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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.
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' " . NOTICE . Ever since the us e of the Government stamp to newspapers became optional , and two prices have been necessary , it does not seem to be clearly understood that unstamped papefg can be delivered to regular subscribers in the great provincial cities with a very trifling addition , and in some cases at the same price as charged in London . In order that the Leader may in no instance be charged more than Sixpence , cash or prepaid , the proprietors have determined to settle the prices , on and after this date , as follows ;—Unstamped , FIVEPENCE . Stamped , Sixpence . Quarterly , unstamped 5 s . 5 d . —— , stamped 6 6 Yearly ( prepaid ) , stamped £ 16 0 Unstamped , per year , prepaid , ONE GUINEA . Arrangements will be made with present Subscribers . These terms , it is hoped , will meet the approbation of the large class of Traders and General Headers , to which the LEADER ( greatly increased in size ) appeals by its special attention to COMMERCIAL as well as to LITERARY and POLITICAL AFFAIRS . * * * Order of any Newsman .
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THE IONIAN QUESTION . A bkiet investigation before one of our policecourts has cleared up the mystery at first attached to the premature publication of Sir John Young ' s despatches ; and the sinister significance imputed thereto by certain suspicious people lias been summarily dispelled . All the fine writing expended on political treachery , and the personal folly of Mr . Gladstone in committing his reputation to the discretion of men like the present Ministers , goes for nothing . Mr . Gladstone has not been induced to abandon his patriotic and disinterested mission ; but , after pausing for a day at Vienna , in order that
he might have the opportunity of conference there ¦ with Prince Metternich , he has pursued his winter journey to Corfu . There are few British questions in which the opinion of the aged Austrian diplomatist would soem to us deserving of any particular attention . But there are circumstances connected with the origin of our Protectorate which place the present question in an exceptional category : and , after all , it must not be forgotten that the future government and condition of the Adriatic Archipelago concern other European powers quite
made between the high contracting parties , even bv the framers of them , were they recalled to earth again . The treaty by which the fate of Ionia was determined is a remarkable instance of this . We know that Austria proposed the annexation of the Seven Islands in absolute sovereignty to England ; that Russia vehemently protested and urged instead their erection into an independent state under the title of the Septinsular Confederation . We know that long and fruitless controversy ensued , and that the matter was deemed not unlikely , at one diplomatic juncture , to lead to an open breach between i . i . _ _„ ., _*„ ^ t T . nnJnn o -nA fit T > f 4 . e ^ rs hn re . "Eventu-—— - ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ fc
irllG UtJUlLO vi . J-JwAlAAVXi win * wv » — ww . * - ~—— q- —r- - ally a compromise was come to which has generally been attributed to the sagacity of the Duke of Wellington , and to his great personal influence not only over the mind of his own sovereign , but like wise over that of the Emperor Alexander . If the truth were told , however , the matter would , we suspect , appear in a somewhat different light , and the real authorship of the anomalous and inconsistent terms of the settlement actually come to would be found ascribable not to the English statesman , but to a subtle and far-sighted Greek , who took a secondary but not uninfluential part in
the negotiations of 1814 : and 1815 . Count Capo d'Istrias was a man of great ability , and possessed , La an eminent degree , the quality ascribed to so many of his race of being able to impregnate other minds so thoroughly with his own ideas as to make them believe the ideas their own . He had devoted himself early to the service of . Russia , and succeeded in winning the personal confidence of the Czar . But throughout Fife he was undoubtedly actuated by the paramount hope of being instrumental in the rescue of his long down-trodden race from the yoke of foreigners . lie had exulted in the brief interval of independence which the Ioiiian Commonwealth had been permitted to enjoy after the expulsion of the
Venetians ; and it was , doubtless , owing to his advice that Count Nesselrode was instructed to insist at Vienna on their being p ermitted to resume that condition . The red . motive of Austria in desiring their incorporation with the British Empire will hardly be questioned . In a state of nominal independence she feared their falling practically under the domination of Russia ; and who can tell with what vague hopes of such a result the wily Greek may have stimulated the pride and pertinacity of the Czar . Capo d'Istrias was in heart a patriot devoted to the redemption of his country
and his people from alien oppressions ; but lie was Eowerless , save in the arts of diplomacy , to which e had been trained ; and he probably felt no scruple in making use where lie could of the selfish passions of contending imperialists to advance the great object of his life and labour . Like most Greeks , he instinctively looked for help to Russia to liberate his native land from the bondage of the Turks ; but he looked not to her alone : and finding it hoplelqss to obtain the consent of the Congress to the suspicious proposal of insular independence made by the Czar , Capo d'latrias set about devising
a plan which might in loud and high-sounding phrases reconcile opposite views , and while calming the fears of Austria , and flattering the pride of England , enable Alexander to say that he had not sacrificed the freedom or nationality of his Ionian coreligionists . The original draft which Capo d'Istrias placed in the hands of the Duke of Wellington is still m existence ; and from it , and from a comparison of its subsequent ^ modifications , it is easy to discern that its astute author gave himself little trouble about the incompatible rights conferred thereby ; for it is wholly inconceivable that he should have seriously believed in the permanency of an absolute andjrrespOnsible protectorate co-existing with an absolutely free and independent commonwealth . But
he had other objects to attain than those which were then avowed by planting the British flag on the citadel of Corfu . He looked to that uprising of his fellow-countrymen on the mainland against Mahomniedau thraldom which live years afterwards actually took place . Ho believed that English and Russian sympathy might in conjunction be brought to boar m support of that movement : and the event proved the far-sighted clearness of his vision . All this is woll known to the octogenarian exohanceUor of the Austrian Empire , and much besides , which it was interesting to Mr . Gladstone to talk over with him in their recent ; interview . But what will the gifted orator bo able to say to the Greeks which lms not a hundred times been said before , by way of inducing them to bo content with their connexion with England ? Or what will
as much as Great Britain . Of the distinguished statesmen , princes , and soldiers who took part at the Congress of Vienna , and the protracted negotiations and conferences that followed it , M . Metternich is almost the last who now survives . The letter of treaties , conventions , and protocols indeed remains , but the meaning is often disputable and dark ; times have changed in forty years so much , and the interests and ideas of nations then in unison have drifted so widely apart
one from another , that it has become on many points hard to realise what the real intention was forty years ago ; and for tho most part the lips are sealed in deuta that eould havo afforded the requisite elucidation . Wellington and Castlereagh , Pozzi di Borgo and Talleyrand , not to dwell on names of minor note , have passed away ; and as their successors peer into tho historio mist that has gradually Bettled down over many of the complicated international dealings oi the period referred to , thoy aro not unfrcqucntly driven to , ask themselves whether any clear or logical rendering could bo given to some of the compacts then
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LONDON CROWDS AND LONDON RAILWAYS . If any man wishes , to see that which is the greatest opprobrium of English intelligence , he may station liimself at a window commanding Cheapsiae , somewhere about the middle of the day . He will then see a concourse of every conceivable description , on foot , in omnibus , in cab , in part , waggon , brougham , proceeding to the great centre of British commerce , or returning ; from that centre . As he looks down upon the crowd he will observe that the foot passengers , hindered as they are by the
crowding of the pavement , actually make more rapid way than those who are in the vehicles witli the stoutest and fleetest horses . The Hansom cab , paid a half-crown for a two mile journey in Order to stimulate tlie driver ' s speed , is reduced to the same level with the waggon of the wholesale sugar merchant proceeding at funeral pace ; and the whole concourse is from time to time arrested by the stoppage of a single vehicle , a waggon , or a wheelbarrow . It is a struggle to make way in both directions , frequently a vain struffffle . Could the amount of loss in time
be presented by an equation in money , it nuglit present a sum not altogether unlike that which Mr . Charles Pearson estimates as the annual charge of " vehicular accommodation" in London , 2 , 000 , 000 / . It would probably exceed the gross amount required for the most feasible plan of releasing the commerce of London from this daily struggle and obstruction . No one who lias witnessed the scene can have resisted the feeling that some steps should be take a to effect an immediate change , and accordingly attempts have been made to relieve certain streets of the overcrowding , and to commence some entirely new system of locomotion . The plans o-f relief have been abortive . The opening of
Cannonstreet , for examplo , which really might afford some considerable relief for Cheapside , its parallel , is frustrated by the fact that in many eases the traffic has for its terminus tho important cstab > lishments on Cornliill , the Bank , the Stook-JBxolmuge , the Mansion House , the private banks , tlie discount houses , the outfitting establishments , &c . ; and although it is ft pmoh quicker process to approach these places by some collateral route , tUo drivers of vehicles generally stick slavishly to that path which it * shortest in measured distanoe . Another reason why Canuon-street lias so far failed Is , that from tho soutli-west of London the only nj > proaohdiroot through the City is by way of Meetstreet , the only parallels to which , Holbprn , and tbo
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he be able to tell the Parliamerit of . this county and the public mind of Europe , which both are riot already familiar with , as to the consequences pi their annexation to Greece ? We cannot sav that we think the preluding flourish of trumpets blown by Sir Edward Lytton through the mouth of the Secretary of the Lord High Commissioner is calculated to serve Mr . Gladstone with the shrewd sons of Corcyra . Since the days of Thucydides they have been a quick-witted , restless , exigent race ; and they are assuredly not the men to be bamboozled b y Downing-street platitudes about their Homeric traditions , or their ancestral claims to have been the authors of modern m » ^ i j ^ W a 9 ' ^ T ^ - ^ * * ' —\ ML - ^ J 1 . ~ ^ J ' ^" -fc __ .- — J * ¦ -
civilisation . If or our parts , we have too sincere a sympathy for the wrongs of the Greeks , and too hearty a hatred of the various systems of oppression that wave upon wave have rolled over their hapless land , to trifle with their irritable feelings on the one hand , or to pretend upon the other that we regard them morally or politically as our equals at the present day . Slavery would not be the hideous thing it is if it did not canker the popular heart , and pervert the popular intellect to a greater or less degree . We frankly say we think the modern Greeks are full of grave defects and faults , and that it will be no easy matter to rescue their
country from the reproach of them . But that is no reason why we should not be generous and just ; neither is it any reason why we should not be wise in time , and look ahead as to the things which must be hereafter . Our existing Protectorate is a pecuniary loss and a political absurdity . It deprives us of au salutary influence over the race which is most capable of civilised freedom in the Levant . The days of the Ottoman power in Europe are already numbered ; and if betimes England does not redeem her position and assume her moral sway as the old friend of Christian liberty , France and Russia will divide between them the profit and the prey .
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There is nothing so revolutionary , because there is nothing ao unnatural and convulsive , as the strain to keep tilings fixed when all the world is by the very law of its creation in eternal progress . —D » . Arnold .
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^ - ^ ~ v _ y » - SATURDAY , DECEMBER 4 , 1858 .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 4, 1858, page 1321, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2271/page/17/
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