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    of the affair . " It was a mere cigar-riot , " they say , — " a mere addition to the frolics of the Carnival . " On the contrary , so far as appears , it was very near being a struggle to the life or death , between Italy and Austria . Crushed , and even abortive as the movement has been , it ,, is but one proof the more that there smoulders in the universal Italian breast a volcanic hatred to Austria , deep , intense , and unquenchable . It is but one proof the more that Italy has men by the thousand who will die for liberty . A city that can furnish a score or two of men who will

    attack a cannon-mounted citadel with poniards , is a city where soldiers will never be scarce . And what Milan is , all popular Italy is . True , there are men in Italy , and particularly in Piedmont , who will turn the want of success of this rising against the men who planned it , and especially against the heroic Mazzini . Ay , and there are men , doubtless , who , formerly his friends , will , with coward lips , echo now the accusations of those who have always been his enemies . Not

    so , we believe , the generous English people . " Brave and noble spirit , " they will say , " are tried once more . You have dashed your hand in the face of the tyrant , but fate has broken the blow . Yet a little longer must the land of your soul be in sorrow and in blood ; yet a litle longer must your own heart be wrung ! But despair not ! Come once more among ushere you shall have a refuge , and the welcome of a fresher , deeper , and more tender sympathy . And the time will yet come when you shall have a triumph , and when we shall exult over it . "

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    THE TRUE REDEMPTION FOR BETHNAL GkEEN . The people of Bethnal Green have a right to join with the Australian colonies in complaining that the Executive Government does not do its duty . Since the doctrine of " Let alone" has been thought to express the whole duty of man in office , the idea of Government has degenerated to the function of a mere police ; and it would need but little more than one other step in the same direction for the thief to turn round to the policeman with the sound ceconomical doctrine of "Laissezfaire . " In old and less learned times , it was understood to be the duty of a Government to make its subjects happy ; and perhaps when ¦ we have outlived the natural exaggeration of the antagonism to a " paternal" form of Government , which habitually degenerates into tyranny , we mm once more recognise that while it should be left . J * tf individuals to do what they can do for themselves , that which individuals cannot do , should be performed by the administration of the community , if it be for the happiness of any considerable number , and the injury of none . From the imperfect performance of that species of duty , both the Australian colonies and the Bothnal Green weavers are suffering at this day .

    . The colonies aro in the severest want of labour , and although they have hitherto drawn large Bupplios from this country , there are signs that they may here and there bo touching the limit of the sources of those supplies . The farmer and the recruiting sergeant aro competing with the emigration agent , both offering a bounty . In Wiltshire itself , as we noticed last week , the farmer is ottering a bounty of one or two shillings a-woek , even at this comparatively dead season , if the labourer will stay at home . The returns of the Registrar-General show that , in spite of a thousand births a ,-day , the population has sensibly decreased ; and on the whole , lifo in " merry old . England" is growing decidedly more

    comfortable than it has been of late years . 1 ho working classes still emigrate in considerable numbers ; but they are beginning to ask themselves , whether they might not as well stay and see what the " prosperity" will do for them . Nuggets aro fine tilings -for those who find them ; but , after Jill , tin average man clears " only" UO . v . a-weelc at the . Diggings ; while even in , Wiltshire tho value of u man is advanced to i ) . v . a-week , without any voyago ; and in the north they are making much moro in the week . It in probable that these considerations will be weighed against the golden promises of Australia ; and that , as tho emigration proceeds , it will be drugged with moro and more dillieulty from its sources in the enti-jiiln of tho British population .

    Such u turn of uiliiirs would be disastrously injurious , not only to the Australian colonies , but to this country , and even to tho working classes fchwnselvoB . It has boon truly said , that , the

    immediate prosperity of Australia depends , not only upon a sufficient , but upon a continuous supply o ± labour ; since any apprehension of a failure in the supply would be attended by a panic in some essential branch of Australian trade , and possibly by an abandonment of that branch , at least over a considerable extent of territory , and for a time . We have already had an example in the partial abandonment of the business of wool-growing in the province of Victoria ; and there is no doubt that if the supply of labour were to fall short at any early date , the same abandonment would extend in Victoria , if not in New South . Wales , and

    possibly even in South Australia . A failure in the . supply of wool would at once be felt in Yorkshire ; indeed it is to some extent felt already , — and thus it would affect even the English labourers at home . But they would be affected much more by another cause . If any decisive check were given to the prosperity of Australia , her great consuming power would at once be arrested , and many branches of industry in the factory districts would feel the consequence . Thus it is for the interest of England as well as of the colony that the supply of labour should be kept up continuously .

    The state of the Bethnal-green veaver has been brought to notice by some cases of a very painful kind , although they are common enough in that district . The wife of a " narrow" weaver died at her work , leaving a family of children ; her husband being at the time in the most distressed circumstances . His indigent neighbours immediately came forward with assistance to bury the body , rather than let it be done by the parish . Here we encounter an ugly incident of the English law regarding the poor . It cannot perform

    its saddest duty for them without doing it in a manner to outrage their feelings , insomuch that the poor man will rather accept assistance from hisfellowsas poor as himself , than permit that tobe done for one of his family which many politicians have declared to be the proper duty to be performed by public officers for all classes of society . The rough unmannerly conduct of the lowest public officers to the poorest classes is one fertile source of seditious feeling .

    The case of this man ; the spontaneous offers of help from very poor neighbours ; the efforts of the parish Clergyman , the incumbent of St . Philips , in his behalf ; the correspondence of the papers , have all brought tho miserable condition of Bothnal-green prominently into notice . Although it is thus temporarily conspicuous , its miseries are not temporary . Bethnal-green is as unhappy while we are not thinking of it as while wo are . Tho causes of its miseries have

    continued for many generations , and are now confirmed . We might argue , a ' priori , that a very extensivo number of persons settled in a district , from father to son , with houses built down to tho scale of their own poverty , carrying on a business easy to learn , and commercially all but valueless , could not possess energy or the means to extricate themselves from their depressed condition . A long experience has confirmed what a priori argument might have found out for itself .

    But Bethnal-green is not a district in which tho farmer and the recruiting sergeant aro competingwiih the emigration agent . Nobody is competing for the Betlmal-green weaver , excepting the grasping landlord , the owner of the tally shop , the pawnbroker , the publican , tho missionary , and the Bcxton . Nobody wants him commercially . It is quite true that a weaver makes a fair shepherd . You might not suppose it ; but in Australia they find it to be the fact . It is equally truo that too many children are an incumbrance rather than otherwise in a colony ; but they do not continue to be so ; and there is no question

    that the prospective value of any ono family now residing in Bethnal-green , if transferred to Australia , would be considerable—Car more than sufficient to pay for the cost of their transit . But who shall hear it at present P Tho colony , no doubt , would be willing to make its investment in due proportion for tho prospective advantage ; and the parish would bo relieved . But tho iruschiof of it is , tliut the gentlemen who have the conduct of emigration at present do not enter into theso larger considerations at all . They tako the simplest and easiest , view of the subject . Funds are sent over from Australia , and they *> nly

    think of sending back such emigrants as arc immediately wanted . They form roffulations for that rough and ready tesi W * 4 Wty

    the regulations very stringently . Official men mostly perform their work as " if they desired , not that a particular good should be effected , but that they should wash their hands of their duty by five o'clock . > t In the meantime , these poor " narrow green , ¦ weavers are a burthen , not only on their parish , but on the general body of the working classes . Bethnal Green , like other districts of the same servoir

    kind , such as Bolton and Paisley , is a re of low-paid weaving labour , profitless to ltsell , and helping to keep down the value of weaving labour in other districts . It would be of great advantage to factory operatives throughout the country if such , reservoirs were cleared out beneficially to those who now fill them . But no means exist at present for bringing the

    Emigration Agent to Bethnal Green . The public emigration machinery is inadequate to its purpose , and the object of this brief sketch has been to show how many are interested in rendering ; that machinery more complete and strong .. Among the more especially interested are , — -the Bethnal-green weaver , his beneficent champions , his own parish , his brothers of the working classes at home , our colonies , those whom the colonists supply with raw material , and t&ose again who supply the colonists with manufactured goods .

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    JUDGE NOT , LEST YE BE HTJDSONED . Accoeding to the established rule , Mr . Hudson : is censured for failing . That is literally the casein the judgment of the Holls Court . Those acts of which he is pronounced guilty , for which he is to render account , are matters of every-day occurrence . Numbers of persons who are now prospering and honoured , have committed exactly the same acts , or have shared those identical acts which were before the judge , and have not only escaped censure , but continued to receive honour in It

    virtue of the fruits accruing from those acts-. would seem from Mr . Hudson ' s plea in justification of his accounts , that he used shares as a species of currency , to bribe Members of Parliament and landowners who might otherwise have obstructed his schemes . Those who manage parliamentary affairs have not concealed the fact that such practices are common . Indeed , the title of M . P . has ; become one of equivocal dignity , and tb , e House : of Commons undergoes a slur , not only on account of the Members -who may be seen lying about its benches , sleepy , not with overwork , or who at more excited moments exhibit ingenuity copied from the little blackguard boys of London ,

    in cock-crowing , braying , and other accomplishments . A Member of Parliament may bo tho most accomplished gentleman of the country ; ho may also be a man distinguished for those midnight noises , or for accessibility to conciliation of the Hudson kind—a voting machine , pliant for the purposes of tho schemer . If Mr . Hudson had oeon a man of more tact in tho smaller branches of his department , he might perhapshave made things more " comfortable" than no really did . He might , for example , have hushed up the disputes that have brought him in court , and have remained at the head of the Railway world , which he once ruled with so absolute a

    sway . But tho most questionable portion of his conduct did not come beforo tho Court at all , and cannot bo brought before any judge . It is tho portion which lias survived Ins administration . If he committed wrong in seducing Membors of Parliament and Landed Proprietors from the paths of virtue , he might plead , that in most cases those Landed Proprietors , and those Members of Parliament , w cre neither so young nor so inexperienced that the Iohh of their virtue could bo laid at his door . I f he has been guilty ofbribery , he can show that at least it has been a

    parliamentary custom ; and also that ho has done something towards restitution , which is perhaps a part of his conduct , not so generally imitated . But one part of his ants has boon made good by no restitution , and it has set a bad examplo throughout a large province of Industry . Tho Jlailway which was most distinguished by his management was remark able for setting tho oxample of cutting down the number of its servants below the line of safety for tho publics or decent comfort for the men . That example was followed on other lines . While managing inou on tho Stock Exchange wore dealing m * ' Sharon , " and making largo profits b y the transfer of pieces of JWPPr OX p . wchmeafy Jtyyjng a yerV jtfjnotp ppty

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    184 * THE LEADER . [ Saturpay ,

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 19, 1853, page 184, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1974/page/16/