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    THE FIRST BLOW IN THE FINANCE BATTLE.

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    merits . ; let ministers , to balance Europe , take out a spoonful of land in this scale and put a pincli more in that one—tins we have all learnt to confess and believe— that every hum an being , and every nation , which ; is but an aggregation of human beings , has an indelible right to freedom . Let the ideal balance of Europe be what it may , there must be no bunch of chains thrown in to equalize the scales . Venice ami Verona have committed no crime ; ' that they should be trodden underfoot by the German . They have had as great antecedents as Milan or Florence . They in their time have done as much to avert evil from Europe and to advance its civilization . They have a glorious past of freedom and empire to look back upon , a past happiness that makes the present misery only the more intolerable . in Italian human natureto

    Is it in human nature—especially — see others happy and not wish to sliare that happiness ? Every day hundreds of travellers pass from " Verona to Milan as from a city into green fields , as from a prison into summer sunshine ; they pass through countless sentinels and guarded gates into a sort of fairy country of liberty and ease— -where free speeches are made , free books read * free songs sung , and everywhere ebb and now through the streets a people . exulting in new-found liberty , asking , the strangers no questions—setting no spies on thenvtroubling them and soldiering them about , nothing—rio despotic Custom-house there , no fraudulent paper money . The astonished man from Verona says and does what he pleases- —goes where he pleases ; passport officers bow to him , sentinels smile and chatter with him . He can hardly believe his own eyes or earsbut a few miles from jioor Verona , and free as a Swiss or an Englishman— " Corpo di Baccp , !—By-the Holy Mother , it is a

    miracle . . . But he must return . Every mile from laughing Milan the enchantment dwindles , the ; fog thickens , the sunshine dies away ; the old millstone comes round his neck , the old pressure ¦ on his heart . ; his eyes acquire again -their sidelong stealthinessy his tongue is tied by : the old suspicious timidity . Again lie feels the chain gall his hands ; a rough , stern , threatening voi ^ e rouses Mm—it is the guard at Verona demanding his passport . Another rougher voice calls for his luggage , " to search it for suspicious articles from the dangerous country . Home he slinks , feeling , like a returned convict , ashamed of bearing patiently his slavery .

    The great abstract idea of slavery is soon grasped by an enslaved people ; . but if they be impulsive , hot-blooded , sensitive people , the thought neA er leaves them day and night ; it never becomes habitual , it is never disregarded because it is habitual . Austrian papers may tell the Italians that they are lightly taxed and gently governed , that they are not plundered , and that their country costs Austria more than the revenue she obtains from it . But it is the small annoyanqes that bring about revolutions , when the people are ripe for freedom , * t is theGESLEit cap that precipitates tlve inundation of blood ,, and pulls up the hatches . Some riot in a theatre about a Garibaldi song , some street fray about a drunken Austrian beating an Italian waiter , and we may hear to-morrow that the Piazza of Venice is piled with German corpses , and that Verona . is free . The longer the tree of fire is growing ,, the more dreadful is its advent ; the slower the volcano ; the more terrible its destroying nuy . .

    Individual men sometimes change suddenly , but nations never . The prodigal lias grown suddenly a miser before this , the ascetic suddenly developed into the debauchee 5 but we know of no instance where tyrant races have suddenly grown merciful , or surrendered a sway which brought no happiness in its wake . Would that some divine influence would suddenly whisper in ' Austria's ear , and persuade hor to strengthen her power . by concentration ; to secure'Hungary by kindness and justice ; to retrench her foreign armies ; and to devote herself to' internal improvement . But are wo not foolish idealists to expect this of any nation , muoh less of Austria , whose special fault is obstinacy , whose policy ia Jesuitical , whose Emperor is no Solomon , who is sore from recent defeats and rankling under wounds scarcely yet scarfed over P No . She will , as she is doing , double her armies

    in Venotin , strike heavier •¦ with , her rod of iron , double her gate 3 , and treble her sentinels . She will not surrender a mulberry tree or a gondola ; she will go on heaping up mounds and waterside batteries round Venice , nnd Verona ; sho will , in the madness of her irritated pride , spread wide more Hapsbuug banners in the Italian air—denying ond laughing to scorn all rumours of the coming volcano and its tree of ilre . The ground getB hottw under Her feet , but she thinks it is the warmth of spring , and smiles scornfully from her fortvessed hills around Verona , and from her grassy terraces that face the Adriatic . Misfortune is a hard school , sa ^ s the proverb 5 and the wisest man is ho who pays least for his schooling . Wo all go through that school , but at a very different cost . Austria seoms

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    M ORE notice is due to the success ot Mr . Wise s motion for the appointment of a Committee af the beginning of every session of Parlianient , to ' - -.-inquire' into tlje expenditure on miscellaneous and civil service , than it has generally received . It is the first efficient measure adopted by the House of Commons to bring under its supervision and control the continually increasing expenditure of the Government . Since the first establishment of the . metropolitan police by Sir Robert Peel , if not before , the practice of providing for the well-being of

    society by minutely prescribed regulations , enforced by a species of military organization , has here become excessively prevalent . The consequence is , that the cost of our civil government nit creased froni £ 5 , 660 , 400 in 1840 to £ 9 , 085 , 636 in 1858 . We take these figures from the Statistical Abstract , subtracting from the total expenditure the charge for the whole debt , and the cost of navy , army , and ordnance : the remainder is the cost of the civil government . This is a safer mode of getting at . the broad facts than by referring to the estimates , which do not . year by year include the same or similar items ; and on this showing the cost

    of the civil government between IS 40 and 1858 , increased sixty per cent . In the same interval the population increased , nccordiug to the calculation of the Registrar-General , about twenty-four per cent . The increase in the cost of the civil government , therefore , or the payment-for its services , increased two and a half times as much as the number of people to be governed . Those services , too , have not improved since 1840 . The functions of Government have been so imperfectly fulfilled , that the jpiiblic has been often compelled , by administrative reform associations Government into the due

    and similar means , to goad the performance of its ordinary duties . It has been obliged , in faot , to do that which it paid official men for doing . It would seem , therefore , that the efficiency of the Government is not great inproportion to its costliness . Wo now get better food , better clothing , bettor houses , better means of travelling , better newspapers , and better services gonorally from all people in business , at a less cost than formerly . The services of individuals to one another become , in foot , more efficient and less costly as society enlarges ,-the services of Government to the people , on the contrary , become less efficient and more costly .

    This striking , contrast is made more striking and deeply impressive by recollecting that , in those cightoeu years , civilization has made a great progress . Wo have learned many moral and physical facts of iinportanoe which have great influence over our lives . Wo know moro , and behave better . Our improved knpwledgc of electricity and magnetism , for example , has enabled us to establish a wonderfully rapid communication with the most distant parts of society , which brings the influence of the whole more oflbctuaUy and more constantly

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    determined to be longest of all the European family at her lessons ; like the Bourbons ,, she learns nothing and forgets nothing ' . She wiH not improve . She doubts the volcano cornin ^ , as & the people of Sodom doubted . She , Jike they , listens to no warning . ' . . ' There seems to be an attraction about tyranny similar to that which is in vice . The forger who has spent a few years on . the very edge of detection , being robbed by thieving servants , o-iving parties to people who despise . him , being rolled about in a carriage that deprives him of healthy exercise , who spends his days trembling at every knock and . every letter , seems to have his for his

    gained but a poor return , in these things , fpr anxiety , anguish of conscience , for his final , inevitable ruin ; yet for these poor rewards forgers every day swindle , cheat , and lie . So it is with nations . It seems a poor reward for Austria ' s expense and danger of holding Venetia , that her officers are assassinated , her armies detested , her subordinates regarded with hatred and abhorrence . She gets no real power ; no city is true to her ; no Italian but would , if he could , let in the enemy if he was at the gates . Italy weakens her armies , drains her treasure ; , yet still she draws tighter the-chain , and holds Venice and Verona as if they were double shields guarding the very heart of her empire . than the

    But there is a will that is more inflexible even Austrian . There is a weapon more deadly than the German sword . That will is the resolve for ' . freedom in a nation that deserves it . That weapon is the sword that Freedom uses to sever the chain from a nation that has earned a right to liberation . Austria may squander her gold in heaping up camp after camp , till Verona stand as a stone city girdled by an earthen city . She may darken her hills with cannon , but they will all , mound and cannon ; melt and wither , and be as nothing when the volcano tree rises , in the spring day of Freedom , and . strikes out its flaining arms as a beacon for Italy .

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    130 The Leader mid Saturday Analyst . [ Feb . 11 , -1 S 6 O .

    The First Blow In The Finance Battle.

    THE FIRST BLOW IN THE FINANCE BATTLE .

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 11, 1860, page 130, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2333/page/6/