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July 29, 1854.] THE LEADER 707
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THE NEW CAPE GOVERNOR. Who is Sir George...
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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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How To Make The War Pay. People Are So V...
mil struggle long to resist ; the resistance probably conducing to a complicated war . It las now , therefore , become a very real consideration for tax-payers whether they can continue to pay cash down , for the luxury of defending civilisation . Our ally , Louis Napoleon , who had different intentions from those of our Government , and who accordingly at
once adopted a different system of nuance , las raised a loan to carry on the war : and the French nation , who think that posterity ¦ wou ld not object to sharing in the expenses of preserving a civilisation , from whiph posterity will perhaps derive the greatest advantage , appears to be quite content . " We venture to predict , that Mr . Gladstone also will have to come to a loan . The last war cost us at the
rate of thirty millions . By the accounts presented to the House of Commons in 1714 it appeared that the expenses of the then war during twelve years amounted to nearly sixty-nine millions , making a yearly average of about five millions and a half . War is much more costly now than it was during either Wellington ' s or Marlborough's campaigns . "We are paying about fifteen millions this year for war before a blow has been struck . Granting that the gallant British people would , continue to endure a war in wlieh there was no
fighting , would they be content to pay as much as fifteen millions a year for the creation ' of good , appointments for military and naval younger sons ? The country assuredly would not pay another fifteen millions in another year . Would it not , indeed , be a most effectual method for preventing the English merchants , of whom Lord Palmerston if afraid , from dealing in [ Russian securities to give them a good , popular , safe English stock ?
But there comes the next question , why should the English people pay for the war at all ? According to Lord John ' s statement of the causes and position of the war , there has been an infamous aggression which we have undertaken to repel . Should not an unjust aggressor "be punished as well as repelled ? Nothing would be easier than t o make the war pay for itself . Russia has not to be conquered :
she is conquered . A strict blockade would cost us nothing ; it is not more expensive to have our ships in the Baltic or Black Seas than to have them at Malta , or in the Tagus , or the Solent , Russia strictly blockaded , which is hardly yet the case , is ' helpless , and no terms ought to he made until she has paid not only Turkey but ourselves for the trouble the two countries have had in
checking her ambition and destroying her prestige . It is true Russia has no ready money , but she has various provinces that we might take as a material guarantee—or hand them back to their rightful owners . If the war is a ] ust war there would be no injustice in dealing thus with llussia , The common sense of the question , is , indeed , so apparent that thero would be absolute treachery in our governors
refusing to make barbarism pay for the defence of civilisation , Nationally—although ¦ we once greatly abused Napoleon for adopting the system hero recommended—we have no right to bo squeamish in such a matter . We made an unjust \ viiv on China , and yet it is only three years since the last instalment of Ohinoso specio , robbed by us from tho " Brother of tho Sun , " rolled along the streets of our capital to tho Bank collars .
Ono fact is obvious in tho perplexities of tho present military politics , tlmfc tho Czar has not the slightest intention of giving in ; nnd we must bogin to tost , in apractical , bUBinosa-hko way , whether tho men who avo conducting our attains aro earnest in tho intention to conquer liuaaia . A real and rapid way of conquering hor would bo to put arma in tUo hands oX her onemica : —some
of them would do a great trade with , us if they could . Poles , Lithuanians , Cossacks , Circassians , and Siberians would supply us with the requisite armies to march into the heart of her territories : for those armies are in the heart of ler territories . Propositions of this nature , however , are premature . Our Ministers are not eager lor dynastic revolutions , and arc not sure that the fickle English natiou will not soon be weary of the war . But there seems very little doubt that our Government is about
to lend or give money to Turkey . There is a talk about a " Turkish-Sepoy" army , and it will not be questioned that we might rely on the services of a considerable per centage of the population of Asia if we offered good pay and good prospects in a war against Hassia . This army , it is supposed , will be officered by Englishmen or Frenchmen . ; and if a great oondottiere were to present himself , he might pierce to Moscow as several of the Demidoffs did , —not having heard of the impossibilities mentioned on Monday by Ma * . Cobden . With such allies we should have
something like a real war , and as Kossuth las told us , it is not a real war sending a landful of thirty ox forty thousand men to conquer a country of a hundred millions . Our old statesmen , and our old generals and our old admirals , will die off before this war is over , and Nelson and "Wellington will
appear to ignore Chiefs , and Cabinets , and conceive grand cruises and campaigns . We must already be somewhat out of routine , inasmuch as -we get a prospect of this mercenary Eastern army ; and it is not impossible that in good time we may thin ~ k of defending civilisation by a reaction to the old barbaric ideas of war . When William the Norman
collected the inauvais sujets of the Continent under his banner , he promised them , that if they conquered , they should have the conquered country ; civilisation certainly benefitting by that rather infamous method of treating Saxon landed proprietors . It is not a real \ rar at all unless Europe is advancing against Hussia to beat her back into Asia , and we think that if her Majesty announced in the London Gazette , that those who conquered might Jiave Russia , there would be fewer applications for Government appointments , more heroism , and more civilisation in the world .
July 29, 1854.] The Leader 707
July 29 , 1854 . ] THE LEADER 707
The New Cape Governor. Who Is Sir George...
THE NEW CAPE GOVERNOR . Who is Sir George Grey , recently appointed Governor of tho Cape of Good Hope ? Is he one of the fortunate Greys , appointed for family favour ; or is he one the very best man that could be selected for tho government of that colony in these new days of its constitution ? Wo may answer both questions in tl » o negative . Ho is 7 iot ono of the Groys of Mowick , nor , wo believe , is ho at all related to them . He is not the best man that could have been chosen for tho Cape in these early days of a constitution grantod after rebellion . But his appointment ia intelligible enough .
Many years ago thero was an expedition into tho interior of Australia , in which Lieutenant Grey and n brother olficer were the principal actors ; they showed , great activity , akill , and courage in traversing that difficult country ; but it bo happened that Mi \ Grey got tho larger share of tho credit . Some time-after , ( South Australia ' was founded by intelligent colonittts , upon sound principles ,
and tho colony therefore bocamo on object of jealousy to tho Colonial-oIHeo . Having ^ onc through a series oi' nuainnnngenuMifc by illselocted or unlucky governors , tho colony wan greatly in . want ; ol" a clover man , and Captain Grey \ fm appointed Governor . 11 o managed the afl ' airs of tlio settlement ; well ; did not impress the colonists with n sense ol' hia
hospitality , but did impress the Colonial-office with a sense of his subserviency to bureaucratic suggestion , and his skill in softening the unpopularity of bureaucratic rule . The early history of New Zealand was , in its official part , even more disastrous than that of South Australia ; and after a series of bad Governors there also , clever Sir George Grey was appointed . He succeeded notably . The colonists were put to some trouble in their land relations by the totally figmentary nature of the native tenure ; constantly baulked by
the Colonial-office , and by a local government established in a remote corner of the island , they were , after repeated promises , expecting the constitution which Sir John * Pa , kington thought he had secured for them , and had sent to them through Sir George Grey . They have discovered that before they could get hold of their complete self-government , they must undergo a probation . Sir G-eorge had succeeded in setting one part of the colonists
against another , in cultivating the native tenure until it became a practical obstruction to the sale of land , and in delaying the constitution for fifteen months ; having in the meanwhile destroyed a system of land sale disliked by the Colonial-office , and defeated every independent party , also disliked by the Colonial-office . Finally , having put everything in suspense—land settlement , supreme court , enforcement of the constitution—he came
away to visit his native country , and to receive the approval of the Colonial-office ; leaving his successor to arrange matters with the colonists and to pay "his political bills No man ever more thoroughly disappointed a colony , or rendered a colony more ridiculously impotent by setting one part of it against another ; no man ever did better service in that wav to the Colonial-office .
The natives have been rather troublesome in the Cape . They have been in the habit of coming over the border and driving away the herds of the colonists . Under a particular set of treaties suggested by " humane" statesmen , the settlers were forbidden to take the law into their own hands , and the Blacks gaily carried oa their game of picking up oxen and sheep upon Tom Tittler's ground—Tom being prevented from following them . This principally it was winch caused the
rebellion and re-emigration of the Anglo-Dutch across the border ; those men whose independence has since been recognised . Subsequently Lord Grey resolved that the Cape , which had been , guaranteed against the introduction of convicts , should , nevertheless , have them ; all classes of tho colony rebelled , and actually refused to hold intercourse with the Government while the convicts remained off the coast , and thus they beat the Government . Lord John , promised them a constitution ; when Ministers afterwards evaded and
delayed fulfilment of tho promise , the Cape colonists again grew angry ; and now they have their constitution . But it has cost this country some millions to put down , by concessions or military force , the successive outbreaks of tho natives , the alienations of tho Anglo-Dutch , and the open rebellion of tho British . Now tSir George Grey is sent over with a special ere , ayo believe , to wheedling the colonista into bouio greater subserviency to tho Colonial-office , and avowedly to manago tho Colonial-officeand avowedly to manago
, the natives . This ia an alarming admission ; lor if ho should attemp t ; to nmnago tho natives i \ a ho lms done tho Xow Ze-alandors , by fostering tho presumption and hopes of races only too reiuly la bo presuming and sanguine , " wo whall luivo more border wars , and ' Micro rebellions , Dutch and British . Or if Hir Goor / je . i « too clover a man to tamper with colonial * that robol , perhaps other eoloniea iimv learn , from that ; new Ibrm of an old losMrion , " how to treat a troublesome ( Jovenior .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), July 29, 1854, page 11, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_29071854/page/11/
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