3 V £ p . Hume and Mr . Cobden ttre mauvais ton .
Tremendous vaticinators , who see into millstones , Ixmdon fogSj causes of things , and other inscrutable substances , declare that if matters go on as they do , without any real Government , but only by hap-hazard , there is a chance that the inn may be broken up , or pass into other hands . But what then ? There will always be some inn ; and it hardly matters of what sort . They give very good entertainment at Vienna ; and even Louis Napoleon can do something creditable in that stylo . But Lord Malmesbury is Foreign Minister , and
already we are in a sort of diplomatic hot water with various foreign Governments , so that Peace is in danger . Surely that will touch tho cold Englishman P Not a jot of it . Peace has lasted so long , that ho believes in it , just as ho does in tho Thirty-nine Articles , or anything that has lasted from [ his ] time immemorial . But , even if it should not continue , he is half tired of it , and doesn ' t care . Napoleon is going headlong to tho Empire ; but what is that to England P Italy cannot for ever onduro Austrian torture . Well , who cares—except Gladstone P
There are , indeed , practical matters to demand our attention . !<\> r example , Australia is ( jailing out for emigrants , and threatening to separate it luoro convicts bo sent ; yet more convicts are wont , even by honest Sir John Pakington ; and twenty thousand omigranta-that-would-bo are Waiting to go , and can't get passports from tho httlo oflieo under tho Colonial OiHcc . Well , what then P who cares P If wo lose the colonies , Attkington will bo responsible . If tho poor emigrants can't got their tickets , they must wait : it JH Pakingtori ' B affair .
Tho railways arc amalgamating , and arc intending to defrauid tho public ; by combination against tho consumer . AVcll—whoso affair in that , except tho railway companies P Let alone , and all will como right . Lot alone , indeed , and tho Cholera will como . Already it in on its tour — Erzoroum , Wnc-8 « . w , Duutzig , Konigsborg , have alreudy
been touched in its itinerary : Sunderland should come next . Well , we all know that : any fool can trace the usual course of Cholera . But , remember , we have still our towns and homes unprepared for it—we have still drains that do not drain , water which is not " the simple element , " churchyards which are depositories of death amidst the living : we are still helpless to undergo Cholera ! And what then P
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THE IMMORTAL SPARK IN PROTECTION . "No surrender , " was once the motto for the Protectionists , and , however the leaders of the party , trading in the interests of their own adherents for their own purposes , may now be disposed to give up the cause which they entered office to sustain , the Protectionists themselves will still be bent on attaining the substance of that for which they have so long fought . The Free-Trade journals are hallooing before they are out of the wood . They are now talking of the Protectionist party as of one whose relics they are despatching fast and fiercely , under the auspices of Mr . Disraeli and Lord Derby ; but the party will not be so easily killed . There is a real truth wrapped up in the fallacy of Protection , and the truth itself will survive all the odium that the fallacy has invited . The consummation of Free-Trade has only removed some of the difficulties that obstructed the truth that lay in Protection ; and the day is approaching when the residuary Protectionists will be obliged to shift their grounds from the old abandoned dogma to the extracted truth : they will be obliged to leave the wreck for the still serviceable
longboat . The Ship-owner ' s Society is preferring its demands for justice , and the Times , combating the arguments , is obliged to admit that some portion of the demands is " not unreasonable . " For example , the Ship-owners contend that , as they are exposed to the competition of the world in trade , they must be allowed to use the competition of the world in manning their ships , and be no longer restricted to the employment of British seamen alone , in # certain proportion . The Times is willing to concede that demand ; it
thinks " there is good reason to believe that many of the evils complained of on board merchant-ships , arise from the protection , by legislative enactment , of British seamen from foreign competition , and the endless insubordinations which are sure to follow from such a monopoly . " Thus the Times would expose the British seaman to foreign competition , as a means of beating him down in his bargain with his employers . The Times would concede a restriction which prevents our merehant navy , nursery for our armed marine , from being maintained solely by foreign
pupils in sailorship , and would thus hand over to trade tho control of our marine . Viewed politically , such a concession is a reductio ah ahsurdum ; but it will scarcely be viewed as such by a public already prejudiced in favour of tho dogma from which it starts . One of the arguments , however , which tho Times employs—an old favourite with tho freetrade public—would bo sufficient answer to the position . " The principle of free trade , " writes our contemporary , " is to trust to tho principle of self-interest to provide the ship with all things
necessary to complete tho voyage in safety . ' Now there is ono branch of shipping in which tho principle of self-interest was trusted , and in which it failed in a manner the most egregious and disgraceful . Self-interest was loft to cater for emigrants to North America , and it was found that it treated those ; emigrants us pigs themselves would not have been treated . Indecency and disease rendered the emigrant ship controlled by no better genius than self-interest , a perfect hell upon tho waters ; thosowho were not contaminated were outraged ; and tho cargo was landed on the other shore of the Atlantic in every stage of moral
and physical suffering . Tho nuisance at last became so flagrant , that it attracted public attention : common sense , and common decency , obliged the Legislature to interpose ; and now , compulsory laws regulate the conduct of emigrant ships . The results have been very satisfactory : the food is now for tho most part wholesome j tho lodging accommodation in tolerable ; tho custom h of the ship , 1 , 110 inevitable customs , no longer outrage ovory fouling of decency . But thoso advantages aro obtained by an intervention which wholl y violates tho dogma of Free Trade . We por . coj . yo , therefore , froni this practical oxporiejico ,
that the principle of Free Trade , as it is stated by the Times , is not sufficient for regulating the commerce between man and man . It is not sufficient for so distinct a matter as the bargain for a passage across the sea ; how then could it be sufficient to regulate so many political and social collateralities involved in the whole question of the shipping interest . If the Free Trade party should find itself sufficiently powerful to enforce its dogma upon that interest , as it has upon the agricultural , some of the evils which are to be anticipated would be sooner realized , because the field is more limited and more concentrated to the view , and we should then find that the true part of Protection would again assert itself .
As we have said times innumerable , and may again say in noticing this most recent illustration , freedom of trade is an excellent thing in the mere process of . exchange , but it will not suffice to regulate the other relations of traders as men , as companions , as citizens . In every relation whatever there must be at least two parties to the transaction ; and free-trade cannot attain its most beneficial development unless the interests of both these parties are kept in view , and consulted by both . The interests will be best served when both co-operate to the common object . This principle
of concert in the pursuit of separate employments is the principle of economy which Free-trade does not include ; but it is a principle which must bo included in all great combinations . So important an interest as the agricultural or the shipping interest cannot be conducted under proper laws , if , in the framing of those laws , the principle of Concert be kept out of sight . Neither can those who are engaged in the interest obtain their full share of justice , until they know how to base their demands on right principles . When the ship-owners understand that they must demand
proper consideration for their class upon the grounds of serving the interests of the public as well as their own—when they claim laws which shall include the interest of the consumer as of the producer , the interest of the passenger , and the freighter , as well as of the ship-owner , of the able seaman as well as of the humbler " boy" —they will put their claims In a shape which the public cannot refuse to respect ; but then avc should not see them claim to man their ships with ill-paid sailors , and abruptly to discontinue the employment of pilots .
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OUTRAGES ON WOMEN . The Society for the Provcntion of Cruelty to Animals has intervened to rescue the bull which M . Poitevin sacrificed in his tragic farce of Europa ; but what was the Society for the Protection of Women about , that it did not interfere for the rescue of another animated creature involved in that venture — Madame Poitevin ? There is , indeed , ono reason why the society might scruple to interfere—she is a wife . Tho caprice with which society at large selects tho objects for its sanction or reprobation is remarkable ; but in nothing more than the treatment of women . Certain cruelties to women are
forbiddon by law ; but others are winked at . A man must not call a child into being and leave it to starve ; but ho may abandon the mother , as a woman , whatever the deception by which he has inveigled her . A man must not invade tho property of another man in his wife ; the law will protect the yielding strength of the woman , and the constructive rights of the husband ; but if a woman bo quite without natural protector , she must look after herself , for all tho law cares . Even in the ease of her child , it is not she whom
the law protects , but the ratepayer ! As to the cruelty of tho case—that is no business of anybody ' s . There is an Act of Parliament to prevent cruelty to animals ; but none to prevent cruelty to women . There aro , indeed , statutes to prevent dissatisfaction to bishops and others by immorality as it may bo exercised towards women ; nnd wo put restraints upon tiuestionnble houses , or any other vast escapades of tho morality that offends . But
tho thousand forms of cruelty covered by tho privilege of the parent or tho husband , escape check , if not animadversion . The husband , who pays his rent , and in " faithful" to his domestic relations , may break the heart of his wife , bo sho never so lovingly and gently inclined , and society must perforce respect him ; but if she should leave a homo of hate , she is a castaway , whom society cannot know . The husband may inoro flagrantly outrage justice , uud yet , bo little
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There is nothing so revolutionary , because there is nothing so -unnatural and convulsive , as the strain to v eep things fqced when all the world is by the very law of its creation in eternal progress . —Db . Arnold .
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it v SATURDAY , SEPTEMBER 4 , 1852 . * ¦> i °
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September 4 , 1852 . ] THE LEADER . 849
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Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 4, 1852, page 849, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1950/page/13/
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