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the commercial influence of the empire , is on Lord Derby ' s side ; and the career of the Duke of Welling ton should teach us that even weak governments in the House of Commons can be saved by the compact support of the House of Lord John Russell , sneered at by Manchester , scouted by Hume , and generally despised , with as strong a feeling as they can at present get up for any public man , by the democracy , —Ireland , north and south , dead against him on all questions , —the Pee * rs distrustful of his habit of bidriina- for popularity , more particularly as he never
. yyjns , —and his own followers sulky under the impression that lie had no business to resign this year , and still more suspicious of his capacity , seeing that he , too , is going to Parliament without a policy , —what can Lord John Russell individually do in a quiet era against a party in power , led by the adroit and yet daring genius of Disraeli ? Sir James Graham ? That right hon . baronet ' s pre-eminence is a very hazardous one , and his position hardly prononce enough for a party to be formed upon . The . death of Sir Robert Peel promoted Sir James in public view ;
but two years have passed , and lie has done nothin " beyond making the joke that JVTr . Disraeli is a ° conjuror . Out of the House there is a vague belief that he is an able man , but there is also a vague impression that he is a dishonest one ; and in the House men know him as the first administrative genius of his age , but also as a man who has lived , and will always continue to live , upon second-hand ideas . Neither he nor Lord John , then , are in the circumstances to construct a progressist party out of ^ the scattered elements of the existing " Free-trade" sections of the House ; and unless an individuality be
found to lead into office representatives of each section—Manchester , philosophical Radical , Conservative Whig , and anti-Protestant Ireland—Lord Derby , assuming that he has a passable Budget ready , may be safe for years . As gold comes in , earnestness will go out ; and if we have a war , the effect would be the same on the Tory Government of this day as on the Tory Government of other days—they would have their own way until the war was over , by a battle lost or won : in the one case to be sacrificed ; in the other to obtain a sustaining popularity for another term . Then , Lord Derby being strong by the frailty of Palmers ton and Peelites , and the weakness of Lord John and Sir James , what can the Radicals do F Why nothing , so long as Mr . Cobden declares he is not ambitious of office , notwithstanding he confesses it sometimes gives great opportunities for good ; and so long as Mr . Bright ai'guoH only in ( he abstract the capacity of the middle class to be as / it governors as th <;
aristocracy . Why should not Mr . ( iobden aim at oliiee as part of the business of his public life ; and why should Micro not be a middle class Ministry P It is not to be done under the present electoral system . There / ore the first business of ' Manchester ( and if" practical" Mr . Cobden had "' ' 1 . to at ( his business iu 181 . 7 he -would not have 'a d to ca || meetings to " nettle tin ' question " , ) should be to an-aiive Radicalism into a
Parliamentary Krfonn party , —the business of that |» a . rt y being to keep that question before the country day bv day by menus of all Mie forms ¦ '"id tactics of Parliament . Such u party should |' "l > "ii its tenns , and wait till Whigs and dira'lainite . s could come up lo them ; and when a " ( 'form Hill was carried , it should be by the K , e'"'¦ 'Mers , ami no | , l > y either section of the
aristocr acy . Pcrb ; , | ,, | , b " iH sounds ( Quixotic . Hut until you mean Ibis , iVI r . Bright , should you not miijipress those eulofricH upon the middle class , which < u ' c utterl y at variance with your practical course '" . leaving the middle class to follow humbly at ni " | locracy ' herLs P—perpetually being kicked , and perpetuall y Hiiarling , but failliful always as ¦ iohe u e ll-trained curs who may bo . seen eon-^ laiitly dodging on either side of their master ' s ( ' ; 'A but never daring to rush boldly ahead . . ' > ut wo . shall see no huoIi Radical party ; and p ' ' . 1 "' 1 ' Whi n nor Tories will volunteer " such a y . - 'onn . . Hill „ , would give iih > i middle class luml . i-y : Hu , i W ( , 0 I ... 11 H ,, , 1 () Hiioh measure for
^ " ii forced tbetn ; lirst , because a " party " "' " not , be formed to force it ; and secondly , .. ' 'cause the country is too well oil" to be eager '"' political revolutions at bonus however it j V , ' r l ' ' ' . y mipport the man or men workn ft" 'or i | , ] u " ( , ho direction of real reform in
the House of Commons . And there being no such Radical party , the prospects of the session are tolerably clear . M ! r . Disraeli will not talk Toryism ; but he will not act liberalism , except in so far as it is incumbent on him to have a comprehensive b , udget . With the questions which will arise when finance is disposed of , he will play consummately , balancing quids by yuos ; as , in his Irish policy , in putting Mr . Napier up to propose a Tenant flight Bill , and at the same time insisting on Mr . Whiteside asking for a Bill to prohibit the interference of priests at elections ; Lord JSfrlinton managing the rest by pushing the Dublin Exhibition , and taking Sir Francis Head's hints about the usefulness of the police in
keeping a peasantry in subjection ; and the actual prosperity of the country doing , pro tern , all that bills and intrigues would fail in . What may be done in an Irish policy is practical also in the government of England . Party may be set against party—question against question ; and those questions which press for some so . t of solution , as suffrage reform , education , the condition of the Church , may . with facility , in an era like this , be postponed to the limbo of " next session "—Lord Derby and his friends arranging , no doubt , for their ark in good time for the deluge threatened when the " next session , " with its many arrears , comes at last . The colonies can get on in the old way . Lord Malmesbury has been endured six months ; whv not for
years ? England has lad nothing to say to foreign politics these ten years ; she is , therefore , reconciled to her political extinction in Europe . Nobody—as a party—is prepared to " speak out" on anything except in the announcement volunteered to us , with , a great air of candour , by politicians of all sorts , that we can't go back to Protection . And supposing that Mr . Disraeli does make himself intelligible on the one point on which he can hardly be reserved—the amount and character of the taxes we will have to pay in
1853-4—he will very likely be permitted to compensate himself by leaving every other point in the statesmanship of the day in deepest mystery . At least , as the Opposition depends upon him for their notions of finance , he will wait on their views on every other subject ; and if no combination be formed to propose a general policy , and to develops it as a ministry , then it will be quite within the means of those men now in office to accept or reject what they like ; and so to make the session resultless , except in getting
rid of another year , which is a certain gam 111 an ago when philosophical Radicals trust entirely to tiine . But , as General Jackson would say , a session is a , scries of accidents . Mr . Disraeli may blunder ; and Loid John may make a hit . And as there are more than a hundred of you , gentlemen , is it not possible that cue man may arise ^ from amo : ig you all , capable of seeing his way for ten years ahead , of managing and uniting the perplexed liberal parties , and of ( sliding for us , for a little while , this dismal period of indolent mediocrity and purse-proud fatuity , in which only a Derby Ministry could govern , and a Manchester banquet be dull . Your obedient Servant ,, A Stkanukk .
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FALLACIES OK MACAULAY . Mit . Macaui . ay made Home . statements at Edinburgh , which we cannot allow to pass without a protest . 1 . lie described the scenes of 1848 as inHtaiitajieous " confusion and terror , " following on the 2 ' . l . l . h of * February . We will not ( juand with this : it may have been confused and terrific to him . ' IJut , " he should at , least remember that " terror" arose from the doings of the conspirators who plotted in the name of order — in reality , for themselves . The mistake arisen of view
from the " adoption of different points , and in therefore natural enough . Hut when Mr . Macaulay Htiginatises the whole of the popular insurgents of 1848 and 1 H 41 ) 11 s " araco oMluns fiercer than those who inarched under Attilu , of Vandals more bent on destruction than thoao that followed ( lenseric "—tlie produce of " vice and ignorance" —the barbarism engendered b y civilization , to destroy her ; and when be theatrically exclaims—stooping by the way to borrow an " idee NapoleVmienno "—such was the dangerif passed- — civilization vt'as saved "—we simply beg to remind him , with nil deference , that Iiih Hplondid rhetoric i « a splendid error , and that lie
does not state the facts . If we insist on no others—there are , at least , Mazzini and Kossutn and Kinkel living witnesses of noble struggles , not the product of " vice and ignorance , ' not the leaders of barbarians , to contradict him ; beside the brave and noble who died by the bullet and the gibbet , in Italy and Hungary . 2 . " ¦¦ I think that good times are coming for the labouring classes in this country . I do not entertain that hope , because I think thatFourrierism , or St . Simonianism , or Socialism , or Communism , or any of the other isms , for which the plain English word is robbery , will prevail . " We beg to call Mr . Macaulay ' s attention to the fact , that difference of belief in the developments of economic science does not constitute an advocate
of robbery . We differ from Mr . Macaulay as to the merits of Whiggism , but we do not call his political creed a swindle , and himself a swindler by implication . Galileo was accursed as an impious heretic—but that did not make him one . Mr . Macaulay might be libellously called a Thinker ; but it would not follow that he is one . 3 . But it is not only n matters of fact that he has sinned . His logic is not less at fault : — " We have seen "by the clearest of all proofs , even when united with secret voting , that [ universal suffrage ] is no security against the establishment of arbitrary power . "
Here is an . obvious allusion to Prance . Let the reader judge of the quality of the logic from a converse of the same sentence based on the experience of America—We have seen by the clearest of all proofs , that , when united with secret voting , universal suffrage is a security against the establishment of arbitrary power . Yet such is the staple of Whig commentary on continental revolutions , and Whig argument against the deepest economical science , and the widest extension of the suffrage !
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TAXATION" REDUCED TO UNITY AliD SIMPLICITY * VII . SPECIAL APPLICATIONS OP OUR PKINCIPXES . To discuss the application of our principles to particular classes of cases , may not only afford solutions of some disputed questions in taxation , hut may anticipate some possible objections and illustrate the practical bearing of our views . A few prominent kinds of cases will , however , supply all needful subjects of examination ; these will be the cases of The mortgagee niul rent-charge owner ; The tradesman ' s creditor ; Tho fundholder ; The reversioner ; Tho owner of patent , copy , or manorial rights ; The merchant trading ahroml . Wo start , from the principle we have already enunciated , that every intangible right to a matter of present use or enjoyment is a lieu on some visible and fungible property , and is , pro tanto , \\ deduction from the value of that , property to its ostensible owner . In till private ( ninsact ions a public impost on tangible property would distribute itself amongst the virtual owners of that , property , cither by explicit agreement , or by the implicit process of adjust men ) , of market values . The national authorities need tnke 110 care , and can take no advantageous c : irr , of t , hat- which necessarily rights itself by force of the interests of the parties concerned . The subsequent discussions diietly turn on these , points : — Is there a j > re . s < - ) il , properly to be protected ? If there is , how is ii , taxed by this system ? If t lie tax is to be shared with others , under the control of l . ( tu \ in what , proportion is it , to bo authoritatively divided V The chief guiding considerations thus exhibited we proceed loan examination of ( . lie rases above-mentioned . 1 . The . Mor / t / ot / rc and Hcnf-clutnje Owner .----In this case tho lien is on property distinctly designated , and the inducement , to the loan is a lixed rale of interest . In case of 11 mortgage etfeeted atler tlio establishment , of the new system of taxation , tho parties would agree on tin ; proportion of the tax to he paid by each ; or , what conies to the . same thing , the mortgagor would consider what interest , be could afford to pay if he also agreed to pay the wholo tax himself . Tho present Income Tax resorts to thin very principle ; it wan driven to do ho by ( hiding oil trial , from I 7 <> 8 to 18 ( K $ , that on no other could it ; work the tax with any approach to fair etfnct ,: the incinnbrancer pays his Income Tax through the possessor . * i ^ co Loader , Noh . 108 , 111 , 115 , 134 , 135 , I ' M ) .
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November 6 , 1852 . ] THE LEADER . j ^
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Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 6, 1852, page 1067, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1959/page/15/
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