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Czar "before lie was found out is the Rumplestilfcskin of Turkey , and there ke stands with Ms foot ia it—tie laughing-stock of the world . But -what to do with him , tt ia something to have caught a genuine Tartar . No animal is wilder or more difficult to catch safely . "Why should he not be brought to England and handed over to Professor Owen , as a refutation of that accomplished and admirable
philosopher ' s limited notions of the subject of simious development ? But stay ! France has deserved well ; there is to be the Exposition of All Nations ia 1855 Russia , we fear , will be unrepresented at that peculiar congress ; why then should not this specimen , at once the raw material and prime St . Petersburg manufacture , be there installed ? Tes , Prance and England , that is the admirable destination we suggest for your prize ; only —first catch your Tartar .
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WHAT IS THE MATTER IN THE CITY ? So : mete : in& serious is amiss in the City ,- —a province wbieh includes Liverpool , Manchester , and every other commercial centre of the United Kingdom . On Tuesday , the failure of an extensive Liverpool merchant and shipowner is announced , contradicted , and reasserted ; but , on Wednesday , it becomes certain that his bills have been returned , though efforts are made to prevent a final stoppage . On the Wednesday , also , it is known that the New York Mils of another firaa , Which has speculated largely in corn , lave been returned . The affairs of a
Manchester house are under arrangement . Everybody feels the excessive pressure for money , and more of these disasters are anticipated . What is the cause of it all ? " The bad har-, vest / ' cries one j « Stoppage of the Russian trade , " replies another ; " Over-production at Manchester , " says a Liverpool man ; " Uailway frauds at New York , and Liverpool infatuation for Wall-street , " answers Manchester ; " and the war expenditure , " roars the profound financial observer ; " Mr . Gladstone ' s policy , '' shrieks the loamnonger ; and the list of causes , more or less real , might be continued almost indefinitely .
Our own explanation is that time is chiefly responsible . Our fast friends in commerce forget that the clock has a fixed rate of going ; that the globe cannot be sent round faster by the most pushing merchant . America is truly answerable for no small share of the calamity , especially iai Liverpool , and through Liverpool in London ; and America illustrates well the present consequences of faat trading . The productive powers of that country are enormous , her development
miraculously rapid ; but still , neither in extent nor rapidity , are tlie powers of America independent of ratio , or without limit . She acts as if they were : her privato citizens spend at ft more than aristocratic rate ; expecting to send their trade round the circle—which includes probably New York , Liverpool , Manchester , London , and Florida—in a g iven time : a hitch occurs ; there is a spoke in the wheel , and the fast and furious Phaeton falls . The " princely" merchant has calculated
his income a few thousand dollars short ; lie tn-ust have more , and fast trading suggests expedients hotter than accommodation bills . Ko is isauing sorao thousand shares in a promising railway at a flue price : why not sell a few hundreds more ? Ho cicala in cotton , and lms plenty on hand : why not got «}> a rumour that it is a alvort crop , nnd bag with plenty tho price of scarcity p There h a scarcity o'f rain : why not trumpet " u clroughlj , ' and raise the price of com P Thoso things have actually bocn dorae . Somebody © t courao Buflers ; Liverpool burns he * fingers
but the loss recoils on America , with doubly damaged credit . The discree&t aggravates a real difficulty . America imports Manchester goods ; when corn is abundant , it is a good set off ; aird the reciprocal trade saves the necessity of exporting specie to England . Tims to America grain is gold ; and this year the growing treasure is deficient . Manchester suffers by the stagnation in America ; but
Manchester produces even through drought and deluge—she can Jbrce sales at low prices , and still specie must be shipped to pay her —not grain . Having carried her trade beyond her production , her expenditure beyond her income , America is hard up for cash , " fails" heteand there , a " nd Liverpool totters . To some extent tbe same story might be told of Manchester m&n : —merchants on thdir
own account-- * - !!! Australia ; for the resident Australians have not rivalled the Americans in recklessness . But the English traders thought to make hay while the gold sun shone ; they exported fast and furiously ; sales have been declining , have beeotae slow , and now give way to stagnation . Here also there is a spoke in the wheel of commercial circulation , and those who reckoned on returns prompt and punctual must waitthough their , bills -will not do so .
It is the clock tfeat . has been forgotten : the speculations were correct , except as a matter of time . There m ~ e the railways to be made in America ; there is the valley of the Mississippi , with boundless granary powers ; there is the line of the Murray , with its innumerable flocks and crops 6 f the future , purveying the gold-fields with a surplus for England ; jtist as there is-a sounder state of production , industry , trade , and finance in
England than we have ever had . But commercial men have forgotten their own maxim pointing to the identity of time and money ; they have the assets to meet their bills , but not the time ; the wheel is arrested by over spinning it ; and a few commercial cai'riages crash in the race . That is all . The ground ia solid beneath , and we shall get over it without selling up either John Bull or Uncle Sam , or letting their families come upon the parish .
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The meeting to advocate Scottish rights is the outward and visible sign of a deep instinct . It means fhat men in most places are conscious of understand ing their business Letter than it can be understood by other people elsewhere , and , that they expect to get on more profitably , more advantageously , and more honourably , if they are left to be their own agents ; that they dissent from being nothing higher than tho Co . of agents at a distance . In Scotland , for example , they have particular objects and particular modes
SCOTTISH RIGHTS
of attaining those objects which we in Euglaaid do not undorstnnd . Wo havo hoard it , indeed , confessed that an Englishman has been known to moko oatmeal porridge bettor on tho hanks of the Thames than it could bo made by a Scotchman on tho banks of the Clyde ; but the exception proves tHo rule It was a foreigner that apoko the moat perfect Athenian ; it is a YorUshireman who has become tho most fervid Irishman ; and it is an Englishman , who , in porridge , beats the
great original . " Jkit it would be " a bad speculation if rill tho porridge had to bo brought to London , thoro to bo manufactured for Bcotch breakfasts . When they maUo rules for tho accommodation of Scotchmen , it could , uadoubtoelly , bo planned much better up there in tho north than it can in London ; and we do not know why wo should compel thorn to have their family ttttNvngeanoM / ta U'tmsaotod nt our hoad-qnaftora . It is trmi that fcScsotoliirrnon arc brought to
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* l ' riniod by M * - ¦ J < ' 1 '" Kdwnnl Taylor , *> f Ultra Quoiui-Klruut , UHeoln ' M-IiiH-lluJdH , and circulated by Blr . Kit , tlio UookuMut , of lallngtoii .
^^™ ^ T ^ T ,„„ Scottish Rights
London for the purpose . They export the ! raw material from Scotland to Londoa , and import the manufactured article in the shape iof statutes . But this is a very clumsy arrangement indeed . In excuse , it has been isaid that English Members rarely interfere , — that if it is a Scotch subject , there ia scarcely an English Member to be seen in the House ; so that the Scotchmen have , after all , the facility of the manufacture . Why , then , should they be compelled to come up to Lon * don to exercise that faculty for the amusement of English spectators ?
In fact , all Scotch laws might just as well be made in Edinburgh as in " Westminster , and better . The only practical effect of which we are aware , in dragging the Scotchman down here , is to bring hiin into a more re » - laxing climate at the hottest season of the year . Tins may account for the want of tone often observable in Anglo-Scottish statutes . If the men . can make the laws , why not make them m situ , under the influence of a more bracing atmosphere ? Tkefe is also a risk in . the English locality . Any member who chooses , can raise some obstruction to a Scottish law , and is sometimes tempted to do so
upon divine grounds . A Homan Catholic member can put a spoke in the wheel of a Presbyterian statute ; an orthodox upholder of " the Establishment " in London , which is . " the bloody prelacy" in . Scotland , can put his thumb upon a Scotch Education Bill , or render it so English in its form , as to become intolerable to a Scotch public . If we are to admit the principle of letting Hungary be for the Hungarians , Italy for the Italians , why not Scotland for the Scotch , as well as Ireland for the Irish , —and if you come to that matter , Yorkshire for the York > - abirerrieia " . Indeed there ia no end to the
folly which compels Parliament to transact business in " Westminster which could be much better done in the places themselves . The true rule for distinction between local Grovermnent and central authority appears to be this : Every law which concerns only a certain district , and does not interfere with the people outside , ought to be settled within the district—parish business within the parish , county business within the county , colonial business within the colony , national business within the nation , and then Parliament would have time to make proper laws for the necessities of the whole empire .
In the meanwhile if wo must have Scotch , business down hero to do in " Westminster , it would be but common sense to relieve an overtaxed Parliament by sending up some of our English business to Scotland . And for that matter , as Parliament toill do tho work of parishes , tho parishes might do the work of Parliament . Let us then send tho promised Metropolitan Improvement Bill to Edinburgh , where they would no doubt secure for us at onco tho most perfect laws of cloanlinoss aud drainage ; and lot tho Itoform Bill , for which we havo so long been waiting , bo sent down to tho several parishes for instant
completion . Jt ia a question for the Anti-Contralisatiou Union to consider . Having , aa wo learn by their last report , '* dofoatod Government on tho Board of Health Bill last scHsiou , and substituted Benjamin Hall and local self-government for Chad wick and centralisation , the Union linn really done something iu this way of legislation . Porhupa it might ontortain tho proposal of " wwopping" 11 little local luw-nmking for linponul Inw-inakiiig , with tho view of ultimately effecting a ro-oxolinngo , so tluifc Uoiullo biiwnoas may bo hl ' l to ' Moudlv , and tho Quoon enjoy her own only . .. « . ., 1 . . —¦— . ——* .. . H' *
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October 7 , 1854 . ] THE LEADER . 947
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 7, 1854, page 947, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2059/page/11/
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