On this page
-
Text (2)
-
November 12, 1853.]. THE LEADER. 1093
-
RUSSIAN SERFDOM. [ HKOONO AllTIC MJ.] Th...
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.
The Governing Classes. No. Ix. The Right...
lected they would fill several libraries . You cannot remember a sentence , not a saying , not a thought of those speeches ; but that consideration does not lessen our astonishment at , and our admiration of , the work . Our political constitution might be improved , and our electoral machinery might be * improved , but no system could turn up a better workman , a more splendid administrator , than Sir James Graham ; and such a reflection may influence us when we reach next session and the Reform Bill . And our admiration of
the athlete is enhanced in observing , that thirty years of work have not made the slightest change in mind or body . The thirty years have been a perfect circle . That giant frame is as fresh , and that copious countenance as complacent , as when first in 1826 the Knight of Netherby went in for the British Lion ! And , singular completeness of a felicitous career , he ia now sitting for that Carlisle which first wooed and won him ;
and he holds at sixty-one precisely the office which was given him—his first—about thirty years ago ! The young Tories who think that they are serving the cause by representing that the Conservative leaders of ' 41— ' 46 were all rogues or fools , are partial to the depicting of one of the shallowest of men as a Talley-Tand ; and they may take the hint to suggest the Chaldean serpent for the Netherby crest , if only as
the . symbol of—nothing . For a great clerk- —otherwise a great administrator- — is always a great clerk : experience only diminishes the clerk ' s chance of being more than a clerk . In a nation of settled society and established principles , Sir James Graham would have been a statesman ; but in England , which is a nation where class eternally wars against class , —which is a pity , but a fact , —a Sir
James Graham inevitably becomes confused , and , if he aims at statesmanship , assuredly makes a mess of it . Sir James Graham ' s career , as a statesman , is one of the most marvellous messes even of modem British politics ; and it is a painful proof of the paucity of genius in the Governing Classes , and of the ignorance of the governed classes , that this eminent and worthy gentleman is still in high office , and , still supposed , by many , to be a reliable leader of a great people .
Sir James Graham has lived through the long war between the m iddle class and the landed class , and he is a complete failure at last , because , attempting to finesse between the two , he has lost the confidence of both . A cleverer man might have failed in such an attempt , but Sir James Graham ' s failure has been ludicrous , for nature never fitted him to be an intriguer . He attempted to reconcile the theory with the practice
of the Constitution , and that was a hopeless undertaking . A Liberal-Conservative is a possible politician only to tho man who is Liberal o ne year , and Conservative another year ; but tho danger is that , in the third year of tho transformation , both sides find him out . And Sir James Graham has passed his life in getting found out—in candidly inviting discovery . Tho honest man solicited the notice of Diogenes :
wherefore Diogenes passed him by . You can , in England , serve two masters , Crown and Parliament , like Lord John Rusnell . But you cannot Hervo Crown , Parliament , and peoplo . You can bo a Conservative Minister and talk Whiggery to Mr . Speakor . But you cannot bo a Conservative Minister and talk Democracy to tl > , o mob at a hustings . Sir James Graham has tried thin , and has not succeeded : is hated by tho land , not trusted by Manchester , and not known to tho people . This is beo . 'iuho Sir James Graham always lives ho completely in
the present . His political pant is last week , his political future , next week—at furthest , noxt Session : ho looks , therefore , neither backwards nor forwards , is , < : oiiHequontly , always vehement , and in generally , therefore , fooliwh . PorhapH , on the whole , lie is tho indiHoruotoHt man who overlived ; ho jh always burning Inn ships behind him , and always escaping in a cockboat . To givo ono among a thousand illustrations ; for instance , his nillior explanations of hin silly
hustings' speech , against Louis Napoleon . Ho is always willing to pluiiHo , ]> ut as to whom ho ploasos , who comes first , or who speaks loudest . Ho goos down before a loaguo ; but ho is very resolute until the loaguo comes up . Ho takes caro of to-day , and trusts to to-morrow to take caro of itnolf—in legislation . H « liopes this CoiiHtitution will last , his tiiuo , but , if not , and ho is prumjcA to loud a hand , why ho will work hard at its demolition . Ah in tho Admiralty , tho Duke of Wellington is an incomparable Screw , while
her superior is on the stocks , so , in the House , everything is perfect , until the time has come for a change . That is Sir James ' s phrase— "The period has now arrived , Sir . " No revolution takes him unawares . If the Day of Judgment were to arrive during his term of office , he would be prepared to suggest '' the exigencies of the occasion , Sir . " Hence , though he is supposed to be a Talleyrand , he is always simple and sincere . He defended the Corn-Laws with sincerity , - — ¦ with pathos : and he attacked them with as good faith —still with plentiful pathos . He grew red in the face
with hearty British indignation when he assaulted Louis Napoleon : and he opened Mazzini's letters , to oblige Austria , with unflinching complacency . He insisted that the paupers of Andover got on capitally on bone-dust ; and he wept when Peel , in his resignatory oration , talked of the bread that was to be eaten by the poor man , /' unleavened , & c . He has unsaid everything he ever said , and indeed everything he ever did , —and remains an honest squire , still—being only a dull man , not a dishonest one—an ambitious man , not
a tricky man . It is not his fault that he has an animal head , only , and not an intellectual head . If he had principles , he'd be glad of ' em : but he hasn ' t ; so he works : and when a difficulty turns up gets over it as well as he can : talks gently at the House , and leers at the nation—and doesn't regret his choice of a profession , particularly not when in office . He'd feel pleased to be considered a Talleyrand ; but there ' s an awful fear at his heart that men are just , and only suppose him to be stupid .
What Sir James Graham s future is to be—for he'll stick to the House ten years more—it is easy to delineate ; it will be like Sir James Graham ' s past—athletical dodging between perplexities , as they present themselves . That he does" not comprehend his time or his country is very clear ; and now he is not so well placed as he was in ' 41- ' 6 , behind Peel ; he is in a Coalition which has no chief— -and there is great danger when Sir James has to take an independent course . Perhaps in a career of consternations , Sir James was never so puzzled as at this moment : for at this moment he is not only without a chief to command , but he
is in presence of a country without a cry . Yet Sir James is pledged to Reform : he bid as hi gh as Lord John , on the spur of the moment , one evening in the House of Commons ; and very likely he will continue to pass the same word to the Peelites which he passed from ' 46 to ' 51 , " always top Lord John "Lord John to propose , and Sir James to dispose . But what statesmanship ! Our public heroes must be tested in that way . Let any Great Briton of good memory sit down and endeavour to realize his vague impressions about his crack statesmen . For instance—what are Sir James Graham ' s principles , his policy , his convictions , his intentions ? Sir Jamefl Graham stands at this
moment unpledged to everything but cutting down salaries at the Admiralty , and Parliamentary Reform ; and his pledge on Parliamentary Reform amounts to this : —that ho would extend the suffrage , but only in such a way as would bo " consistent with tho conservation of all our institutions . " Are there not a few other questions of tho day for a great peoplo ? Sir James hopes that there are ; ho likca work ; and has no weak shame about inconsistency ; but ho is not going to answer thorn until he can hear them distinctly when sitting in his bureau . No man will be moro frank or moro energetic , when ho is spared tho trouble
of thinking by an explicit national order to act . Even if the order ho directed against any one of tho institutions ho now considers ought to bo conserved . Did ho over refuse to oboy the popular will ? Ho him been tho tool of tho middle class since 18 , ' * 0 ; and now that tho middlo class huvo got all that they want , and arc turning conservative , why Sir James will ho tho tool of tho working class , whon they ' re ready . Mr . Crowe in that brilliant political novel , "Charles Dolmor " molcus tho profound observation that henceforth tho democracy of England ban to play tho middle clans against tho aristocratic olass , and to boo which will hid most for tho popidar support : in such tactics would not Sir James * ho an excellent democratic loader ? NON- EWCOTOK .
November 12, 1853.]. The Leader. 1093
November 12 , 1853 . ] . THE LEADER . 1093
Russian Serfdom. [ Hkoono Alltic Mj.] Th...
RUSSIAN SERFDOM . [ HKOONO AllTIC MJ . ] The rustic labourer ( proUSCairc ) in not , gonorally speaking , a revolutionist , liko tho operatives of grejifc citiou . In thoHo donHo hivos of monopolized industry , in thoso hugo Pmidomoiua of luxury a , u ^ utarvatioii , of beggary
and debauch , of famished ignorance and blase corruption , of-squalid pauperism and insolent gold , of colossal financiers and blazoned Macaires , of whirling wealth , and maddening want , and cruel contrasts , —in great cities , no doubt , the working man becomes a revolutionist ; not so in the solitude of the fields . It requires long centuries of suffering and a religious struggle to create a war of the peasants , as in the sixteenth century . Talk of dissolving the Russian commune ! I should like to know whether the few Russians who propose such a measure have ever seriously reflected on the
scheme . What would remain , I ask , if we tore out this vital nerve of our national existence ? The Russian people has endured every loss , and has only preserved the commune . Is it at a time when it occurs to so many of the thinkers of Western Europe to deplore the excessive subdivision of the soil , that we should , with a blind levity , root up an institution which we have only to conserve passively , for it maintains itself spontaneously in the people and by the people , attached to it by interest and by tradition , as to the one sole right which rapacity and oppression have not yet wrung from their hands .
The commune is , I am aware , accused of being incompatible with individual liberty . Was this liberty wanting before the abolition of the day of Youri ( St . George ) ? Did it not create , beside the permanent village , the moving commune , the voluntary association of Artel ( artisans ) and that other purely martial commune of the Cossacks ? That fixed rural commune left to individual liberty and initiative a part quite large enough , since it never ceased to provide for and to nourish its twin legitimate offspring—one the mounted and moving rampart of the country ; the other , hatchet in hand , transporting himself wherever work invited him .
True , the members of the Cossack communes were not individually absorbed or effaced by them . Even those who may have read Gogol ' s novel , Taras Boulha , have little idea that a similar story occurred in the time of Alexander I . An aged Cossack , who refused to submit to the ferocious discipline of the military colonies , after receiving himself a few thousand blows with a stick , witnessed in silence the barbarous punishment inflicted on his eldest son , and only opened his lips to inquire how it was that his younger son was spared . When he learned that the latter had purchased impunity by submission , the old father embraced his eldest eon , cursed the son who had recoiled before the punishment , covered himself up in his casaquine , and perished on the spot .
Cosaackry ( la Cosacquerh ) is a palpable proof that the popular life in Russia contained in itself the complement of the peaceable existence of the rural commune . Cossackry , in fact , threw open an escape for all reckless and impatient spirits thirsting for adventure , hungry after excitement , panting for dangerous exploits , and a wild independence . It corresponded perfectly with that principle of unrestrained turbulence which we express by the word oudal , and which is one of the characteristic features of the Sclavonic race .
Iho Cossacks , indefatigable sentinels at tho most exposed frontiers of their country , founded at theso perilous outposts military , republican , and democratic communities , which were still in existence at tho beginning of the eighteenth century . Theirs is a brilliant history . The Zuaporogucs were the knighterrants of the democratic commonalty . Unyielding , indomitablo brigands , rather than subjects of any author rity whatsoever , they seemed to inherit those vague
presentiments , those prophetic instincts which distinguished the Norman races . Under Ivan IV ., a hand of Cossacks conquered Siberia . Tlicir chief , Yum ah , not content with having penetrated as far as Tobolsk , roared with a dying hand his standard at Irkousk . After him , another Cossack pushed on across icy wastes , as if he were drawn l > y some magnetic inffuen / ce , to tho Pacific Ocean : perhaps by a presentiment of the immense significance of Russia advancing her bounds to tho very frontiers of America .
Nothing but the imbecility of tho German Government at St . Petersburg could have failed to comprehend such an institution ns that of tho Cowsacks . Peter tho Great wan tho first to oppress thorn , too happy to ho furnished with a pretext by Mazcppa . Catharine reduced millions of them to slavery . Nicholas destroyed their democratic organisation by making nobloft of thoir elected oflicoiH , and ho tried evo ' n to corrupt their popular ballads ., Such an institution was , of ooun «> , scarcely reconcilable with the military oodo of Ruhkia . It wits thought far wiser to creato out of brutal violonco those absurd military colonies than to permit Homo developments to a flourishing and profoundly popular institution .
it in not to bo disputed that" tho communal liiVi of tho Rurisian villagOH niul tho ronuhlicauiKm of tho Cossack camps would ill watisfy the aspirations of lator European thooriufcH . AH was embryonic in their constitution . Individual liberty was everywhere sacrificed to a democratic and patriarchal brotherhood . But who pulls down an unfinished houno in tho idea of rebuilding- it on tho hiuiio plan V it w no merit of oum to hnvo preserved with an immutablo quietism that communal institution which tho Gorman peoples had long lout amidst tho vioiHwitudoM of thoir history . But
-
-
Citation
-
Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 12, 1853, page 13, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_12111853/page/13/
-