On this page
-
Text (3)
-
March 10, I860.] The header and Saturday...
-
BOUUBQNIST AND BONAPAItTIST PARTIES IN P...
-
THE NEW BOROUGH FllANCHISE. miiEUE is no...
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.
-
-
Transcript
-
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.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
March 10, I860.] The Header And Saturday...
March 10 , I 860 . ] The header and Saturday Analyst . 223
Bouubqnist And Bonapaittist Parties In P...
BOUUBQNIST AND BONAPAItTIST PARTIES IN PARLIAMENT . HISTORY , it is said , never repeats herself . For the sake of the hard-toiling , over-taxed , war-harassed many , it is to ! be hoped indeed she seldom may . But remembering what took place half a century ago , and looking at what is taking place at the present moment in our own country as well as abroad , we are sorely driven to suspect that the philosophic saw is frequently very far from being true . What is our Parliament doing , and with what ideas are the minds of politicians predominantly possessed ? There is the usual amount of commonplace talk
about education , church-rates , changes in the liturgy , bribery at elections , vote by ballot , income-tax , shipping dues , army purchase , railways , and the rest : but the ambitious activity of party cares just now for none of these things . Its public utterances and secret aims are alike concentrated on foreign affairs . As it was sixty years ago , so it is now . Three great influences are struggling for ascendancy on the Continent , —Legitimate right , popular power , and that anomalous system invented by the first Napoleon , which , professing to be based on universal suffrage , governs by the sword and by espionage as despotically as any of the old absolutisms . The Court and the Conservatives of
our fathers' time sided openly with Legitimacy . The / sympathies of the people , then as now , were with their brethren , everywhere seeking to be free from native or foreign tyrants . The Whigs , who followed Mr . Fox , were dazzled and duped by Bonapartism . In their eyes , Napoleon was a rare instrument for the destruction of right divine , ecclesiastical authority , and democracy , all of which they abhoried . With them the selfishness and shamelessness of territorial cupidity went for nothing , compared with the humiliation of the ancient dynasties , and the repression of republicanism . The same feelings that animated the . Whig party in 1800 , prompted them under other circumstances to
hail with delight the enthronement of Lours Philippe , in 1830 s The Citizen King was for them what the First Emperor had been , an object of equal terror to the dotard despots and ' democratic leaders of the Continent ; apd . both were lauded and flattered accordingly by our oligarchic liberals , until the stomach of the country turned against their unnational policy , and they nvere compelled to repudiate it , with many vows of penitent regret . The Court and the Tories were more obstinate in their addictions , and they were more successful in winning over far" a time a certain . portion of popular feeling ; . There were , indeed , brief intervals , when they affected a tone of compromise with < the
upstart and \ isurper , " as they always loved to call the Corsiean soldier and the Orlcanist prince ; . George III ., by the advice of Lords SiinnouTii and Castlereagh , signed the Treaty of Amiens with Napoleon ; arid William IV ., by the counsel of the Puke of Wellington , acknowledged , without hesitation , Ms Most Christian brother of the Barricades . But , at heart , the Conservative party in England lias always been Bourbonist , and no interchange of gilded compliments between the Courts of Windsor and St . Cloud , or reciprocation of presents and liospitalities , Van persuade the world that those who have been horn to the purple , would not rather see a descendant of St . Louis enthroned at the Tuileries tlian any other potentate or
power . For sake of this principle of Legitimacy , the Tories in Parliament and Cabinet plunged England into the greatest and costliest war in which she has ever been engaged , and the pecuniary consequences of which she will never , unfortunately , bo riblo to forget . And it' they had their way they would betray us into the same disastrous and insaiio course ' again . YV'hilo Lord Palmeuston 13 ready to condone any perfidy in Napoleonic policy , and to acccda to any projects his Inippria 1 friend may take ' into his head ( that of the Suez Canal only excepted ) , Mr . Seymour Fitzgerald and Lord Ellen borough express in Parliament what the Cavltou Club talks daily over its wino 5 and Lords Normanhy and Sn . vi'TEsnuitY arc understood to speak as sponsors for inarticulate royalty .
In such a conflict of prejudices and passions , what course ought the faithful representatives of the people in Parliament and their faithful warders in the press to pursue P Shall we lend ourselves to dynastic sohemers of reaction and restoration , or become , the passive apologists of parvenu absolutism r Shall we make a quarrel with the ruler of France about the possession of a parish or two at the foot of the Alps , which its hereditary owner hardly protends to regret seriously having agreed to resign as a sort of nominal consideration fov the splendid acquisition of Lombordy and the Duohios P Shall we stimulate the pugnacity of a gonei-ous nnd credulous nation to head a second League of PilnhV / i in defence of Germany , before Germany aiVouts to believe herself to l ) e in danger , or calls on us for help ? SlialL wo begin to load tho back of industry with , war taxes to provide an army , a floot , nnd a commissariat for the Princes of tho House of Bourbon ,
whose heritage in France , in Italy , and in Spain , our fathers spent five hundred millions of money in the ineffectual attempt permanently to restore ? Far be it from us to argue this great question on the sordid and blind ground taken by the Manchester School . God forbid that we should ever say , " Perish , Savoy ! " lest a profitable commercial treaty should be marred by our interposition ; and " all honour to the Constitution of the United States , " negro slavery included , because a cheap and regular supply of cotton is indispensable to niillocTat fortune-making . It is on far different grounds that we deprecate the excitement of animosity between the two countries . It is because we know that the annexation of Savoy is a mere
pretence , while the hope of resuscitating Legitimacy by a dynastic league is the real and actuating motive , that we resist the appeals professedly made on behalf of the inhabitants of Nice and Ghambery . But neither do we desire , on the other hand , to encourage a craven tone of deference to the man who , having won the imperial diadem by an act of surpassing treachery to freedom at home , tries vainly to persuade the world that , for sake of realising an abstract idea of Italian independence , he undertook a perilous and costly war . We believe nothing of the kind . We believe that his objects in that war were , in the main , personal and egotistical . . He wanted distraction for the minds of his stibjects at home , and telat for his name abroad . The humiliation of the Court of Austria , which had snubbed him as a suitor , and deceived him as an ally , was , in itself , no small temptation . The creation of a new , second-rate kingdom ,
south of the Alps , after the fashion of his Uncle and prototype , liad also its fascination for one who lives in a world of splendid dreams . To show that he possessed hereditary claims to the sword of Napoleon as well as to his sceptre , was perhaps paramount to ' all other considerations . But , whatever may have been the contributory impulses that actuated him , we have little doubt of their scope aiid character . The good-service he has rendered to the Italian cause need not , therefore , and ought not , as a matter of fact , to be denied . On the contrary , if its acknowledgment tends to encourage its continuance , and . m so far as it does so , its cheerful recognition seems tons a duty at the present time . But men who care for England ' s honour and for England ' s interest , will neither temporise with Bourbonist intrigues nor truckle to Bonapartist ambition . Their path lies clear of " both your Houses . "
The New Borough Fllanchise. Miieue Is No...
THE NEW BOROUGH FllANCHISE . miiEUE is no disposition , as far as we know , to undervalue JL the concession proposed , by the new Reform Bill to the industry and intelligence of- the towns . That three men should in - future be able to vote for representatives in Parliament where two only can now exercise that privilege , is a substantial improvement not to be despised . There arc many places where this addition will probably have the effect of quenching reactionary hopes , and insur ing the return to Parliament by a decisive majority of men representing the real wants and wishes of the great body of the people . There are other places , where hitherto it has l ) cen found worse than useless to bring forward me earnestness and liberality of purpose , for which it will become possible for such men to stand . We may add that we know ot none in which the addition to the constituency is likely to produce an opposite effect ; and as no pretence is . made ot finality on the present occasion , and we are only asked to give a receipt on account , it were mere folly to hesitate about doing so-Throughout tho country there is a quiet feeling of satisfaction at the stoi ) in advance about to be made , not so much for its own sake , as from tin ; belief that it will necessarily lead in due time to others of importance . In whatever , therefore , we may have to sny on the subject , wo wish to be distinctly understood as dcsiriiift- that , even in its present shape , the JHU should pass into a law during the present session .
Wo onnhot , however , abstain from expressing our regret , at certain , omissions in the present measure , which we had not to complain of in that of tho late Government . It sounds very well , no doubt , in an Introductory statement , to talk of simplicity of design and uniformity ot plon ; but t \ w wants ot 1111 old and ' mixed community ' like ours arc not uniform , and no simple or'single specilie con bo mudo applicable to them iturly . Hint house rated in
every man occupying : a M , personally , respect thereof , and punctually paying all rates and taxes for which it is liable , should bo clothed with tho franchise , is very just nn < l wise .- It would bo juster And . wisiu- still to dispense with the conditions regarding personal rating , and payment 01 rates , because , from tho varying conditions of the communities which inhabit our towns , there ore in many places thouM ndaot persons whom those tests will exclude , who arc in c ™* V ^ f us woll qualified to possess the suffrage as thorn of a eimilai class
-
-
Citation
-
Leader (1850-1860), March 10, 1860, page 3, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_10031860/page/3/
-