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all that Lord HoTrden lias been labouring to do , just- as they may object to , that blockading squadron whieli does not so much keep down the slave 4 rade in Africa or Cuba as ' serve to set down a £ rdja [ Kossoko and to set aip a King Docerao in Africa , and to undergo the studied insults from the officers of Her Majesty ' s ally in Cuba . But there can be no question that Lord Howden an 4 his superiors are pursuingexactly that course which they have long been pursuing , and in whicl * they have been countenanced by successive Gorernments of the TIniited States .
The case is a good pendant to that of M *» Hamilton arid XordMaimesbury , as an illustration : of diplomacy . Certain stories are circulated in Washington , the very belief in which is injurious to the Common interests of England and America . The ordinary rule would have been t 6 take no notice of those tales , just as polite people look unmoved when some vulgar fellow blurts out indecorous language in company ; and if by change somebusy man shouldpointout the rumours to a diplomatist of the old stamp , he would receive a courteous , cutting reply , implying that none but
idlers read newspapers . Lord Howden knows better ! He is well aware that England and America are not likely to disagree if they really understand the' fa 6 ts between them , and , not content with answering Mr . Corbin ' s question , he puts the answer in a form as complete and explicit as possible , telnng exactly what is and what is not the fact . Diplomacy has no friendships ; but Lord Howden , being a hearty , straightforward man , does not think that the truth will be obscured in American or English
sight , by letting it be seen that he is on terms of friendship with " my . dear Corbin "— -on terms of frank , unstudied familiarity . Diplomatic reserve is probably outraged at these directproceedings , but to ns it appears likely that England and America have gained additional security by this frank and unreserved declaration of the simple truth . Certainly no one fancies that Mr . Corbin or Lord Howden is the worse citizen , because both men have , the faculty of speaking pointblank to each , other , have a mutual esteem , and appreciate the force of the truth .
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AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS . Notwithstanding our pelf-grumbling we are really beginning to appl y the precept for , the physician to cure himself . Cholera has at last done something for sanitary reform ; raihvay collisions have brought forth an official scheme for railway governance ; proverbial confusion in law has induced an effort to set it in order ; and agriculture has at last consented to assist in seeking some information about itself and its produce . Lord Ashburton has written to teach the now philosophers of Hampshire , that in seeking statistics Government peeks , to impose , no new tax ;
and Mr . Philip Pusey has written to I ^ ord Ashburtori to point out the expediency of rendering st&tistical ' riiturns uniform , year after year , in order that they may show the comparative increase of produce . It i » probalile that at last agriculture will begin to understand broadly all that it can do fpr itself , by higher labour , better machinery , and drainage commensurate with the want of drainage . A quarterly contemporary aces in the rain , which has unceasingly brimmed our streams a proof for agriculturist !* ,
experimentally , of the impolicy of submitting in passive supmoness to an occasional deluge without providing outlets for the waters . The necessity indeed was known , and the difficulties to be overcome arc not all of an engineering kind . The difficulty liea in the " interests , " and it is they that perplex calculation . Ab the lirithh Quarterly J&evieto flays : — "When wo come to the actual performance of the work , we meet a hoBt of rights and , interests conflicting upon the biuik . s of our stream ; . mills , mentioned in Domesday refuse to lose their water povyer ; navigation , or ,-canal
companies w . H not have their ' head' in any wAylowered ; irrigators of nieadovvs < lenmnd our non-intqrferonee with ' tlutir drains and ' carriers ;' towns obHtitiately oppose oiir alteration of their strangulating bridges and ivharfings ; and even a iurgto portion / of those lands wo seek to benefit , peiraiM ; in declaring their satisfaction with the prefiojitfltaki of thiuga , , miscirablo m it , is , and thuir fl'i » bolief in the ultimate prof itableneflu of the expenditure to bo incurred . " , Nothing could havo proved the want of / drainage or UluHtratedtixo difficulty hotter than Ireland ; where they demand it , they Jiavo it , they
grumble at it , and decline to pay for it . in ot long since , certain proprietors interested in landdrains instituted proceedings against the Board of Works in the law courts of Dublin , and the faster of the Bolls severely animadverted upon the Board fo ? the unconstitutional and arbitrary nature ¦ pf : their acts ; " an , Irish Star Chamber , '' he called it . A Star Chamber , also popular opinion was very much , inclined to call this great instrunient for the redenxption of Irish , lands . Lord ! Rosse had procured a committee of the House of Lords to expose the abuse ; and on the
recommendation of that committee , which had an Irish difficulty in arriving at a conclusion , Commissioners were appointed to investigate some of the districts . marked- by excess of expenditure and of dissatisfaction . The Commissioners discovered that estimates had been greatly exceeded ; one estimate , for example , of works which were to cost 186 , 916 L , proved in fact to have , cost 106 , 61 q 7 . more ; and the proprietors who assented to the lower expenditure com-, plained of being mulcted for the larger . The Commissioners could not get ; over the difficulty
better than b y suggesting that the imperial ex * chequer should bear the balance j a short cut from Irish dissatisfaction . There are technical reasons why the Irish proprietors had some show of justice in their complaint ; nevertheless , the species of absurdity in expecting exact estimates in cases where unforeseen difficulties beneath the soil , or in the fluctuations of the weather , may entail great excess of expense . The removal of Mr . Malony , the commissioner in charge of the drainage department from the Board of Works ,
implies some dissatisfaction in the administration ; yet it is impossible to treat Commissioners who have the conduct of great works of such kind as persons buying and selling an ascertained commodity , and bound by then * " bargain , " like Antonio to Shylock . It was a complaint that the Act embodied arbitrary clauses ; but official departments must have power , and the ' question is-, hot whether such works can be reduced beforehand to an exact estimate of expenses , but whether it is on the whole beneficial to invoke the
power of the Executive . > Wow-it is not only obvious , but confessed , that individual proprietors cannot effect the grand drainage of . jtheir own estates . - Physical geography does npt know individual proprietors ; and streams will not flow or stop with any respect for * the iights of property . If individual proprietors wish their fluids to be drained they must combine , and render their association harmonious to the
physical geography of th-e district . They want a machinery , therefore , 'which must be independent Of their own individual caprices and changeful moods ; and unless county hoards should suppl y such a machinery for a majority once voted , upon the principlo of self-government , a , still liighcr . authority appears no more than sufficient for the -purposo . The Commissioners who exhibited these difficulties in Ireland , also brought forth proofs of the immense advantage which results from
drainage on a great scale . In the , Strokestown district the Board expended 36 , 000 £ . Before drainage the hind was never cultivated , and most , of it paid
no rent . The works were partly' executod in 18 d 8 , and the lands were then , for the first time , put under cultivation . Between that period and 1853 , the gross value of the . crops raised off this Iiitherto fallow and unwholesome waste , wan 4 ( 1 , 4071 . ; and the net profit , after paying all expenses , . amounted to 29 , 214 / . ; nearly clearing 6 ( F , in that short period , the whole cost ; of the Dorics . There liavobeen valuable improvements in Lincolnshire—witness "the , Fens , whose name feeordfl the improvements effected in past ; times . A fiimilarkind of improvement lias redeemed much land on the Danube , for the profit of tlio Bulgarian h ; and the question is , whether the very
completeness and multiplicity of rights enjoyed pythe English agriculturist i will bar him from Enjoying benefit achieved by bin . forefathers in ruder tinuis , or by barbarian ' s in hia , own . We have long known that we want drainage—wo have Jjn g known that wo cannot cot out of our land » yl that we might , Until we drain ; , but the quentjion . is , ' whotlier wo have yet'arrived ' at thai ; amount of « elf 4 : nowlodge which would result in the clour conviction arid will U > ffo mul get the Tjyork done . If wo have , it will hi * neeesimry to use the example of Ireland for imitation , Avfierc it BhowB us the profit of work done ; and to use the same example for avoidance , where it shows
the effects of a narrow or litigious spirit in im peding every machinery which we set at work
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IN re HAMILTON : LORD MALME SBTJEY ' S ...... •; . ,. .. - . DEFENCE . : ; The lease against Lord Malmesbury may be taken from his own account . He complains that . Mv . Hamilton ' s story is so " loose and inexact" to vitiate its truth , and then he tells the story of himself : — " When I first heard from Sir "William of the "brutal outrage committed by the Neapolitan police upon Mr . Hamilton ' s scholars , and of this breach of treaties against Mr . Hamilton himself , iny first and paramount duty was to oblige this Italian State officially to acknowledge that British subjects ; residing at Naples possessed an indefeasible right to visit and receive one another in their own houses , for all objects of social intercourse ^ nd of religious and secular education . There never could be a question that the Neapolitan Government had indisputable power over the acts and education of its own subjects , and that beyond a private expression of ray opinion I . could not interfere with them , . I did , therefore , exact from the Neapolitan Government an official recognition of that right ; and , more than this , I obtained from it , that a British school which had hitherto existed , as they stated , by connivance and forbearance , should be hereafter publicly authorized and established under the protection of the British Mission . "
This seems excellently done , but what are tlie " fruits P" Xord Malmesbury himself pronounced the conduct of the Neapolitan policy " brutal ;" lie asserts the right of a British subject to keep a British school ; he says that he secured that rignfc Being publicly recognised , was the right freely exercised?—was it maintained , ?—was the brutal conduct of the police checked ? On the contrary , tlie police interfered more brutally than ever , and
the right was forcibly suppressed . Here , then , we gather , on the statement of the British Minister himself , that a right which had been exercised upon sufferance , and that he caused to be recognised , as if only for the purpose of suppressing it in fact , by a violence which he justly calls brutal . What is tins but to drag the British nationin to tlie indignity in which . Mr . Hamilton was involved ?
. Lord Malmesbury then enters into an examin . ation of dates to show that he had only " heard " of Mr . Hamilton ' s claim in August , the school having closed in July . " The whole affair was settled on the 16 th December , " and ho quitted office on the 28 th of that month ; it was , therefore , not eight . but four months during which Lord Malmesbury had heard of it . But as Lord Malmesbury entered office in February , 1853 , we can only suppose that he did not " hear" of it sooner , because he did not ask about it . He also aays that Mr . Hamilton stated his annual profits
at 2001 . a year , " and he now puts them at 700 /; but Mr . Hamilton ' s claim is not on the score of profits . Ho was forced to break up his school abruptly ; and , as any man in any commercial transaction will find , an abrupt closing of business leaves the current account deficient on the credit aide as compared with the debtor ' s . " This , " says Lord Malmesbury , after the paragraph wo have just quoted , " is iny reply to the statement ' that the only fruit of my interference was fifty pounds Hamilton
given to Mr . Hamilton . '" Now , Mr . does not state that as the only fruit : lie says that Lord Malmesbury unwarrantably accepted 100 / . for an injury which is stated at 5 CXW . B 11 * ' ^ jOV ,,, Malmesbury on some very " loose and inexact survey of tiie case " considered a sum of 100 / . tho duo compensation for hia loss . " It is evident , however , that . Lord Molmcabury considi-w tlio ojIJcial recognition of u right ns the solid fruit o lua intervention , a right recognised to be violated in tho teeth of the English nation as well jih ot
the schoolmaster . We have not yet heard the whole of tho <» nflO" I shall probably , " flays Lord Malnuwbury , " the next ' mooting of Parliament , move tor tn « production of tlie correspondence M'h ' u-Ai wok place between the Foreign Oflioo ami the JScapolifcan . Government upon this siibjei't . Iiu Iiow are wo to be assured that " tho correspondence" will not ; ( toiiHiafc of " extraets V" Or eveni n it be entire in iho seriefl of oltieial doeunieniH , how are we to know what passed in " l'VP ' . n
notes H which , ns Prince Onrini says , uBiialiy mm the truth . There is , indeed , no security ; «» although Lord Malniesbury de <^ l ares tho « vj " satiori to have b «« n an invention , we have on to lruuiy oeeaHioiiB bml njiwon'to olwerve tlie ma "" private eorrefli > on ( lenee which lion under » « ° " veil , beneath Uio outer veil of that secret dipw-
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lliSr .-- ; T # E XElDEft . ISaturday ,
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 19, 1853, page 1116, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2013/page/12/
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