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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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Untitled Article
Tiffour of her external administration . A Hungarian refugee is detected at Smyrna and violently taken by an Austrian officer . He has , however , to some extent an American character , for he tears American papers , if not American citizenship ; he was rescued by an American , and provisionally lodged in custody of the French consul . The Austrian Government makes an appeal to tie civilized world against the outrage . The A merican Grovernment indorses the prompt action of Captain Ingraham in the rescue of Kossta , and ultimately Austria , after having seized the man ,
and after having protested in the face of Europe , surrenders ln ' m to America . So far has a little vigorous treatment broken through the Japan box of Austrian privilege ! But Austria has not done with America yet . The principles of the two countries are so diametrically opposed that they cannot meet without conflict , xhe commerce of the Western povrer is so extending , that , the two nations must meet aeaffi and more
frequently . Austrian routiie and etiquette will be put to severe trials ; but there will be a Commodore Perry for other exclusive systems besides that of Japan ; and we may look forward to the day even when some land-going Commodore Perry shall bid the everlasting gates lift up their heads , proclaim freedom even in Vienna or Milan , and enter the capital of despotism , with the American colours flying , and the band , echoed iii the hearts of the people , playing " Hail , Columbia . "
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THE BRASS-BUTTON POLICY . Wu have recently said that the true emancipation of labour will be found , not in any sudden " reconstruction of society , " which is mot necessary to the development of the true principle of Concert—not in mere political enfranchisement , although that will greatly facilitate tlie machinery of better industry—but in the extension of practical information on their own commercial interests , amongst the members of the workingclasses . We do not mean education in the ordinary sense of the word ; we do not mean that the working-classes need to wait the slow process of sending little children to school , letting them be taueht a plain curriculum , letting them grow up ,
and then by their children two or three generations hence , slowly arriving at a better state . What we mean is , that in proportion as the working-classes take pains to acquire a knowledge of the facts bearing upon their actual condition , and especially of the commercial value which attaches to their labour , they will be able to adapt their labour to the demands of the day , and to obtain the highest returns which are in the possibility of things . The employing classes continue to restrict them from that information . In this respect the old " friend of the labourer" is still the most
distinguished by the worst species of tyranny—the dishonest attempt to cajole ignorance into contentment . The employing classes in the cotton districts keep aloof from their men , withhold information , and do not try to come to that common understanding which would best promote the interests of both . But they do not directly endeavour to keep their hands ignorant ; they do not give pitiful rewards for ignorance and for contentment under starvation , by clothing the contented clown in a green coat with brass buttons , and putting a sovereign or two in liis hand .
That policy is resoryod for " the friend of the farmer . " \ Ve havo it in its beat form at the feast of that Agricultural Society which in also a noblo example of Toryism consistent with itself , and of Protectionism true to its old colours . Of all boons given to the labouring classes , a prize proclaimed by the Hinekford Agricultural and Conservative Association is the one which most difigra , cort its donors . It was a prize to that labourer , servant of a subscriber , who should have
paid the largest amount to a medical club without having received more than lO . s-. a * weok . What in the precept which this prize practically convoys ? It is thin . "The lnbouringmahought ' to depend upon uh for help'in sickness . In those feudal days when men wore ' tyrants , ' thoir labourers did so depend upon them ; We still want ; to bo landowners , out wo would got rid of that responsibility . We will not subscribe for you , but yon muni ; subscribe for yourself to a medical club . Wo will not care for you unless yott are our servants ; you must ; Htiil bo * adsorlbod' to ub though you are soif-eupporfcing . Wo
compound for your subsistence by giving you wages , but it must be only 10 s . per week . If you will thus rub on , at the end of the year we mil reward you by a munificent gift of one pound sterling . And positively there is found a candidate to compete for that prize I Now , how are these wretched people to be emancipated by universal suffrage , or by " reconstruction of society" in that ancient hamlet of Castle Hedingham ? Yet now would they not be emancipated if they knew the true rights of their case , as the labouring classes are all beginning to do in other
quarters . We may understand what ainount of wages is considered remunerative , by the state of another district greatly : resembling in its purely agricultural character the one to which we refer . Let us take the district of Yoxford , in Suffolk . There wages are ¦ 11 * . a week , sometimes 12 s ., and so high is the present price of provisions—although they are not dearer in Suffolk than in Essex—that even with lls . or 12 s . it is hard work to get on . The Suffolk man has Is . or 2 s . above the Essex
10 s . — -21 . ' 10 s . or 51 . more in the year ; yet when the Essex man is rewarded for foregoing that 21 . 10 s . or 51 ., he has an idea that he has gained something by the reward of 11 . sterling . If he only knew ! We say it is hard work to live , even at the higher rate of wages , in the Suffolk district ; but hard as it is , the case may he yet harder before long . Should wages continue at that rate , and prices rise , it is probable that when wheat seeding is finished many labourers will be discharged , and the now independentman will become the pauper . At been recommended
Has » y a correspondent or the Times that agents inother parts of England should seek labour in Norfolk , and convey it elsewhere to the advantage of employers and employed . Not , indeed , to the advantage of employers in Norfolk , who have not too many hands , nor too much capital to pay them with . The plan of agency , indeed , has been tried in other places , but not with the best effects . A wealthy , intelligent , and benevolent manufacturer suggested it years ago for the cotton districts , and agricultural labourers were poured in , to the detriment of
wages in those districts . The same people were poured back again , at a subsequent day , in the shape of enervated weavers , and they became paupers in their native villages . Men are not beasts ; and when they become commodities for the dealing of " agents , " they are likely to undergo the fate of those G-erman " redenrptioners" in the United States , who were actually bought and sold before their faces by the agents who spoke a language unintelligible to the ignorant foreign emigrants .
English labourers have sometimes been sold almost in the same manner . Some years back families were actually taken from" a district in Suffolk to other parts of England ; where it was represented that they would obtain much higher wages . After a time , a few families , with groat difficulty and much hardship , managed to get back , and others were prevented from doing so
only by the lack of means , so little had they found prosperity where it was promised to them by the strangers . No , the working-classes must bo informed on their own interests , and on thoir own knowledge must be enabled better to regulate thoir claims of wages at home , better to speculate in homo migration , or to seek fortune in America or Australia .
By the proper development of intelligence amongst themselves and thoir employers , prosperity may bo brought , like justice , to their own doors , ' ^ o the Suffolk district which we have mentioned it will come some day , not long hence we hope , with railways and improved cultivation . The railway indeed , which is already settled , will not occasion immediate increase of employment for the labourers , because it scarcely units the ordinary agricultural labourer to abandon his homo and become a navigator , with higher wages but ahw higher expenses and unsettled condition .
The navigator will come and earn his own wages ; but the railway will bring traffic , and will bring moons of carrying off the produce of the land . It will introduce a more stirring spirit into the heart of the comity , will elevate the style of agriculture , -will call for more intelligence on the part of the labourer , and thus , whilo augmenting the produce of the district , will enhance the rate of wages , and improve the condition of the whole . This is Houndor and bolter than protection , which rewards labourers content to starve through the
period of rising wages and commercial prosperity , Upon the beggarly pittance of 9 s . or 10 s . a week .
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THE FAIRY TALES OF SCIENCE . In the mist of an Irish evening , groupa of travellers sped gaily along a noble highway . A sudden stop : but they wait calmly — a little work will set all right again . But tltey soon hear of a terrible destroyer on their path . Death rides behind . It comes in a familiar shape : that of a railway engine , whose stops are governed by a man ' s hand . Yet the trained officers of the railway cannot check it . It rushes on : it presses the life from out young hearts , and the evening darkens for ever to some bright eyes . Is the mechanical genius of our people gone ? Has our right hand forgot its cunning P If a
-I ' _ « _ 1 _ _ 1 1 L T . 1 1 '• murderer is to be caught in London , a whisper from Liverpool plants the policeman on his path . But if a murder is being prepared two miles off , by means of a railway engjuie , there is no whisper , and no fine ear to hear it . On a smooth and simple path advances a railway engine : Uequired , to send to it , as quickly as possible , a command to stand still . One would think a set of savages with nothing but native tact could devise some means towards this end , and yet we are told that our railway managers are at a loss . On the Irish line they sent back a man to wave
a lamp , fondly hoping that a driver bunded with rushing Vrind and furnace glare would see him ; and the device failed . Explosive signals would have roused the driver , even had he been asleep ; but explosive signals were not used , because there was no fog , and no thick darkness . Here we trace the ill effect of bad rules . Instead of using explosive signals only for fogs , they should be used on all occasions , until better signals are invented . The Hornsey accident would not have occurred had they been used : and this Irish accident they might have prevented . But in the latter case time was wanted for the fixture of
signals at a distance far enough from the place of danger . A man , running , cannot do much towards stopping a train coming on at thirty miles an hour . A signal transmitted as rapidly as the train was advancing , would have met it three miles from the broken-down engine , and so have prevented all accident . But there was no such signal to be had . Railway managers can run heavy engines fifty miles an hour , and are not able to run signal locomotives to fire off li g hts at meeting another train P We are not engineers , but the thing does not seem impossible . Or , to suggest another device , if a touch at Liverpool can make a sign in London , why should not a touch at a station show signs along the telegraph posts for miles P
But the true cause of all these calamities lies in the characters of railway directors . If they do not see direct gain in a new p , they will not take it up . In the long run it ia better for a railway company to work its line well . Bui ; who are the railway Directors H They are men who make money by speculation in railway shares , not by the working of a railway traffic . WTiether a Company gets a bad name or not , there are nico things to be made out of speculation in its very infamy . Many a fine fortune has been made out of the falling stock of a filial line . Few of the great men of a Company arc
directors only of that one line , " . hey are owners of railway property all over the kingdom . Tlioy sit at many boards . Unless you knock un nil the railways in the land , you cannot diminish their profits ; the low shares of one railway cause high shares in another , and they know how to rig the market at pleasure . And who are Mie Company P A shifting body of silly shareholders , who sell out in « panic , and buy in when they have nothing else to do with their money . Simple straightforward people think railways were built for the conveyance of . men and goods . They wore projected to enable a sot ; of clover gentlemen to cook accounts , and live on the fat of I , ho
land—the iron road and the steam coaches l > ein ^ merely " accidents . " If we would luni ( he lines to thoir proper use , wo must regard these gentlemen in their true light , —speculators on the Stock Exchange . If they or any other m r-Hons establish a machine or institution for public uho , we must nee that they do not so misuse it uh to endanger public health . Wo drain oil" cohhpools , and will iiot allow gunpowder factories : arc wo to allow Death to ride roughshod on our railways became the directors are " busy in . lh « ir parlours counting all thoir money "P
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October 32 , 1853 . ] THE LEADER . 1019
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 22, 1853, page 1019, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2009/page/11/
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