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October 29, 1853.] THE LEADER. 1045 *— ¦...
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ME. COBDEN AT BARNSLEY. We have been so ...
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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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The New Turkish Loan. The Announcement, ...
mercial body are not slightly staked on the success of that rescue . Hence a farseeing intelligence would justify this loan , as well as the ordinary commercial principles which regulate advances to foreign States . We might , indeed , draw some credit to Turkey by contrasting her -with other foreign States whose names are more familiar in our markets Spain has shared largely in English advances , with what results we hare recently described . An instance has iust occurred of the peculiar manner in which
Spain pays her debts . A sum of money is considered to be due to Espartero for long standing arrears , and it was recently determined to pay lam 2 5 ^ 000 dollars ( 50001 . ) . With regard to the merit of the particular claim we express no opinion , simply remarking that it is admitted by tne Spanish Government , and a payment is ordered . The Spanish Government confesses itself bound to pay to Espartero 5000 L , and her Majesty signs the order for the purpose . It is to be paid , in what is called denda personal del whicn bears
tesoro , a species ot payment a large discount—in the present case , fifty per cent . Acknowledging itself , therefore , bound to pay Espartero five thousand pounds , the Spanish Government charges him fifty per cent , discount on its own tardy afterthought of honesty . Such is Spanish finance . Shall we take another comparison , from the great empire of Austria , also well known in our market ? We recently had occasion to mention the financial credit of that State and its hopeless
insolvency—with a yearly deficit concealed , but not cured , by yearly loans ; the pressure of which loans is magnified , not prevented , by repeated depreciations of the inconvertible paper money . The Government of Vienna has just issued a new kind of inconvertible paper money ; as if the newness of the paper upon which the obligation is printed could impart some freshness of health to Austrian finance .
Nay , let us take for comparison with the Turkish Government its great rival and enemy , its magnanimous " ally , " the Emperor Nicholas , so powerful and . so wealthy ! The Emperor also is known as a borrower in the London market ; having , not many years since , contracted a loan for 5 , 500 , 000 £ ., ostensibly to pay for the completion of the railway from St . Petersburg to Moscow , but , really , it is understood for meeting the expense of the war in Hungary . By a . peculiar contrivance his gracious Majesty , " the God-fearing Emperor , " is converting himself into a
creditor of the principality of Wallachia , which enjoys , at the present moment , his special patronage . When the liussian armies were introduced into the Principalities , llussia announced that the local Governments would have to furnish supplies for the soldiers , which should be paid for at a rate and at a time to bo agreed upon . The resources of Walkchia are not very varied , and consist principally in two branches of revenue—a duty on the corn exported and a duty on the cattle which aro exported , or which pass through the provinces on their way to the . Blaclc Sea . Part of this revenue has been checked by the infamous conduct of the Russian
Government m permitting , perhaps designedly , the choking of the Sulina mouth of the Danube ; this has prevented the export of corn . It is partly by tho action of the Russian Government itself that Wallnchia has been unable to comply with tho exactions of that Russian Government . The local authorities having boon unable- to make good tho Avholc of tho HupplioH demanded , the Emperor keeps a record of these deficiencies , and he chalks < - » om up rb " debts" duo from Wallaohia to
• UiMsin . Tims tho supplies extorted from Waiiuchia to an invading army , under promise of future payment , an ; booked in tho g ^ reat Russian Jt'tltfer un a debt duo from tho Principalities to tho Emperor . It is a debt liko that which tho Bishop of Hereford owed , to Robin Hood , and niay ]) cu-h »|) s hereafter constitute a claim , upon tho strength of which tho Emperor Nicholas may inarch j , o t , j lc Principality with tho jolly purpose <> ' male ing it dance to tho tune of its own gold . fc > ucli is Russian faith in money matters .
• t appears to us that Turkey will stand a compannon even with those highly dignified States ; thai ; tho Mnhommedan Sultan may not shrink from the comparison with her moat Christian Mojosty ° ' opain , or his imperial Majesty of Austria , or with the Czar of all the llussias . If Mr . Oobclon < ' « nnol , carry out bin " crumpling" project in renpout to Russia without the assistance of ' JBritish
war-ships ^ here opportunity for the ' converse process in favour of Turkey . Austria is wanting cash , but it appears to us that , politically as well as commercially , she fails to justify speculation in her " securities . " We agree with Mr . Cobden in thinking that Russia will want cash at least as much as ' she did in the Hungarian war , but perhaps British contractors who negotiated that advance in London will have adopted Mr . Cobden ' s view as to the statesmanship and morale of loans to iniquitous Powers . Turkey wants some aid in present means , and commercial principles , as
well as political morals , and the interest of our country , justify this aid , not less than that which Ministers are prepared to lend . Here then is an opportunity for the Liberal Member for the City of London to show that the house of Rothschild , and all its treasuries , are not at the service of the Absolutist Powers alone , but that the great financial and Cosmopolitan family can use their resources on behalf of those principles which the Baron professes to represent in Parliament by favour of the London constituency .
October 29, 1853.] The Leader. 1045 *— ¦...
October 29 , 1853 . ] THE LEADER . 1045 *— ¦ — •¦ '' ¦ . ^^^ . ^^^^^ , __ . ^ , ^ I I —¦! .. _¦ M , „ M , . ,. _ . _ . — . _ -. _» -
Me. Cobden At Barnsley. We Have Been So ...
ME . COBDEN AT BARNSLEY . We have been so often brought into collision with Mr . Cobden on great public questions , that it is a pleasure to meet with words of his in which we can , for the most part , express a hearty concurrence . Such , is the address lie has just delivered to the mechanics and middle-class men of Barnsley , on the re-opening of the Institute in that manufacturing town ; an address free from those disfigurements of self-sufficient assertion in which the most strenuous champion of the Peace Society is so apt to indulge . In scenes like this at Barnsley , and upon topics of domestic improvement and social amelioration , Mr . Cobden is most happily and completely at home . His clear , crisp , wedgelike faculty of exposition , with ' a full grasp of the subject at hand in i \ ll its bearings and details , and his tone of easy candour and conversational simplicity , lend a charm to persuasion , while the hardy concision of his language strikes his audience with the force of a demonstration , and the illustrations he groups around a subject which ordinary speakers treat with a repulsive dryness , assign to him a position as a popular teacher far above that Cobden who denounces
conscientious opponents as fools , when he is himself pugnaciously dictating terms of peace to all the world . Mr . Cobden won his original reputation for unadorned eloquence by those lucid and compact expositions , those homely illustrations , those pointed arguments ad crumenam which made an Epic of the corn-law agitation . He achieved a considerable name ; but when his object was gained , when the free-trade and Richard Cobden had received the crowning testimony from the statesman who converted an agitation into a policy , the Leaguer's reputation waned almost as rapidly as it rose . How was this ? Simply because the man's mind Avas one
essentially of limited capacity ; a mmd tenacious of one subject when that subject is sharply defined ; prompt in exposition of that subject , ample and felicitous in illustration ; but a mind ostentatiously incapable of comprehending large questions of social and national polity when their relations are intricate and extended , and when they deal with tho grander emotions and passions of men . Tims the Corn-Law question Mr . Cobden thoroughly mastered , and effectively expounded . But the Corn-Law question was comparatively a small mutter , and the principles of free-trade lay ready to his hand . Unrestricted competition was ofleeted by negative legislation ; commorco was set free to do as it would with its
own ; it waa not subjected to the guidance of a grand policy . Since 184 ( 5 , tho year of Mr . Cobden ' s triumph , he has turned his mind to many subjects , prominently to what is called tho peace question , involving that of international relations . Now , these questions require tho'most comprehensive treatment—treatment not dictated by profit and loss , and more material gain , but treatment which should bo based on a knowledge of
human nature , not only on its economical , or what for the moment may bo called its cotton side , but eminently on its emotional . side . They are complicated questions . Great Britain alone in not concerned in their solution . The idea of honour enters aw an olomont ; tho idea of national sovereignty enters us an element . To deal with such questions ns war and peace and international relations requires a mind accustomed to take vast surveys not only of historical fact , but of
the geography of human ideas , feelings , passions , and aspirations . Whatever knowledge Mr . Cobdeji sets himself to acquire , he acquires . But Jt ls ^ an old saying that a man only sees that which he -brings his eyes to see ; in other words , a man only sees that meaning in facts which it is within the limits of Jus capacity to see . One man looks at a drop of water with the naked eye , and he sees a lucid spheie ; another man looks at the same drop of wate * with a microscope , and he sees a globe of waterfall of life . So it is with
history , past or present . One man sees the simple fact , or series of facts , which constitute an event ; another man sees those facts full of life and discerns their distant consequences and their more remote relations . It is this lumitedness of vision , this power of only seeing one thing at a time , this want of large views on the life ' -anddeath struggles of empires , which has made the views of Mr . Cobden so often narrow arixj . unsound , and , not to speak it offensively , unWie . He has no imagination . \
How different is it when Mr . Cobden takes upV local topic of essential import , but limited , easily grasped , and made plain to his hand . Then he is genial , instructive , sound . Then he forgets or lays aside those affectations of superior intelligence , those accents of dictation ; that irritating vulgarity of manner and matter , which , although , leavened with truth , offends good taste , and delays the triumph of his cause . At Barnsley , for instance , Mr . Cobden had a topic—the evils of ignorance—which no public speaker can handle
better . We are made to feel grateful to Mr . Cobden for his persevering efforts in the cause of education ; and the wish rises unbidden in the mind , that he would confine his energies to so practicable a field . Mr . Cobden speaks with almost paternal affection , with almost apostolic fervour on this theme . He warns , instructs , exhorts , in the kindest manner . He rises above party , above Manchester , when lie comes to education . "I don ' t care , " he exclaims , " through what it comes . Give me voluntary education , or State education , but education I
want . " Statistics showing the number of people who attend schools , are no evidences against his senses . The people are not being educated , that he sees clearly . " Only yesterday" a Manchester merchant had told him , that he had attended at the swearing in of militia men , and found that not one-half could read , and one-third write their names . Last week " an old friend , " attending a coroner at a Preston inquest , found that out of thirteen jurymen , only five could write . Mr . Cobden " deliberately" asserts that " in point of school-learning , the English people aro the least instructed of any Protestant community in
Europe . " As instances of the evils and the prevalence of ignorance , he pointed to sanitary reform , — " the great mass of tho people don t know what the sanitary laws arc "—r-and thoreforo they live in filth . Another evil of ignorance is that chronic war of labour and capital , called " strikes . " Mr . Cobden spoke with a generous candour on this point . Tho ignorance , he mentioned , was not ignorance confined to one party in tho dispute . " It is ignorance on both sides . " Neither masters nor men understand the principles which settle the rate of wages , or there would not be " lock outs" on one wide , and " turn
outs on the other . Then , America is better educated than England . A commissioner of our government has come over with an official report in his pocket , showing that the artisans or the United States are not only smart , but instructed ; and Mr . Cobden tolls us that Manchester in in alarm , leafc smart and instructed Yankeedom should beat us in the raeu of nations . Why , he units , is a young country like America better educated , tluin an old country like England ? Because , ho replies , there- iw some fault in tho old one . Why can't wo adopt their plan if it bo hotter than ours P
Wo do not in the leant wish to qualify commendation of Mr . Cobden ' s speech . It in a good and useful speech—ho far an it goes . But oven on this question of education , Mr . Cobden ' s peculiar philosophy and life-rule of profit and loan , negatively ' vitiates the general excellence of his speech . Why man should be instructed and elevated occurs to him only in one form . Nowhoro are wo told to # et Imowledgo because it is our duty to develop to the uttermost evory facult y of doing , ovory capacity for apprehending , for suffering , every power within us by which we aro enabled to clo our duty in our etato
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 29, 1853, page 13, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_29101853/page/13/
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