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tear Universel , unsigned , but recognised as from the pen of the Emperor himself , from its authoritative style . The writer is delighted with our discomfiture , and attributes it to our imperfect form of government . Nothing like leather , says he .. See what the " Elect of eight millions , " invested with absolute authority , can do . No babblers thwart him . And then he tells us that if we did have a brilliant time of it towards the beginning of this century , it was because then we had King Pitt to reign over us . The universal panacea is silence , repression ; the great political watchword is mum ; the finest people is a people of puppets . This philosophy is accepted by the venal and indifferent classes in Prance . We shall talk one of these days of its results .
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THE "GLOBE" AT WAR . We are not usually disposed to pay particular attention to the criticisms of official or semi-official journals . To make the worse appear the better reason is a sorry business at the best of times ; but to vindicate the imbecilities of inc ^ aHeTliammistra ^ tors demands a lower deep of ingenuity . It is a pity that our daily Ministerial apologists should desert the safe ground of
universal optimism . The Globe , echoing with congenial sneers the jaunty Palmebston , descends upon Mr . Jjaxabd with an imposing array of historical perversions . We fear our respectable Whig contemporary has acquired this bad habit in bad company . Already this week we remarked in its columns a somewhat wiredrawn eulogy of our imperial ally ' s elaborate attack on the British Constitution . But the off-hand
arrangement of history we are now about to notice is only surpassed by the Monitor itself . - - Fastening upon a suggestion rather hinted than expressed by Mr . jLayabd , that the conduct of the operations in the Crimea might be improved by the surveillance of Parliamentary Commissioners after the mariner of the Commissaries of the French Convention , our Ministerial contemporary , in that style of
flippant gravity which is presumed to be agreeable to evening readers , pronounces that " it may not bo unmstructive to ask whether —as a matter of fact—those * representatives in mission' to the revolutionary armies did enable them , as Mr . Laxa-KD says they did , to perform the prodigious deeds which all the world admired ; " Hereupon , in answer to this instructive inquiry , which no one but the writer in the Globe would have thought
of proposing , we are treated to the following novelties :- — " The military witnesses of the events of that epoch , testify that these representatives militant produce , for the most -part , nothing but disorder ia military operations . They in fact * operated injuriously to the public sense . ' ... . There were indeed some few members of the French Convention ^ who employed their dictatorial authority with discernment , and . became useful auxiliaries of the military commanders . Amongst these Merlin de Thionville and one or two others were distinguished , and
Carnot himself was engaged in person at the battle of Watignies . But the majority of these emissaries , like St . Just , brought no other contingent to the armies of their country than - ignorant presumption , and reckless ferocity . Their presence produced nothing but disorders and violences j they decreed massacres , but prepared no victories .- .... It was Carnot ' s assumption ( in effect ) of the functions of Minister of War that put a period to the blind and blundering direction of the Committee of Public Safety collectively , and its emissaries . They had done their utmost in ' operating injuriously on the public service
When Carnot took the War Department in hand , he decided the adoption of that plan of campaign of the Army of the North in 1794 , which retrieved the disasters caused by the Terrorist * representative' missions of 1793 , and recalled victory to the arms of France in the battle of Fleurus . The General who won that victory ( Jourdan ) was one of the most emphatic in denying all obligation to the Terrorist committee men on the part of the army . - Marshal St . Cyr has left the same testimony in his Memoirs —that these * representatives of the people * brought nothing into the camp but confusion , and knew no discipline but terror *
" As Carnot became in fact Minister . of War , Saiut-Andre became in like manner Minister of Marine . " We cheerfully abandon to the laborious persiflage of the Whig jo urnalist that undoubtedly incapable Minister of Marine , S ^ int-Ani > be . Even the Convention was not always ably served ; _ in ^ Jihis respect at least the revolutionary [ Republic was as respectable as regular monarchies . It is delightful ^ to observe with what . satisfaction the Whig- writer chuckles over , the reputation of an incapable . " Iliail thee , brother . ? But to return .
It was not until after the defection of Dumoubiez , when all France was in consternation at the dangers of the army and of the State , from , the incapacity or doubtful fidelity of the generals , that the Convention , acting through the Committee of Public Safety , appointed commissaries to the armies in the field , whose duty-it was to be-pecaonally responsible in the face of the army for the conduct of its chiefs . The "ignorant presumption" of men who exposed their lives not only in the foremost front of
battle abroad , but to the terrible consequences of direct responsibility at home , was better appreciated by the soldiers they led to victory than by the Whig writer whose office it is to excuse disasters . Certain it is that , whereas &t the time of tile appointment of these commissaries the armies of the [ Republic were harassed by successive defeats , and the enemy , in occupation of French territory , from the moment * they assumed the direction of the resist * ance , France was able , not only to expel hor invaders , but to feed , clothe , and houso her troops at the expense of Europe , to
extend the territory of France , and to preserve the freedom of her new institutions . JNot a single reverse occurred in this career of victories—which , as Mr . [ Layabd savs , " all the world ( even the most bigoted of Legiti * mists ) admired' *—so long as the represented tives of the Convention remained at the head of the armies . They inspired the Boldierb with confidence , and the generals with a just sense of liability to the State . As for th $ " reckless ferocity" of winch this complacent Whig trifler talks , in wtiat way , we may ask * was " reckless ferocity" brought tojthe ammeW by the [ Representatives pf . the People ? ; It will not be pretended that they treated thei *
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* February 24 , 1855 ] THE LEADER . 185
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MR . GLADSTONE ' S NEW POSTAL LAW AND THE EXETER-HALL MEETING . Ofb readers need not to be reminded of the steady support which this journal has rendered from the first to the just and useful agitation for repealing the imposts which impede the diffusion of knowledge . The abolition of the compulsory stamp on newspapers , and of that disgraceful Castlebeaghdevised security system , which assumed journalism to be a felonious profession , we are happy to say is now inevitable . We
agree with [ Lord Stanley that the newspaper is not intrinsically a tax on knowledge , but rather a postal payment , and the adjustment proposed hy the late Chancellob of the Exceiequeb of making the stamp optional to those who need it , is as necessary as it is beneficial . There is , however , no denying that it was intended to act , and has acted—as
the most offensive of taxes on the diffusion of information , by making the stamp indispensable to the publication of neiqs . _ JHhe monopoly of political facts is now irrevocably doomed , and once abolished by Parliament , no power in the State will ever be able to reenact it . To Free Bread will be added Free ! N " ews , and the body and soul of the nation will stand sentinels over the concessions . *
It has been narrowly and ungenerously suggested that Mr . Gladstone ' s Bill was thrown out ~ by ~ an .. expiring ^ Cabinets as a bidding for the support of the Manchester parfcy . We protest against this malignant judgment of public acts . If the worst motives are for ever to be ascribed to the best measures of a Minister , what reason is left to any Minister to study the independent service of the people ? The great meeting at Exeter-hall on Wednesday evening was not only creditable to the people who thronged in thousands more than that vast hall could
hold , as indicating a popular desire for knowledge , but creditable to the higher political sentiment which they manifested . We have the means of knowing that thousands of working men , both inside and out of the Hall , went to give applause to the Minister who had set the example of conceding to reason what could not be carried by clamour . Distrusting the Government , as well they mayjealous as they are of our national renown endangered by octagenarian routine — indignant as they are at a Government
which , enforcing responsibility among the populace , yet avoids all responsibility for Cabinet disasters—yet they went to thank Mr . Gladstone for his Bill . The Examiner calls upon the Minister to resist an agitation not socoadod by clamour . What are wo to expect then ? If the pride of the statesman will not yield to clamour , and his judgment is riofc to yield to reason arid right , on what ' principles are concessions to be madeP The people went to honour the man , well described by Mr . Cobjden as " a
statesman with , a conscience , " and we count the moral effect of that meeting of as much value as its political influence . Absurd apprehensions prevail ( absurd as those which needlessly agitated the farmers on the eve of corn-law repeal ) that , the multiplication of cheap journals- will damage the circulation of existing ones . We have long ago exposed this fallacy . When printing was invented writing was expected
to go out of fashion . Mr . Gladstone is regarded now as Caxton was then . But as there is still need for the labours of the penman , so there will be a demand for metropolitan journals when , as Mr . Dawson rightly prays , every hamlet in England shall have its journal , criticising Squire Bumptjs and Iiady Bountiful , of the Grange , as we criticise the red-tapist of Downing-street . Macatilay relates how , in the reign of Chables II ., " the literature which could be carried
in a post-bag then formed the greater part of the intellectual nutriment ruminated by the country divines and country justices . The difficulty and expense of conveying large packets from place to place was so great , that an extensive work was longer in making its way from Paternoster-row to Devonshire or Lancashire than it now is in reaching Kentucky . " Had the Chancellor of the Exchequer of Chables II . proposed the present rates of transit for news a
revolution would have been foretold . . Newsvendors and news-buyers would alike have arisen in rebellion—but the innovation would have done both good , _ and so will the new postal law . The news-maker and the newsconsumer are now on the eve of new advantages , and the wonder will be twelve months hence that the press was the last to see its own interests .. Unless our contemporaries look to their duties , the public will be in advance of its teachers . '
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 24, 1855, page 185, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2079/page/17/
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