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bouf and as to the particular condition of the Silk Trade , that we are not without hope ol being able to extract , from a careful and dispassionate investigation , something that may be permanently useful .
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,,-- THE LE ABE R . [ No . 297 , Saturday ,
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VIRTUE'S MISPBISION OF VICE . Do not let us deceive ourselves ! Immorality is not practised alone by those who are de ^ nouneed as reprobates . Mischief is dofte "b y respectable people , and of the very same Maid with the immoral . It is partly done in i g norance , partly by a wilful perversion that makes them refuse to look at the facts , and anxious only to see preconceived conclusions , which they will select the facts to support . The philanthropists who endeavour to alleviate the condition of the working classes without changing it , perform exactly the same office that is undertaken by vultures and otheF unclean birds that follow in the march of armies , and , by eating up the carrion , prevent the contagion that would otherwise attend upon carnage . We have never heard that the most industrious vulture ever attempted to prevent the carnage whose consequences-he mitigates . Nor do those who are now hanging upon the rear of the working classes , with institutes , and lectures , and " homes , " and other benevolent alleviations of their lot , make any attempt that we perceive radically to change the conditions that create multitudes of children consigned to ignorance—multitudes of stunted men and depraved women . Lord Stanley , indeed , boasts of the grand discovery that we have begun education at the wrong end , because we have no books that the working classes care to read . Y « t we have educational books , and admirable of their kind . We have , for example , " Chambcrs ' s Educational Course ; " and av © have the whole scries adopted by the Irish Board of Education . We might stock popular libraries with works that in comparatively moderate time ooald lead the simplest reader up to a -level with the average of the educated clusses . But the worst of it is ,, that , however individuals amongst the working classes can possess the knowledge or the ambition to plunge into the study , tho mass will not do it . The didactic books eagerly sought by the intelligent fow ,. neglectod by the multitude ; . while the multitude will run after . another stylo of literature . " The penny literature of th'i day , " enya tho 'Times , " ie abBolutoly devoured by tho n-usses of our B "
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LORD PALMERSTON AND THE MAP OF EUROPE . No one , we hope , will give Lord Palmerston the credit of the idea attributed to him by certain Radical and Conservative prints . The former think as they hope—the latter , without hoping or thinking anything , only wish to damage . But the error is an old one—and should , by this time , have been exploded . It is this : —that Lord Palmerston designs to carry on the conflict , not only until Russia is disarmed , but until the political system of Europe has been destroyed . Lord Palmerston- is doubtless willing , as long as the war is popular , to beat the war-drum for the sake of being popular himself . He may also have little schemes of his own affecting some of the territorial dispositions of the Continent ; but it is pure infatuation on the part of Liberals , and pure malevolence on the part of Tories , to assign to him any plan for extinguishing Russia , and re-arranging Europe . A plain proof that he is misunderstood consists in the fact , that , there being two sets of politicians interested in vilifying him ; one describes him as the fanatical enemy , the other as the purchased friend of Russia . We believe him to be neither . We believe him to be as incapable of baseness , in the ordinary sense of the word , as of fanaticism . He would laugh at a bribe as he would laugh at a heroic principle . Having become popular , less by his liberality than by the spirit and , dash of his manner , he is expert enough to remain a diplomatist in the attitude of a patriot . The liberties of Europe will not be aided by Lord Palmerston , unless accidentally . From his first entrance into the Foreign Office , he has never rendered one real service to the Liberal cause . He has meddled abundantly ; he has made some dupes and some victims . Perhaps he has , at times , interfered with enthusiasm ; if so , his impulses are irregular , and always in the end subordinated to the dominant law of diplomacy . Neither against Russia nor against Austria has he exerted that systematic resistance ascribed to him by the wild lampooners who parody old songs and " divulge" state secrets in the interest of Mr . Disraeli . Oh small occasions , when a " cry" has been wanted , he has exercised in all the attitudes of bravado , as when he chained up the commerce of Greece—but Russia has never been intercepted in the pursuit of any important object that did not interfere , directly , with the policy of Great Britain . Lord Palmerston excused , and oven defended , the violation of Polish independence . With regard to Austria , he excited a vague enthusiasm by declaring that he desired to see tho extinction of power in Italy ; but against this incontinent declaration must be set his recantation of a hundred conventional utterances of sympathy , when he said that Austria ruled Hungary by indefeasible right , and that he should regard as a misfortune the separation of Hungary from Austria . It is to be remembered that he maintained an expectant attitude while tho Hungarian contest wavered;—ho was the judicious bottleholder tfien—but when Russia had quelled tho insurgent nation , Lord Palmerston conceived that Europe had been saved from a disaster . His policy throughout tho revolutionary period showed that ho felt no deep sympathy . with the rising liberalism of Europe . He and his colleagues stood aloof from the Republican , Government of France , which inaugurated the . alliance attributed to tho good-will of Louis Natoleon . When the Orleans throne had
been subverted , the Republic that took its place had one chance of success . That chance ¦ was—a war of intervention in Europe , to give Italy her desire , and form a moving military nucleus of the insurrectionary nations . This plan the British Government vehemently opposed , and the French Republic sacrificed itself upon the altar of the alliance . Instead of sending its legions across the Alps or the Mediterranean , to rescue Venice , Rome , and Milan , it sent its National Guard to visit London , and invite an amicable understanding between the nations . How coldly the citizens of Paris were received by our aristocracy , and by our municipalities , and how they were ignored by our Court , should be remembered by those who praise Lord Palmerston for complimenting the coup d'etat , and thus " laying the foundation of an invaluable alliance . " The alliance was the suggestion of the Government of 1848 . The principle to which the Eepublic sacrificed its chance of existence was that of Nonintervention . In the history of the last and of the present century , it is a singular feature that , excepting the Great French Republic , no Continental power has ever intervened in behalf of an honest cause . Against the promulgation of revolutionary ideas the Kings of Europe formed a League . Against the idea of a free Poland , Russia , Austria , and Prussia combined , and the other Powers consented . The independence of Hungary was resisted by Austria , in concert with Russia—that of Italy by Austria , in concert with France . The result of Lord Palmekston ' s foreign policy has been to foster revolution and to disappoint it . He has meddled , and has gained some reputation among unthinking Liberals by meddling indiscreetly . But , by birth , education , interest , he is associated with the class of statesmen and diplomatists who , almost throughout Europe , are supported by supporting despotic thrones . If Europe were generally Constitutional , we believe he would xiphoid its Constitutionalism , Upon the whole , though with a propensity to interfere , he has been prudent enough to avoid compromising himself too far . He would make a sacrifice of opinion , of honesty , of personal feeling , to avoid an embroilment . Before he attacked Don Miguel , or Mohammed Ali , or showed the English fleet in the Dardanelles to defend the right of refuge , he summed up the probable consequences , rfnd found that they did not amount to war . The governments of the Continent are too wise in their generation to go to war upon minor questions . Lord Palmerston , upon the same principle , knows better than to commit the nation to a dynastic struggle , the issue of which would leave his name the most hated in Europe . Any other struggle it is impossible that he should propose . Leaving his own antecedents out of view , his connexions , his foreign coadjutors , excepting the King of Sardinia , arc despotic in their tendencies , and the King of Sardinia's dynastic ambition is opposed by the family interests of the French Emperor . Instead of cultivating Liberalism , Lord Palmerston countenances the lawless expulsion of refugees from Jersey , as he formerly approved the denial to the expelled patriots of Italy of an asylum in Malta . His traditions , therefore , no less than the relations of tho British Government with Continental Powers , render the idea of a war conducted under his auspices for the dismemberment of Russia and the reconstruction of Europe simply absurd . It is , however , a part of tho " exclusive intelligence" by which Young Toryism has lately made itself ridiculous . Will these high-minded journalists , who live by squeezing scurrility into rhyme , believe us if wo assure them that they can tell us nothing that passes cither in or between tho
French and British Cabinets ? Among the disjecta membra of Conservative Logic , we find that Lord Palmerston is necessarily bent on promoting a war of extremity , because he refuses to take as the text of peace the settlements of 1815 . It would , probably , cost as long a war to restore the settlements of 1815 , as it did to establish them . The independence of Belgium and Greece exist , the Constitutions of Poland and Hungary have been violated , in defiance of them . In defiance of them , a Bonaparte sits on the French throne . We have reached a point at which the Constitution of the Holy Alliance is as impossible as the programme of Liberalism ( at present ) . But it is as incredible that Lord Palmerston should voluntarily undertake a war for the emancipation of Europe , as that Louis Napoleon should consent to one that would fix on him the outlawry of 1815 . If Europe be convulsed by either of the Western powers , it must be , as matters stand , by France , with Bonapartist schemes in view . Would England be dragged into that adventure also ? Lord Paxmerston" may be trusted as a clearsighted , selfish statesman , ready to do the expedient thing at " the convenient moment , too English at heart to injure or disgrace his country , disposed to favour steady constitutionalism on the Continent , but not unwilling to palter with the party of freedom by deceiving it with inuendos of unmeant sympathy . He is the worst enemy of liberty , because he has been its falsest friend .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 1, 1855, page 1152, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2117/page/12/
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