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1016 THE L EAD E R. [Saturday ,
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Til 10 Ki\<JLINII WORKING TANTALUS. Good...
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THE "DAILY NEWS" FOR WAR. Ouk contempora...
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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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Mmiis Nal'olkon, Mm Itoroit. 'Ouis Nai'o...
tion of the army , indeed , is at home ; but it ia quite distinct , not to say alienated , from the people The means which would be necessary to put it in a state of thorough efficiency are begrudged . The money for fortifications which ought to be complete is doled , out from hands whose faith lies in submission rather than in resistance . And instead of being supported by the sympathy and affection of the whole people , the army is viewed with a morbid indignation and dislike . The people , which ought to take a share
in its own defence , has been utterly debarred from the use of arms by special laws for that jrurpose , which have considered the convenience of officials in " keeping down the people , " rather than the ultimate danger to a State whose population have been habituated to be "kept down "to be cowed by the policeman . It is not to be expected that England , with cramped limbs , should be able to rise suddenly against the invader . Alarm at our defenceless state indeed
has been expressed , and has been so far recognized as to make our rulers set up the skeleton of a militia—at present untrained , paltry in numbers , and capable of no effect except that of impersonating the fear that originated the force , without fulfilling any means of defence . But more than all this , the country remains wholly without any national feeling . If a national feeling is to be found , it must be sought , we
believe , in the army and the navy ; where something of the kind may survive . But the great body of the people consists of nothing but separated classes , thinking of their own class interests , disliking and distrusting each other , distrusting the Government , and regarding " The Country" as an antiquated abstraction which sensible men sneer at , but never talk about—except in after-dinner oratory on public occasions .
Unlike Louis JNTapoleon , our rulers have purposely abstained from showing England to herself , or from displaying before England the power which she possesses to vindicate her position in the world . If they were incited to do so , they would say that military pageants would draw men from " the business of daily life "from the avocations of industry ; and that they had better remain in the shop . It is not by shops alone , however , that States are defended against the invader .
Enfeebled as the country is by the apathy and misgovernment of its rulers , we believe there is now abroad such sufficient sense of that humiliating condition , that the first step towards a better state would be responded to at once . We believe that an appeal made to the nation , in the name of the nation , over the heads of the petty factions
that obstruct public councils without deciding them , would be answered at once in the voice ot the whole people ; and that if England again wore called to rise to sustain the ilag of St . George against the world , England would rise . But the call must be made by statesmen who are not afraid to . see a great nation stand up in its niiirht .
1016 The L Ead E R. [Saturday ,
1016 THE L EAD E R . [ Saturday ,
Til 10 Ki\<Jlinii Working Tantalus. Good...
Til 10 Ki \< JLINII WORKING TANTALUS . Good mutton , and plenty of it , is to bo had by any innn who can put his hand lo work ; also much , besides good mutton—a tolerably comfortable lodging , excellent , bottled porter , lino fruits , and a , variety of pleasant things ; not in very regular supply , perhaps—except the unit ton —but in great plenty . Prices are nigh ; but tho working man has plenty of gold in his pocket , and his fare is " regardless of expense . "
Of course , we are not upenlung ot any place in England . In this favoured country the working man by no means enjoys that sumptuous existence . If he wants to get through life with a relish he must , go toother lands , lie might have it here , indeed , without much diilirult y , if he were- not prevented . But there are special preventions . Kree-trade has shown what , may be done in placing the material resources of other countries at , I ho service of the l ] iiglishinan , however humble . ; and linieli more might he done in ( hat direction , if the working man had sutlicient influence over the counrilM of the nation . He has bread and sugar in considerable abundance , and Ik ; might have his feu at very moderate cost ; hut the tax-gatherer steps in .
A considerable proportion of the working classes , with Homo of Lho other classes , onco ha . jltrp ^ U ^ iw ^ t ^ tl ^ nk tea , without paying an enormous , fy ^^^ w ^ e vri-y cup ; lull , then they had L < 6 got fflb # i $ & S * yk ; » HUl ' rebellion , and to lie > v -l a v At
separated from England , for the purpose . That was in the United States of America . The working man might have his wine . There is a large tract of wine-growing country _ in Portugal , altogether beyond the tracts which supply our markets at present ; the wine-producing capacity of Spain has never been put really to the test for the market ; Trance , Germany , and even Hungary might furnish us ; and Italy produces a variety of wines ,
most agreeable in flavour , which are practically excluded , and which might be produced to any amount . What is it that excludes them ? The high duty , which amounts to 300 per cent , on the cheapest of the wines usually imported , and a great deal more on the wines which we have mentioned . With even a moderate duty , wine of excellent quality and taste might l > e sold in this country at a shilling a bottle , or less . The reduced duty would promote consumption , and the revenue would rise . "Every fool knows that ; " but there is not a fool in office wise enough to begin !
The working classes might insist upon a better attention to their comforts ; but they are without political influence to enforce attention . If they want to acquire political influence they must go to the United States , be naturalized , and straightway they become important . These things , and many others , including the political influence , which the working man might have at home , he is obliged to seek in distant lands . The most smiling corner of the world at this moment unquestionably is Australia . It is at the gold diggings that so much good mutton is to be hadwith plenty of gold to buy it . The
, accounts brought by the last overland mail , on Saturday , give a picture of comfort in Australia for the working man , surpassing all previous conceptions . He receives an unwonted attention . To supply him with mutton , the great staple trade of wool in Victoria is , in great part at least , suspended : the sheep are slaughtered for their flesh ; the fat , which used to be boiled into tallow , is now destroyed ; the wool is treated by a process not less summary—it is burned . The province of South Australia , close by , rests its hopes of future prosperity , in great
part , upon the trade for supplying the golddiggers , so large a proportion of whom . belong to the labouring classes . It is calculated that not less than a million sterling of unused gold remained in possession of labouring men , among the 50 , 000 gold-diggers at Mount Alexander , who do not care to press it upon the market . Of course these men live well , and they will live still better . With plenty of gold in their pockets , they are treated like travelling princes . Although they have so much cash , and food in such abundance , they have little in the way of taxes to pay . It is a realized Utopia for any man who can
work . There can be no wonder , therefore , that the Englishman struggles to reach that land . There are , indeed , obstacles . Although the colonies send back money for the free transmission of emigrants , the official machinery at homo is ho much too small for its purpose , that , it cannot get through the work with decent activity , and many nn emigrant who might go is kept at home by the tedious routine of the "Board . " Still many
surmount those ; obstacles , even at a certain H . -icrifice . We sire not surprised to hear that Home of the assistants in a , great linendraper ' s establishment have emigrated , and that , to procure the means of being oil " , they had withdrawn their investments from Building Societies . Such persons are , no doubt , amongst the more ; provident , and might have looked forward to a , comparatively comfortable life hereafter , even in England ; but at the best it would be a , life of uncertainty and
( lillieuKy : in Australia , it is neither—it is present comfort and future hope . The more rapid colonization of Australia , indeed , would benolit those remaining at home , by promoting a much greater activity of trade ; but the Htiffand slow machinery of the ' Colonizing Ollice obstructs even that iiuli 7 reel , benefit . So the best thing that induNtrioiis men can do , if they can scrape together the wherewithal , is to go to Australia , and enjoy on the spot the plenty of the land . We regret that it should be ho , and unquestionably it needs not be so . The working man might have his 8 ha . ro of plenty in Imh motherland , his sham of political influence , his relish of life : if those conditions were vouchsafed to him , he might regain once more ; his love of country ,
his affection for " merry old England . " In tn meanwhile there is a severe use in fixing hi regard upon those fields which , without taking him from , his home , mi g ht yield him such rief fruits , if he were not debarred from them by the indifferentism or incompetency of the statesman class . ™«« tt
The "Daily News" For War. Ouk Contempora...
THE " DAILY NEWS" FOR WAR . Ouk contemporary , the Daily News , has ia general made itself conspicuous for adhering to that better part of valour in politics which might please the trading classes , and at least do no harm . We are therefore surprised to find it permanently urging a policy which , if it could have any effect at all , must array this country against its natural ally , and proposing that monstrous enterprise on behalf of a cause which would really be the greatest sufferer by the disaster . With all respect for the noble earnestness and ability of the pen recommending this policy , we should hold it to be a dereliction of duty if we neglected to raise our voice against a course so injurious to our country , so fatal to the cause in question , and so unjust to America . The Daily News virtually incites the English Government to interfere in Cuba to uphold Spanish rights in that island against the United States , and to do this on behalf of negro emancipation ! To justify this extraordinary proposal , our contemporary makes a severe attack , not only upon the slave-holding states , but upon the
wow-slaveholding states of America ; and in vindication of truth , lays before the English reader a representation , not of the facts as they exist relativel y to other facts , but of a bias and of selected facts . For example , to serve a particular purpose , Mr . Benton states that within the last thirty years the area of slavery has been doubled in the United States by the addition of territory to old states , and of a few new states ; but for complete truth , we ought to have been told at the same time how much more has been added to the free
states . It is true that the slave-holding part of the Union has been enabled in some degree to extend its territory , but at the same time the whole Union has been extended in a very much larger proportion , so that relatively the slaveholding portion of ^ he "Union has actually diminished . Even that fact does not tell the whole truth . Free-soil opinions have succeeded in defending the newest states against slavery . Yet , again , eventhatisnotall . " Independentlyof organized Abolitionism , or the more philosophical
Free-soil doctrine , there exists in the younger mind of America a very definite conclusion on the subject of slavery . The Daily News forcibly censures "tho agonizing Fugitive Slave-law , and a correspondent of our . own , Mr . Joseph Barker , whose communications we should have inserted with pleasure on almost any other subject , makes the same mischievous mistake in selecting the Fugitive Slave-law from its context , and holding it up to censure ; but , in fact , the set of measures which comprise that law , constitute the Statute Book of the Union an emp hatic
upon record of the newly-awakened opinion to wlndi wo have alluded . Mr . Barker virulently attacks Henry Clay , as the author of that Fugifivo hlave-Ijiw ; but there must be either ignorance ( wlieio we cannot suspect dishonesty ) or the purWm < iness of prejudice , in a view which can thus trea , a professedly transitional " compromise" without reference to its history . It is well known that Henry Clay entertained an opinion adverse to the continuance of slavery ; that , he had distinctly recorded the opinion , tha ' t slavery should be
prospectively extinguished ; and in tho nieanwi i" / ho induced the states at large to define MM '" actual position , so as to put a restriction upon any mil extension of slavery . Tho coniproiiiiHU treated slavery somewhat as a warty excrescen t is t reatcd when a , silken . string is tied round In that question , Nenry Clay was a , man iwwi his time ; but his idea I . rh taken full posscHMioii of tho young American iniml . . Prospective J » the question of slavery is nettled ; !> " < ' Amcr "' , will accomplish tho ^ Hcttlornent at her <™ 'nU . \ and in her own way , and h \ w will < <> it n » more peaceably , the moro effe ctually , ana
-Hooner , if sho ho left alone . . , ., Slavo-hohling crotchetH are only a V artin , \ ;„ ment in tho movement towards Culm , vvl » ' < ' ^ dictated by much larger impulses . n ' »> believe , most especially tho love of enlarging > - national supremacy by territorial proimgauuiw ,
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 23, 1852, page 12, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_23101852/page/12/
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