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    NOTICES TO CORRESPONDENTS * No notice can be taken of anonymous * orrespondence . Whatever is intended for insertion must be authenticated by the name and address of the writer ; not necessarily for publication , but as a guarantee of his good faith-It is iinpossible . to acknowledge the mass of letters we receive . Their insertion is often delayed , owing to a press of matter ; and when omitted . it is frequently fromi reasons quite independent of the merits of the communica-We cannot undertake to return rejected communications .

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    FURTHER DESTRUCTION OF THE SLAVE TRADE TREATIES . When the French Government succeeded in maintaining its course , notwithstanding the challenge of this country to disallow the contract granted to M . Regis , we remarked , that the effect would be to cancel the compact between European Powers and the United States for the armed suppression of slavery . Subsequent events have confirmed that calculation ; Portugal has , however innocently , assisted in corroborating the tendency of the Regis contract ; and although M . Regis himself is understood to have realised nothing but failure through the high price of free black emigrants on the coast of Africa and the want of enterprise in Guadaloupe and Martinique , the moral effect of this invention is a perfect success . There is some reason , in fact , to suppose that Portugal and Don Pedro have to a certain extent been at Variance . The king is a young man of chivalrous mind , highly cultivated , and unquestionably sharing the exalted humanitarian views of whichLord

    Palmerston , is the most consistent and chivalrous exponent in this country ; and as soon as he actively interfered in the matter he peremptorily stopped anything resembling a slave trade m the African settlements of Portugal , as well as on the west coast . In the mean while , however , there appears little reason to doubt that the local Government of Mozambique have connived at a trade in blacks , nominally free , actually bond . This circumstance , of course , weakened the friendly

    mediation of our Government , since it was manifestly agahist common sense as well as justice that a ship , carrying on trade according to license from the Governor of Mozambique , should be seized by the Government of Portugal and confiscated , while its owner was sentenced to two years' imprisonment for being in a place and doing that which the local authorities positively allowed . The interference of Don Pedro , lias had an effect tho very reverse of what he intended . The whole subject of the Charles-et Georges is complicated and will never , perhaps , be rendered perfectly distinct and free from ambiguity ; but in the French view the state of tho case is this : —The vessel

    wus not engaged in slave-trading , but in the conveyance of free black emigrants from the waters of Mozambique to the island of La Reunion . Under orders from Lisbon , the Colonial Government of Mozambique interfered with , this legal truilic in free black emigrants , and seized both ship and captain . France instantly protested , and culled for surrender , with compensation to tho injured parties ; and , under pressure of French power , deprived of moral force by tho imperfections of hor own caso , unaided by any intervention on tho part of England , Portugal has given way . From the

    French point of viow , tho Government of Lisbon iias therefore been compelled to recognise tho differenco between free black emigrants and tho oldfashioned stylo of slave-trading . But for tfio protest o , f Groat Britain tho scheme of M . Regis might have been attempted , and niiyhfc have broken down as it has , without having wou positively converted into a precedent osuiOliaiwng the distinction between tho free emigration and 1 , 10 slave-trade . Tho assertion of tho ^ f > . ! ^ over and its failure , havo undoubtedly committed Ecm tr ^ with Franco . The action taken by the Portuguese GovemmenUn the case of tho Cnarlos-ot-Goorgcs

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    any more than we do in some of his eccentric notions of foreign policy . But that signifies little . He is one of the few really strong men whom the manufacturing element has turned up in our time . He has very little real sympathy with the working classes ; and none , as far as we can judge , with those who are devoted to the professions , whether of arts or arms ; but is a witness all the more unexceptionable when he speaks out manfully for the rights of intellect and of industry ? He is too shrewd not to see that the class to which he himself belongs , that of opulent and enterprising traders , has no more chance of obtaining a fair share of

    power or influence in the Legislature or the Administration of their county , as things now stand , than if they were Kaffirs or Malays . There is not a single merchant or manufacturer in the present Administration , nor was there one in the last . One or two , after they had retired from business , were , as a mark of extraordinary condescension , permitted to sit in former Cabinets . But the monopoly of power has been actually growing more exclusive latterly , and Lord Palmerston ' s and Lord Derby ' s Cabinets have proved as insolently exclusive of the commercial element as any that existed in the dark days of George III . Mr . Bright says

    MR . BRIGHT AT BIRMINGHAM . Having remained in seclusion during the autumn , and listened iii vain for some signal of popular movement oil the subject of Reform , Mr . Bright has at length broken silence , and , according to his former wont , has given us one of his stirring speeches on the great question which is so soon to be upon us . Like every man of clear head and strong will in the country , he feels that no more time ought to be lost in denoting broadly and distinctly what it is that the people expect , and what it is they would be content with .

    Nothingcould be more mischievous than to allow Lord Derby and his colleagues to drift ignorantly upon the shoals of abortive compromise in this matter . It would be quite another thing had no promises been made , or no party issue staked upon the question . The country is prosperous , food is plenty , employment may not be adequate , but emigration has various temptations just now , so that no immediate symptoms of congestion to any formidable extent are perceptible near any of the great centres of vitality . Popular outcry against administrative abuses there may be is there

    said to be none ; neither any popular organisation worthy of the name . But for these very reasons it may be said with truth that tho opportunity is one peculiary propitious for the settlement of the question , and one which wise men , if any such there be in high places , will not suffer to slip . A certain perception of this , indeed , may not unreasonably be ' ascribed to Ministers . Cabinet meets next week , and no doubt the committee of that body appointed to prepare the outlines of a Bill for next session will be expected to present the result of their preliminary cogitations to 1 heir colleagues . But what is far more important than any suggestions of these gentlemen , or any adoption thereof by a majority of the Cabinet , is tho clear understanding by them and all others whom it may concern what tho people ' s opinion is of what ought

    to bo done , and what tho people ' s determination is as to insisting upon it . It can tend to nothing but ; the revival oi' party competition , chicane , complication infinite , and confusion without end , if this one all-essential fact bo not llrst made clear—so clear that no man . or sot of men , whatever their faculty ol mystification , can aflbct to misunderstand it . No greater folly and no greater scandal could bo committed than that Parliament should meet in February noxt to find a teototum of Reform upon their tabl ' o to bo taken up by turns and spun by each lordly gambler for power with no other object than that of winning tho gamo of office . Tho days arc gone when

    this sort of thing could bo done on subjects vitally afl ' ocUng tho mass of tho nation with impunity ; ami for tho sake of us all tho attempt is fervently to bo doprccutod . It will not , however , bo tho fault of Mr . Bright if tho nriddlo and working classes arc not wakened botimos to the duty that lies upon them of telling their rulers in a . low plain peremptory words what t / tey are resolved upon . And if his speech at Birmingham on Wcqnosdiiy last servos no other purpose , ho will certainly not havo spokon jn vain . We aro not at all sure that wo coincide in all of Mr . Bright's views of doctoral change ,

    this , in some cases , would give rise _ to anomalies and apparent inconsistencies , not easily defensible in debate . But , upon the whole , we think it a more practical way of going to work than by any wholesale transfer of electoral power from' the small boroughs to tlie counties , as certain Tories recommend , or from small boroughs to great cities only , as Mr . Bright would seem to indicate . Some twenty great towns , and perhaps as many popular counties , are entitled , no doubt , to additional

    representatives ; and we have no objection to take the number required from places which are notoriously either venal or nomination boroughs . But beyond the reasonable limits of such a change , we hardly expect any aristocratic party sincerely to go ; and knowing , as they well do , the weight of opposition , which in a Parliament like the present any plan of dividing the country into equal electoral districts would call forth , we confess that we should regard the proposal of any project of the kind as meant only in bad faith by Ministers .

    nothing about this , but he feels it , and a despicable caitiff he would be if he did not . Far from repudiating the self-interest of such a man , or of the class he so vigorously represents , we shall rejoice heartily to find him and them throwing themselves into the ranks of the disfranchised many , and making common cause with us . Community of self-interests is a far surer and healthier ensign of success than the gilded and varnished patronage of some whimsical grandee or splenetic peer . Our age and country no longer need demagogues like Lord George Gordon , Durham

    Sir ' Francis Burdett , or the late Earl of , and , for our part , we have no desire to see flash leaders of the sort ever heading angry mobs again . We have got beyond all that , let us hope , and what we now wan t , is , that each injured and outlawed class of the intelligent and industrial community should speak out audibly for itself its sense of wrong under the present ^/^ -represen tative system , and its sense of the debt of justice that is due to it . Mr . Bright has , in this respect , set a good example , and we earnestly hope it may speedily be followed . Whether the elective franchise is to be extended

    to all ratepayers as such , or whether a pecuniary limit of il . or 5 / . be aflixecl by law , signilies numerically but little . In the metropolis and many of the great towns the difference would not . he worth lighting for , so few comparatively are the number of houses paying less than 5 / . a year in rent . In the smaller boroughs it would , no doubt , inake a difference ; and for that reason , as well as because we think it unwise for any small consideration to leave any just ground of complaint unredrcssed , we should lie in favour of ratability to taxes without any pecuniary limit as tho foundation of the now

    franchise . There will always bo a certain number of -humble dwellings exempted from rating on account of the poverty of their occupants ; and about these it would be absurd to contend . But if a man is a householder , and contributes out of his earnings to support tho poor of his neighbourhood , to keep the highways in repair , and to maintain civil and military charges of tho State , let him have a voico in tho nomination of those by whom those charges aro imposed and by whom tho laws are made . Churl ism and all other forms of organised discontent will then die out of themselves . The

    extraordinary forbearance and patience of the people year after your while waiting for this fundamental recognition of their existence by their rulers is one of their strongest claims to its full and f ' nmk concession . Wo think with Mr . Bright Hint any measure which contains not this will bo but nn incUcctual one , and will inevitably load to further ngilation . We own wo aro somewhat less sanguino as to the practicability of a complete nml satisfactory redistribution ol seals . If Ministers attempt itiiu In i < f » n u / iltsittin «( ' iw \ t ; I i 1 \* r » A itfVn MA ) iicmtir » ni ; flmv

    II t J ) A £ 11 A . I * tJVOUIIJU I / I uuuiuii u viiMii miviiiv ^ niwn vj « tmvj will encounter a mass of opposition which no amount of reason would over overcome , and of . which the more conservative portion of their rivals for oflico will bo only too glad to avail themselves to compass their parliamentary overthrow . Nor will such a scheme bo less embarrassing should they roaort to a general election . Wo should very much prclor to sec tho experiment ; tried of inclusivo enfranchisement of towns , wherever they aro to bo found of sufllcient size , and sufficiently contiguous to have oommon sympathies and interests . VVo admit thut

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    No . 449 , October 30 . 1858 . 1 T H E L E A P E R . 1161

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    \ S ~ \ ^ J If SATURDAY , OCTOBER 30 , 1858 .

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    There is nothing so revolutionary , because there is nothing so unnatural and convulsive , as the strain to keep things fixed when all the world is by the very law of its creation in eternal progress . — Arnold .

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 30, 1858, page 1161, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2266/page/17/