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732 THE LEADER [Saturday,
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those principles ? The modern Cardenio i...
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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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Tiie Militia. Barracks Bill. Thh Amendme...
pense , lie argued , as others did that followed him , and it ought to be charged upon the nation . Ministers combated this position , both then— and on -the- subsequent evening , Mr . Sidney Herbert contending that the militia is a local force , and tliat the charge ought to be local . Mr . Robert Palmer , however , moved an amendment , the effect of which is to charge one half upon the countyrates , while the other is charged upon the Consolidated Fund ; that fund which is , as
it were , paled off for the use of the central Government . "Who are the persons that went along with Mr . Robert Palmer in thus giving to the central Government the hold of a paymaster over the local militia ? They are , Sir John Pakington , Mt . Tatton Egerton , Mr . Henley , Mr . Christopher , Mr . Irton , Mr . Yorke , Mr . Deedes , and Sir Thomas Acland ; and to these we must add Mr . Howard . In other words , we have the landed interest , and with scarcelv an
exception , the Conservative , or Tory landed interest , engaged in giving to the central Gtwernment so strong a hold , through the purse , over the local defensive force . This is not surprising ; the landed gentlemen have forgotten the days when their fathers stood forward to resist the encroachment of a standing army , and to retain in their own districts the hold over the "weapons of defence . JLost to patriotic feeling , they are engaged chiefly in cutting down their
expenses . Not , indeed , their personal expenses ; those they must keep up , even at the cost of mortgage on their estates . But they are parsimonious in outlay on behalf of the nation , or of their country . There is more than one class in this country who would part with every right , could it be shown to " cost something . " If the Xiberal party in the House of Commons had felt the nature of the question at stake , tlxey would have come forward like Mr . "William Williams , and insisted upon retaining a local hold over
the expenditure for the militia ; but the county gentlemen were permitted to foster the growth of centralisation in its worst shape . After all , it is the country that pays , and the question is , whether those who form the militia shall have a control over it in the form of the county rates , and shall make the land pay its fair portion ? or , whether it shall be smothered up in the Consolidated Fund , and the land released in order that the larger portion of the payment may be charged upon the trading and working class ?
Mr . Sidney Herbert showed that the Militia Bills which have been passing through Parliament , and which offered some decided improvements , are also likely to entail less expense upon counties . The counties will be relieved from the payment of bounties ; and as the militia ia raised by volunteers , individuals will not be charged the cost of substitutes . At the worst , the charge would be something like a halfpenny in the pound ; and it is for the sake of a halfpenny in the pound that the landlords throw so important a part of the control of tho militia and the
local expenditure into the Consolidated Fund . _ But it would l ) e a great mistake to treat it simply as a matter of outlay or rating . The political principle is far moxe important than the economical principle . "We boliove that on the whole tho expense would be far loss if the counties retained their hold upon tho fund than if they were to hand it up to the central Government , and the amendment ia but the commencement of such a transfer ; but they relinquish something more . By the very constitution of tho forco , tho men enlisted in it are tho neighbours of tho
ratepayers—are peraons in vlioso comfort and welfare tho ratepayers ought to have the strongest interest . Tho ratepayers , thorofore —that ia tho people of tho counties—should
endeavour to retain and regain all the control that they can over the construction of the barracks for the accommodation of the local force , and even over the appointment of servants and of officers . The objection to the present force is , not that it is too much thrown upon the counties , but too little . "When the militia was first revived in the reign of George the Second , the English people had become accustomed to that which is really a burden and a disgrace to every free
country—a large standing army . Hence the militia of that day was ill constructed , in a niggardly spirit . It was , pecuniarily and politically , a bad economy . What we saved in the militia we lost in the standing army ; and thus what we still save in thousands , or hundreds of thousands of pounds , we lavish in millions ; while we hand over the real power of the country to the Executive Government . This is the vice of our present system . No country can be called a free
country which cannot give effect to its own wishes . The working-classes have been agitating for universal suffrage , and have been , forced to give up the game ; they cannot obtain it . They tried petitions , and they were laughed at . They tried riotirigs , and they were " put down . ; ' " and they will continue to " be put down so long as the maintenance of a standing army places the balance of the force in the country entirely under the control of the Executive
Government . Those who are interested , in improved government should also be on the popular side in this question . We agree that it is necessary to sustain the Executive Government by force in periods of popular disturbance ; but where , we ask , has a national militia ever failed to sustain the Government ? To suppose that it does so , is to assume that a
nation is incapable of governing itself—to assume that the English people are not as competent for freedom as the American people . "We have had , it is true , outbreaks in America , but not more than in this country , and they have been as determinedly suppressed . If Philadelphia has had its native American riots , or New York its Macready disturbances , in both cases the outbreak has been
put down by the militia force . 2 Co imperial army could have executed its duty with greater fidelity or efficiency than the First Division of New York in tlie latter instance . In fact , what is to be expected from , a militia , but that the aggregate strength of the country should confirm the public opinion of the country . A national militia does but add the power of the right hand to the head of the nation . On the other hand , a militia can onl y thus be employed in sustaining public opinion . It cannot be employed to surprise or overturn the constituted Government of n .
free country ; since before that can bo done , it would bo necessary to win over the majority of the nation , which would in itself suffice to carry any public measure . A militia , therefore , can only exisb in defence of a free country , of its Government , and of its local self-government ; it preserves to the people tho power of enforcing its will , and secures to the humbler classes a power of controlling the expenditure in whoso benefits the richer
classes may share , but towards which they usually contribute so small a portion . It is through a militia force that a nation maintains its grip of national power ; and when an English people consented to transfer that power to a standing army , they gave up that hold and sold their birthright lor a moss of pottage—for some supposed saving- of taxation or trouble , irreodom is secured in proportion aa the Govomment and tho force arc localized ; and what Mr . Palmer has saved in county ratoa , tho people has lost in indopondeneo .
732 The Leader [Saturday,
732 THE LEADER [ Saturday ,
Those Principles ? The Modern Cardenio I...
those principles ? The modern Cardenio is altogether an improvement upon his Quixotic namesake . The Spaniard went wandering about " high unsuccessful mountains , " with nothing to warm him but " Xoicinda's eyes •" so that he presented on the Avhole a beggarly condition . The Cardenio of Uathronane , in lieu of letting his substance go to rack and ruin , invests it in a carriage , with horses and
THE CARDENS OF PRIVATE LIFE . The Times excuses Garden , the rejected lover of Miss Eleanor Arbuthnot , on the score that love had turned his brain ; but we are disposed to excuse him on the ground that he is no worse than his betters . If the Irish Cardenio was crazed for love , there was method in his madness . His conduct , we agree , was heinous , brutal , unmanly ; it violated the very principles of intercourse between man and woman : but who observes
attendants . Like Billy Taylor's lady , being disappointed in his love , " straight he called for swords and pistols , " and . " brought they vos at his command ; " but instead of imitating the True Iiove of that mournful tale $ he was far from shooting the lady : it was her defenders whom , he intended to shoot , and the lady herself he intended to secure—as a material guarantee .
She had refused him , it is true , and a real man will not force his affections upon a reluctant woman ; but in this case there Was something more than affection . The Times , qensor morum , appears to have overlooked the distinction . Other men have engaged in designs for the fulfilment of brute passion such as that imputed to IVIr . Carden in one of the
counts , and they have been punished for . the felonious intent ; but lurw are we to suppose that Mr . Caiden was under the impulse of a brute passion when there was another object which might explain his actions ? There was not only the lady , but hex fortune . Possibly he might have acquiesced in a refusal of the girl only ; but men do not so readily assent to the refusal of thousands . The fortune
alone would explain his anxiety for compulsory wedlock ; and the lady would naturally have followed her fortune . Whether for fortune or mere possession , hoTvever , other men have been more fatally successful , but without Cardenio ' s boldness or frankness . If the object bo simply
possession , sometimes , as in . the case of Alice Leroy , violence is aided by fraud ; and there is reason to believe that the case of the Belgian girl is very far from being singular . In other instances , fraud and studied temptations , their consequences sedulously concealed , perform tho effect of violence . But in either case the result ia the same . Tho
" Old Marquis" docs not show himself with tho effrontery of a Carden , but he succeeds better . Carden evidently intended to oiVor marriage : does any Old Marquis mean it ? Tho ci'ime committed at Fethard , therefore , was less than that daily porpetrated by distinguished persons , who might lawfully sit on some case of compulsory wedlock or its dissolution , asjudgos in appeal ! Either way , tho true perdition consists , not in the loss of social standing , or of fortune , but in tho appropriation of a body with a bou ! in it—in
tho outrage to natural feeling—in the seizure of that which can only bo the gift of affection : but is tho horror less for a girl without a fortune than with it—loss if the girl finds herself settled , not at Bnthronano , but at tho mansion of a Donia or Mnrinayseo P Thoro nro occasions , and they are numerous , in which a Cardon may fulfil his " intent , " in regard to fortuuo and all , without braving law or folonious punishment . It is whore ho makes tho father his accomplice . Is tho crime mitigated ? Is tho victim tho less to be pitied because tho man whom
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 5, 1854, page 12, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_05081854/page/12/
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