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If she is a foe , why should we draw the line at Poles ? Have we not also Hungarians and Italians , also Germans , whose numbers canaot he counted ? Now , we repeat what we said last week , that if Ministers palter with the interests of the country , if they allow time for Austria to play the traitor , and are ultimately obliged to reinforce British armies with immense ¦ drafts of men at an enormous cost of taxes , they ¦ will lay imposts on the British people due only to the weakness of the Government and not to
-the necessities of the case- The auxiliaries of -which we speak would be self-supporting- ; they would , with comparatively little assistance , as a sort of capital at starting , pay themselves—and pay themselves handsomely out o £ the chosen action . Another proof of the necessity under which Government lies , is a signal infraction of the xule against granting commissions to non-commissioned officers . Within the last month there
Jiave been about a score of such commissions given to non-commissioned officers , for services in the East . It is an excellent example ; but we ask whether there are only nineteen noncommissioned officers that deserve commissions ? We also ask whether , in proportion , there are more private soldiers and non-commissioned officers than officers who have importuned for retirement— -who have come home on the plea- of slight wounds , or who have , as one gentleman of the distinguished privileged and moneyed
classes is said to have done—refused to enter the trenches ? No ! if a non-cohnmissioiied officer or private is wounded he is sent into the hospital for repairs , and returned to the field as soon as possible . If he refused to act he would be shot or flogged . The commencement of a better rule of promotion we are piepared to praise most heartil y ; but it is confessed that the existing rule is absolutely intolerable , and unless we are to regard the improvement as the
first successful insertion of the point of the wedge , we can no more accept the gift of a score of commissions to the non-commissioned officers as an instalment than we could accept the point of the wedge in lieu of the entire instrument . We must have a distribution of commissions as the true bounty for drawing our enterprising youth into the ranks ; we must have the subjugated nations of false allies permitted to be our auxiliaries beyond the four seas .
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ENGLAND'S LITTLE BILL . T 3 ein ( J a highly commercial people , we English may , perhaps , derive a new light on the subject of Continental obligations , if we take account of the money that we have invested in that line . A Parliamentary paper just issued by the Treasury , on the motion of Mr . Hume , gives an account of all money paid or advanced to any foreign state from 1793 to the close of 1853 . The total is 64 , 215 , 000 / ., of which about 620 , 000 / . has been repayed . The Greek
loan and the Russian-Dutch loan , together about 4 , 639 , 000 / ., occurred since 1816 . The rest , nearly 59 , 000 , 000 / ., is due to the poaiod of the old war and peace . Russia- has had nearly 15 , 000 , 000 ? . of our money ; Germany nearly 8 , 000 , 000 / . ; Prussia , 5 , 670 , 000 / . ; Bavaria , 500 , 000 / . ; Hesso Cassel , 1 , 271 , 10 ) 7 / . ; Hesse Darmstadt , 263 , 000 / . Wo make no account of the loans to Hanover or Brunswick , which wero , to a certain extent , family matters . "We set aside for the present the 4 , 200 , 0 ' () 0 / . advanced to Austria . But hero vo have the
sum of 15 , 000 , 000 / . advanced to Russia , and the sum of more than 18 , 000 , 000 / . advanced to V Germany "—under oao name or other lent to our enemies or doubtful allies . Of courso wo should not repeat this wonderful example of " a fool and his money , " but ean . WG havo none of it back ? Is it not a good opportunity for levying an execution upon
some of our debtors ! Perhaps if we were to substitute some other clients in place of the Czar , they might be glad to repay us the money , with interest . We will answer for it that there are German princes in that storehouse of suspended royalties who could raise a few millions on their future revenues , if England would help them to thrones now held by defaulters . Sweden , -who owes us nearly 5 , 000 , 000 / . ( 4 , 845 , 571 / . ) , should be reminded of that little bill ; and it might not be amiss even to call a small sum of money to the memory of Austria , who wants it very badly
just at present , and might perceive from that old memory how much cheaper it is for her to side with England ^ whose money she had fingered , than her false ally Russia , to whom she is every year paying cash on account of the Hungarian defence . If the subsidised states cannot make us some little reversion , we should say that they ought to give us a few territories ; and just now , at the depreciated value which crowns and royal domains bear in the European market , we might really get a few states and fields worth having in different parts of Europe for bur sixty millions at compound interest .
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OBITUARY . Napoleon , the prodigal of human life , said of Trafalgar : " The English claim it as a great victory . Bah I---I won kelson : the balance is against them . " The great man knew the value of his class . And thus , this week , balancing losses against , won battles , the account is not all on one side . What with Russian cannon , and the diseases that search out those who live at
home at ease , England has been grievously maimed' of' most precious lives these last ten days . First count that grand proconsul , Cathcart , whose happy opportunity of death symmetrizes his splendid career ; where even in this England , which teems with greatness , can we point out his successor ? He was- — -in a possible event— - to follow Raglan as generalissimo ; who now is to follow Raglan ? The question suggests the extent of the calamity .
In minor grades many will be missed ; for though Sparta has as worthy sons , has she worthier ? That gallant Tory , Colonel Blair —even the " Ministerial side ' will see a gap there oa the Opposition benches , where the eye was wont to stray for the handsome , honest , presence of the member for Ayrshire . Full and hearty were his cheers for Disraeli—his charivaris of Cobden . Bat who remembers the partisan in the noble fellow who fell for Enjrland—for the Radicals as well as for the
order he scorned the Radicals for assailing ? Where will the young Tories seek his successor to lead in the gay uproar of debate ? Sir Arthur Brooke has been struck down at home ia his own house . Pleasant model of the patrician county member , his seat will be vacant too , with whatever promptness writs may issue or members may bo returned . There is logic in the democratic tendency to make the House of Commons really representative of the people . But the young Sir Arthur Brookes are not responsible for the constitutional delusions in which they share , and from which they , too . suffer ; and whilo the House of Commons
is a clul > , the regret is natural for the clubbable men who , returning 1 officers notwithstanding , are turned out by Death — " petition . " Sir Arthur , modest silent moinbor , was a gentleman—and hon . gentlemen will lament him . Lord Dudley Stuart—how wo grieve that wo so often made merry over his European sallies — was a gallant knight - errant of oppressed nationalities . And as a knightorrant ia only a Don Quixote when ho is an anachronism , so the solemn justification
of the career of the late hi gh-minded member for Marylebone , is that he was needed that the House of Commons would have been an imperfect assembly without him—and that he did good—good to the House , purified by being lifted from its vestry routine into the hatite politique in which that ardent soul lived , —good to the country , which needed such a man , a born statesman as born lord , to carry it out of insularity , —and good to the causes of which he accepted the championship . He had his defects : those enthusiastic men , who are not of the world but of
the haute politique , are " bores " sometimes to the multitude who only have time for vestry routine : and he was much laughed at . But never ill-naturedly ; and not a man in England but grieves over the premature close of a generous , chivalric life—not a Pole but counts Poland ' s chances less that Lord Dudley is no
more . These are the heroes of the army and of politics . Humbler , and less conspicuous , but perhaps more valuable men , have gone too . Of Professor Edward Forbes , the brilliant and devoted student of science— - who could nraUe a review article on a pond of mollusca as thrilling and as crowded with character as a romance— -we have elsewhere spoken ; and even in a week noisy with the alarum of waiy what workman in civilisation can overlook that
death ? ¦ -Lastly 1 —with the modesty due from our craft - —let ns recount the death of a great journalist ,- Frederick Knight Hunt . There are no journals devoted to the annals of journalists : —< - it is the only " class" without an " organ ;" and thus a JDaily News which gives space to mourning- for a dead politician , thinks it decorous discretion to be briefly sorrowful about
a man who yesterday was the Daily JNetus But no such restraint fetters a contemporary and . there should be among journalists no anectation in ignoring the genuine importance o £ a personage who wields the influence of a powerful daily paper . The Daily Neivs represented to Europe the views and feelings of a vast section of English middle-class liberalism ; and in the truest sense , Knight Hunt was a , leader of liberals . We differed from him ; and
deplored what we frequently denominated a mislead ; but never with a doubt but that his keen , vigorous , and practical intellect was at work with thorough conscientiousness . But Frederick Knight Hunt—a leader in the press , but a follower elsewhere—was of less importance as a politician than as a " newspaper man . " He was a perfect representative of his class in
England : thorough master of his trade : heartily devoted to it ; jealous of its honour ; scrupulous for its privileges ; and ardent for its exaltation . He was by no means a great writer , and he wrote anonymously ; so that the " public , " which hears little of its press leaders , will have forgotten him , and the notice of him , ere another week has passed . But in his profession he should be remembered for a distinction which
he sustained over several years— -ho turned out daily the best journal for news that was to l ) e found in Europe .
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CHURCH CONFLICTS . Q . UKKN IflABKLi . A the Second , of Spain , l » fis a little recovered her popularity , by an net which will occasion some surprise in this Protestant country . Her most Catholic Majesty has lain under some suspicion that , in inau < £ tirating the Constitution , she intended to defeat it . She professed to throw herself " into the ni'ins of lier people , " but was supposed to do so with mental reservation , if not with an arrogant sarcasm . The reading of the written speech might not have done much to remove this bad impression ; tho omotiou which she displayed in
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1116 THE LEADER . [^ Saturday ,
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 25, 1854, page 1116, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2066/page/12/
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