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1Q ^ THE IE A DEB,. [No. 345, Saturday
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" YANKEE DOODLE" IN DOWNING STREET. It i...
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THE LIBERAL BASIS. If earnest men arc as...
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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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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Opinion In England And Government In Fra...
would be in the light were ifc true that England is liberal abroad . But it ia not true . The alliance that exists is between the Cabinets , and , that of England being subordinated to that of France , despotism on the Continent is in no way jeopardised . The basis of a real international compact does not exist . Such a basis can only be founded on similarity of institutions , on identity of policy , on sympathy , on the reciprocity of public spirit , and tliese materials of an
alliance , which abounded -when Sir Robert Peel spoke of Lord Palmeeston ' s " cold and reluctant acquiescence , " now form , no jpart of the public system in France . Instead of placing our * ¦ * cordial and unlimited confidence" in the heart and brain of France , ¦ we are colleagues of an Accident , and that Accident thwarts our policy when it cannot direct it . Even the diplomacy of the two Governments lias taken diverging courses
since the conclusion of peace . In the Black Sea , on the Danube , in Italy , the policy of Louis N " A . POtEON is not that of the British Cabinet . It is not , then , the tone of the British press that diminishes the good understanding between the two Governments . That press , if true to its duty , will neither calumniate nor flatter the French Binperor . It will leave his personal character unassailed , 30 far as public interests are not concerned it will even allow an oblivious charitv to cover
the antecedents of the only men whom he can find to serve him as his ministers and agents . But the domestic dangers of France , created by a spendthrift government , to satisfy a gang of gamblers , or to bribe the class that breeds sedition , can no longer be concealed . We pointed to them while they were yet in the future ; we have lived to nnd our contemporaries pointing at them now . And if the explanation published on this subject renders it difficult for the French
Government to carry on . its system of economical imposture , to conceal gaps in the public credit which can only lead to national bankruptcy , let the Mo € iteur be well convinced that to hii ^ H ^ fie evil is to intensify ifc . Again w ^ J 32 £ yT we cling- to the hop e of a Fren ch $ Mance , based on natural conditions ; we are unwilling to sever even the limited official
partnership that has been established . AVe avow the responsibility that attaches to every printed word ; hut if there be justice in history , it will never be said that the British press haa broken faith with the French people by pointing out the infatuation and the recklessness of the Empire . " We have taken a decided part , but it has not been the part of faction or of levity .
1q ^ The Ie A Deb,. [No. 345, Saturday
1 Q ^ THE IE A DEB ,. [ No . 345 , Saturday
" Yankee Doodle" In Downing Street. It I...
" YANKEE DOODLE" IN DOWNING STREET . It is a cheering reflection for the people of this country , that the conduct of its Government has had 110 influence on our relations with the United States . It is humiliating to reflect that we preserve friendly relations chiefly because the Americans have gone straight forward in their course , the changeful course of our own Government being entirely
overridden . We certainly have not succeeded in procuring the election to be President of a gentleman eminent in joint-stock enterprises ; we have not succeeded in sendmg to the " White House the agent of the Anti-slavery society ; but the American people eetting aside the extreme factions on both sides , will on Tuesday next elect a man wlur-wdl represent at home the entire re-^? j £ baa worthily represented it abroad for . so many years . ¥ e have before explained the grounds on which Jathes Bu-OttANANhas accepted the pout of chief magistrate . He has refused to acknowledge the
dictation of the North to the South ; he has refused to set aside the regular working of the ordinary political machinery in Kansas , because that working had been untoward in working for Northern interests . He knows well enough that the same regular working of the American laws will ultimately tend to check encroachments , whether from the North or from the South . The breaking down of the Missouri compromise was effected by the South through the supineness of the North ; and the North , which should
blame ltselr as much as the clever politician Stephen DoxroiiAS , will , if it will devote itself actively to the vigorous means of political legislation , be fully able to recover the lost ground . The one essential condition to a fair settlement of the great difficulty of the Union , by the free opinion of the TJnion itself , is , that the Government at Washington should be lifted above faction , and should control affairs neither in a Southern nor in a Northern spirit , but in an American spirit . No man is likely to allay the asperities of either section of the republic , or to restore a more steady equilibrium than James Bxj-¦
CHaitait . ¦ ' ' : ¦ . . , ¦¦•¦ : \ . ¦ . ¦¦ ,:: Hie has obtained the confidence of his countrymen by the share which he had in exposing the small devices of our Government , in . such instances as the enlistment question . His views with regard to the future are distinct ; and , in the meanwhile , among the best acts of Mr . Pierce ' s administration is the settlement of a question which James BuchaitAts did much to illustrate—the question
of Central America . If our letters from the other side of the water are correct , that question has certainly not been settled i 11 a purely Downing-street sense . We have already stated that our Government , after squatting on the island of Ruatan and claiming the possession of it against Honduras , had ceded that very island to the local claimants of the state of Honduras ; a wonderful concession after all the vaunts of " ! No
surrender ! " But that is not all ; our Ministers claimed an eternal right to protect that immortal state of Mosquito Indians ; a nation ' which has gradually dwindled to the vast census of 500 souls , more or less . Well , they have taken a partner in a joint protectorate , the partner being no other than the Government of the United States ; the very ' party' -whom ' we' wished to keep out ! We claim some vague extent of territory for our
gipsy proteges ; we have now consented to define their boundaries . We denied the right of Nicaragua to the territory ; we have now accepted a stipulation that the state of Nicaragua alone shall have the right to extinguish the right of the Mosquito Indians ! This convention with the United States p laces our relations with the republic 011 a simple and satisfactory footing ; but certainly it does not carry out the boastful policy which Downing-street professed .
These concessions have been made before a new party appeared in the questions between England and America , before a new light was thrown upon the iniquities of the South . An " Eye-witness" lately related , through the Times newspaper , his horrible experiences during a singular railway journey from Macon to Augusta , in Georgia . He knew not the names of the people , ho said , for family names are not generally used in America ; so he named the parties A , B , C , and so forth . Ho related how the train
stopped in order that the passengers might accomplish duels with each other ; how one man was shot and his body put into the luggage-van ; how a youug lady was bullied by various men in the presence of others ; and how a child was killed because it cried for its murdered grandfather . And such events
were " common ! ' The story is not only false but it is incredible . It was full of inaccuracies ; it described travellers entering the train and alighting in such a manner that they would have started from the point of arrival and arrived at the point of departure . It described the train in a rapid journey as stopping at the pleasure of duellists ; it" declares such slaughter to be common hi Georgia , oblivious of the fact that , if journeys were commonly so mortal , the population of
tjreorgia could not last out the exhausting process . In vain , however , should we assure the writer that , as we now know , travellers went over the same line the day after the frightful occurrence and heard nothinnof them . " Of course , " he would say " why make a wonderment about events so usual ? " At first we supposed that the writer was some Moses Primrose whose fellow-passengers had twigged at once his simplicity and his timidity , and had
cooperated in a solemn hoax ; but a new solution is given of the mystery . John Arkowsmith attests his sweeping charge against , the Georgians with his proper name ; and .-the Times , we believe , is quite correct in saying that he is a respectable person . He has by his own account arrived at the mature agg ^ pf forty-nine ; he has also supplied us wiWP some other biographical particulars . His wife had children , " for she
was a widow : " and his own patriotism hp was a widow ; and his own patriotism he attests by the conduct of his step-children . Good faithj mature age , frankness , and social respectability , characterized John Areowsmitii , who is known in Liverpool . At a very early stage in the inquiry the Times volunteered the assurance that it had had evidence of John Aimrowsmitu ' s sanity i the Times , therefore , bad spontaneously issued its own commission de lunatico in the case .
"We doubt , however , whether our great contemporary had procured all the evidence on the subject . Had it , may be asked , learned that John Arb . owsmi . tii was in this country some fifteen years ago , and that he then , as we believe , had the same story to dispose of ? But he could not have got it into the Times ;
he had then no distinguished acquaintance in Liverpool—no illustrious member of Parliament to be go-between for him with the great journal . No popular Member who is ambitious to be an authority on American subjects with his large American connexions , was willing to be a medium for giving such a story to the Times and the English public . The tale has Lad oue effect at least : whether
it was concocted in " sanity" or in the love of hoaxing , it has shown the lengths to which anti-American feeling can stultify the shrewdness even of the Times . The story might have done mischief , if it had been circulated two months ago . As it is , Yankees will receive it , while they are in the heyday of a h
successful election , and they will only laug . But it will fail to do mischief , precisely becauso the representatives of this countr } r , in Cabinet , Parliament , and the Press , have totally failed to impress their own character upon our relations with the United States . England and America triumph , because English statesmen have failed , ludicrously failed .
The Liberal Basis. If Earnest Men Arc As...
THE LIBERAL BASIS . If earnest men arc asking , as the Nonconformist says , when tho calm of English politics will be over , ib is time that they should prepare a policy . We have already seen too much energy thrown into the waste channels of agitation . The political leaders whom we have denominated Quietiata in thoir relation to foreign affairs are warranted in dep loring the loss of power resulting from isolated movements , and from the enthusiasm of meu revolving round particular topics , and never
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 1, 1856, page 12, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_01111856/page/12/
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