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Retribution has fallen on the Prime Minister who excited the prejudices and passions of the People , in a canting appeal to their Protestantism , for the purposes of his own tottering Ministry . The disturbance , which he hoped to use as a diversion , has turned upon himself ; while he thought to persecute others , he has himself become a hunted animal . The story of the debate is the story of his sinking . Beginning with a
retrospective history of Romish encroachment and patriotic resistances to it , his first speech dwindled into gossip about what the Pope had said to Lord Minto , and what Lord Minto had not said to the Pope ; by Monday , the discussion had acquired all the tedium of an adjourned debate ; the Premier had not command of the House sufficient to take the Tuesday which Mr . Disraeli , had appropriated for his idle motion about agricultural distress ; and the great Ministerial measure was turned over to a dav-sitting on Wednesday . Disastrous day ! New
discoveries awaited Lord John : Mr . Keogh had detected the Queen in a breach of the Coronation oath , by violating the Scottish Union statute in a recognition of the prelacy of Presbyterian Scotland — a decided aggression ; Mr . Oswald avowed that the Free Kirk of Scotland had taken a position not different from that of the Roman Catholics of England ; and Mr . Hume detected Ministers in touching up their measure while it was under debate—it had evidently grown bigger in the interval between Lord John ' s introduction
and Sir John Roimlly ' s defence . On this inauspicious day Lord John Russell finally gave up all pretence at consistency—confessed that he had been wrong when he had thought titular distinctions " puerile" and Popish pretensions harmless . He had scarcely made that avowal , too late for free ingenuousness , too early for indomitable stubbornness , —before the clock , striking six , tolled the adjournment of the House , and of Lord John ' s motion .
He tried to use thin No-Popery hubbub for a purpose , but his cunning has turned against himself ; it has brought upon him nothing but weakness and disgrace . The disorganization of his party which has taken place was a real judgment on him for his incendiary Durham letter—the proper punishment for perverting sacred things to purposes unsacred . Are we wrohir in BUDPosinar that Sir Joshua
Walrnsley extorted from Lord John ' s own lips the true commentary on his no-Popery agitation , when the Premier confessed that he had no intention of introducing his measure for the extension of tlie suffrage this year , and that he should not introduce measures which he thought neccs . saiy for tho amendment of the Reform Bill until tho proper time . Some of Lord John ' s best notices are given for the ( Jr « ek kalends . | Town Edition , 1
But the weakness which he courts for himself seems not unlikely to encourage the strength of others . The agitation against the windox tax had some spice of humbug in it , while it was a mere move among Ministerialists to back Sir Charles "Wood's own intention by & " pressure from without : " it proved itself to be something more genuine at the aggregate meeting at Drury-lane Theatre on Wednesday night , when Chartists were seen united
with the middle class ; for that union means more than the mere repeal of the window tax . The same union manifested itself with no small effect when the meeting against the paper duties was converted into a meeting against the taxes on knowledge ; and the development of the " Newspaper Tax Abolition Committee" into the new " Association for promoting the Repeal of the Taxes on Knowledge" is a proper sequel to that union .
Mr . Disraeli entertained the House of Commons on Tuesday with a demonstration of the Protectionist forces : as a response to the passage in the Royal Speech touching upon the agricultural distress , he moved a resolution calling upon the Ministers to take measures for the relief of that distress ; and in his speech he hinted at the sort of measures that he should expect—transfer of local burdens to thenational funds , repeal of the malttax , and so forth . The very form of his motion deprived it of practical cogency : he proclaimed that he should not attempt the renewal of Protection in the present Parliament ; and though he spoke manfully , with no sparing of statistics < l la mode , it was with the tone of a man who anticipates failure .
Yet he had a strength in that weakness of Ministers , and , if his motion had not been of a kind to preclude aid from many who distrust the Whigs , he would have turned the adverse majority into one against Ministers . It was a narrow division as it was : Ministers could only muster 281 against Mr . Disraeli ' s 26 " 7 ; although the Protectionist was necessarily opposed by Cobden and the Free Traders , and by Sir James Grahutn and the Peel party . Lord John ' s anti-Papal agitation ,
however , now told upon himself with fearful effect : he had alienated the once docile Irish members 1 The desponding tone of the Premier showed the sense he had of his position—he already began to speak of " embarrassments . " It is quite evident thut if Mr . Disraeli ' s motion were followed up by one of un explicit and substantial kind , but comprehensive enough to include tho Bright and Cobden party , pledged not to obey mere " Ministerial " traditions , the Cabinet must go ;
Several disorders of the labouring community , in different quarters , are a practical comment on the boasts of our surface prosperity ; still more on the imperfect state of the laws regulating labour . At Carlisle the weavers are in ho miserable a state that the Poor Law Commissioners have been obliged to send down a special commissioner to inquire . We h : w before observed thut , on any severe trial , the
present law , with its workhouse test , breaks down and what have the Commissioners done at Carlisle ? They have ordered industrial employment for the paupers . But , as usual , with the vulgar notion of a mere labour-test , they have appointed an unsuitable employment for weavers . The wholesale riot of 400 paupers , in a workhouse near Ipswich , draws attention to the state o , the labouring class in that part of the country . I is monstrous : unable to find . fully continuous employment for their labourers , and anxious to keei
wages down to a beggarly level , the farmers havt generally connived at a wholesale admission of the labouring class to poor-law relief during the dead season ; it is fair to presume that such a gross abuse of the law has been attended by proportionately gross laxities of administration and discipline ; and now we see the pauperized labourers of Suffolk breaking- out as refractory paupers . To those who remember the demoralizing effects of pauper idleness , or merely vexatious labour-tests , this workhouse eruption is quite intelligible .
The accession of Liverpool to the Sailors' strike in the North , gives a new importance to the movement , which has now continued for some weeks . The Mercantile Marine Bill was a measure conceived with the best intentions—to strengthen the efficiency of the commercial navy ; but the Sailors complain , and apparently with justice , that it imposes strange and needless restrictions upon them . They particularly complain of the regiKtratiou tickets , as giving them a character of bondage . Probably the advantages desired might have been attained by a more purely permissive method . We know well , that the system of tickets , or livrets , has worked with a vtry tyrannical operation in France ; where both harsh masters and an overbearing police have done their best to crush the independence of the working man . The plan should be , to impart to the ticket more the character of a degree , honorary and beneficial to the owner . The misunderstandings on this point , remind u « how much Parliament is betrayed into mistaken and ini . sehievoun legislation , because there is no representation of the working classes in the National Council . The week ban been fertile in murders , but they have not been of a remarkable kind . The mout curious atory is that divulged at Todmorden , by what proves to huve been a falne accusation of the crime : a man engaged to a young woman for bin second wife , is accused by tho first wife on her death-bed with poiuonirig her , and much fainter circumstantial evidence has brought equally innocent men to tho scaffold . The man who has been threatening the life of Lord John seems to he crazy . But the mere sound of threats on Lord John's life rccalti one's sympathy for the man—oppose the Premier as we may . Burglary " in the crime paramount just now in England : the new" Maidstone gang " hat ) bcernrap-
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VOL . II . —No . 47 . SATURDAY , FEBRUARY 15 , 1851 . Price 6 d .
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News of the Week— Page Swedish Superstition 147 Portfolio— Province ? 158 Parliament of the Week 142 Miscellaneous U 7 Fetching Water from the Well .... 155 Oi-kx Council—The Dotation Bill .. 143 Public Affaiks— Sketches from Life 150 Sir Edward Sugdcn and the Court of Pleasures of Prussian Citizenship .. 144 Challenge to H . M . Opposition 149 Tub Arts— Chancery 159 Industry in Disorder 144 The Eye of the Police upon Uu ! .... 15 > Amateur Performance for the Fene- The Ecclesiastical Courix 160 Jtepeal of the Window Tax 145 The Pi otectionist Policy i 15 ) fit of Miss Kelly 156 An Austrian Token of friendship .. 160 The Great Revenue Trial . 143 Commercial Morality 150 Eubopean Democ ' kacy 157 Penalti ** of Disbelief 160 Protestantism and Popery 145 Government Pledges 151 Democratic Intelligence— H uddersfield Mechanic * 'Institution 160 Audubon , the Ornithologist 14 S Literature— Jon ' s Letter ? on Political Suicide .. 157 J , eiters on UniUri-tii » ni 161 The late Lord Bexley 146 Fourier on the Passions 152 Letters to Chartists 157 Jane Wilbred * * Education 161 Dinner of the German Club 146 Lavengro 153 General Bern . Louis Blanc ' s Oration 158 Ke «» paper Tnxe * 161 A Melodramatic Plunder Scene .... 14 H Sir Isaac Newtonand Professor Coles 154 Associative Phoorbss— Commercial Affairs—Murders of the Week 14 tf Booke on our Table 155 Mr , Walter Cooper's Tour in the Markets , Gazettes , &c 161-03
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"Tub one Idea which History exhibits as evermore developing itself into greater distinctness is the Idea ot Humanity—the noble endeavour to throw down all the barriers erected between men bv prejudice and one-aided view 3 ; and by setting aside the distinctions of Religion , Country , and Colour , to treat the whole Human race as one brotherhood , having one great object—the free development of our spiritual nature . "—Humboldt ' s Cosmos .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 15, 1851, page unpag., in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1870/page/1/
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