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Emperor had at first claimed . Austria , with a wink of the eye , wishes England and Prance toy fall in with that idea , hinting that Turkey must be content with the defence which lets in the aggressor , if he will come quietly . The policy of Austria is the policy of Mrs . Hardcastle— - ^ jfcake all I have , and spare my life . " St . GeorgeTwho has grown fat , and disinclined for disturbances , thinks that it may be possible to arrange the affair yet , and proposes to talk it over once more , slipping into the hands of Turkey a separate explanation .. But here the peremptory will of the Czar breaks up all those nice and quiet arrangements .
The chancellor of the Czar has sent two circulars to the Courts of the Four Powers , which place the pretensions andinsolence of theNorthern autocrat beyond any mistake . In one despatch , the Four Powers are told that their mediation was not asked or wanted ; that if they have not arranged a definitive submission for Turkey , they must take the consequences of their own ill-success , for the Czar will listen no more , and will proceed to action according to his own judgment . The other circular explains how he had considered the Vienna Note to convey that recognition of his influence in Turkey which it was
the very object of the mediation to deny . There is more than the failure of the negociations in this declaration from Russia—it implies , first , that [ Russia never really entered into any consultation with the Four Powers , but looked for the satisfaction of her own will , whatever they might judge ; that the Emperor regards the mere act of listening to the Four Powers as a great condescension ; that if they did not defer to him , he is ready to defy them , one and all ; and that his arrogance proceeds so far as to prevent even the desire of concealing the contempt that he has for any that stand against him .
This last act of the arch enemy appears really to have roused comfortable St . George ; and official as well as popular organs admit that Russia has gone too far for longer forbearance . Turkey was in the right before ; but official organs endeavour to show that , however Turkey might be in the right abstractedly , it might be more expedient to make a compromise between that right and the grossest and most lawless injustice . Turkey has made no aggression , but only endured it ; yet St . George , who used to be the champion of innocence against wrong in the Turkish dominions , has now discovered that the weakness of
Turkey was a reason why the champion should desist from the duty of defending weakness against wrong ! If by any means St . George could only have compromised the affair—if he could suffer wrong to be committed without the offender or the victim saying out loud that it was a wrong—if he could only hush up the cries of injury , and the exulting shout of the injurer—if he could * only persuade the too proud Emperor
to moderate his triumph , to put his insolence in diplomatic language , to inflict his kicks under the surcoat , St . George would have been content not to move . J 3 ut as it is , Turkey calling out for help , Russia declaring her intent to defy law , the great autocrat positively going so far as , in the face of Europe and America , to give St . George a fillip on the nose , the scandal has becomo too great for knighthood to endure , and St . George feels that ho must at last buckle on his sword .
Next week ? In the meanwhile there would bo a chance for more talk on the subject , and St . George may yet be reprieved . Lord John Russell has been repeating at Greenoclc that it is the " sacred duty of Englishmen to maintain the weak against the strong , to defend the independence of nations , and to secure for peoples that freedom of which others would deprive them . Jiut that duly was England ' s duty last week , or the week before , when Ministers wore doing their bent to IuikIi vip and compromise the- wrong of Russia . ( Sheffield Iuih had its meeting , and has spoken out strongly
in favour of vindicating the honour of England by executing tho duty which Lord John Russell iivowh ; but tho commercial English mind ¦ maliciousl y remembers that Sheiliold deals in Bword-blaaos . Other towns also are prepared to speak . JJirmingham has been thinking of it—IVfarylcbono has boon cogitating—Newcastle has boon moving in its slocp—Manchester has cor \ - Bultodits mayor ; Stafford is mindful of Mr . Urquhart : but St . G-oorgo , who is vory heavy a , fl , or supper , groans ami yawns , nnd lota tho weeks croon by , hating tho' miusiou |> hat BummonM hjm pljco moro to Oappmlooia ,
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LITTLE RAVENS WANTED FOR FRANCE AND ENGLAND . France" is making progress towards free-trade . The example of England has not been without its force , ' and necessity supplies the immediate impulse . There is a chance that the people will want bread ; ' , a hungry people being an angry people , his Majesty Napoleon III . feels a peculiar solicitude to prevent the people from becoming hungry . He has , therefore , not only made an arrangement to pay their bakers' bills for them ,
which is an extremely imperfect way of managing the affair—but has thrown open the ports to foreign corn . The French people are in want of iron for railways ; they have iron somewhere in France , and iron also in Belgium introduced under special treaties ; but it can be supplied from England with great facility and cheapness ; and the truth has at last dawned upon the French mind , that
French resources would be less wasted if English iron were used . Iron therefore is admitted . Another improvement has been , to throw open the ports tolive stock and to salt meat provisions ; and there is really a possibility that that which has been declared to be the principal element of the victory of Waterloo may be inserted into the French constitution , in the shape of John Bull beef .
A good old Tory of the Protectionist times might have deprecated this supply of stamina to our natural enemies , " and might have drawn grave arguments from the proposal to feed the forces arrayed against Wellington up to the standard of Wellington's own men . But in our day , we are more accustomed to regard the French as arrayed , not against us , but in concert with us , to promote a trade of which they produce one part and we another .
This idea also has expanded to completeness in the minds of the councils general , in various parts of France , and particularly in the wine-growing districts ; where their hearts have thoroughly opened to the conviction that English iron ought to be admitted into France , through the blessed perception that it would be delightful if French wine were admitted into England . As Dido felt the miseries of vEneas in her own sufferings , so the French wine-producer feels the wrongs of the English iron-master through his own exclusions .
It is true that these arrangements in France , perhaps these sentiments , are in great part only provisional ; but it is remarked , that in France it is the provisional only which endures . And it is possible that if the caprices of Government do not obstruct , these genuine experiences of the French people , having been expressed to
themselves by themselves , may survive the stage of theoretical controversy , and bo realized in permanent action . If so , the French will find introduced amongst themselves more certain supplies of bread to make contented citizens ; English iron to make railways ; English beef to feed artisans as well as soldiers to tho English standard ; English prices for wines .
And we ourselves shall not lose by the gain of tho French . On tho contrary , tliero is nothing we can supply to them for which they will not return us more ; for tho principle of free exchange is , that each party gains by the transaction , or it will not bo efleeted . There is a chanco , therefore , that besides Australia and other distant augmentations of the Held of our commerce , we may acquire a constant customer in our nearest neighbour ; nnd that tho prosperity , over which we have been rejoicing for the last yoar or two , will be again
extended ; all classos of tho country to benefit by it . Wo make it no exception , although it is a bold assertion , to Hay that tho class which produces 1 , 1 io beef and tho corn , and which ho far feeds all other producing classes in tho country , will have its own largest share of our increased prosperity . II ; has _ not been no yet . It in ti'uo that the impulse of tho improved wages has reached even tho . agricultural labourer , and
that iu Suffolk as wjell as Cornwall wages have advanced from Ox . or 7 s ., to i ) . s \ , lO . s-., ll . v ., or even l 2 s . itut in England , with increased prices Ret by the wcalo of prosperity , L 2 . s-. a-woek is still a small income /' or a man and his family , li ' ow of those who writo or talk so glibly about the improved condition of tho labourer , would bo content to live upon I 2 x . n-weelc ; would not indtuMl turn palo at , the thought of suoh a fate . While then , wo nro talking iiboufc tho possibility Muit tho . IjVohcJi pcatmnt way hi > boMorfod ,
we have still reason to doubt whether the EncrT v peasant is yet fed up to his payingpoint . Wein whether as a serviceable animal i t would not ^ the employer of the English labourer to feed ? **" better . Another proof of his excessively ] condition is the fact , that brass buttons ancT ^ bounty for keeping his family out of the . *« & house still , form an " object" for th& EndiS labourer . We have that fact on the In '» i ^
authority . The great philosopher of the quondam Country party presided over the most receif celebration of agricultural unity , and distribut d to meritorious peasants prizes consisting of suin of 20 * .-or 50 s ., and of green coats with bras * buttons . The peasant is often told at thea meetings that he is the true creator of wealth ^ but it seems that a very little sample of his erea ' tion is sufficient to satisfy himself . Out of all
the universe ot pounds , shillings , and pence , one pound sterling , or two , which the mere - administrator on the Stock Exchange would think it mean to expend upon a dinner , becomes a life impulse for the creator . These peasants , it j s said , are the bone and sinew of the country , and yet it seems they are held so cheap , that , while we pay 61 . bounty for a militia-man , we pay as bounty to the parent in the labour market 5 $ . per head for a child . Indeed , the money bounty is all paid for the children , so that we must take the price of the peasant to be per child , 5 s . per adult , a green coat with brass buttons .
How comes it , then , that the peasant is content with his fate ? How is it that he so resembles a horse which a child may drive , though its strength would kill the strongest man P It is because-the English labourer is so far removed from the civilization of which we boast , that , like the French peasant in Arthur Young ' s time , he is ignorant not only of what all the rest of the world knows , but even of the very means of acquiring other knowledge . The peasant does not know his own strength—does not know what he might have , and therefore is it that he is so readily persuaded to be content with 11 ? . or 12 s . as the ideal maximum <> f income for the
" true Englishman . " Those who rejoice in- " the productive power of the country" might reflect that the man who is content with lls . or 12 s . for himself , his wife , and family-to live upon , must be a being of limited ideas , ignorant and stupid . In that cramped and benighted condition he must be , in fact , a very unskilled and bungling machine . It would not pay a cotton to the
manufacturer to keep his weavers down point of mental and physical imbecility which is the standard of the true Englishman under the patronage of the Country party . Recent experiments in agriculture have shown that improvement of ploughs , digging-machines , and reapingmachines , returns a larger profit where a larger outlay procures a better implement ; and some of the most recent experiments also justify tho
belief that if the principal machine of all—™ c working hand-labourer— were improved in the same manner , and somewhat by the same means , profit would be proportionately increased . During the lato prosperity , a part of our difficulty has arisen from tho fact that tho producing power was scarcely equal to the strcngt put upon it . Tho sale , for example , both of iron and coals , bus at times been restricted by w ° difficulty of producing either ; and if we avo to extend our fields " f commerce , there is n ° T £ that our producing power will bo still fur strained—innthnrwnrrls . will DroVO unequal to iu
opportunities it encounters . Inthc history otco - nieree , however , it has always been "j y ot when nn opportunity has been opened ant seized upon by those who stood nearest w . > others have come forward to toko it ; und huu unquestionably tho case in tho presen t in 8 U ., jj W the sagacity of our ministers , or ilio nccesB ^ of foreign governments , should open lor u 8 , _ fields of commerce , in Franco or <) Jfi 0 " , ut statesmen nio
which wo cannot fill ' , our working to introduce , say , American tra < u - ^ there fore becomes a question , pnicfc" ' f ^ urgent for thoso who have tho i »^ r eHl > . \ orcBi country at heart , to say nothing of W » ° . C ( W , of" the ' ngrieultural labourer , whether U"'J' l ( J j . plaoo tho labourer in a fltuto of crea , ici ^ oncjy , awakening his mind by education . ^ strengthening his limbs by bettor looa r ^ arc convinced Hint it will pny nB . ° Ji cow and instruct tho Englishman up to " I ) 0 juerojal standard , as it will to bpsttW { nv proooflfl on tho ErouchroWi
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¦ " ' -JT ^ - ¦ " ¦ ' ¦ . . " ¦ ' ¦ 924 THE LEADER . [ Saturday
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 24, 1853, page 924, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2005/page/12/
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