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¦ATRTt. 26.1857.1 THE XEADEB. 89E _ — ¦¦...
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STATISTICS 03? THE NEW HOUSE. Speculatio...
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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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Imperialism, Ancient And Modern. France,...
ing with pious love the designs of Ins deified predecessor , of cultivating the complicity of the priesthood , of aifectiug to reverence "the privileges of private life after he had violated every public law . After robbing the Roman people of their rights , he allowed the claims of a few freeholders to destroy tlie symmetry of the Forum . He affected also to act as a censor of morals ; but the dates of his decrees on this Bubject mark the opening of an era of unnatural depravities and bestial pollutions . The boast of Attchtstus was , that he turned Rome , "by the magie of his magnificence , into a city of marble ; the boast tnat
of Louis . Napoleon ' s flatterers is , he has adorned Paris and revived the power and prosperity of France . What was true in the one case is true in the other . The Lower Empire rotted to dust in an age of architectural splendour ; France is smitten by a deadly disease while Paris sparkles with the white stone monuments of her Lobenzopaid for by a x > eople heavily laden , poor , and ¦ * struggling against a partial scarcity . These grand erections are held up as , emblems of political stability , of which Rome affords a fitting illustration . The Empire converted at the commencement of every reign into the theatre of a violent revolution , its gradual decadence and -ultimate collapse were demonstrations of the order bequeathed by Augustus ; but Louis Natolieon , after a reign of glory , will confide his seeptre to the Empress Reerent , who will nurse the nation , fox ±
her son , who , from being the Uhiid ol < ranee , will become its Father , and there will "be no more anarchy , bu . t ' Napoleonie communism and a stagnant peace . Possibly , but also possibly not—a pistol-ball , a fallfrom a horse , or some other accident may , at any moment , surrender France to the violence of an African military mob , and the frenzy of a hundred factions . ATTOTSTtrs , to seduce the army , made use of the narrie and inheritance of CiESAit , and , having mounted to a throne by the steps of a tomb , proceeded to abase the moral energies of the people "by employing them on works of vanity , by annihilating individual b crowtis
character , y swamping men m , Dy practising the arts of amusement and benevolence . ¦ " The organisation . of the Empire , " said Tacitus , " was the disorganisation of society . " But society had been corrupted , it was urged , before CLesar , rose . " Yes , " answers IMI . Ampeue , in his admirable studies of Imperial history , " it had been corrupted , and its corruption was the ruin of liberty ; but is despotism excellent because it is favoured by public apathy and private infamy ? Arbitrary government , in Home and elsewhere , must have been at n . loss for apologies when it attempted to justify itself by showing that it was a form of authority congenial to a vicious and enervated generation . " France appreciates the argument , and Louis Napo-1
iiEON employs four hundred thousand men , a countless body of police and spies , two mute legislatures , and a vast official staff , to prevent the French from disclaiming a satiuiied submission to tho institutions of tho Empire . Certain , it is , however , that Rome , debased and debauched enough to make way for CiGBAit , was infinitely more debased to make way for the successors of Augustus . France may have been morally * 1 I - - »¦ * T t 1 " in looiout
^ aegenerato , wo Know wnac sue is in 1857 . Supposing tlic best rosulb—that she will now pass under a succession of Bona .-partist Emperors—what then ? Out of twelve , to be celebrated by another Suexoniits , how many possessors of unrestrained authority are likely to bo Antonines , and how many Oalioulas ? "When the modern Augustus disappears , when tho nation discovers that during its sleep it has lost its virility , there may be some men in England who will
repent the paeans theyliave uttered over ^ the revival of imperialism in France . Its eclat has bewildered them ; they talk of the Napoleonic age as feeble historians talk of the age of lap X ., which lasted nine years , and of the An TONiWESjwhicli lastedforty-two years , while the period of civil liberties that went before the Antonines embraced five uninterrupted
j 3 enturies . The Roman Republic conquered uations , the Roman Emperor speared bears and wrestled with gladiators ; the last repre- sentative of Cresarism sits in a chair of state and watches a fight between a swarm of matadors and a Spanish bull . It is Imperialism / not the Einperor , that corrupts ; as M . Ampere has justly pointed out , George I ., as an emperor , would have-teen a Nebo , George IV . a Helio gabaxus ; while \ Neho , fenced round with constitutional limits , might have been a very respectable king . " The institutions that protect nations against monarchs protect nionarchs against themselves . " The object of i French Imperial policy is to govern the state by means of a vast , impersonal , irresponsible machine , regulating finance , education , religion , manners , sumptuary customs , the traffic of the Bourse , trade , navigation , industry , setting aside the power of the press , extinguishing individual action , absorbing the nation in the pursuit of material gains and pleasures- Those who are willing to be thus go verned are' corrupted ; those _ resist are literally destroyed—for irnprison-J ment and exile amount to the obliteration of I tlie individual as a citizen . The moral life of tho countrv is bv this process drained away ;
yet the founder of the system is applauded as a saviour of society . It is somewhat reinarkable that he should at any time have achieved popularity in England , conspicuously Christian as England claims to be , for the Empire is essentially a pagan institution . The perfect working of Imp erialism would be equivalent to the maddest development of Socialism ; both systems treat society as a mechanism , instead of an organisation ; both sink the individual ; both exalt the state ; both endeavour to drill villages into battalions and cities into camps ; the one is the paradise of pedantry , the other the climax of corruption ; and a strange confusion . of both is exhibited by the reigning power in France . There is an attempt to crush the citizen under tho weight of the
multitude ; to create in tlio bureaucracy a central administration of public affairs , general , special , and local ; , to treat Paris literally as the heart of France , transmitting its impulses to tho remotest departments ; to infuse into the mind of the populace that sort ; of Brahminical serenity which is content with gazing on tho Ineffable and fancying that all tho citizens arc represented by tho Emperor , and the Emperor by all tho citizens . The democratic loaders , clamorous for equality have bad some share in promoting this result for while insisting that men shall be equal they have forgotten to secure that they shal be free ; and the masses to whom thoj preached tho doctrine of a society smoothei to one dead level havo boon hurled agains them by the man who has converted tin national army into tho national enemy , aui universal suffrage into a machine of uni tli
III versa , ! enslavement . I hey are now servants of one master , or tho victims < one oppressor ; they havo witnessed th reduction of every class to uniform . p < litical annihilation . Franco has been awn . lowed up in tho Empire ; and the npoKtli of equality aro compelled to watch tho ascei in tho social scale oi" a rabble of parvem » bloated with the profits of gambling . Tl i real monument of Napolconism is the Com de MoitNY , who withdraws a prodigious fa
* tune irom « ranee , a princess , and dances with the wife of the Czaji . A . swarm of locusts have been fattened ; but how many have been impoverished to inflate their unnatural appetites ! There has been no real production of wealth , only the exhaustion of industry to promote
specula-1 ; I c a tion . Resuming the whole inquiry , what have been the gains and losses of France under the Empire ? Masses of doubtful masonry have changed the face of the capital , to the delight and wonder of complacent tourists ; the hovels of the poor have been razed by the merciless combinations of strategic boulevards ; a ¦ knot of stock-jobbers have been enriched ; the population has shrunk , as in a pestilence or famine ; the production of food has . diminished ; agriculture is neglected ; tho towns- are aggrandized at tlie cost of the provinces . ; over two-thirds of tlie territory of France the exhaustion of vital forces is apparent ; the rural districts are deprived of large proportions of adult labour ; iinremunerative public works in themetropolis have wasted the national treasures . It is computed that within five years foxty millions sterling have been amassed by the holders of stock on the Bourse—a sum
extracted from productive industry , m adckition to the vast loans lavished on the Russian war and the Paris improvements . "We point to this array of clouds that darken over France , without desiring to exaggerate' the evil or to misrepresent its causes . It may be traceable to one set of circumstances or to anbther , but it belongs to the period of tlie EnnDire , which declared itself to be the realization of peace , o rder , and prosperity , which promised .. " stability , security , and confidence , but which seeks to vault over with a marble roofing an -immeasurable abyss .
¦Atrtt. 26.1857.1 The Xeadeb. 89e _ — ¦¦...
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Statistics 03? The New House. Speculatio...
STATISTICS 03 ? THE NEW HOUSE . Speculation as to- the strength of partiesin the new House has a special interest , inasmuch as there is no immediate likelihood of any division which would test the unity of the Liberals or the numbers of the Opposition . There will be no attempt at opposition to Mr . Evelyn Denison as Speaker , and there is no probability that Mr . Disraeli will p recipitate any moVe likely to show how very small is the party of gentlemen who still follow his leadership . Even Lord John , although his independent position gives him . a vantage ground , is not likely to break with the Government too soon ; nor will Mr . Gladstone , with all his readiness to act with a minority , lead into the lobby that reduced Peelito section which should detach about one half its forces to supply tellers for the rest . . Deprived , therefore , of ' tho prospects > of that best of Par ] iamontary companions- — a division list—we full back upon a careful survey of election addresses and hustings
de-, clarations . ) The ministerial arithmeticians calculate , wo r understand , upou a majority of 108— and I perh aps , as an averngo cs timato of the probable I ; majorities of I ' Ai ^ iuitsiON on . various quess tio ' , i t is a pretty fair reckoning . Counting as ; 1 Liberals all who support an extension of tho t- fmnclnse , and are generally favourable- to c rofprms both ecclesiastical find civil—thb ) f strength of tho Liberal party in tho Houso o ia 382 . This total is not arrived at by put-> - ting men down as Liberals merely because 1- they have once been called so , or because 33 ! they cull themselves Liberals without spoit \ < : ifyh » g any reforms thoy will support ; it ia is ' based on Bpecilic declarations from their own io I lips on tho hustings , or in thoir writfcoJi adut i drcsscH , when ii statement one Avay or tho ir- ' other was likely to nffecfc tho poll . VVo havo
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), April 25, 1857, page 11, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_25041857/page/11/
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