On this page
-
Text (3)
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
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.
-
-
Transcript
-
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.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
No . 410 , JjasmAiax . 30 , 1 < 888 . ] TH ^ S : ! EAX >^ It . 207
Untitled Article
persede it ? Might not the natives Relieve rthat they had destroyed one government , and that another conqueror was about to replace the power that commissioned Hastings , Oobhwai / lis , and Welles £ ey ? -WiU they not apprehend vast and sudden changes ? Will not British rule become once more unfamiliar to them ? It was never before urged by English statesmen that a time of war was a proper occasion for introducing an administrative revolution into the very country convulsed . But this may not be the worst aspect of the ministerial policy . If the Crown is to act in future without a counterbalance , what
will be the value of an Indian Council , capable only of advising ? How far would the opinions of a select six appointed from the present Court of Directors avail against the selfsufficiency of the Mr . Vebnon Smith or Ivord Clanbicaede of the day ? It is rarely that a President of the Board of Control is so modest as the peer who , not many years since , was applied to in Cannonrow for information : " I can state to you my impression , " he said , " but , my dear sir , for information you must go to the Court of Directors . "
The Company has put the matter very plainly and conclusively . They now act , they say , as a check ; but the Minister wants a screen , an advising , not a controlling council—a council , moreover , which the Minister would not be bound even to consult . These are the main points of the petition , as framed by the Court of Directors ; but the document also contains a variety of practical suggestions . Upon these we will not at present enter . We do not believe that the subject is ripe for legislation , and we trust that every possible effort will be made by those who have at heart the interests of G-reat Britain and of India , to refer the Government measure to a select committee .
Untitled Article
M . DE PERSIGNY ON THE BRITISH CONSTITUTION . The British Constitution is in one respect defective , according to M . de Peksicjny . It does nob authorize the police ' to anticipate crimes , ' and punish uncommitted offences . His Excellency imagines it a slight thing not only to restrain men from plots and machinations , but to silence the fanatic and paralyze the malcontent . Now , supposing the existence of that ' inexhaustible sect of assassins ' to which the French Emperor has pointed , how . could the action of the law in England arrest their operations ? These men do not assemble , with masks upon their faces , in a cellar or a strong-room , -and concoct diabolical conspiracies , the oaths and engagements of which . are recorded in round , robins written in characters of blood . They meet , no one knows where , and say , no one knows what , and it they create documentary evidence against themselves , it is generally of a kind the most vague and ambiguous . Is every Italian or Frenchman who lodges upon a second floor in Birmingham to bo kept -under perpetual surveillance P But , it will be said , these conspirators manufacture deadly engines . So do hundreds of Englishmen oontinunllv , almost daily . If there . be an official department which , more than another , is solicited to support secret or patented inventions , it - " - " as-the ^ Ordnnnoe-Ofn oe ^ or-the- 'Admiralfcyv-lIih © mildest people in the country have been among the most persevering in their combination of infernal combustibles , petards that will blow a frigate out of the water , rockets that wiU torenoh a rampart at a blow , grewa&es warranted to scatter death nud ruin , whether » fc the door of an Opera-house or in the casemates of a Oronstudt . Hundreds of those
warlike devices are originated every year , and the United Kingdom must ber put under martial law before this peculiar branch of midland manufacture eanoe successfully prohibited . If , then , Pieeri and Oesiki shells may be filled with grey fulminating mercury without an infraction of the statute , M . de Persigost ' s case breaks down in one important particular . His next count is that the refugees recommend assassination . So long as their recommendations are general , our Oovernnient is powerless to interfere . It is as
much the right of every person resident in Great Britain to preach the doctrine of assassination , as to denounce it . The doctrine may be that of a monster , a madman , or a coward , and the denunciation may be reechoed by the voices of a vast majority ; but what is to prevent an historian from praising Brutus , or from concluding a biography of Buckingham with— " So perish all who would man by man enthral ? " Many of our English and Irish demagogues have descended to ravings far more abject and
sanguinary , but we have heard of no instructions to Lord Napier to complain of the licence permitted in America to that vitriol spouter John MiTCiiExt . Irresponsible Irish prints have complimented the JSTawa Sahtb upon his Cawnpore achievements , an offence against society rather worse than that of the JPJiare de la Loire , which has been warned for saying , According to the despatch agency , the Emperor and Empress were loudly cheered . " We really think that if Louis Napoleon would suppress M . BiLiiAULT , and teach discretion to his legions , he might « affely leave the exiles to discuss European
eventualities . If they set forth logical demonstrations that Cm . sa . ~ s . died righteously , that the Grecian tyrannicides deserved to become the declamation , of schoolboys , that the dagger of Virginius mistook its way when it reached the heart of the Eomau virgin instead of nailing the Decemvir to a wall , why , these are old-fashioned antics , and although we have adopted a different morality , to undertake their repression would be absurd . If , as M . de Persignt says , schemes of murder are actually prepared in England , he has only to prove the conspiracy , and the French Government has its remedy , we doubt
not , in our courts of law . But how to prove these allegations ? The plot works its way to the Emperor ' s presence in Paris itself , with all its praetorians , spies , and secret police , and how is it to be expected that England , with a police machinery employed simply to keep the peace and arrest criminals—not to maintain a foreign dynasty on the throne—should do constitutionally , and in the light of day , what Louis NAPoiiEON cannot do , although there is no law to restrain him , and an immense army , a passport system , and a domiciliarv police at his command .
We cannot prevent this sort of contraband from leaving our ports . It should be stopped at the French custom-house . How was it landed in France ? How did it pass the barriers of the capital ? How were Piekiii and Ojisini allowed to pass without suspicion or hindrance ? If Freuch lace and brandy are smuggled to London , we blame , not the French authorities , bint our own coast-guard Moreover , it is by no means proved that the
plot was concocted on English soil . We have the evidence of tho French official journals tha . t ~ nvor , jeL , j |)) mri __ one similar , conspiracy has , since tha Ooujp ~ d Mat , been defS 6 tFdiirParis at Lyons , ond elsewhere . The demand upon our G overnment is ft subterfuge , the French Bmporor imagining t / bat an opportunity had arrived tor ridding himself of the perils * supposed to lurk among tho refugees ttholtared within ho short a distance of the imperial frontier . Tho question , however , in not
whether a British , minister will . enter into iis views , but whether Parliament will sanction an alien law upon a new principle . We have Lord PAtMEBSTOir ' s admission that every alien act passed within the century has had for its sole object the internal safety of the realm . We do not , and cannot undertake , Lord Palmeeston added , to provide for the security of foreign governments . It is possible that certain aldermen have been reduced
by the eloquence of M . de Peksignt ; but the spirit of the English nation , will not be affected either by the broad flattery or the menacing insinuations of the French ambassador . We do not believe the prophets of alarm who warn us of a rupture with France in the event of our refusal to entertain , the imperial demands , and if such a pretext were announced as the basis of a quarrel , we
should be convinced that a motive had long ago been in contemplation , and that the French Emperor had secret reasons for supplanting the alliance . Public opinion will narrowly watch the course taken by the British Government . We are required by the French , Emperor to sacrifice a fundamental principle of our constitutional law , and who is the Minister that will offer to make this concession ?
Untitled Article
LOVE ENTHRONED . Wseee is the real greatness und beauty of the Royal Marriage . ? The politics of it are for the statesmen , not the bride . The pomp is over -, the affianced is a wife , and can , perhaps , better judge how far the magnificence , the jewels , and silks , the escort of guards , trumpets , cannon , and illuminations are the elements of happiness . It is indeed a great truth that the happiness of no human bei&gconsists in those things which are to be obtained only by the few ; it lies in elements which are open to every born human being . The deepest happiness , that which assumes the guise of grief and makes itself known in tremblings and tears , is equally accessible to Virginia , whether she stands barefooted on a rock of the Isle of France , or concealed amid the robes and panoplies of a throne . The real beauty of the marriage , if wo may believe the almost accredited interpreters of the Court , is , that while it is according to the Act of Settlement , while the Church approves , Her Majesty ' s constitutional advisers commend it , and the municipal corporations of the country give their consent , it has not been concluded at the sacrifice of that which is the dearest jewel that any bride , from the highest to the lowest , can bring as her dowry—her own unbought , xaxbuyablo affections . If this is true—and we believe it—for tho Princess Victoria A .
bdb-IjMdk might have stood as tx picture of c the Bride' in her happiest aspect—for the voice of affection could not restrain its ¦ call when tho bride threw herself into her mother's arms after the ceremony—the fact constitutes not only the crowning beauty of this Prussian marriage , but a great reform . For it is said that Queen VicToitiA has been sparod tho political duty , as it was once thought , of sacrificing her own flesh and blood to tho agonies of a- merely political marringo , and that she intends to save all her daughters from that which has hitherto boon though * to bo the doom of Princesses .
Thus one of the happiest reforms of modei'ntiiuesJiasJiQ <^ Queen Regnant . The announcement i& (* ooaic $ 6 WB noli only ( or the sake of a natural iuterestan tho young Princesses , but for the sake of the wholo English family , and for the would » t large . 1 » no household can so high a spaoit rule « a in that where the aftecbionB are allowed thoir full development ? « md it -con-
-
-
Citation
-
Leader (1850-1860), Jan. 30, 1858, page 107, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2228/page/11/
-