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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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* n ™ ri < T Ho has instruments for that purpose - The Society deCredit Mobilier , with Sfoiktistocb capital of 60 , 000 , 000 of francs , ha& power to lend money on every species of security-, public and private , on stocks , shares <> f joint-stock undertakings , bonds of ditto ; and it has authority likewise to borrow as much money as it lends , to deal in the stocks which it takes either as pledges or as purchases , and , in short , to be a central agency for every kind of joint-stock jobbing throughout the country ; in some respects also acting
as a bank . By the help of this , and other organisations of a similar kind , the French Government has promoted works , public and private , industrial and speculative , in a great variety of forms . So long as by this means works can be kept up , and wages can be paid , the French people will probably be kept quiet , and a certain degree of prosperity will induce the middle class to promote enterprise . Such undertakings cannot be carried on without offering innumerable opportunities for the French people to turn an honest nennv . There are all kinds of speculation in
Jr _ -.-¦ A- * -i i i t m shares , all kinds of loans to be obtained , all kinds of offices to be created ; so that all who have money to lend or to borrow , or who desire to fill posts , have become banded together as a multitudinous body interested in getting up and keeping up such schemes . It is as if the vital principle of Gapel Court were favoured by the Imperial Government , and applied , not only to railways , but to every species of undertaking whatsoever , tmblic or private . Of course , whatever credit
may keep these operations going , cash is needed here and there , and often in considerable quantities ; and ••'• < this is -where the money goes . " So , long as the working lasts , cash is likely to be on demand ; it must continue so , either until the Emperor Napoleon is able to accomplish some great scheme on St . Simonian principles , the real nature of which is inscrutably hidden in his own head , or until the vast ramified undertaking breaks down in a general crash ; and then , indeed , cash will be wanted to a degree even now
unknown . Thus we find that our own corn deficiency is little as compared with that of France ; that our cash deficiency is caused by the demands on the Continent ; that the supply is needed for the Imperial system of Russia , the Imperial system of Austria , and the Imperial system of France . These are the Exchequers that tax us to the most oppressive degree . We may smile at the efforts of Sir George Cobnewali . Lewis ,
but time , with its bitter sarcastic inversions , has realised the sneering joko of the " Rejected Addresses : "—« Who makes the four-pound loaf and luddiks rise ? Who fills the butchers' shops with largo blue flies ?" "When meat is dear , bad meat ia sold to the poor ; when France is playing the Imperial Mstag , " we pay the piner ; and in the year of the Exposition at Paris , wheat for us is sold at twice the price that it boro in the year of the Exposition in London .
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THE PRIESTS' CRUSADE . The priesthood , throughout Europe , strives fot 'the anachronism of a Theocracy . In Austria , in Italy , in Spain , it is eating away the civil law ; in France the Church is conciliated by preliminary concessions ; in all parts of Christendom alliances are established between the spiritual and p olitical authority . The public r coze i in * England , riveted upon the flaming horizonof the Crimea , turns not to observe the vicissitudes of this mystic warin which the old'spirit of Jesuitism has rallied to ! the ¦ 'aid- cause of Pontifex and Carnifox , qgainefc the . efforts of xnanjs independent enfe * g ( y ; i if it-bo doubted that ' this conspiracy
has been revived , and that 'it works in the policy of every Catholic Court , let the predominating influences of Europe be tested by a general analysis . While Englishmen are persuaded by the fall of the Czab ' s Siloain , that civilisation and liberty prosper , what is the actual result ? The dun clouds of the Sebastopol conflagration conceal from our popular vision the despotism more rigorous than that of the Czab , and the misery more intense than that of serfs , prevailing elsewhere in the world . The medieval maxims of sacred government have recoiled upon our generation , and if the relapse be permanent , threaten to impose upon half the Christian population of the globe that rule of priestly terror which menaces Naples from the Vicariete . It is true ; the idea of a Theocracy has emanated from the Papal Court , which , though physically weak , has still the power to influence both French and Austrian policy . In Austria the hierarchy places its pretensions in opposition to the clearest exigencies of the Imperial government . It has long been felt by the friends of the dynastic system that Austria is composed of materials too heterogeneous to contend with decisive effect against the compact strength of Prussia —a purely German state — leaving minute exceptions out of view—one in laws , one in traditions , the solid nucleus of Germany . Its great rival , composed of aggregated territories , has never been fused into political unity ; though such fusion has been the object of successive Emperors and Ministers . The existing Cabinet had conceived a plan for melting down and welding together the various populations of the Empire , by the authorisation of mixed marriages—no doubt a wise design , but not in conformity with the schemes of the Church of Rome . When , therefore , Fbancts Joseph applied to Pius the Ninth for a Concordat to sanction these marriages , Pitts the Ninth , with bland serenity , refused . For him and his Cardinals nothing is gained by the pacification of religious sects , -which would loosen the bonds of ecclesiastical authority . The Imperial Cabinet submits ; the Church is a victor : Austrian policy is defeated , in its own domain , by the malevolent traditions of Rome . In France it would appear , from a superficial examination , that the Imperial Government is too haughty to receive rebukes , even from the spiritual Iiords of the Catholic world . Does not a French army act as the Pope's police in Rome ? Does not the Sovereign Pontiff * behold his army melted away by sedition , until he is compelled to ordain that two soldiers Bhall not walk together in the public streets ? But his Holiness , knowing that the bayonets of Franco are five hundred thousand , was not , therefore , compelled to crown the Thikd Napoleon in Paris . The Austrian counterpoise , he thinks , protects him . It is true that , as yet , no official triumphs have been achieved ; but the sign has been passed to the French clergy ; the Roman agitation has commenced ; the University and the Institute have succumbed . Now dogmas , new miracles , now ceremonial laws , familiarise the nation with the inspirations of Rome . Within the p ast month , there has been a crowning miracle . The Malakhoff was stormed on a day dedicated to the Holy Virgin ;—the priestly press announces that the storming of the Malakhoff is a miracle ! Honour to the Church , Even , in the Confederated States of Germany , even iu the Protestant Kingdom of Prussia , this influence interferes with the public system of education . Fbedebick
WuiiiM , preparing his cowp-d ? etat at Berlin , opens the paths to Jesuitical intrigues , stifles the Parliament in which Piedmontese ideas find an echo , and by destroying the last remnant of political responsibility , seeks to educate the new generation in servile ideas . The institutions established in 1848 , and emasculated in 1850 , are now , it is reported , to be abolished altogether . A Protestant autocrat , of large proportions , will be a significant novelty in Europe , especially as in his dominions the only prevailing liberty will be that of the Jesuit Propagand . The TJnivers has complacently announced that nations are the " property" of their rulers . It smiles upon the antics of the Neapolitan nightmare king ; because by him the traditions of the Vicariete are revived . Where Cimabosa and DoLOMiEtr languished in chains , where the Caste : lctcai , as and Sa-VABEiiiiis sat in judgment , Mazza presided over the police , the steward of the royal estate , flogging King Febdikakb ' s " property "—as an overseer of slaves , or as a whipping-woman in Southern Russia , who periodically " corrects" the village girls . This beggarly Rhadamanthus of the Capuan Gate has been dismissed , and is about to be promoted . Finally , the Roman journals proclaim that Bomba is a faithful son of the Church , comforting him with an aphorism- — "No matter what may be the situation of Italy , so' long as France and Austria are agreed , revolution is powerless . " But in Piedmont , where marriage has been established on a civil basis , where ecclesiastical tribunals have been abolished , where the absorption of property by the priesthood has been checked , the revolution in men ' s habits and ideas progresses in spite of excommunication . The ultimate result , probably , will be that Protestantism will take root in that province of the Italian peninsula . Viotob Emmanuel , however , isolated among despotic sovereigns , is only sustained by moral influence against Austrian menaces and Roman intrigues . The Pope's anathema has exploded at his feet , echoing among the mountains of Switzerland . In Tuscany the Pontifical Concordat has superadded to the ducal tyranny a system of mental repression which is designed to stifle the last breath of independence in the heart of the Florentine . His Holiness will not leave to the coroneted Tuscan even a semblance of ecclesiastical authority . The Grand Duke , having conceded a multiplicity of guarantees , reserves to himself the privilege of determining the action of the usage of mortmains upon religious association . The pliant subject of the Church becomes at once a rebel in the sight of the hierarchy . Even in Tuscany the theocratic power considers itself robbed of its prerogative unless the public conscience and the decisions of the Executive are submitted to its supreme control . The Observateur Beige haa vindicated , against the insinuations of some English journals , the courage of the Belgian nation . It avows , however , tho progress of the theocratic party in that kingdom . Since tho Jesuits have regained at Rome the positions accorded to them by Clement the Foujitii , the Catholic episcopate of Belgium has laboured to penetrate , with Roman influences , the high places of the kingdom . Religious societies multiply ; there are nine hundred convents in a country with a PJJ ?*?" lation of four millions and a halt , wj large ecclesiastical body , separating iteeu from the State , claims i' » ' » unl ^ Tterror tion , is enriched by tho ^ B ^ f . ^ ^^ and declare * it * eo ^ omtri po « ejs . « ns to bo not JvSledit limit ito expansive and aspiring
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 29, 1855, page 937, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2108/page/13/
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