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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 eastern question is the cheval de bataille of Davming-street . Under cover of sham settlements , a perfect Effiinton Tournament of operations and treaties has been kept up in those regions for years by successive Cabinets . .- _ . ¦ Palmerston " settled it all" by his brilliant coup de main in 1840 , though he brought us -to the verge of a war by his audacity . We had in 27 at
humiliated Turkey , " our oldest ally , " , Navarino . " Go it , Ned I" was the royal signal for that untoward event , which blew' into the air the fleet of our oldest ally , the fleet of Russia cheerfully assisting , and created a new kingdom for French and Russian influence to dispute , and for British Pacificos to bombard . To set up a beggarly constitution for the ungrateful and insolent Grreek , we laid Turkey at the mercy of
Russian intrigues . In 1840 we are giving back to Turkey her misgoverned provinces ; setting Turkey up again in a large way of business , and humiliating our youngest ally , the astute and polite Mehemet Ali . We humiliate Egypt , by sacrificing the best ruler she has known for centuries to the capricious delegation of the sovereign of the Ottoman Empire . We cripple by force of arms , and by force of protocols , the keen and compliant ruler , who protects the transit of our Indian Mail whilst we are blockading his ports . To
be brief—in 1852 , when the successor of old Mehemet Ali , a friend , almost calling himself an Egyptian Englishman in heart , consents to make a railway for us across the Desert , we are again obliged by the inflexible and fatal logic of our diplomacy , to arrest enterprise in which British interests are so deeply concerned , in obedience to the obligations which we helped " oldest ally" to establish , and to confiscate the growing prosperity of Egypt , to the harassing
exactions and obstructive pedantries of the Porte . It is clear to all , that under these harsh dictations of the Sultan to the Viceroy , lurks the deeper game of a more secret and more successful diplomacy than ours . Space forbids us to enlarge upon this most important subject : but "we have said enough to suggest grave considerations on the virtues of a secret and tortuous diplomacy , which , professing non-intervention , is perpetually intervening all the world over : but at the wrong season , and in the wrong place , and for some
petty dynastic , rather than national purposewhich sets up and strikes down , protects and humiliates friends and foes almost at random , and always with untoward success : which is the tool when it thinks to be the all y of a diplomacy more secret than itself—which garrisons the Tajjus to enable a Coburg to sleep in peace , whilst our commerce is languishing at Buenos Ayres , and our influence is helpless in Egypt , and the Foreign Secretary favours us with a geographical and political sketch of Bolivia and Paraguay , and with a graphic account of the Flight of Rosas and his daughter ! Now what is the moral of all this P What but to obtain a really national Government , which shall stand b y true allies , and act in the face of the sun by high and national principles P
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PAUPERISM AND PRODUCTION . " The Statesman erects his Poor-Law Unions , and the Philanthropist his houses of refuge , and yet the destitution continues . " Because , let us reply to the Times , the Statesman has heretofore neglected the direct , the just , the sole remedy ifor social destitution—production . We continue our quotations : " Does it not appear at first sight a strange result of the torrihlo statistics of society , that upon an average 1 itorson out of 20 of tho inhabitants of this luxurious metropolis is ovory day destitute of food and employment , and every night without a place for shelter or rqpoBO ? * * * It is stated in the RegiHtrar-Goneral ' s annual report for ' 1849 , ' that nearly one human being died weoldy in this wealthy metropolis from actual starvation / In tho corresponding report for 1851 wo find that 28 adults died from starvation ,
nnd 252 infants from want of breast-milk or want of food . In tho month of December , 1851 , live adults died from starvation , and 29 infants from inanition . " The Times supposes tho " respectable ratepayer" to say that these things need not bo , or that they cannot bo helped . They neod not bo , because a starving person should apply for relief as casual poor ; " they cannot bo hofpod , because " in £ 0 vast a populatipn instances must of course
occur of persons who will carefully hide their shame and their wants from every eye , until they sink down exhausted in some lone spot to die , " But why should the starving be ashamed to ask relief ? That is a constituent part of the real question . He is ashamed , because relief is made , not only systematically repulsive , but systematically shameful . The poor are treated as things to be repelled , and the so-called Poor-Law is one , not to aid , but to constrain the poor—even " the deserving poor . " We suspect , however , that the framers of the present law assumed the nonexistence of anything to be called " deserving poor . ¦ ¦ ' ¦¦ ¦ ¦ ¦¦
, . ., The recourse % o fill this gap in the regular law is " charity ; " but even that has become depraved . Charity , properly so called , is the help of man to man ; whereas the systematic charities of our day are but a machinery for easing the instinctive consciences of the well-to-do ; and in that promising trade enterprising : scions of the middle class embark for a livelihood ; providing " institutions" and " boards" for the sickly souls of the wealthy , just as others provide circulating library novels or dogmatic tracts for their minds , water-cures or baths for their poor bodies .
We say this without the slightest disrespect to the institution which suggests the article in the Times : it is a most excellent momentary provision in such behalf , while the law fails of its duty . By parenthesis , also , let us say that charity would stilt have its proper work to do . The law must deal with generals ; charity ought to deal with particulars—with individual cases—with error , weakness , misfortune , casting the unhappy into a lower social station—with the many special cases
where man can help man , and shield him from the rougher necessities of all general laws . But the poor at large do not want charity . A man is poor either because he is incapable , because he is idle , or because he is without oppor- * tunity to earn ^ his Jbread . A man temporarilysick or crippled had better be helped through his trouble without delay ; it is the best economy : therefore such relief ought to be free , prompt , and effectual ; not as charity , but as a social
right , under the law . A man is idle , either because he has no fair opportunity , or because he is incorrigibly ill-disposed . In the former case , as at the Sheffield farm , a fair opportunity will redeem him ; in the latter , he is not a subject for a Poor Law , but for a law to restrain vagrant offenders against society . A man who is without work ought to be supplied with it ; and where so much land is unoccupied or half occupied , as is the case in this country , there can be no real difficulty in wedding labour to land , and setting the able-bodied poor " upon work , " as tho 43 rd ueiauiL vi mut
Oi JMizaDeui proviaea . jlii , juur able-bodicdpoorwill trytogethisbread outof some other man ' s employment—that is , he will cither steal , or be a dependent on the rate-payer , or go into the labour-market and offer all his labour for half his neighbour ' s loaf . These processes actually go on ; and thus wo actually make the paupers that coBt us so much every year ; make tho thieves that we don't know what to do with , but arc trying all we can to foist upon Australia and other colonies ; and make whole classes of half-paid labourers a reserve for the recruitment of our
pauper army—an army of paupers on half-pay ! All this is done , because the fashion of tho daythe fashion , we hope soon to call it , of yesterday —is , to rule ooconomy entirely in aocordanco with views based on tho laws of trading exchange ; forgetting that the laws of a socondary and intermediary process cannot be the codo for tho primary and essontial process , the distribution of productive industry . The practical administrators of tho Poor-Law are learning bettor from tho imperfect operation of tho law itself ; tho Poor-Law Association of Manchester is improving tho leaHon ; wo wish to extend it to aocioty at largo—especially to all who are subject to that competition of tho
paupors on half-pay , which ih dragging clown all branches of industry to their own level . Production is tho source of ail national wealth—Production made to keep paco with population—Production kept in a condition that it shall bo accessible to all—Production so distributed that it shall first and assuredly produce tho necessaries of life . Fasten upon that objoct ; survey our still half-ocoupiod fields of industry ; boo tho numbers whoso hands are available for themselves and thoir follows , and you will have no difficulty in relieving industry from the burdon of the paupers onJialf-pay , in teaching tho ablo-bodjod
destitute to support themselves , and to aid in supporting the helpless . Meanwhile , during our industrial anarchy honour to every provisional institution that alle ' viates the evils which it cannot prevent !
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WHAT SHALL . BE DONE yVITH THE CRYSTAL PALACE ? Peeseeve it , or destroy it P Retain , on its present site , the wonderful building which sheltered the arts and industry of the world , the scene of last year ' s brilliant and stupendous gatherings of all ranks and nearly of all nations ; or remove it bit by bit , or sell it to the French , or consign it piecemeal to the auctioneer ? For the public , the question is simplified to this : Shall the Crystal Palace remain in Hyde Park or notP And as the time is limited when an affirmative answer would be effectual , the , course of the public is also simplified : the public can say , preserve it , and it will be preserved ; or say nothing , give no sign , and it will be swept away . But the Word must be spoken now- —or never . Undoubtedly there would be a certain grandeur in destroying the fabric—in sweeping away , and treating as secondary , the mere outward shell of the Great Exhibition . It has served its purpose ; a great deal of the admiration called forth by it has faded away ; if now reinoved , no unpleasant ideas of failure can arise ; it was adapted to the use for which it was devised , and it may not be adapted to certain other uses to which men would put it . Take it away , and it will always be pleasantly remembered ; preserve it , and it may come to be contemned .
In this ' statement there is an amount of conditional truth . The building may come to he condemned , unquestionably ; but will it , or rather shall it ? That is the question . The strongest argument in favour of its retention is the Conservative argument—thatit exists . There , in Hyde-park , you have , in the words of Mr . Cole , a " covered space "—the thing most wanted in London . There you may have , says Sir Joseph Paxton , a winter garden , at once useful and beautiful . Pull down the Palace of
Glass and when do you expect to get another set up P Your " covered space" becomes a grassy parade-ground for the - . ' elite of the Rotten-row Light Brigade ; your winter garden , or winter or summer sauntering - place , vanishes into the future , for its locus will be gone . It is very questionable whether an adequate amount of public interest could be excited ' which would lead to the erection of such another building ; and certain it is , that the pressure for money at the Treasury , the adverse feeling of the House of
Commons and the public , would prevent any grant being made for that purpose from the public funds . So that , on the whole , it would be better to retain the Crys tal Palace , and use it for purposes of instruction and amusement . Museums might be formed there ; children'and young persons might play thero ; oven Rotten-row might have its covered ride ; there might be a gymnasium , including a fencing-school , in one portion , and , _ it necessary , an establishment for tho Peaco Society in another . All this might bo done ; and Sir Jnsnnh Vox ton ' s errant ideaa Winter Garden , also
, successfully carried out ; while the building itself would remain as the fittest monument of tho Great Exhibition of 1851 . Besides these regular uses to which the building might bo put , there are certain other occasional uses for which it would seem to bo adapted . # * or instance , where bo appropriately could . N ational Jubileesjbo holdP We do not refer to Queens birthdays and royal rejoicings , but to tho great ; lucre
and enduring events of English history . arc heroes enough in scionco and art , and Jitoraturo and statesmanship , whoso names and actnaro recorded in our annals , to furnish perpetual national foastn . ' Imagine a Cnxton jubilee , ' Shalcspearo jubilee , u Newton jubilee , a wot * and Arkwrmhl ; jubilee , Founts in honour o . tno Poots , of the Historians , of tho Merchants , of tno irion of srienco , nnd last , not least , of tho Artinans of England—mul where could national gathering in wio ib **
like tueso bo held so weJi as ^ u * ""• --If there wore any Christianity in tholand whore could ChristmnH and JSastor . tho sublime rejoicing of ovory Christian community , be kept so won an thero P , . . . But the public gives no sign , going about its trado and its pleasures , and canting no *» ° . ugn «; w tho future . Tho Commissioners appointed w
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298 THE LEADER ; [ Sattjrb ay ;
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), March 27, 1852, page 298, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1928/page/14/
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