On this page
-
Text (4)
-
MfS THE LEADED [No. 500. Oct. 22, I859.
-
THE I3STGOMPETENTT ADMIRALTY. The subjec...
-
THE "DUDLEY STUART" MEDAL. The presentat...
-
« SOCIAL SCIOLISM." Thjb seven .sages of...
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.
Lord Brougham And Social , Science. This...
fail—are denounced in the same terms , which again involves inisstatement of facts . The assertion runs thus : " The inevitable effort of strikers is to level all merit , to benefit the lazy and incapable at the expense of , the industrious and skilful , and . id rob all concerned in them for the profit of a few "agitators and mobseekers . " Some recent cases haw occurred in which an advance oiVw ^ es has been obtained by strikes . Does his lordship pretend that the lazy and incapable are tbenefitted in the 3 e instances at the expense of the industrious and skilful ? The concluding passage is , in . most cases , destitute of foundation , as the allowances made by the trades unions to their . executive officers are usually very small . We have noticed these errors at some length , because they tend to shut the ears of the working class to
argument upon the subject . If you want to convince a man that he is wrong it is folly to begin by abusing him and misrepresenting both his motives and his conduct . In the builders' strike , which has already lasted three months , there is wrong on both sides ; and if the employers complain that the men forced them to combine , it is equally true that their own want of conciliation and readiness io use force instead of argument has been one serious cause of prolonging the strife- A knowledge of political economy would greatly benefit both , master and man ; but until there is a more mutual good feeling we shall of ten have to deplore a destructive battle to settle questions that might have been adjusted by good-natured appeals to reason arid fact . -
Mfs The Leaded [No. 500. Oct. 22, I859.
MfS THE LEADED [ No . 500 . Oct . 22 , I 859 .
The I3stgompetentt Admiralty. The Subjec...
THE I 3 STGOMPETENTT ADMIRALTY . The subject of manning the navy again excites attention . Two admires have , in the course of the week , appeared in print on the subject , which continues in a most unsatisfactory state . Nujnerous , letters have of late appeared , recommending new modes of procuring men . So much , in fact , xs said and suggested , that it might be supposed nothing had . ever , been done to improve it , Xet we have had two or . three commissions of
inquiry ; and , last session , as the result of their labours , an elaborate Act " was passed- —in fact , the chief Act of the session—to carry into effect their recommendations . It is one of the vulgar expedients of dipping the hand into the national pocket , and it involves the annual expenditure of the best part of a . million of taxes , It goes so deep into the matter as to begin with boys before . they . are well out of the cradle , and does not leave the sailor till he goes to his grave . Either all these inquiries and this Act are worthless , like the other inquiries the authorities have instituted
and the other Acts they have passed to procure men , or the many letter writers have scribbled utterly in vain . Both , indeed , may be true . The Act may be worthless and the suggestions of no value . But if the Act have answered , or be likely to answer , its purpose , these letters are out of date . The thing the writers demand has been done . If it have not answered , ' and the navy is still as much in want of men us ever , tine letter writers andvthe admirals will not supply the deficiencies , for they
generally , like the authorities , propose some elaborate scheme to perform what is actually done to their hands . To provide men is a suitable occupation for a slave owner ; in a free country ¦ wherever men are really wonted they are already provided . There . never is any want of men to plough the fields , to weave cloth , or to dig coals ; and as food , q lothing , And fuel are quite as necessary as defence , there , never can be a want of men for this purpose if it be < not a defence pf slavery and -wrong . What number of navvies was oollected by railway contractors when the great work of making
railways was begun , we cannot say 5 but we apprehendihut more' than twice the number required to tnan our fleet was , found tp perform the stupendous vrprk . It was altogether new . There was nobody brought up to it as a trade . Men had to learn how to make locomotives and tunnel the earth . g $ utu 4 fy , thatmorlcwas done , and < very-soon more nju 3 n ( . T ( rere rqady to labour fttit than could find & o ^ kH-o . , do ,. In fnotit ^ . o ,. general , prinoip lq , con-| Hni « lfo : k ^ there is w ?) WWW ^ WwnerfttJon , iw ; wprfc to do , and BWRtY ^ ft ^ god , drink ,. wi . d . olothinc for doing it , no jHffnJl !^^ . done , there will ^^ y ^^ wpn to take the pay , > cQnflume thefood , wm * mm # iWidk . - -. It is « e » illy , therefore , to
fear a want of men for any employment as it is to fear that the wind will cease to blow , the rain to fall , or the sun to shine . General principles may be relied on in society or morals as well as in physics , and the authorities who do not rely on them are as much beside themselves as if they thought day would never return if they went to sleep . Although we have an Admiralty , says Sir 0 . Napier , which costs . £ 100 , 000 a year , no Board has ever hit upon a method of manning the navy economically and . expeditiously . This is very far below the truth . Every Board has hit oh a method ,
the navy . The source of the mighty evila is the ignorant and incompetent JBoard of Admiralty .
which might , a priori , have been thought impossible-T-to Jceep _ men out of the navy and prevent it being economically and expeditiously manned . . It has scandalously appropriated honours and rewards to one class , and pro tanto disgusted and driven away others . It has sturdily refused to pay the men reasonable wages , and has . wasted three times as much as would have compensated them on useless officers . It has hedged round her Majesty ' s ships with bayonets ; has swung furiously aloft the bloodstained cat : and boasted of the iron stocks
employed to chain seamen by the feet , and furiously swore like a pirate that , all seamen should be subdued by terror . It has given the navy the horrible features of a ? dungeon ; and though , men will go anywhere to work , and do anything for reasonable pay , they wUl not freely maim themselves , nor embrace disgrace and torture . That men for her Majesty ' s ships cannot be had to any number required , and at any moment , is the fault of the Board and of the Legislaturie , which has followed the lead of the Board .
In the nineteenth century seamen are still treated as if they were serfs . It is supposed to be their duty to lay down their lives for other men , who claim the right by scourging of making them perform it . They do not voluntarily defend them selves——they are forced to defend others . A system of really voluntary defence would soon , to the shame of all despots , bring more men to the national fleet , animated "with zeal , and powerful both in body and mind , than could be gathered by the most elaborate conscription . little mechanical-
appliances may be safely trusted to naval men , but they should not be allowed for one moment , on any pretext whatever , to violate the great principles of freedom and justice . Bristling bayonets , torturing cats , and a tyrannical system of discipline , for the behoof of an idle aristocracy , must be > ut an end to—^ impressment , everybody admits , is for ever gone—and then the nation will always get as many men for the navy as it has funds to pay . The Admiralty is utterly insensible to such truth . Confined to official records in its own
paper boxes , like the Bourbons and other lost rulers , it leaxns nothing of the general progress , and is now utterly disgraced by being the single employer in society , with unbounded means , whom people will not serve . By persisting in old injustice this besotted Board is solely and entirely to blame for all the evil arising from a want of men in the navy . When wo consider how it has been composed wo have no right to expect anything better . Prom the First Lord downwards , ever since the time of
Lord Sandwich , the Board has been a place for what Mr . O'Connel called shave-beggar statesmen . Through all that long period we recollect only two men of decent capacity at its head—Earl St . Vincent and Sir James Graham , and they both turned it topsy-rturvy without being able effectually to reform it . So miserably has it been " manned" that the quarter sessions squire , Sir John Pakington , ; towers high above the Sir Charles Woods , the Sir Francis Barings , the Yiscount Melvilles , the JEQavlof Haddington , and the other successors of Lord Sandwich . We take no
account of subordinate naval lords . They generally sacrificed tUeir naval reputation , if they had any , by becoming party and political tools . The parliamentary secretaries , however , have been influential persons , and amongst them the late Mr . Croker , who occupied the office for many years , was notoriously a political and literary adventurerclever , but utterly , unprincipled . Mr . , Osborne ,.. top , so lively in opposition , passed years of torpidity in office ,. unable apparently to overcome * ke > matoria of the . place . w » th suolvohiofs and euoh . subor . dinates , iho whole . establishment being framed to secure parliamentary influences , scandalous inefficiency and corruption are the inherited characteristics of our dookyard . 0 , and unpopularity ruins
The "Dudley Stuart" Medal. The Presentat...
THE " DUDLEY STUART" MEDAL . The presentation of the Stuart medal to Lord Harrowby by the Polish exiles deserves at least a passing mention . There was something sad about the whole scene—sad in the circumstances under which it occurred—sad , too , ia the memories it called forth , and yet the sadness was not unchequered . Throughout a long life , Lord Dudley Stuarf fought a losing fight , and toiled in a hopeless cause . He joined the friends of Poland in days long gone by , when the wrongs of that illfated country were fresh in men's memories , and when a Pole was the lion of the hour . Then the fashion changed—success sanctified crime , and the
sorrows of Poland became stale , as an oft-told story . Friends fell away , and statesmen looked aside , and philosophers argued that the means were justified b y ¦ the result . Almost alone , the gallant-hearted nobleman remained true to his first-ardour . * He was found , in very truth , " faithful amongst the faithless . " In spite of hostility , in spite of ridicule , in spite of that dead , dull indifference , worse than enmity , more fatal than mockery , he laboured on , under his self-imposed burden , nothing daunted . His home , his purse , and his time , and , more than all , his honest sympathy , were ever at the service of the Polish exiles . " There was no movement , in behalf of
Poland in which he failed to take a part ; no meeting at which he was not present , with his frank English bearing , and his cheery , pleasant voice . There may have been wiser men in Ms time-: —men better fitted , perhaps , to serve the State ; but there never was a more warm-hearted advocate of the people ' s cause ; never ( ridiculed as the phrase may tie , now-a-days ) a truer " friend of freedom . " His end befitted his life well . When at the outbreak of the Russian ; war the last faint gleam of hope for Poland rose and faded , and died away , Lord Dudley Stuart made his last effort in her behalf . He went over to the
Scandinavian courts , in order to , secure support for the Polish cau ^ fe , and there died suddenly , in tie execution of his mission , on the confines of that country he had served so truly and loved so well . We might almost say that with him there died the last hope of Poland . The Peace of Paris left Russia more powerful at Warsaw than before the war , and each succeeding year seems to render her sway more firm and more irresistible . There are still left amongst us , however , a band of Polish exiles—men who have grown grey in the weariness of hope deferred , and to them the recollection of Lord Dudley Stuart is well nigk the only pleasing memory in the dull waste of years that they have passed in exile . These gentlemen had purposed , rather in token of their recollections than their
hopes , to present a medal , recording the services of their old friend , to his sister Lady llanwby . This lady , however , did not long survive the brother , with whom she had often joined in Ms Labour of love , and Lord Harrowby was the only recipient left to receive the " Stuart" medal . May it be kept reverently , and worn worthily 1 In these days of imperialism and of " manifest desr tinies , " the example of Lord Dudley Stuart -was not unneeded . Men are rare at all times—now perhaps , more than ever—to whom the " causa victa" pleases rather than the " causa victrix . " In good and in ill report , through life and unto death , Lord Dudley Stuart remained constant to the simple faith that , in the words of the Great Frederick , " the right must at some time come to " pass ; " and for this faitlj , if for this alone , h » ife will not be altogether useless , nor his labour in vain .
« Social Sciolism." Thjb Seven .Sages Of...
« SOCIAL SCIOLISM . " Thjb seven . sages of England have been down to Bradford . Xord Brougham went there as tue champion of useful knowledge , pure and unadulterate . The Pev . nu Magazine , it is true , w extinot ,. and the Birkbeck Institution is » ns ° f £ *" Theory , , however , is greater than fact , and , wwe the knight in *« Exoelflior , " the veteran plu'losopWer fttill bears aloftrhw banner with the motto , " Knowledge is , power . " Lord Sliaftesbury was preseatto check the presumptuous ardour of unregenorate aao unbeliemug ecienoe . Mr . Monckton Mflnes . iron no " wanting ajeo to temper science . with pootrv «»« sentiment . iMr . Adderloy was the phUi » atbro ]>» o
-
-
Citation
-
Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 22, 1859, page 14, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_22101859/page/14/
-