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and unremunerated , dignity of Justice of the Peace . In the former capacity we suppose he was treasurer to this extravagant and ' anarchical trust , and called the meeting to get up the new gate , the banker and the official , taking the responsibility of that . irregular step , in order to gain his object by a coup d'Mat . Coups d ' etat have been very fashionable of late , but they require a larger field , plenty of accomplices , and a silent press for their accomplishment .
It is satisfactory to learn that this iniquitous job has been signally defeated , and in a manner not only to read a severe lesson t o the perpetrators , but to compel a thorough and searching exposure of the entire system . Had it not been , however , for the spirited letters of " Amicus , " not only would no financial committee have been appointed to inquire into the alleged abuses , but in all probability this new toll would have been levied . If the public spirit shown by " Armous" in this matter were more common . then
local self-government would be realized in its most effective application , and the imperial Parliament would be relieved of half the private bills which are too often mere machines for putting localities under contribution to rival attorriies , adepts in fighting over , and then dividing the spoils of the deluded rate-payers , who goodnaturedly believe that one of the said attorneys is the sworn foe of the other , and the representative of public virtue . But there is a further moral to be derived from
this Turnpike story . In France , where the metropolis is paramount , and where the passion for administrative unity and centralization leaves the 86 departments in helpless nullity , the crying evil is , or has been , that for the simple repair of a road recourse must be had , through interminable * hierarchies' of functionaries , to the supreme bureau of the Minister of the Interior , at Paris . In England , where we are accustomed to boast of our decentralization and of our local self-government , and where , indeed , the provinces are
literally left to themselves , with what results we know , ; we have abuses , and jobs , and difficulties of another , but acarooly inferior degree of absurdity , peculiar perhaps to our domestic institutions . We liave the great unpaid magistracy , of whose efficiency and public service we indulged our readers with a specimen only last week . The sole qualification , very often at least , which these disinterested dignitaries can be supposed to possess , is a keen nose for poachers , and a religious sense of the rights of property . But
as game preserving is going out of fashion , their activity , as garde-champetres , \ & in danger of lapsing into a sinecure . Still , there is something to be said in defence of the theory that those who possess the land , with all its rights , duties , and responsibilities , and who live among their " people , " should occupy the local judgment seat , for tho dispensation of petty justice , and the trying of small offences . It is an initiation into public life , a dress of authority for the magnates of tho county , and , in short , in the days of Protection , when there was no need of improved farming , it gave landlords something to do , and lent them a semblance of usofulncas .
There are instances , no doubt , in which justice i « administered by the country gentlemen with a high sense of honour and duty , and with real public advantage ; whore tho fact of their being unpaid adds dignity to tho bench . But we fear these instances are comparatively few . It is the inevitable result of institutions surviving their conditions of existence . Feudalism has lost its raison d ' tltrc—its limbs aro paralyzed , and what remains is one-sided and anomalous .
juiere was a time , of course , when tho county magistrates exercised an effective jurisdiction , ana when tho lordflhip of tho land implied a rocognifiod authority and a mutual service . But nil tins ia mere foNsiliftm now-a-days , in . thin industrial nnd " popular" epoch . Tho landlords , instead of protecting , have- boon clamouring to bo protected ; a fatal discouragement and inaction jia . s Beized thorn ,- and in too many counties wo Jind thai , whether from indoloneo , or absence , or
rum , or neglect , they do not exorcise thoir ma-# iHl ; orial duties , but delegate them to a Bot of < nouveau ; c riches and upstart nobodies , whom tho lord lieutenants aro compelled to mako inagifltraten , simply bemuflo the country gentlemen arc- absent , or idle , or unwilling to ' not . These novi homines uHurp tho places of tho old families , and , puffed into a Hiiddon and local importance , without oven tho ok . ouho of a largo acreage for
their ludicrous incapacity , take to studying Blackstone and Burn ' s Justice at forty , and perpetuate the inefficiency without the dignity and the bonhomie of the " great unpaid . " And from their relations with petty attorneys in the , county towns , these gentry are to be found at the bottom of half the jobs which long experience in the tricks of trade invested with irresponsibility may suggest . To this mongrel condition has our county magistracy fallen , entirely through the indolence and want of public spirit of the
owners of the land . And let us add , that these acreless bourgeois magistrates are generally as narrow and retrograde in their politics as the oldest and most orthodox Protectionist . They are often the most intolerant and offensive enemies to popular advancement ; and at the elections none put on the screw so haughtily as they . The influence exercised in elections by the old families is usually a legitimate hereditary influence of affection and respect ; but exercised by Squires of yesterday , it is tlie arrogance of parvenus .
It is clear that some remedy must be found for this state of things in the counties . Local legislation , and the administration of justice , must be purged and reorganized . The " landed" country gentlemen are found wanting ; they have renounced the exercise of their rightful duties , and are pushed from their stools by pettifoggers . The remedy cannot lie in the direction of the past ; it must be , like all remedies , in the sense of present tendencies . County legislation must be democratized . A bill is already before the Commons , and under the Home Secretary ' s approval ,
which may be expected to give to public spirit in the counties a fresh and salutary impetus , and to open a broad channel for local self-government . The whole body of rate-payers will have an effective control over county legislative and administrative concerns . We believe this princi p le may be even extended ; but in the meantime the County Kates Bill will do much to correct the more flagrant abuses of the present chaos of stagnation and intrigue . It is probable that this
bill , proceeding from so suspected a quarter as Manchester , may encounter a fierce opposition from the country party . With an extended suffrage there will of course be increased virulence among the jobbers and upstarts ; but it will always be found that landlords who live at home , and do their dut y to the land , and to those who live on , and by , the land , will exercise an influence proportionate to their legitimate claims upon the respect and affection of their neighbourhood . We have but one more moral wherewith to
adorn the tale of a Turnpike , which wo have taken for our text . " Amicus , " b y a pen bristling with facts and figures , has done the work of "Hebecca , " peacefully , legally , decisively , without riot or disturbance . But we would venture to suggest to him , as to a man of public spirit and discretion , whether it would not be at once more simple and more effective , instead of from time to time sending out skirmishers to repel local jobs and partial wrongs , to organize a
vigorous and determined agitation , not limite d to particular localities , against the " Turnpike Acts Continuance" Bill , which year by year slips unnoticed through tho Commons , and perpetuates tho evil by royal assent ? Wo make bold to say , that such an agitation would be even welcomed by' tho present Homo Secretary , who has lately expressed his desire to bo stimulated and strengthened in all reforms by tho voice of the nation applied to tho car of Downincr-strcet .
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THE NEW TUBKISH LOAN . The announcement , that tho Turkish Government is endeavouring to raise immediate moans for present purposes , is sufficient in some quarters to excite an anti-Turkish fooling ; and we aro not surprised to boo this feeling echoed even in tho commercial columns of tho Times : — " It appears by tho advicoH from Constantinople , that Turkey contemplates the poBnibility of raining a loan of 2 , 600 , OOOtf . iu London Jit ten per cent ., and
that nho coiiHulcra tho repayment m tho laot loan to have taken place on termH to warrant Mich an application . Thin , however , in a groat dtsluflion . Tho conditions of that loan wore of a nature to induce porwons to buy the ntoolc at upwards of eleven per cent , premium ; and when tho Sultan , aftor using the money for many montliB , repudiated tho aeta of hia Mhrifltoro , Hntl refiiHod to fulfil thoHo conditions , tho holders were arbitrarily compelled to accept throo per cent , as a coraponflntion . It is true that , " after the protracted anxiotioM to which thoy wero exposed , they woro glad to got even an lnadoquivto compromise ; nut it was a
attemp our great contemporary to write in a Russian rather than an English sense , and to accommodate its language to St . Petersburg rather than to the truth . Amongst the many eccentricities with which our great contemporary perl plexes the public , this is one of the most curious " The paragraph which we have just quoted appears to be written , however , by a writer who has only a London knowledge of the facts to which he
t of severe reproach to the Turkish Government that such should have been the case . The public will also bear in mind , that it was the present Minister by whom the former loan was contracted , and whose acts havin been disowned once , may be expected to niee ' t with a similar fate at any future time . " . Nothing occasions greater surprise to ourselves in common with the public , than the obstinate
refers . There is nothing in the history of the former loan discreditable to the Turkish Government however infelicitous may have been the first appearance of that Government in the money market as a borrower . The circumstances were quite peculiar . In the first place , there was the fact of novelty . The Turkish Government is not
amongst those States whose loans are dragged in the mire of the market , and whose very name is excluded from the Stock Exchange , like that of Spain . It was new to the business , and we need not be surprised if it handled the affair with some want of dexterity . So much may be confessed . The fact is , however , that the character imparted to the loan in the markets of London and Paris was scarcely that which it bore in the Divan of the Sultan . It is well known that the Koran
prohibits the borrowing of money at interest . The Mussulman religion , like the Christian , forbids usury ; the ^ Moslems differ , however , from the Christians , in the fact of obeying their religion . , With the progress of commercial principles , they seem on the eve of learning better . Advances of money had been made to the Turkish . Government from time to time—not , of course , at interest , and yet with certain advantages to those who procured the assistance , and who were principally Armenian merchants .
A very enterprising financier , whose name has been already mentioned to our readers , M \ Baltazzi , or more properly Baltagi , succeeded with a French capitalist , M . Aleon , in establishing the Bank of Constantinople , we believe with some Armenian merchants ; and this Bank undertook to procure the advances . The Turkish Government of course concurred . There is great reason , however , to doubt whether the Government of the Sultan understood that it was to appear publicly in the / European market as
contracting for a loan , and thus doubly violating Mussulman principles by taking money at interest , and by dealing with Infidels . That the Bank of Constantinople should raise money , that it should use such vouchers as consisted in its understanding with the Turkish Government , would have been correct ; but wo ore now inclined to believe that the contractors for the loan somewhat overstepped their authority . When tho circumstances became known , many influences induced the Turkish Government to withdraw from n nwm-nnot . wliiivh llftrl hfip , n thuS partially
infringed on tho other side . Nevertheless , although the loan was disclaimed , tho instalment which had been advanced was most honouramy replaced ; and although the loan had been in tne market only two months , three per cent , interest , was paid for tho accommodation , notwithstanding that it had been declined . Although the 1 uriewft Government appears to us not to hnrvo acted wii j tho adroitness which might have boon oxpoctca from cxporiencod and accomplished iinancicrs , muet bo admitted to have behaved witlisinff" " honesty , and indeed with a nice sense of nono » There is nothing in tho transaction to damage m credit of tho Sultan ' s Government . , _^ tjJll / Vllu \ Jl KJiliy Mullen k ? \ -iv / f v **"" - 0 itxrtPftR circumstance
- There is nothing in the material * of Turkey to do so . If anything can warrant Government in anticipating its future roBOiit . . . ^ it is tho continuing growth of tho ™* onr (' f *^ command . Tho resource of Turkey have been <« panding with tho increased freedom of w > ° J"J y Tho province of Bulgaria especially has marten ^ progress ; and tho expansion of our own ^ tho Ottoman empire ib a sufficient P « " £ 8 UC . elasticity of its rofiourcos . Should Ia ^ Ltion coed , ao is probable , in preventing tho . . ^ rtflnt of her empire to that of Russia , a m ° , P r 0-traolo to this country will be rescued ; w ^ sources from which the , loan is . * P * WJ"JJL- W bo preserved , and the mterejBW ° * <> vn
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1044 THE LEADER : [ Saturday ,
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 29, 1853, page 1044, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2010/page/12/
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