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•• but Low are we to do more than we do , when you are so niggardly with your money ? " Now , we say we are not niggardly ; that we give more money for the support of our Army than any other people under the sun , j-that we are readjvto give even more , if it can be shown that more , is needed for its proper maintenance ; but , on the other hand , we say that 11 , 50 (^ 000 / . a year is a very large sum , and o *^ g httogaagood way towards the objects for which it is voted—with no niggardly feeling . And—since we are on neutral ground—• we say further that our doubts as to the condition © f our brave soldiers have no reference to the insufficiency of the provision made for them , but only to the coinpeteney of the * authorities' through whose hands our money passes . Perhaps at this moment , when we have a great deal of work on hand , and our attention is led away from close considerations of details , we shall not do much , to remove our doubts as to the economy of the Army or of the State . But a time must be found before long for looking right to the bottom of the question of our national expenditure . The letter of John Bright to the representative of the unemployed operatives of Birmingham sounds a note of alarm , the echoes of which will not quickly die away . Here are thousands of the skilled labourers of one of the first manufacturing cities of the world memorializing their sovereign to furnish them with means to quit the land of their birth , where their toil can no longer ensure them the means of subsistence . What is the reason of this ? Mr . Bright points to it : it is the overwhelming-taxation of the country . What is to stand against this tremendous conclusion ? ** This year , " says Mr . Bright , " I suppose we shall raise in taxes at least 50 , 000 , 000 / . sterling more than will require to be raised by an equal population , living , not in England , but in the United States of America . " To watch the time , to seize the right moment for opening up this mo mentous question , we take to be the mission of . John Bright ; there is not another man before the country so capable as he for the performance of the task . Nor shall we want for monitions to watchfulness . The returns of revenue will come with inevitable precision to wake us up if we are sleeping . The present year ' s returns show a net decrease of 4 , 452 , 550 / ., on the quarter of 2 , 50 O , 0 O 0 J ., while , on the other hand , there has been a considerable increase of expenditure . The direct cause of the deficiency has been the reduction of the income-tax , so pertinaciously enforced by Mr . Disraeli and by Mr . Gladstone . To Mr . Gladstosib the consequences will give little distress , but to the Ckancexlor of the Exchequer what torment ! If he had not torn from the hands of the late ChANCEHCOR Off THE EXCHEQUER the 4 , 503 , 8191 . now to be found , bow comparatively pleasant would have been the preparation of the coming budget I It will not be difficult to raise * the money , —but th * oxdeal of asking for it ! Money is indeed plentiful , as we see by the alacrity with which the greater part of the Indian loan has been tendered for at an average of ninety-eight , the minimtm price fixed by the Company being ninety-seven . This readinessto advance large sums of money on such terms indicates in . a marked manner the stability of our public credit , and particularly the confidence with , which the maintenance of the Indian credit is anticipated , whatever the form of government . We are carried by the telegraphies news from -India--many-stepSTneaier ~ to--the . centj : o ,, ttppnjS ( hioh ,, anxious attention will for some time be fixed . At the latest date to which we have intelligence , namely the 'Oth of March , the bombardment of rebel iiuoknow was only four days distant . By many roads , ' between the 21 st of Fobmary and the date named above , vast trains of artillery and stores ]* ad found their way , in spito of every inv pediment that the enemy could deviso , to the hand
of the Con ^ andep ^ a-Ghief . of men , too , fighting : their , way onwards to the given spot , had joined their famous leader—Outram and Franks , with Jung Bahadoor , pressing forward . Throughout Central India * all was aetivitys under Sir Hugh Hose and Qemeral Whitlocke . Everywhere overthrow and disaster were overtaking the wavering and dispirited rebels . Only the great act of the campaign remained to heachieved * and for news of that we shall , in all ' probability , not have long to wait . What the result will have been , wlio doubts ? From China we have letters of strange interest-Masters of the City of Canton , it is only by snailpace that we make progress with its people , and even more slowly with the authorities . We cannot make ourselves understood ; shall we ever succeed in doing so ? At any rate , it would seem that we have really some reason to pursue the attempt . One incident of our experience goes far to settle the question of our right to meddle with the Chinese in opposition to their expressed wishes . This incident is described in the letter of the Times special correspondent . Circumstances in themselves illustrative of some strange Chinese characteristics , led Mr . Parkes , the British Consul , with a party of officers , to visit certain of the city prisons , and there were made sueh discoveries as confirmed the most tremendous stories of Chinese cruelty that have been related any time during our dealings with this astonishing people . The scene described by the Times correspondent is too horrible to relate : men cooped in dens like those of wild-beasts , and left to starve to death in , company with the putrid and rat-eaten bodies of their more fortunate com . panions . And . children , were among the men ! Surely the world , including the peace-at-any-price party , will agree with Lord Elgin that , " where a Christian Power has means to stop these things they cannot he permitted . " Peh-kwei , the Lieutenant-Governor of the city , had asked , " What was it to us how he dealt with his own people ?" Forewarned , and in the hope of forearming himself , the Emperor Napoleon has been taking counsel of the great money -dealers of France and elsewhere as to what he is to do to mitigate the evils of the present stagnant condition of trade and commerce in France . His counsellors at once suggested the Bourse as the medium through which Ms Majesty ' s beneficent desires could be best realized . Speculation having brought about the present very undesirable state of public credit , speculation is the antidote prescribed by these adepts , among whom was M . Jules Mires , a , great authority . One step by which , with their advice , publio credit is to be revived , is , that instead of one settlement per month for dealings in national funds , and two for all those in all classes of shares , there should be only one settling-day for the latter kind of transactions as well as the former ; the effect of which would be to give speculators * for the rise * an extra chance , and a strong inducement to avail themselves of it . What permanent good these thorouglily French remedies can be expected to produce , it is not easy to see—outside the Bourse . In other respects , Napoleon is just now willing to toko counsel , and has sent Gcnoral Espinasse on a tour of inspection through the country . Before the general ' s departure , he was made the medium of an act of Imperial generosity which will find many a&mirors—and awakon many other feelings and recolloctions besides . A deputation having Jgfljitod japon him to solicit permission to open a subscriptionin France lor £ he purpose ofiroliovii ^"" M . he Lamartine of the pecuniary difficulties under which he has eo long boon labouring , General Espinasse answered in writing that he was authorized by the Emperor to give the permission asked , and further , to plaoo his Majesty ' s name at the head of the list , in romombranco of the- sorvioea rondered by M . de Laburomne in tho oauso of order
jn 1848 , and , in recognition of « all the misery ^ disgrace France was spared by his generous ener ^ . Prom Naples we have the intelli gence that th King is taking the same course with regard to 0 countryman Park which he took with reference \ Watt ; that is , he has permitted Park to be re * moved to an English hospital , the first step before giving him permission to return to his own country . Is all this done with , a view to miti gatioa of damages ? If the judgment of the country is permitted to have any weight with the diplomatists in whose hands the vindication of the national honour will be left , this after-thought of the Neapolitan tyrant will avail him nothing . The question of the illegality of the seizure of the Cagliari has been sifted by another great English authority , Dr . Travers Twiss . His opinion entirely confirms that given lately by Dr . Phillimore ; it leaves not the shadow of a doubt that the vessel was seized upon the high seas in contempt of international laws ; and establishes clearly the fact that all the after proceedings have been in violation of justice . Will Sardinia be left single-handed in forcing the King of Naples to make amends for the fonl wrong in which he has persisted ? It would appear that we must go northward for any relaxation of autocratic will . In Russia we have the agreeable spectacle of the Emperor Alexander II . following out the scheme of his father for the emancipation of the serf . The work is being set about in vigorous earnest , and the speech of General Mouravieff to the committee charged to investigate and prepare plans for carrying out the objects in view , gives hope that , great as the difficulties are , they will be surmounted . A ukase has lately been signed precluding landed proprietors from converting peasants into domestic serfs , but leaving the proprietors still free to convert their domestic serfs into peasants . A correspondent of Le Nord says : — " The Government will thus follow up its idea of transforming the peasant serfs into peasant proprietors , which is the most natural and the most rational solution of the question of serfdom . " It is only by degrees that the principles enunciated nearly two thousand years ago are applied by our slow rulers all the world over . It is to be hoped that the faith in which the Prince has been formally * confirmed' this week will be yet more largely enforced during his reign ; for , studied in the spirit of their Author ' s own words , what are the principles of Christianity but those of good government ?
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Wages or Dockyard Labourers . —A deputation from Greenwich and Woolwich had an interview on Monday with Sir John Pajdngton , Firat Lord of Admiralty , at Whitehall , for the purpose of / equatu * the Lords Commiaaionera of tho Admiralty to rauetto wages of Government dockyard labourers from the pre-Bent insufficient scale of thirteen shillings per wees . Mr . Townsend , M . P ., introduced the subject . In «* awer to a queation , Sir John Pakington was mformw that , some years Bince , when the price of com w ' « £ > the wages paid to the men ^ vero fourteen sliUin& * week . " ThW ' aaid Sir John . " I should tW « k , « J aidering tho reduction in tho price of provisions , tw ™ men are better off at present . " Ho added tUat be JJ not at present in a position to promise on " ™ eas . wages , but ho intended to visit these rt ^^ 'J ' personally investigate the condition of tho tabouWJ whom he would gladly benefit if it could be don ^ m » aistently with juatice and a due regard to eamm j the expenditure of tho public funds . B AT The Oxford and Cambridge Eioht-o ^ ep w ^ Kaojs took place last Saturday morning . Igo „ waafrom Putney-bridge to Blortlako ; and ino ' waa that tho Cantaba beat the pxomanfl . ™ ° in ,. paaaod tho flag-boat near Mortlako m _ twenty u > nutea twenty-three aeoonda from tho time of Bttttto two eoconda liter—that is to Bay , about throo jng behind . Tho Oxford mon aio reported «» " ?« , parently out of training , and , although they P """ ,, great npislt , they exhibited some degree o » ° ' hurry . Tho buildora of tho Oxford boat , liowwer , ^ written to tho Timea to » ay that tho do * bojt <> Oxoniana may bo attributable to tho fact of an w . ( having happened to tho atrolco oar , ' which bow affected tho speed of tho boat .
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314 THE LEADER . [ No . 419 , Aprel B ^ jkr
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), April 3, 1858, page 314, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2237/page/2/
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