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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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. NOTICES TO CORRESPONDENTS . The let ter on " Mafccmcdanism" is under consideration . p- hbattjM— In the article on the Navy last week , by a lapsus calami , Kebt ch was substituted for KiNBpEN . Several articles are unavoidably postponed this week . Vo notice can be taken of anonymous correspondence Whateveris intended fonnsertion must beauthenticated Kv the name and address of the writer ; not necessarily for oublication . but as a guarantee of his good faith . TtisimDOSsible to acknowledge the mass of letters wo re-Vaive Their insertion is often delayed , owing to a press of matter ; and when omitted , it is frequently from reasons quite ! ndependent of the merits of thecommunication-
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MR , DISRAELI'S BUDGET . Mb . Di . shaeIjI ' s financial programme , announced by a windy and pompous exordium worthy of " a better cause , may be stated in a very few words . Two millions of Exchequer Bonds issued for money raised for a temporary purpose during the war are to be renewed ; for another million and a half of war expenditure the bill is also to be renewed ; Ireland is to pay the same duty on spirits as England and Scotland—this will produce an increase of half a million ; all cheques are to be on penny stamps—this will yield 300 , 0002 . ; and lastly , the income-tax is to come down to fivepence in the pound . The objectionable part of all this is the introduction of the system of renewing accommodation bills drawn upon posterity ; the evasion of our solemn engagement to pay off annually a portion of our late war expenditure , an engagement that might be most easily met by continuing the income-tax at sevenpence for another year . A straightforward , manly , and natural course like this has been abandoned in order to achieve a little temporary popularity by the remission of taxation . The bonds falling due this year are " not to encumber 1800 or 1861 "—such are the honeyed words worthy of Micaw-Beb . himself—but they are to be postponed until 1862 and 1863 ; the bonds falling due next year are not even alluded to , and are no doubt intended to be postpoued sine die , upon the principle of " making things pleasant . " The million and a half is not to be paid off at all , the act providing for the extinction of this portion of our debt is to be repealed , and we are to go on adding to the mass of our already enormous debt , without making the slightest effort to bear the burdens that most justly belong to the |> resent generation . Such a course , if pursued by any private individual , would obviously end in his ruin ; it is complacently proposed iu an English House of Commons , without oven an apology , and for the sake of political expediency it is acquiesced in almost without a murmur . Point out a man in private life - ^ ho-i 8 ^ consta » tlyJiiQr . eagingJiis j deM jV ^ d meeting his engagements only by renewed promises to pay nt some more convenient season and all will at once feol that his short career must ond in degradation and distress ; but when a British House of Commons wishes to save a ministry that exists by sufferance , it refuses to see the analogy ; and as it is always agreeable to avoid paying taxes ,
of Commons bring this same spirit honestly to bear on our national expenditure , and there will be no difficulty in paying out of our existing taxation all our just debts as they fall due , and keeping a balance on the right side of the account .
the nation is indulgent enoug h , to forgive them so venial a fault . It requires little penetration to perceive that if this Budget is finally accepted , not only will the special sinking fund be abolished , but the Exchequer bonds , due next year as well as this , will ultimately be converted into a permanent debt . There is no ground whatever for believing that we shall be better able to pay our debts in 1862 and 1863 than we now are ; long before that time new emergencies will probably arise , demanding new efforts from a nation as little willing to pay taxes then as now . In 1863 the five million loan just contracted on the security of our Indian Empire will fall due ; and , however much we may pretend to the contrary , it will have to be met out of the British Exchequer , if the Indian revenues fail to provide it , as probably may be the case . In 1863 , if we are to believe Mr . JDisbaeli and the obsequious House of Commons , the income-tax will have ceased to exist , and will be merely a sublime historical recollection . "Whence are we , then , to derive the funds to provide not only for the just burdens of five years hence , but for the obligations of 1858 and 1859 , deferred till then ? How can we with anything like common , honesty refuse to contribute in our day a fair share towards the repayment of the debts we have personally contracted and personally engaged to discharge ? An alarming feature in connexion with this indisposition to meet just claims , is what Mr . DisiiAEi / r calls the " almost reckless liberality" of the present House of- Commons ; within the last seven years our internal expenditure , apart from war obligations , has increased between seven and eight millions of money . Our educational department , that began with 3 O , 000 Z . a year , has now reached a million per annum , and will shortly swell to at least three or four millions , if it be not carefully watched . All sorts of demands are made upon the Consolidated Fund ; it must be a very Gibraltar of finance to stand out so long as it has agaiust the combined attacks of Tory , Whig , and Radical—English , Irish , and Scotch ;—all anxious to share the sp 6 il . Many of the representatives of provincial towns and boroughs are sent to the House of Commons expressly charged to get as many local rates as possible transferred to the national exchequer . They would have harbours built and enlarged , lig hthouses erected and maintained , and a score of other works undertaken for the individual benefit of their own localities , not to be paid for out of their own rates , but by the votes of a profuse House of Commons , which , like most spendthrifts , is ready to put its name to a bill , but unwilling to pay when it falls due . These are the objections wo have to Mr . Disraeli ' s Budget . It is an unpopular task to oppose the remission of taxation , but all honest men must feel that just debts ought to be met ; and there is no reason whatever why , in the present instance , at least two millions might uot have been raised by the continuance of the income-tax at sovenpence for one year . For the future , retrenchment is possible and absolutely necessary . The nation is willing to give its warm support to any Ministry that will honestly sot itself to tl » o work of cutting down all jobbery and extra-Ta ~ gimxyerTArwise- *» d-ecp ^^ of the public means is just as possible as ia the establishments of private individuals . There are hundreds of well-regulated households . in this country whore comfort and abundance co- * exiBb with prudence and economy , and it is to this individual thrift that we owe our national wealth . Let the House
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TRIAL OF BERNARD AND TRIAL OF THE ALLIANCE . An attempt was made ia the last century to define , or , in reality , to limit , the powers of juries in State prosecutions . It was held , in . prosecutions for libel for instance , that the jury had no competence when a libel was alleged , except to find the gross corporeal facts of the writing and the publication , with the identity of the things and persons referred to , but that to infer the intent and tendency of the words in which the whole criminality consisted lay exclusively within the province of the judge . The effort broke down , because it was impossible to pass a law compelling juries to justify their
verdicts , and thus a natural power was left in their hands which , it must be said in fairness , they have not generally shown a disposition to abuse . A scheme for confining the moral effect of evidence upon the minds of twelve Englishmen responsible only to public opinion , was necessarily a failure Whatever may be laid down in the statute , the jury will judge of malice in cases of murder , and felony in cases of stealing ; in fact , they will interpret the doctrines as well as enforce the technicalities of justice . What is strictly juridical is sometimes overridden , witli a most excellent result , by what is constitutional . Nor has it been recorded that many scandalous contentions have thus arisen between the bench and the jury-box . A hundred , years ago , indeed , a member of Parliament told the House of Commons that , being upon a jury , he had once convicted a man in whom he personally
recognized no guilt , merely under the terror of " an awful judge delivering oracularly the law ; " but in our times , at least , the rule is that judges and juries concur , and , when acquittals are pronounced against the sense of the summing-up , we do < not know of the exception in which the verdict has been morally an injustice . In Dr . Bernard ' s case there has been an endeavour to show that the jury , if to be justified at all , must be justified upon the ground that they conceived their right to be to look beyond the evidence , their spirit , in the language of an old ju rist , operating their own jurisdiction . No such defence is necessary . They refused to convict upon impcrfectaudsuspicious testimony ; they fixed upon distinct flaws in the statement for the prosecution : they
found Dr . Bernard not proven guilty of complicity in the crime of the Rue Lepelletier , and , upon their oaths , they were bound to acquit him . The matter , so far , was one of ordinary criminal inquisition , and in this respect the acquittal of Dr . Bernard differed in no degree from the acquittal of any other accused person whom the evidence had failed to convict . But there was more than a flaw in the evidence ; there was a taint . The jury would listen doubtfully to the sworn evidence of English spies and French police agents . Tliey look cognizance of the fucfc that a prodigious concentration of political influence had been brought to hour to promote tlic conviction
of Dr . Bernard , and they felt that , with these prejudices weighing upon him , lie claimed in some sort their protection ns being , although an alien , Iheir peer in the criminal couit of the county . This consideration undoubtedly operated in his favour . But there was another point . The condemnation of Dr . Bernard would havo established a dangerous precedent upon which the Government was prepared to act , and we do not go too far when we say , that had the prosecution succeeded it would have invalidated the right of asylum in Great Britain . The London police wcro ready to pounco upon M . Mazzini ; the libel trials would have been inaugurated amid the glow of an imperial triumph , and the sacrifice of national and judicial principles would
have been complete . The event is in all respects fortunate . It has immeasurably raised the reputation of this country abroad . It is iu itself a Channel fleet , and a forti-¦ fietl " co"OTt : —UMn'ough ^ . ho 4 iypocw ! Sios , fif _ dU ^ ojniicy , the public opinion of Europe discerns the solidity and strength of tho British character . It is now understood on tho Continent , that whatever may bo aflbctcd by the members of tho diplomatic guild , the nation is disposed to conoedo nothing beyond simple justice , and if wo are in need of powerful allianoos , this is tho spirit in which to seek for them .
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There is nothing so revolutionary , because there si nothing so unnatural and convulsive ,, as tlye . strain to keepthings fixed when allthe world is by fhevery law of its creationmeternal progress . —Dk . Aekoip
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~ ^ y w SATURDAY , APRIL 24 , 1858 .
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422 , April 24 , 1858 . J THE LEAD E R . 397
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Leader (1850-1860), April 24, 1858, page 397, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2240/page/13/
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