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honest enough to tell us the proportions of power ther are willing to allow to the several grades o society . The middle class are more numerous than the aristocracy : is he prepared to show that they should be excluded from political power to an extent sufficient to make up for their numbers ? There may be something in exclusion based . tipon gross ignorance or other principle but unfitness , but the silliest and shallowest argument ever made use of in a constitutional country is an exclusion on the ground of numbers . It is to make the minority say to the majority " However fit you may be to exercise political rights—whatever may be your knowledge , your virtue , your indiistry—we will shut you out because you are more numerous than ourselves . " This is to treat the progress of a nation , which is identical with the improvement and elevation of its masses , as if it were a calamity or a crime , against which repressive measures must be directed . Can the force of folly further go ?
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SPAIN" AND MOROCCO . Two of . the longest known countries of the world seem starting into fresh life , and , after a long sleep , to be roused into political action . Mauritania was known to the Carthaginians , and was occupied by the Romans . Spain formed successively a portion of the empire of both these great people . Both Spain and the country now called Morocco had an historical existence before Britain , and were conspicuous parts of ancient civilisation , Spain , too , in its time has formed a very important
part of modern civilisation ; but Mauritania ; after being conquered' by the Saracens , gradually sunk out of the modern world ' s regard . Mahomedanism made its deep marks on civilisation , including within it both Mauritania arid Spain ; but they have gradually been effaced , though not yet swept away , by a creed which did not rely on the sword for dominion . At present these two countries—one having participated in modern civilisation , and the other relapsed into barbarism - ^—are of very unequal power .
In territory the empire of Morocco is said to comprise 219 , 000 square miles ; Spain only contains 182 , 000 . Both countries are of very great fertility : one embraces the extreme south of Europe and the other the extreme north of Africa . They are divided by the Straits of Gibraltar ; but Spain has long possessed in Ceuta a kind of Gibraltar in the empire of Morocco , Spain has a poptilation of 14 , 000 , 000 ; Morocco of 8 , 500 , 000 ; the former , therefore , are more compressed than the latter ; they are also much more enlightened—far better acquainted with the arts of Europe , and ,
therefore , much stronger . The inhabitants of Morocco , too , consist of Moors , Arabs , Jews , Negroes , Berbers , and wandering tribes , who have never been very closely united nor very friendly to one another , and are not likely to make a very spirited and well-organised resistance . The Spaniards may find it difficult to advance far into a country so sparsely inhabited ; but possessing Ceuta it may be stire to make conquests ; and probably the seaports of Tetuan , Mogadore , Tangier , and Mazagan , if these be aimed at , may be conquered and held .
Spain is so imperfectl y cultivated that her people would do better to improve at home than make conquests abroad 5 but the old prejudice of looking on territory as a source of wealth to labourers , as it may be of power to sovereigns , is yet so strong , and tho spirit of imitation is so infectious , that Spain is very likely to attempt what has been done by France , and acquire a new and large dominion in Africa . Morocco , though it occupies a favourable position for commerce at the mouth of the Mediterranean , holding there all the ports and harbours , except Ceuta , has not much trade . Indeed it is better known as a piratical than a trading state ; nd in the Riff niratea and Tulleo this
a . rovers crene-UUU AIX liUU AUJLl WU'UbUa UUU O UMUU lUVCID L 1 JUD JJUWV 3-ration has etilfa living example of the general piracy of seafaring men . in the inuldle ages . It is yet so backward that it can hardly even be called an agricultural country . It has some manufactures , though principall y of a domestic nature . Leather is made in considerable quantities , and about 20 O . OQO goatskins are annually exported . Of one Pjwfc of its trade with the Levant * Alexandria , and «! $ <»»; curried on by caravans and' pedlars , and of awothofr . ggrty carried on with the interior of Africa , ^™ 9 V » Q * Hing further than tb j : there is such a wiww . The trade with the interior is an exchange
of salt , tobacco , cloth caps , girdles , Turkish daggers * &c , for gold-dust , ivory , ostrich-feathers , and slaves . It is chiefly a commerce of barter , and like most of the commerce between people unequally advanced , is said to yield to the ' people of Morocco , who are the farthest advanced , very large profits . Of that part of its trade which is carried on by sea , and principally with Europe , we know something more . Morocco sent us almonds , bark , corn , ostrich feathers , gum , oil , wax , wool , &c , to the value of . £ 344 , 301 , in 1857 . The average value
of our imports from that country for the four years then fended was , £ 370 , 000 . We sent Morocco coals , copper , cottons , iron , linens , sugar , staves and casks , woollens , &c , to the value , including colonial and foreign exported articles , of £ 190 , 000 , in 1857 ; that being a greater sum than the average of the preceding three years . The trade , therefore , is not of great value to us , but as every kind of cereals may be required here , and they are there occasionally very cheap , it is very desirable that the ports of Morocco should not be closed against our traffic .
With Gibraltar , too , it has long carried on a considerable business . Much of the subsistence of the 17 , 000 inhabitants of Gibraltar is derived from " Barbary . " The tonnage of vessels entering and clearing the colony in 1857 , importing principally food from that country , was 102 , 000 . We have no returns of the value of the trade between Gibraltar and Morocco , but in 1853 the inhabitants of the Rock complained much of the restrictions Which the Emperor imposed on the trade , particularly on exports . On these he levied heavy duties , while he monopolised all the trade . the interior . At that period the people of Gibraltar put down the value of the whole trade of
Morocco with England and the colony at , £ 540 ^ a-year . No other European country has , we believe , so large a trade with Morocco as England and Gibraltar combined , and from this our readers will be very sensible that the vast and fertile country has yet to be brought within the pale of civilisation . It certainly does not ' contribute as much as it might to the support of society . The Government is despotic in the highest degree . The Emperor , too , is a complete monopolist as well as a despot , and the occupation of the seaboard of his States by the Spaniards , should that be the result of the war now about to begin , can scarcely render the country less useful than it now is to commerce and the whole family of man .
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ST . FAITH TPIE VIRGIN . TnE Church-rate question has received its quietus . Sir Peter Laurie has made fun of it . The holiest of causes , the most patriotic of enterprises , would have to suocumb at the shock of that elephantine merriment . What , then , must be the fate of one so weak and so worthless , as the Church-rate system ? It has collapsed utterly—gone clean out of sight—" vamposed , " as the Yankees pay . Sir Peter Laurie once announced his deliberate
intention of putting down suicide . There is a limit , however , even to the powers of our aldermanic Hercules , and certain incorrigible reprobates still put an end i , to their' existence—rflying thereby , so to speak , directly in the face of an offended Laurie . Disheartened by the ingratitude of " felos de se" Sir Peter has turned his powerfuL mind to putting down " Popish practices . " Henceforth he will De known as Peter the Primitive Protestantr-r-Peter the Apostolic Alderman . Beneath , the shadow or St . Paul's there lies hid the church of St . Faith the Virgin . Wo presume it is a snug benefice , beocvuse it is held by tho son of a dean , and we know that deans and chapters , in accordance with Scripture , " provide for those of
their own household . " Beyond this surmise wo know nothing ; and nobody else seems to know much about the church in question . Its churchwarden rejoices in the name of Hicks , but is a churchwardenandnothing more—not even a pewholder . None of the parishioners attend the ohuroh , or go near it , except in business hours ; and whether there is a congregation at all , appeal's an open question . In fact , it is one of those model City churches which have only been saved from destruction by the prayers and protests of venerable archdeacons and righteous aldermen . The spider will catch flics in its web long after life has departed from its frame , and its members have oeasod to vibrato . In the same wajj a parish ohuroh , it appears , will continue to issue rates
long after its services are deserted and its parishioners have disappeared . St . Faith the virgin reduced her expenses to a minimum , and only paid 51 . a-year to an ecclesiastical man-of-all-work , who united in his single person the various offices of organ-blower , lamp-lighter , hassock-crasher , pewopener , beadle , and " dearly beloved brother ;" and yet , for some mysterious cause , she felt bound to issue a rate . Amongst the parishioners rated was a Mr . Tallent . The amount of his rate was
only 17 s . 6 d ., but this gentleman had a iruo-al soul , and felt tliat the principle was the same ° pennids as in pounds . He felt religious scruples about paying a rate for the promotion of Popish practices , and declined to pay . Now we have a cordial sympathy for anybody who dislikes paying any thing — taxes especially—yet Mr . Tallent must pardon us if we always feel suspicious of persons who object to pay on principle . Be that as it may , Churchwarden Hicks summoned the recalcitrant and
nonconfbrniing Tallent before the Civic justice bench , on which Sir Peter sat in solemn state . Alas for these degenerate clays , the martyr to clerical persecution did not appear in person , but sent his clerk instead . Now-a-days , Luther would have come up to Exeter Hall with a day ticket , and Wicklilib . would have written letters to the Record . Mr . Tallent , however , declined to pay the rate on account of Popish practices being put in use at the church of St . Faith . A man of common sense would sujapose that the only question before the court was whether Mr . Tallent was legally liable or not , whether church rates were advisable , and still less . Whether the ritual in use at the church was Evangelical or otherwise . The great Laurie , however , soars above
commonsense , and makes his own law . The only fact ascertained about the church was , that the service Was intoned at the expenseTof the rector . This was enough for the worthy magistrate . According to his sapient utterances , " the sooner such things were put ^ lown the better—no ' St . George ' s-m-the-East' practises were wanted in the City . These Popish doings had been put down in St . George ' s . "—and so on , through a mass of poinpous twaddle , which those who like can read elsewhere . The chief clerk sought to cover the absurdity of the alderman by suggesting the possibility of the rate being informal ; and Mr . Hicks , f > -lad enough to escape the bother and absurdity of the whole scene , wisely resolved to drop the summons , and leave his successor in the oilice of churchwarden to enforce the rate , if he liked the
trouble . . We shall not be suspected of either admiring the mummeries of the High Church " revival , " or of looking favourably on church-rates , still loss of appreciating Sir Peter Laurie ' s admixture of theology and justice . Our general conclusion is , that the fewer of such scenes we have the better . When a question , like that of " church rates , " has sunk to such a pitch of discredit as to giyo rise to such occurrences , it should be got rid of , at all cost , for once and for all .
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ENGLISH LIFE ASSURANCE IN TUB UNITED STATES . It is very well known that tho inhabitants of the United States are remarkable for their ' cuteuQss in businoss affairs , and show it by preferring English securities to their own . ft n ' may easily be imagined that there are many speculators , both of a good arid bad kind , amongst them , that by no means admire this preference for * English securities and English joint-stock companies . That the repudiation system should have engendered this doufct of home , and confidence in foreign , institutions , is not remarkable ; but wo have had an instance brought under our notice which expresses tUis jealousy in so extraordinary ft taico
manner that it Ibecomes a publio duty to notice of it . Vast sums of money nvo invented in these Anglo -American companies , and the snareholders on this side tho Atlnntio are no loss intorested in the largo assurance and othor joint-stocK companies in the United States . Amongst other life assurance oilicos " Vj > * large business in various parts of tho United States is the International Life Assurance Society of London . We presume it does businoss in ft " tho moro settled , of tho Northern and Eastern States ; but at present wo are only concerned with its proceedings in the State of Massachusetts 5 and we should have nothing . to do with that , noi
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1202 THE LEADEK . [ No . 501 . Oct . 29 , I 85 & '
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 29, 1859, page 1202, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2318/page/14/
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