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^ Ap^ ' THE tEADEK. 673
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SATURDAY, MAY 28, 1859.
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There is nothing: so revolutionary, beca...
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¦ ¦ ' . . - ? ¦ ¦ ENGLAND'S NEUTRALITY. ...
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NOTES OF VICTORY. Fighting upon the grou...
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ADMIRALTY DILATORINUSS. As an instance o...
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.
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^ Ap^ ' The Teadek. 673
^ Ap ^ ' THE tEADEK . 673
Ad01708
SUBSCRIPTION TO "THE LEADER . " ONE GUINEA PER YEAR . UNSTAMPED , PREPAID . ( Delivered Gratia . ) NOTICES TO CORRESPONDENTS . ' . No notice can be taken of anonymous TOires ^ ndence Whatever Is intended for ta ^ rtion must be aut ^ nticated by the name and address of the wri ^ v ^ S £ t th ! for publication , but as a guarantee of his good faith" sSHj ^ sa & f ^& w ^ rart quite independent of the merits of the communication . '¦ ¦/« ¦¦ ' We cannot undertake to return rejected communications . OFFICE , NO . 18 , CATHERINE-STREET , STRAND , W . C .
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Saturday, May 28, 1859.
SATURDAY , MAY 28 , 1859 .
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There Is Nothing: So Revolutionary, Beca...
There is nothing : so revolutionary , because there is nothing so unnatural and convulsive , as the strain to keep things fixed when all the world is by the very law of its creation In eternal progress . —Ds . Arnold .
¦ ¦ ' . . - ? ¦ ¦ England's Neutrality. ...
¦ ¦ ' . . - ? ¦ ¦ ENGLAND'S NEUTRALITY . "DNGLAND'S neutrality will not be safe unless J-il the people really study foreign questions , and base their determination to keep the peace upon a positive perception of the greater mischief that would probably flow from adopting arty other course . At present no British interest is directly threatened , and eveiy honest heart rejoices at the retribution which is meted out to the Austrian , although unable to sympathise with the personal triumph afforded to the Emperor of the French . While this state of tilings lasts it is easy for the country to be unanimous in favour of the policy of standing aloof and looking on ; but there is a powerful party which , despite all professions of innocence , craftily reckons upon embroiling us with France , and waits the arrival of circumstances that will provoke our alarin , arouse our anger , and excite our pride . If Prussia should be implicaed , they calculate that the loyalty shown by the people of England to Queen Victoria will make them willing to draw the sword in defence of the personal and dynastic interests of her child . Upon this there should be no mistake . We should be g lad to see the Princess become the Queen of Prussia , or , still better , of Germany ; but not one farthing of English money , nor one drop of English blood should be imperilled in furtherance of objects with which , while jve keep within our own line of duty , we have nothing at all to do . If Prussia chooses to side with the infamous house oi Hapsburg , and degrade herself to become the prop ofa throne that rests upon the murdered bodies of Hungarian and Italian patriots ,. let her take the reward of her own guilt . It will be vain to say the interests of Germany demand such a course . An honest national Germany would have no interests in common with tUe most perfidious and cruel despotism that disgraces the earth 5 and a Germany of selfish dynasties and pettifogging princes is not entitled to demand the sacrifice of the day ' s wages of any British artisan . Wo should deplore an irruption of French and Russian troops into the land of Goethe and Humboldt , but if the 34 , 000 , 000 of Gorman people ( exclusive of the Germans in Austria ) act with reasonable prudence , they will bo able either to escape the danger altogether , or to meet it successfully wnen it comes . Af the Germans get into a sorape , and wo are asked to help them , our aid would not bo demanded for a peoplo or a , nation , but for thirty-one sovereign princes and , four free cities , who make up the Germanic Confederation and out the country into such little bits as to weaken its power of defence . For England to fight for these thirty-one princes , that is , for the
subdivision of Germany , would be a ludicrous as well as a disastrous game . . We should bitterly regret any misfortune to the Germans , but it is too much to ask us to encourage them to act foolishly , by promising to share the penalty they may incur . : Probable domination of France in Italy- — for a time—is a log ical consequence of Austrian : - misrule , and the perjury and cruelty of Francis ! Joseph towards Hungary has rendered exceedingly likely a Russian intervention , which would be wel-. corned by the inhabitants , just as the Italians have 1 welcomed the advent of the French . No one can : wish to see two military despotisms ^ -France anc Russia—thus gain upon Europe ; but we shoulc only make matters worse by siding with . the still : more abominable despotism * whose iniquities have been the proximate cause of these disastrous contingencies . When Francis Joseph ascended the throne , in 1848 , he issued a proclamation , declaring "We are convinced of the necessity and : the value of Free Institutions , and enter with confidence on the path of a prosperous reformation of the monarchy . On the basis of true liberty , on the basis of the equality of the rig hts of all our people , and the equality of all citizens before the law , and on the basis of their equally partaking m representation and legislation , the country will rise to its ancient grandeur , it will acquire new strength to resist the storms of time ; it will be a hall to shelter the tribes of many tongues under the : sceptre of our fathers . " By what falsehood and crime these promises were redeemed , all Europe knows . The Austrian Empire has been no " hall" for " shelter , " but a dungeon for suffering ; and the " sceptre of our fathers " has been a hangman's whip . It bodes no good for Europe that the 17 , 000 , 000 of Sclavonic subjects of Austria should be taught to look to Russia for protection against the grinding tyranny of the Hapsburgs , but no fear of future events could for a moment justify England m aiding Francis Joseph to continue his career of penurious and sanguinary crime . From Italy ,, from Bohemia , from Hungary comes a cry of agony that the British peop le will hear more loudly than any self-regarding clamour from German princes , or the most learned expositions , of the balance of power . England will , if it be possible , keep the peace—not because she is too stmgy to pay for war—not because she is indifferent to the fate of her neighbours , or desires to shirk the obligations of international duty , but because the best interests of humanity and progress demand her neutrality in a contest in which to take a side is to so wrong .
Notes Of Victory. Fighting Upon The Grou...
NOTES OF VICTORY . Fighting upon the ground of previous victory , the French and their allies have gained a triumph , which , after all deductions , must be signalized as important . The statements are so conflicting that only guesses can be hazarded as to the real number of combatants engaged . The French may have understated their losses as well as the quantity of troops they brought into action , and they may have exaggerated the number of the combatants opposed to them ; but when the good Viennese are told by their paternal Government that Stadion and his forces encountered 49 , 000 Frenchmen and Sardinians , we see a ridiculous effort to compensate by a superiority in fiction for an inferiority in arms . It is clear that the fight was a desperate one , and that the Austrians , although decidedly beaten , struggled with intrepidity , and retired in goodrorder . On both sides the commanders were wounded 5 General Beuret , and the brave Colonel Morelli , of the Piedmontese cavalry , were among the killed on the winning side , while the Austrians are reported to have had ton officers killed and sixteen wounded . Altogether it was a sanguinary affair , and if looked at as a question of strategy only , without adequate results , it may facilitate the advance of the allies , but it has not opened the way , and the importance of the victory must be estimated upon moral rather than upon military grounds , Had the Auatrians won the first battle they could have assured their troops that the Frenchmen , under Napoleon III ., wore inferior to the conquering legions of Napoleon I ., and the success of a new Montobello might have inspired the hope that a second Marongo would restore the fcredit of Austrian arms . As it is , a sense of defeat oppresses the Iflmperor in his palaoe , and
the soldiers in the camp , and it will only be by great exposure , and consequent loss of officers that Francis Josep h's army will be again induced to hurl itself against the foe . Politically , the victory of Montebello may produce important results . As the volcanic news passes from town to town , through the plains and villages of Tuscany , it will g ive the . inhabitants confidence to rally round the standard that Prince Napoleon has unfurled , and facilitate the military operations by which the hated Austrian may be driven out of the open country and compelled to take refuse in his famous fortresses on the Mincio . The glad tidings will also aid the work of the gallant Garibaldi , who has undertaken the perilous task of leading a small force far away from support , in order to raise the inhabitants of the north of Lombardy . The first efforts of this brave leader of the volunteers have been crowned with good fortune , and if he succeeds in exciting a general movement of the people , the difficulties of the Austrians will be considerably increased . A glance at the map will shew that a happy issue of Garibaldi s operations in the north , coupled with success on the part of Prince Napoleon , whose movements may take a direction to the south-west , would render it extremely dangerous for the Austrian ^ to remain south of the Po , and would probably induce a speedy withdrawal towards Mantua and Verona . Some fighting appears to have occurred on the Sesia , between the Austrians and the xkvision commanded by the King of Sardinia , m which the former had the worst of it . The object of the Austrians in continuing to act so far to the west , is evidently to compel the allies t « occupy as long aline as possible ; but all the news leads to the belief that they will speedily limit their operations to a narrower area ^ The wretched King of Naples has ^ at lengA gone to his account , and his son Irancis ± 1 . ascends the throne without immediate resistance ; but arrangements for a revolutionary movement are reported to be in progress . Paris has been disquieted by rumours of remonstrances from tne n-eat Powers against the French occupation of Tuscany . If there be any truth in the story , it would lead to the idea that the strange conduct of the British Cabinet in refusing to recognise the national Tuscan Government , is a portion ofa scheme intended to annoy and embarrass the French . We trust nothing of the kind has taken place with the concurrence of a British Ministry , and for the settlement of this and other questions , wait with anxiety for the assembling of Parliament . French papers have been discussing the necessity for invading the Tyrol , which forms . part of the Germanic Confederation ; and Kossuth , at Manchester , expressed his belief that he should soon be summoned to lead another struggle for the independence of Hungary . Any further complication of the war may , however , be distant by some weeks or months , and a rising in Hungary would probably produce so powerful a diversion as to prevent Austria continuing to send reinforcements to her Italian army , and thus render a French attack on the Tyrol unnecessary to the success of the war .
Admiralty Dilatorinuss. As An Instance O...
ADMIRALTY DILATORINUSS . As an instance of the backwardness of our Government , we referred last week to its continuing to mishandle the seaman long after the folly of doing so had been known and exposed , bince then a circular from the Admiralty to captains o * « ie Navy has been published , requiring th em to no very careful and very gentle in treating the new men which her Majesty ' s ships are now likely ^ to obtain . It is othe ' rwiso remarkable for < " * nowledging that amongst seamen there exists an z & fe &^ r & v ^ g The Admiralty , however , stopped at the acknowlpdmnon On the day following the publication , S ? 2 Yw > vl » Ue it could not avoid ad / nitting that t ore was a time when tyranny was not unknown m ie Navy , and that its effects might yet ^ produce the unfortunate repugnance , argueS tnat the " Queen ' s service was wilfully maligned / 1 and that
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), May 28, 1859, page 17, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_28051859/page/17/
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