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for it is his own fault that he excited the impossible expectations , having ceaselessly for the last six years talked of the urgency of Education , and having deliberately and aforethought made this measure the glory of the Aberdeen Administration . He did not know that a new Prince was coming to give eclat to the Session . The debate on tlie sketch was as such debates usually are _ utter waste of time , nobody knowing what they were talking about , and no one appreciating the circumstances . Mr . W . J . Fox took the opportunity of delivering his annual able and suggestive speech in favour of the secular system , not seeing that after Lord John ' s more than ever emphatic declaration against that system , and that after such a scheme from such a
Cabinet a coalition Cabinet , which had the utmost interest in doing all that was possible in this direction with the country they are governing—it would be as practical to propose the non-introduction of an address congratulating the Queen on fecundity , as to urge on the existing Parliament the regular rout of the education-mongers who prefer to see children " heathens /' ( it is their phrase , ) than not to have them of their own particular class of Christians . But Mr . Fox was listened to ( Lord John had long finished , and the House had come back from dinner ); and , having concluded his quiet , argumentative protest , he had got the usual gain—another year—which is something , seeing that to time alone , he , like Mr . Labouchere , can trust . But we shall have some good debates on the
Government proposal when it comes on m more complete and better comprehended proportions ; and it is to he hoped that some one will apply to the education discussions the moral that if it is all true what we hear , —that the masses are all bribable , the wealthy all bribers , and the aristocracy all like the substitute for the Percy—then it is time to put National Society , British and Foreign Society , and Committee of Council on one side , and try some other plan—say Mr . Fox ' s , —being tolerably safe that under no regime , for our enlightenment , could we be very much worse . Or Mr . Phinn ' s plan . Mr . Phinn , to whose rising position
in the House , previous reference lias been made in this place , for the purpose of showing all barristers that when they become members they must absolutely cease to he forensic—put conceit and priggishness on one side and be submissive and deferential—said , in the debate on Monday , that he greatly regretted in Lord John ' s plan the absence of the " compulsory element . " Mr . Phinn is a really enlightened man ; quite abreast of his age ; and not an unworthy follower , in liberalism and integrity , of Mr . Roebuck , at Bath ; but it must be confessed this beloved of a crack liberal constituency has oddly despotic notions of improving the world .
He would make it a crime in fathers not to have their children instructed—rational and philosophic , but queer as a proposition in this country and in this century . The same eccentric mental tendency—the result of intense good-humoured and gallant philanthropy , and restless impatience of the Fox and Labouchere recipes , was visible on Wednesday in his amendment on Mr . Fitzroy ' a bill to apply to the characteristic of British-back-street Society—the belabouring of wives . Mr . Phinn—the incarnation of the sentiment he was wanting to legislate on—a gentleman
who ( but then bo ' s not married ) full of lusty manhood , would undoubtedly commit justifiable homicide upon any assailant of a woman , —led fifty-eight other gentlemen into a lobby of the Senate , April G , 185 . 3 , in favour of the principle of man-flogging . His answer to an objection wan very rich . " Public flogging , " said Lord Palmerston , " would brutalize the offender still more . " " Then let it be private , " said Mr . l'hinn ; a response which calls to mind the old House of Commons story of the legislator who was opposed to the Chimney Act , and argued , that if it was cruel to clean chimneys by dragging geese up
them , why , two ducks would do n . s well . This motives in this ease are dearly good ; and the House , which was attentive , and really in earnest in backing this excellent bill , < li < l full jiintico to them ; and Mr . Phinn , being a single member , is exposed to no nnecrs . But if we consider tbe morale , of the men who followed him , we begin to question whether these rich and happy fellows am ho immaculate ! in their marital relations ' that they vvere entitled to sentence to flogging
the wretched savages who , when they quarrel , are in : > re savage than dogfl , since tlogs have exceptional jmtience for the weaker sex . He only who had never Hiimed should have called for ( he whip ; jiwfc iw only those honourable gentlemen and noble lords who have never traded with convictions for power , or pleasure , or profit , are in n condition to despise Hull freemen . In respect to this question , as to Mr . l'liinn'H biules , it was a jjjood tuot , made on Wednesday { not publicly ) , that , when the rich mnii has a row with his huoubo , ho can nook refuse in bin club ; but the poor
man has no club , and , accordingly , takes to the cudgel . But the House of Commons is , undoubtedly , full of what is called " fine English feeling ; " if we should be naturally ashamed of , wife-flogging being a common offence , we should be proud that our Senate admits it , faces it , and resolves , so far as it caii , to put it down . Equal boldness in other directions would be very gratifying . For instance , how is it that it is the aristocratic , and not the " popular , " branch of the Legislature which has been the first to denounce the sneaking address of the City of London to the French Emperor ?
Laugh at Lord Campbell , if you will , for his squirrelinindedness , his restless rushing about for popularitynow in a cant at the Inquisition , in an Achilli trial , now in an eager affectation of " liberality" apropos to Louis Napoleon ; but of this you may be sure , that if Lord Campbell had not felt his way in the Lords , and had not been sure that his attack on the City deputation tvoulA have told , he would discreetly have held his tongue . It did tell : Lord Ellenborough ' s " disgust" was general when thus evoked ; and Lord Malmesbury could not contrive to look , with all his assurances , more respectable than if he had actually taken his place at the table in Tuileries court uniform . Steam is a good thing ;
and facilities of communication are pleasant ; and we are all glad that Lord Granville could address Frenchmen in good French at a Paris banquet ; that Lord Clarendon can speak Spanish as well as Lord Granville can speak French ; that Lord Malmesbury made himself tolerably understood to the foreign legation , and that Lord Palmerston can talk every language that is talked in any part of Europe ; but we have not yet quite got to the point of so appreciating the cosmopolitan tendency of the age so unreservedly as to enjoy the sightof a British Peer , once the medium between our Sovereign and all other Sovereigns , more devoted to the gratification of a foreign court than to the honour of his own countrymen ; and
unhappily it is evident that Lord Malmesbury prefers French despots as well as French cooks . Perhaps—to account for the silence of the Commons upon the transaction , whereby the crew of jobbers compromised the whole country—we should remember that one of the offending deputation to Louis Napoleon is , in the House itself , a good-humoured man , generally liked , and incapable of defending himself , and so spared . Besides , the press that bears the brunt of the Imperial Adventurer ' s wrath , takes all the worth of moral protests off the Senate ' s hands—the House has business and is always in
a hurry . The busy air visible last night was affecting ; aud it " was very urgent indeed that something should be done , in the shape of a reduction of the national debt , to balance the increase in the royal family . Mr . Gladstone was developed as a great financier by a most marvellously complicated plan—the intricacy of which may be judged of by the fact , that the whole Stock Exchange has been puzzled , and that all the reliable city men in the House confessed themselves last night bewildered—Mr . Gladstone , revelling in all the financial refinements and economical ingenuities , was in bis element . He is the most rapid speaker who ever spoke
in the House of Commons , and with the analogous speed-distinguished Macaulay when Macaulay was oratorical , he is also tho most elegant of sentence-makers , speaking speeches , according to tho reporters , which can be transferred from short into long-hand without the alteration of a point or the turn of a phrase . In that way he has long been regarded ns n phenomenon , —the climactic specimen of tho facilely verbose stylo of modem Parliament . But he got this species of fame as a talker about subjects admitting of generalities , and it was never supposed bis special gifts would allow of bis rushing through a Budget as Charles Mathews dashes through a patter hour . It was a
Budget last night , ; about a page of a morning paper Hpoken in two hours ! And ho hardly referred to a note , never paused a moment , broke through cheers , dashed over interpolations—log ic , figures , illustrations , extracts—all pell well , with a whirl and a fury that took tho breath away , left stenography , you could easily see , panting after , only just not , iii vain , and put it utterly out of tho power of the honourable gentlemen who wanted to speculate by nino in the morning , or to speak before twelve « t night , to put on to paper tho slightest hint of the h their beads
points avalanched transversely throug . And ho did it all with tho utmost oaao , and got to the end without turning a hair ; and in Iris after explanations , winch were perpetual during tho evening , adding notes to the astonishing text , he was as cool , quint , and as little excited as though bo had l > cen merely answering William Williams a question about the benefits of economical administration in the purchase of tooth-pics for treasury clerlcH . His was the only speech . Mr . Disraeli ' s wns ' quite u failure , and U'll dead and disappointingly ; not that bo did not fscem right in bis notion that all tho avuut-pufling of the
plan had been as disproportioned to the plan itself as the mercantile connexion in Cairo between figs and the Prophet—that it v / as all a bruit pour une omelettebut that Mr . Disraeli elaborated a conviction in the audient minds that he was not " up" in the subject , and was incapable of following his supplanter in the Finance Ministry on this ground , which he himself had cultivated too much like an amateur Protectionist , converted suddenly into a model farmer , with tho success usually attendant on such experiments . " A Steangee . " Saturday Mokning .
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mk . Gladstone ' s financial scheme . { From a Correspondent ^ The debate on Mr . Gladstone ' s proposed plan for commuting a portion of the 3 per cent , stock has brought tho demerits of the scheme more prominently into notice than any advantages it may possess . The scheme itself , and his reasons for it , were stated by the Chancellor of tfce Exchequer in a speech of singular clearness and candour . He professed for it but very moderate effects as to an immediate diminution of annual charge ; and recommended it chiefly as laying a basis for future operations , by establishing , on however small a scale , a 2 | per cent , stock . Following the arguments rather than the speakers , the debate , up to an advanced period , may be epitomised as follows : — It had been objected that the proposal to give 110 Z . of a 2 £ per cent , stock for 1002 . of 3 per cent , added in fact 10 per cent , to the capital of the debt ; and as Mr . Gladstone fully admitted that any such addition was most objectionable , he was compelled to admit also that his princip le was not practically applicable to the whole 500 millions of 3 per cent , stock , and to propose that it be limited to 30 millions until Parliament gave further powers . To this it was obiected , that if this arrangement were
afterwards to lie extended , it was in fact admitting the principle that the cap ital of the debt might be increased for the sake of saving the present interest , and this consistently followed up would increase that cap ital by 60 millions ; while , if the principle were not to be further applied , it must be useless so to deal with the 30 millions now proposed , and that it was intended to follow up the plan seemed evident from thie , that the Chancellor of the &x .-chequer proposed it for the very purpose of establishing new principles and not chiefly for the sake of its present
effects . To these objections it was answered , that there was not only a new stock proposed , which lowering the interest added to the capital , but another also , which contrariwise , increasing the interest , diminished the capital of tho debt ; and that if the proposed conversion was effected , partly in one of those and partly in the other , it was probable no increase in the capital would take place at all . The reply to thmwas , that the proposed terms of these two new Kinds of stocks are-such that no choice between them is possible . For while tho new 3 £ per cents , at 82 Z . 10 s . would give an annuity of about 21 . 17 s . 9 d . per cent , on the purchase 40 henco for onl 82110 tho
money , with a claim years y . s ., now 2 \ per cent , would give an annuity of 21 . 16 s . per cent ., with a claim at tho same period for 110 ? . The conversions , therefore , for tho most part , if not entirely , must take place in the 2 £ per cents . ; the consequence must be a large addition to the capital of the debt , for no other advantage than a very small reduction of interest , and tho speculative advantage of establishing a 2 \ per cent , stock . In favour of the proposed Exchequer bonds , it was asserted , and not denied , that they would be a very favourite investment with many classes , particularly commercial canitalists and foreigners . Tho convenience of their beinglormand
transferable merely by delivery , without cost or , of their coupons being readily realizable , would give them a preference equivalent to a considerable difference- of interest . While , however , this was admitted , it was , on tho other hand , objected , that the eighteen millions of J ^ xchequer Bills bear now only an interest of \ \ V C ( V > and that it wns impossible tlieso should bo kept out at that rate , while Exchequer Bonds , equally sccuro and convenient , boro an interest of 2 fc por cent . . So that a sum ot 1 per cent , on eighteen millions , or 180 , 000 * . per annum , must ho deducted from nny saving to bo effected by tho other parts of tho plan . Wo have thus noticed only tho chief points discussed . It may bo added that Uic views and arguments ot tho Chancellor of the Exchequer very much assumed tho perpetual oxistonco of the national debt , while those of Jua nrm ,, no . iis looked mor « distinctly and anxiously to itn
reduction . Mr . Gladstone mado little or no allusion to tho probability that tho cfl ' cctivo value , or purchasing power , of tho debt will bo much diminished during the term ot forty years which ho proposes for the inconvertibility of tho new stocks ; ft consideration which , however , was ftflorwnrds imported into the argument by tho other Hide . Wo can hardly deem thin scheme as entitled to more than the credit of fair intentions . 11 Hcoms not likely to produce any considerable tAVoct , on our financial arrnn # einonts or to strengthen tho party from which itemanates .
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HOT 1 OKH TO COKKKHPONDHNTH . Tint oxtromo pressure on our spa <; u oompols hh to defer several important artirloH and lottera already in type . An Uwitaimav . —Tho guinea unolowd Ji / im boon forwardod to ( lie " Toniiinonial Coniiiiittoo . " It . H . (!\ iti ) ii'K . Wn believe Fourier ' s work lias boon so lOHIK'd . ( J . Hmitii , Miillonl . VV < i aro obliged by his attentions . "Wo hIimII Im f . ; lu « l to ruooivo a report of I no iiittotin ^ . A Civilian . Tho Admiralty order in ( pioHtiou anpoarod in tho Tinum of tho Int . hint ., ui ' ^ nod , — " lly command of thoir Lordships . —It . OHhoruo . "
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354 THE LEADER . [ Saturday ,
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Leader (1850-1860), April 9, 1853, page 354, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1981/page/18/
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