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682 T H E L E ABER. [Saturday,
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r f a i or p 1 p I ' re tsgp ^a* r a 'rvr^fr *& 'tflf & "V ° sffffi &Vv ™ & * ? p SATURDAY, JULY 22, 1854. J r
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^ttblit tffoita. •
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0Sie*e is nothing so revol-utionary, bec...
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. — — PROJECT VQH A LIBERAL PARTY. The p...
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SPAIN.—THE BOURBONS. We cannot understan...
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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Transcript
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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.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
To Coltltusponilents. '* M. S " Does Not...
the M th No notice can bo taken of anonymous com mum cations , se Whatever is intended for insertion must be authenticated ^ by . the name and address of the writer ; not necessarily foi patoHeation , but as a guarantee of his good faith . pc We cannot undertake to return rejected commutations . - ^ All letteTS for the Editor should be addressed to 7 , Welling- - ^ teo-stfeet , Strand , london . , ei Communications should always be legibly written , and on oneside of the paper only . If long , it increases the diffi- tt culty of finding space for them . s €
682 T H E L E Aber. [Saturday,
682 T H E L E ABER . [ Saturday ,
R F A I Or P 1 P I ' Re Tsgp ^A* R A 'Rvr^Fr *& 'Tflf & "V ° Sffffi &Vv ™ & * ? P Saturday, July 22, 1854. J R
r f a i or p 1 p I ' re tsgp ^ a * r a ' rvr ^ fr *& 'tflf & "V ° sffffi & Vv ™ & * ? p SATURDAY , JULY 22 , 1854 . J
^Ttblit Tffoita. •
^ ttblit tffoita .
0sie*E Is Nothing So Revol-Utionary, Bec...
0 Sie * e is nothing so revol-utionary , because there is nothing so unnatur-al and convalsive , as the stiarn . i » 3 c ^ 8-5 tliingB fixea when 611 the woria ia by the very 1 lawu-cEafca creation in .-eternal pro gress-.-rDB . AflBHOia ) . i
. — — Project Vqh A Liberal Party. The P...
. — — PROJECT VQH A LIBERAL PARTY . The purpose of T & inisters in calling the consultation of their -supporterB at Lord John j Itussell ' s official house on . Monday last is said to have been achieved ; but unless the friends who , consented to attend are wholly destitute of a purpose , we do not see how the meeting can have satisfied them . It has either dissatisfied them , or they are consenting to'be the representatives of the country ¦ with out acknowledging a public duty . The object of Ministers , it is understood , was to disawn so much of the discontent and indiscipline amongst their ranks as to prevent an accidental defeat by the Berby Opposition in the expected debate on Monday night last —this being now postponed till Monday next . The Derby Opposition confessed their defeat by adjourning their resistance . The liberals were conciliated by Lord John's appeal to them , duly received the tacit inti * mation that' they must not trifle with , the existence of the Ministry , and , expressing Bonae humours , acquiesced . But , —while the respect for Lord John and his colleagues was not sufficient to keep their supporters in the room , while men . went away in disgust rather than listen to chaffering suggestions about the choice of one individual instead of another for a particular post , —there was no direct expression , of opinion , object , or purpose , on the part of the Liberal members . The meeting implied that ; they put' up with the . present G-overnment for want of a better ; that , they would rather have Iiord Aberdeen in ioffiee with his colleagues than Lord Derby with his 5 ~ KQot that they are satisfied with the actual Government of the country . Yet while it is thus all but declared that , whether in its composition , its principles , or its con-! i duct , the present Q-overnment is unequal to that which this country ought to have , there is no proposal of a better- The popular members do not advance pi'inciples or measwres which the present Government ought to adopt , or which ought to be the real basis for a , ' new Government worthy of the country and of the Liberal party . The meeting may , Jbave lanswered "the purposes of Ministers , but it was not creditable to those independent . ixnembers who consented to nttend , and it thatinctly manka out a further duty -which i > they , have yet to perform . i , iS & mex concessions were made to Liberal . expectations . It was understood that a % uast i lY ^ o-pi ' i confidejneo should be taken , o « tht AWotOvtof credit for the purposes of the wnr ;' . i & spUli it » -.. iw ^ BuiMi ? l Ufir .- underntood that the pwoo » Qgatioiiio £ Bn » H » ment would not bo of very x l ^^ uAvWftfcioili . "We wi & h that tho vote o ; > c 6 » fideneldi ! C « ttl & be bowio real tost 5 we wial hiibfttj ^ fiahaid ftoitoe confidence ourselves in . the . iirjmu . i . piinpoBQB of , the . Liberal membera' tc . 5 i r 5 . 3 > _ fc ! t y e e g > r Lt 1 . o o a . h r ¦ ) n ) v ie et er t > to rG ar a . ht 3 i 8 ry ay x \ t nt it < sh rnl asi ho ... " jo jjy of Lab ; h to
: secure a short prorogation . At a time like present it is a reproach to the inde- pendent members of the Commons that a inistry should be " in power , " without either being perfectly under the control of e rep resentatives of the people , or pos- sessing the unqualified * confidence of those epresentatives . That the present Ministry ulfils either of those conditions does not ppear from the facts : it does not possess the confidence of the popular representatives , those representatives would not be re- eatedly thwarting it . It does not deserve their confidence , since it has not fulfilled its romises , its spontaneous promises , to the Liberal pasty . Ministers themselves have declared it necessary that there should be reform of Parliament , municipal representa- tion , poor-law , ecclesiastical law , police , and various other reforms branching from these , They ha ^ e attested , their opinion by bring- ing forward measures ; find none of the princi- pal measures under those heads have been car- ried on . The pretext is the war ; "bat that that is an insufficient pretext every-body knows . There is no opposition to Ministers on ac- count of the war ; the time of any depart- ment besides the military is not taken up by war preparations . Heretofore the good faith and competency of Ministers in that behalf have been taken upon trust ; the public has not troubled itself about the war , —does not draw its attention from Other business for fifteen minutes of any day in the week . It may fairly be said of Ministei-B that while they are prevented by disputes amongst themselves from performing confessed duties , they are so dishonest as to lay it upon a false pretext . Let "us admit , without qualification , that there are individuals in the present Government who do not themselves deserve censure "We speak of the body collectively ^ and the individuals belonging to it so far compromise themselves as they become a party to this neglect of duty and this parade of a false pretext . But the question cannot stop there . If the Ministry does not deserve implicit confidence , the worth of individual men is no reason for awarding an undeserved confidence . To give that , is to misappropriate the public trust reposed in members of Parliament . A Ministry undeserving of confidence on other grounds , —has no xight to our confidence in the war business ; and even men who might command our trust individually place it in abeyance while they consent to be parts of an untrusted Government ; let us add that the members who lea-ve the conduct of a great war in such hands without inquiry or guaran tee , themselves forfeit the title to the confi dencc of their electors . What guarantee-have we that the war itself will he properly sustained ? that Austria , for instance , will not bo suffered to compromise this country ? an < l that tho confessed desiro to end the war will not betray our Ministers i ^ to a place which will be a disgrace to tho nation and a detri ment to our interests ? We have very strong faith in the personal honesty of Lord Aberdeen , none in -unity of judgment between him and tho country ; how thon can tho country safely leave the agency of peacemaking to him unquestioned ? The national representatives will not perform their duty unless they take guarantees agaiuut mischances of that kind . Wo ought to leave no power in tho himds of MinistorH , uulews we know low they ftttj going to ubo it . Thero nro men in Parliament , we believe , - who nyo quite cowpotent to uiidei'wtand those things . , It is nQt neccBtmry tlmt an Ewgliwhman fcthould have lived two hundred yews » gOj P » in ftTortb , America , S « ut ) i AlVica , 01 0 Ai ^ ta'alia , to . havo i ' orca or pivgacity for the service "wo require . . Are we Io . buuooho thai .
a tu A cc tb cl in s € B ir a $ ii ii a h is fi e t t \ s c < i 3 1 1 A 1 ] ] 1 , - - 1 Robert Lowe can be independent , constitutional , and patriotic , only in . the capital of Australia ; that a Roebuck can understand constitutional G overnment only in Canada ; that John Bright ' s family associations preclude him from understanding common sense in the finance of war ; that a G oderich can see popular rights only in theory ; that a Blackett ' s accomplishments prevent his grasping the rights and powers of his position with as firm a hand as if he had no better schooling than a Herefordshire gentleman ? The period would appear to have arrived in British polities when the Commons must attempt to tate Government out of the hands of the aristocracy . That aristocracy is intellectually worn out . A , Government foamed out of the whole elect of the aristocracy is weak—that is an astounding fact : but a fact still more astonishing is that the aristocratic Tory opposition is even weaker than the- Government . Where , then , are we to look for signs of power and capacity for actioa—for the practical work—a day business of 'governing—but in the scattered " Radicals" and " Liberals" who are mot of the aristocracy , but of the Commons , hut , beeause they are not organised , hesitate to stand independent of the old traditionary tactics of playing Whig against Torjr . The "best brains and purest characters in the present Government are to be found in unpatronised beeause not grandly " connected " subordinates : the finest capacities in the House are among the below-the-gangway Liberals . The Opposition in the House of Commons consists of one man ; and he is a man who was lost to the Radicals because he saw the Radicals had not his amhition—; Power . ' ,.,-. ¦«• We see in such motions as that which Mr . , J . Greene carried on Tuesday , and in such s sectarian strife _ as that which was rampant ) on Wednesday , that the House of Commons j is degenerating , and falling into forgetfulness ) of its grand functions . Reinvigoration can reach it only from those people ' s members F who bear in mind that what the constitution meant was something different from a lordly > club . The people ' s members have no business . in " meetings of supporters" at . " leaders '" 5 houses ; the public-business should be carried l on publicly;—we have a set of " official de-• spatches , " one for the Cabinet and one for l the country , —let us not have two parliaments b —one for the public delusion—and one for 1 the aristocracy ' s management . 1 Looking forward , then , to Monday night's p debate , we would entreat the " popular memt bera" to obtain some self-government for us . - Nay , they ought to seize it ; for it can be .- had by seizing . In the name of the constitution , we iniplorea little factiousness . v _ ,
Spain.—The Bourbons. We Cannot Understan...
SPAIN . —THE BOURBONS . We cannot understand tho political philosophy of those politicians in , England who gloat over the insurrection an Spain , and yet treat it , carelessly , as a raero military Attempt at revolution , and as , at least , an isolated , purely peninsular , affair . If isolated , why rejoice at an inconsequent business ? Granted that the Queon ia a naughty girl ; but sho has her excuses ; and , whether or not , spito does not become statesmen . Our Queen happens to bo happy , for those common-place yet not frequent reasons which > occur to produce felicity ; and tho circuin-1 stance , which haa become identified with tho rest of tho glories of our constitution , so far , from making us savagely triumphant on tho 1 accidents wliich bofal contemporary vicious Bovoroigns , should induce in us rather a lofty , l but tender , pity . It would not bo illogical to indulge in con-) gratulntions , on tho humiliation of tlio court Ii of Madrid , for other than Spanish reasons .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), July 22, 1854, page 10, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_22071854/page/10/
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