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with that practical question . They were pretending to debate the tax which is so hateful and injurious to the middle class , but what they were really fighting about was the rival interests of Whiggery and of Lord Stanley ' s set . Let the electors understand that fact ; indeed , they , are not likely to forget it at the election . If they do not , at that critical day , take their revenge for the Income tax it will be because they are too weak . The limited franchise still affords a field the
better for political intriguers to work upon because it is limited . That field wants extending not less than the House of Commons wants thoroughly reorganizing—to be rendered in truth " the People ' s House of Parliament . ' * The middle classes seem to have an advantage in the exclusive franchise , but practically they find that it does not secure justice even to themselves . They will obtain justice when they fortify themselves by union with the great body of the People .
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LABOUR , ITS ANARCHY AND MORTALITY . Kilrush and Barham are only extreme cases of the inefficiency which marks the administration of the Poor Law and the anarchical state of labour . Sidney Godolphin Osborne is well employing his indefatigable pen in ferreting out the facts of the Kilrush case . It seems that during the three last weeks in March , the mortality among the inmates of the workhouse was respectively 68 , 79 , and 92—219 in twenty-one days !
" I now call upon Sir W . Somei-ville , " says Mr . Osborne , through the Times , " to lay before the public 6 ix weelcs' returns , dating back from the 29 th of March last , of the deaths in this workhouse , specifying in each case the cause of death , the age , the sex , and how soon after admission the poor creatures died . This will prove , for I know it , that these hundreds have died , not because they had no infirmary to go to , but because , for want of out-relief sufficient to sustain health , they were at last driven to seek a refuge in workhouses so overcrowded and bo shamefully managed as to dietary , that what neglect out of doors began , neglect within doors soon finished . " Mr . Osborne very properly repudiates the plea by which it is sought to excuse the scanty diet of Kilrush—that the rates amount to eleven shillings in the pound . What then ? The existence of a Poor Law is an admission of the natural law , that the destitute have a right to subsistence , so long as there is a mouthful to be got out of the land—so long as there is anything "in the pound . " Mr . Osborne calls for the dismissal-of the Kilrush board of guardians , a step which we believe to be imperatively necessary ; but there is a still deeper necessity . By a slavish adhesion to the Protean dogma of Laissez-faire , it has been thought
judicious to attempt mastering the destitution of Ireland without the corresponding' effort to organize the reproductive labour of the country . Honour to the boards of Cork and Galvvay that have made that attempt under a law which impedes them , and indeed practically forbids any effective handling of the subject . The general Administration still cowers under the dogma , shrinks from the inevitable necessity , and procrastinates a decision . Hence the mortalities of Kilrush , the emigrations of Cork , the invasions of desperate hordes that flood the labour of this country with hungry competition .
This country , which is already making no small progress in the same anarchy of labour ! We see the name failure in England—the same attempt to master destitution without organizing labour . Pressed under the consequences of Free Trade , under the inexorable demands of landlordism , we see how the farmers of Essex , Norfolk , and Suffolk , are repudiating the obligation to employ labourers . Practically , the farmers and the landlords arc inverting the Drurnmond axiom , that " property has
its duties as well as its rights ; " their conduct is a declaration that property lias rights but not duties . Landlords and farmers repudiate the labourers , but they do not surrender the noil which they bold . They throw the labourers on their own resourcesthe Englishman , bora to the laud , but forbidden to lay his hands upon it , in told to look to himself for his food ; as though he could eat hiinoclf , or piough an empty stomach f Thin is anarchy . The system of society , which we are told works bo beautifully if it be hut " let alone , " breaks down .
I be labourer in thrown upon the Poor Law—with results exemplified by this letter , which we find in the Times of Tuesday : — " Hulking , Nccdham , Huflblk , April 1 . " Sm , —At the weekly im-cling of tho board of gunrdlnntiat Barhnni-houHe thin » luy , the ri ' JiVving oflicer , who stilted to the oorrcHpoiulcut of lUv Times in llir month «) f February lust tfmt hjn district of thin union had been
considerably better off than usual , was compelled to make no less than 112 distinct applications for relief , many of which comprised large families . And the governor of the house stated that prior to the business of this day commencing , the number of inmates was 413 , on the corresponding day of last year the number having been 24 / , showing an increase of 166 . The truth i « , that the number of men able and willing to work but unable to obtain employment is fearful ; these men look upon the workhouse as their last resource , but to which they are now driven , and they ' know the reason why . ' By inserting this in your valuable paper you will oblige , your most obedient servant , " Francis Stewakd . "
We are not theorizing , we are not drawing inferences ; we are simply stating facts . We do not diverge into the statistics of crime , and its startling increase in Suffolk—for that , let the reader look at our news . The Let-alone dogma is impracticable ; it is violated by the veryattempt to deal with destitution ; but the old dogma is violated without that confidence in the
inevitable doctrine of organization which would alone attain positive results . Hence the Poor Law breaks down under the attempt to deal with destitution , both in Ireland and England ; both in Ireland and England we have , under the anarchy of labour , idle hands and idle lands ; the doctrine of Let-alone finds its crowning triumphs in the riotous pauper plethora of Barham Union , in the mortality of Kilrush .
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AUSTRIA , THE EVERGREEN . There is almost invariably a certain luck attendant on the career of a very young sovereign . The Austrian Empire would seem rejuvenized in behalf of its youthful master . A miracle of Heaven—or else of the opposite power—has been wrought there . Truly , that singular monarchy has always been under the sway of supernatural agencies . It always bore a close resemblance to a conjuror ' s chamber of might , with its myriads of spirits bottled up by his magic spell , but ever ready to burst from confinement , and to tear the enchanter and each other to pieces .
The horse that wanted to run down the stag , begged to be saddled and bridled . The German who wished for undue advantages over the Sclavonian or Lombard , offered his neck to the Austrian yoke . The Bohemian smarting for revenge , in his turn tendered his submission . In the mutual jealousies and ambition of its conflicting races , the Empire found its strength ; indeed , it owed its existence to nothing else . This has already continued for several centuries . 1848 seemed to have broken the spell . The imprisoned spirits went asunder , but the magic power had not lost all its ascendancy . The rancours and animosities of the enfranchised races were still to
do their common tyrant a good turn . Magyar and Croatian , Czech and German , vied with each other in working out the submission of their fellow bondmen . Germany , Hungary , Italy , Poland , the noblest European races were doomed to perish that Austria might live . What is Austria ? For a long time , from 1814 to 1848 , simple people called the Great Magician by whom the monster Empire was kept together " Metternich , " but the system was found to have outlived , as it had long preceded , the man . The wizard ' s name has more aptly and correctly been determined to be " bureaucracy . "
Austria is a little old man—sometimes a snu ffy bewigged old courtier—sometimes a hair-brained used up libertine— -never troubled with the least Hpark of genius , feeling , and principle , but with a vast amount of low cunning and mulish obstinacy , whom men designate as Prime Minister , and who is made to preside over that fabulous body of persons yclept the Awlic Council . There \ h never one people under the sun that would quietly submit to
Much a ruler , lint here he has to deal not with oik ; nation , but with an aggregate of nations : five or nix main tribes , with endless divisions and subdivisions , without even a shadow of hoinogcneoiisnr . Hti or sympathy , without identity of religious faith or political progress , or even of material interests . The great problem of Government it ; not how to keep these nations under control , but merely how to pit them one airainst another .
We have said A nutria is the M hunter . The Minister in the only Austrian in Austria the Minister , that is to nay , and his million of unaVr _ lingH—the civil and military bureaucracy . The public servant in that hybrid state iH taken indifferently from any of the conflicting- races . He may be an alien , and , indeed , all the w ,, rer of HiiccesH for h ; but the , moment lie nets foot on official threnholdH , or t | ie moment he puts on a
white uniform , he becomes an abstraction—an Austrian , a member , that is , of that vast brotherhood , which demands the abnegation of all national ties—which , like that of Loyola , " kills the man when it creates the Jesuit . " Radetzky , Windischgratz , Jellachich , —Wassenberg , Schwarzenberg , —the few soldiers and statesmen who did not despair of the country—that is , of the bureaucratic order—were more imperial than the Emperor—more Austrian than the very head of the house of Hapsburg . They were a nucleus around , whom the million of Austria s household menials rallied . Nationality fell by internecine hand—and Austria was reconstituted .
From the very fact of the empire being enabled to weather the storms of 1848 , merely by the vital principle of her bureaucracy , there arose a necessity of giving new extent and perfection to that wonderworking engine of power . Metternich ' s ideas of centralization were those of a mere tyro by the side of those that Schwarzenberg and his colleagues now entertain , and which they must either perish or carry into effect . 1849 gave Austria one array . The army lends her the power of drilling the huge state into a passive , absolute , more than military unity . Austria is proceeding rapidly towards the sublimation of despotism . The state of siege becomes permanent law : the empire a vast camp : where all opposition is dealt with as mutiny .
All this terrific concentration of power is not , however , turned exclusively to evil purposes . A very great despot has it in his power to be provident , and can afford to be generous . Austrian bureaucracy knows how to rule in its own iron way : it has a certain huge , plodding , but not altogether blind and fatal activity . There is a certain heavy uniformity that stands instead of regularity of administration ; a certain summary , pacha-like , but strict and equal justice . The vast resources of the state are to a great extent employed in the furtherance of public welfare . In front of all its financial
difficulties , at the close of long civil wars , with the expenditure of more than half a million of soldiers , Austria still finds the means of driving her railways as far as Debreczin on the east , and as far as Trieste and Leghorn on the west . Her provinces thrive even as they fret and murmur . Men fond of what they call " quiet living" are ever loud in praise of Austrian security . " Make yourselves hogs , " says the Circe of Schonbrunn , " and you will be allowed to fatten undisturbed ; " and it is astonishing how readily , in ordinary times , the majority of human beings "take to the stye . "
This , however , so far as the internal policy is concerned . With the immense discontent still rife not only in Lombardy and Hungary , but even amongst the more devoted races of Croatia and Sclavonia , it would be difficult to see how any immediate apprehension of domestic commotions can be entertained by Austria at the present moment . Abroad she has no less hitherto been able to carry everything before her . Her troops reach the Mediterranean in Tuscany , and the German Ocean in Scbleswig-IIolstein . Her diplomatists bully the
French at Rome , the Prussian at Dresden , the English at Frankfort . Her plans of annexation are a fate for Germany , a law for Europe . It is in vain , we think , that Lord Cowley protests against the incorporation of all the Italo-Sclavonic provinces of Austria into the German Confederacy . In vain that Prussia seeks for an escape from utter annihilation by a return to the old Frankfort Diet . Prussia as well as England , nay , all the constituted powers , have acknowledged the ascendancy of might over right . They have disavowed -helped
to trample down—the revolution . Now , the revolution of 1848 was a death-struggle between Austria and Europe . Austria came oft" a conqueror , and the necessary consequence will be tho total prostration and enslavement of Europe . Italy , Switzerland , Germany are already brought sufficiently low . France , by sheer suicide , in doing her utmost to put herself hors de combat ; and England has yielded her ground on tho Continent , inch by inch , till her diplomatic agents do little more than swell the vain pageantry of foreign courts .
I he Berlin papers , sometimes also those of Paris , would fain console iih by the assurance that the firm countenance of their respective Governments iH at hint Hteinming the tide , and forcing Schwarzenberg " to draw in his horns . " We perceive no symptoms of hesitation or forbearance ; on tho part of the Cabinet of Vienna . They see their advantage , and are determined to use it . Once more wo repeat : Austria must lord it over Germany in spite of Prussia , over Italy in spite of France—her ascendancy is already unditirmtably established over
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344 & 1 ) t % , t&ttt * [ Saturday ,
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), April 12, 1851, page 344, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1878/page/12/
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