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other grounds . Many would strain a point to support the Borough Members . Some are perplexed between a Government whose language seems to be equivocal , Tories who are no better , and Peace men , who are supposed to say frankly what Government means covertly . Hence it is difficult to extract a positive expression of feeling from
Manchester at this moment . There would be one mode of doing it : let the Borough Members call a meeting to affirm a resolution against the war , and in favour of accepting the terms of Uussia , and the motion would be scouted by an overwhelming majority . The Mancheater party dare not call a public meeting in their own metropolis .
IJet us see the sentiments of the press . In Manchester there are four newspapers : the Guardian , a Ministerialist ; the Courier , a Tory ; the Advertiser , which it would be difficult to classify ; and the Examiner , over which . Mr . Bbight is popularly supposed to exercise an influence . The Examiner is the only paper opposed to the war . WTiat is the case in Leeds ? The statistics of the journals perfectly confirm our knowledge of the place . Here there are three journals : the Mercury , widely extended and influential , is strongly opposed to the course taken by the Peace
party j the Times , with a large circulation , and the Intelligencer , the Tory journal , are exactly on the same side . Now , in the North of England the newspapers are at once the dependents and the dictators of public opinion . With very exceptional cases , they cannot hope to maintain their existence , unless in the main they reflect the opinions of their readers . Having established themselves in repute for doing so , they become recognised as the indicators of local opinion , and readily preserve the function of pointing out the direction that local opinion is taking , even of corroborating that direction .
Let us look to a totally different quartersay Lincoln , the centre of an agricultural country . Here our letters give us exactly the same sentiments ; the local press reflects the same general opinion , and from the eccentric Colonel Sibthoep to the most modest shopkeeper , there is the same English feeling , that the war ought to be prosecuted as Englishmen would wage it , with a doubt whether Government is equal to the business .
If Government is misunderstood by the body of the people , the body of the people is grievously misunderstood by Government ; but it is the severance of class which keeps up this ignorance , and it is kept up by the manners and customs of the natives . In this country men stick to their own circles . Those of independent means run an
established round between the Houses of Parliament , certain drawing-rooms , and certain boxes at the Opera , and certain routes and fashionable towns on the Continent . They Bee the same faces , and tell each other the same opinions , and think they " know England ; " when they only know the inhabitants of the Court Guide . The defect is common to
every class , and ariseB from the same vicious foible—shyness . Even statesmen , who " abroad amongst the people , " meet them only in committee-rooms , or in public meetings ; look at them—or " inspect" them , as the royal phrase runs—under some formal aspect , and return as wise as they came . It is under cover of this ignorance that
revolutions are bred , which burst forth before the governing class know that they are rising . The only chance that the governing class will take the proper steps to prevent that revolution from rising in disgust at the feebleness of our Government , would lie in their overcoming this shyness and this ignorance . "Wo tare half inclined to think that adversity haa made them begin their lesson .
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WHAT AltE THE TORIES P We havo roceivod a letter from a correspondent , who in angry with us for warning Liberals against taking up with tlio lorioB , and thinks that in so doing , wo depart
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434 THE LEADER , [ Saturday ,
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THE DUTY OF THE OPPOSITION IN FRANCE . These are symptoms of an inevitable catastrophe which render the duty of the Opposition in France an urgent question . Omens gather round the Empire . Prescient rumours fill the air of French society . Dbotttot de Lhtits , so often paraded as the one respectable man , has departed : the Bil-LArriiTS seem to be growing uneasy .
Nothing succeeds with a man whose sole justification is success . The peace which was to be synonymous with the Empire has been sacrificed , and Sebastopol is not taken . The Temple of Concord is opened in the midst of disastrous war : it is opened with pomp and expectation , and , so far , is a total failure . The grand equivocation of repression and socialism which succeeded as a cry breaks down when erected into a principle of government , and
leaves nothing but dissatisiaction ana eontempt . The men of the coup d ' etat—St . AeNAUD , DE IiOURMEIi , BoTJAT , EsPINASSE , Caistbobekt—are falling , stricken by death or by disgrace . It needs not the hand of another Pianobi to render it necessary to provide for the future . Had Ijotjis Napoleon been an honest man , he mig ht have reconciled order with liberty , and won pure honours by founding on an enduring basis the peace and situation
happiness of France . The was grave indeed , but without imminent peril . The infamous expedition to Rome , unwisely resented by a call to arms among a party who did not know the strength of their moral position , led to an untoward outbreak . "Yet 1852 , it is now known , would have passed without extraordinary excitement . The men of all parties who owned morality would' have accepted a strong republican government . The fears which served ciLeu
as an excuse usurpation were es . by the man who was to profit by them ; while , at the same time , the army was debauched in the same interest . Truly great ambition would have saved the country ; but truly great ambition does not find its home in the breast of a Louis Napoleon , or its minister in a Mobnt or a Fouid . The usurpation , so applauded by all who hate liberty and duty , has agg ravated in a fearful ratio the dangers of the crisis which it cannot long postpone . All the elements of disorder and division which threatened a constitutional government , but which under a constitutional government would have found vent in constitutional ways , will reappear at the break-up of the ice , exasperated by suppression and proscription , intensified by secret agitation , and rendered more unreasonable by the want of free discussion . Xdberty , when revived , will inherit accumulated difficulties and perils . There will be a fearful outbusrt of public and private vengeance against the fallen tyrants : proscription ,
exile , bereavement , insults suffered at the hands of triump hant mountebanks , turn tho blood of the sufferers to flame . The clergy , steeped in perfidy and servility , and whoso treasonable designs against tho principles of social justice established in 1789 are no longer even masked , havo also a terrible score to pay . The public debt is increasing at a rate which tends to bankruptcy . Tho army is regarded as a horde ol prootorians , divorced from the sympathies and interests of the nation . All these difficulties must bo
grappled with , the magistracy reconstructed , ana tho suffrage purified , under tho firo of a pr ess rendered more violent by suppression and unused to tho responsibilities ot freedom . The situation will be formidable ; but it must one day bo mot . Ignoble despotism cannot endure in Franco , unless tho soul of Franco becomes utterly lost to honour : and
as yet those who are the soul of France have not abandoned honour , faith in morality , or the hope of freedom . Heroism and selfdevotion are needed to surmount the peril ; but to have surmounted it will be the noblest of moral victories and the surest pledge of tranquillity for the future . The preparation for the struggle must begin now . It cannot be carried on publicly , but it must be carried on privately , in each circle , in each family , in each heart , not by intriguing in salons , but by learning and preaching political duty . Those terrible chimseras Which threaten the material interests
of the country , and drive the proprietor and merchant to clasp the knees of military despotism for protection , must be silently combated . The personal ambition which lias been the bane of freedom everywhere , and above all in France , must be subdued in the breasts which it has hitherto driven to mutual destruction and tlie common ruin The word must be passed through society , that the restoration of liberty , though it may bring with it some high acts of justice , is not to be a reign of violence and blood .
The enemies of French liberty without are usurpation and Jesuitism . Its enemies within are Socialism , Terrorism , and intrigue —Socialism , innocent when it was an aspiration , a poem , and a dream , but as an element of political collision , as a violent " attempt abruptly to accelerate the secular evolution of society , " * justly hateful , not toVealfch only , but to all who live by the work of tlieir own hands—Terrorism , which is nothing but the mad lust of revolutionary dictatorship and demagogical tyranny—intrigue , which
rendered the political chiefs of France contemptible in the eyes of the people , and reconciled material interests to any executive which was not to be the sport of parliamentary factions . Evidently it is by a general effort of morality and self-devotion that these perils must be overcome . One other passion there is as fatal to the liberty of France as to the tranquillity of her neighbours—the appetite for military glory to be sated by trampling on the honour and happiness of other nations . But of this we believe Frenchmen are almost
cured . Scourged by Napoleonism , they no longer worship the idol of the Place Yend 6 me . "We Lave been led to speak on thi 3 subject not only by the apparent imminence of a crisis , but by the want of preparation of the right kind . We hear of Legitimist , Orleanist , Fusionist combinations , which , when the time comes , will only double and treble the confusion . We hear of p lans and projects among the proscribed , which , in the hour of action , must inevitably thwart and wreck each other . Wo do not hear of that which alone is needed—a
general determination to work out the salvation of Trance , and to bury all personal differences and self-interests in tho performance of a great national duty . Wo speak with tho deepest sympathy for those who havo lost all in the cause of liberty and honour . And we speak , with anxiety indeed , but by no means without hope . Something at least has been learned from adversity . May the lesson prove fruitful , and may Franco , for her own sake and that of all nations , pass at last in salety tho stormy gulf which separates tho reign ot tradition , from that of truth , tho reign ot dynasties and aristocracies from that oi capacity and justice .
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*" Mr . F . O . Ward , " Lottora on Social llofonn . " 1849 .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), May 26, 1855, page 494, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2092/page/14/
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